Tiësto commemorates Avicii on The FADER Interview
The Dutch mega-DJ paid tribute to his late friend — who passed away five years ago this Thursday — in conversation with our Editorial Director, Alex Robert Ross.
Courtesy of Atlantic Records
Tiësto is this week’s guest on The FADER Interview podcast. With his new album Drive dropping Friday, the Dutch artist once dubbed the “greatest DJ of all time” by Mixmag’s readership joined our Editorial Director Alex Robert Ross last week to discuss his long career and extensive body of work.
During their conversation, the topic turned to Tiësto’s old friend and mentee Avicii, who tragically took his life at 28 five years ago, as of this coming Thursday. In a heartfelt tribute to the Swedish superstar, Tiësto touched on their early friendship, their long lapse in communication as they dealt with the tolls of massive fame and the rigors of the endless touring lifestyle, and their final meeting two months before Avicii’s passing. Read an excerpt below, and listen to the full episode via this link, embedded at the bottom of the post, or wherever you get your podcasts.
We met in 2008. He was doing mashups, and I played a lot of them in my radio shows. And then we met up in Sweden and became friends. He wasn’t even DJing yet; he didn’t know how to. I invited him to spend the whole summer with me in Ibiza, and that’s where he learned how to DJ. He was playing every night before me, and then we went back to the house and he was making music always on his laptop. He was always in a good mood.
After he became famous in like 2010, we kind of lost track of each other. As DJs, if you’re both that big, he plays one night there, I play one night there… We never saw each other again, and I always felt a little bit sad about that.
Then, [in early 2018], we decided to meet up again, like, “Man, what happened to us? We were always so close. Let’s get more contact going.” We went for a very nice dinner in L.A., and he came out to a show I played. He was very happy. He had a new girlfriend, and everything was going so well. Two months later, he passed away.
That was very strange to me, and I never understood what happened. I wish I had more time to talk to him about what was bothering him. I feel like maybe I could’ve helped him get out of that, because I get the pressure a lot of artists are under. You get so insecure because a lot of people are bashing you on your music or your sets. That can really hurt you, and I don’t think people realize that. They think artists are untouchable and they have no feelings, no heart, but it hurts.
When Avicii played that whole set at Ultra where everybody was like, “Oh, he’s playing country, it’s not dance music,” he felt a lot of pain. Two months later, he had the biggest hit in the world with "Wake Me Up." I think he didn’t really put those two together. You make something great, and then online, you get so much hate. To come back from that is very hard.
