• September 8, 1989 - April 20, 2018
• The DJ/record producer Avicii was born in Stockholm, Sweden. As a teen, boredom took hold during the dark, cold months, and he downloaded the Fruity Loops software and taught himself how to create house music.
• His real name is Tim Bergling, but he started using the moniker Avicii back in his MySpace days. In Sanskrit, the term Avici (Bergling added an extra i) means "without waves," but in Buddhism, it's also the name for the lowest level of hell.
• His father ran an office-supply company in Stockholm, while his mother is Anki Liden, a famous Swedish actress who appeared in the Oscar-nominated film My Life as a Dog (1985).
• Although he first scored a hit with "Seek Bromance," his breakthrough performance was at Miami's Ultra Music Festival in 2011, and his smash single "Levels" launched him into the mainstream.
• His 24th birthday was spent at a shooting party in the Nevada desert. He told Rolling Stone: "We went out in the desert with, like, 30 guns and $400 of stuff we bought at Walmart to shoot at... lots of cantaloupes."
• He told Us Weekly his first DJ gig was a school prom for a crowd of 40 teenagers.
• Avicii was the most successful songwriter in Sweden in 2015. He claimed no less than six of the country's top 100 most popular songs of that year. Avicii ranked ahead of such prominent tunesmiths as singer-songwriter Tove Lo and international superstar hitmaker Max Martin.
• His brutal work schedule and indulgences caused a number of health issues: he was hospitalized a number of times to treat problems with his pancreas and gallbladder. For the sake of his physical and mental health, he stopped touring in 2016. Avicii died on April 20, 2018 at age 28.
• Longtime collaborator Carl Falk told Spin about Avicii's inability to rest or even eat. "He'd call eight hours after I left the studio and he'd still be there with his half-eaten cheeseburger laying on the laptop. It was horrible to see. We had to make sure that he slept, that he ate."
• The Stockholm venue formerly known as the Ericsson Globe changed its name to the Avicii Arena in memory of the "Levels" hitmaker in May 2021. To celebrate the announcement, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra recorded a symphonic version of the Avicii song "For A Better Day."
  
  The Avicii Arena is the largest hemispherical building on Earth.
• On February 26, 2022, a museum in Stockholm opened to celebrate the life of Avicii. Called The Avicii Experience, it's located in a gaming center called Space, which opened a few months earlier.

Comments

More Songfacts:

The Candy ManSammy Davis, Jr.

"The Candy Man" is the opening song in the 1971 movie Willie Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, but the version released as a single was by Rat Pack member Sammy Davis Jr. It was a #1 hit and became his signature song even though his audience was very adult.

Gives You HellThe All-American Rejects

The first US Top 10 hit with the word "hell" in the title was "Gives You Hell" by The All-American Rejects in 2008.

Live Like You Were DyingTim McGraw

Tim McGraw recorded "Live Like You Were Dying" just two weeks after his own father passed away.

AdornMiguel

Miguel wrote "Adorn" about his girlfriend, the model and artist Nazanin Mandi, when he was returning home from a long trip and was anxious to see her.

The JokerSteve Miller Band

The "pompatus of love" from the Steve Miller song "The Joker" comes from a line in a '50s doo-wop song Miller misheard: "puppetutes of love."

Suddenly I SeeKT Tunstall

KT Tunstall's "Suddenly I See" was inspired by Robert Mapplethorpe's photograph of Patti Smith on the cover of her album Horses.

Editor's Picks

Timothy B. Schmit of the EaglesSongwriter Interviews

Did this Eagle come up with the term "Parrothead"? And what is it like playing "Hotel California" for the gazillionth time?

80s Video Director Jay DubinSong Writing

Billy Joel and Hall & Oates hated making videos, so they chose a director with similar contempt for the medium. That was Jay Dubin, and he has a lot to say on the subject.

Gilby ClarkeSongwriter Interviews

The Guns N' Roses rhythm guitarist in the early '90s, Gilby talks about the band's implosion and the side projects it spawned.

Little Big TownSongwriter Interviews

"When seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon/Be sure your sins will find you out/Your past will hunt you down and turn to tell on you."

Dino Cazares of Fear FactorySongwriter Interviews

The guitarist/songwriter explains how he came up with his signature sound, and deconstructs some classic Fear Factory songs.

Dave EdmundsSongwriter Interviews

A renowned guitarist and rock revivalist, Dave took "I Hear You Knocking" to the top of the UK charts and was the first to record Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk."