Great news. Axwell is back with a new single, premiering exclusively on the Huffington Post. Well, really, he never left. But over the past fifteen years and 1 billion listens, the Swede has taken many forms, including Axwell /\ Ingrosso, and his own veteran label, Axtone. He is a poet, a powerhouse, a level-headed entrepreneur who took a call with me from a car in Cannes, and who believes his fans are “humans such as we.”
Axwell’s latest single is “Belong,” a collaboration with Shapov, one of the newest members of the Axtone label. Axwell’s longtime partner, Sebastian Ingrosso, has signed the likes of Alesso and Otto Knows to his own label, Refune. It’s still unclear whether Shapov is the next Sebastian, but he’s certainly one to watch.
Those who have heard Axwell’s tracks, likely you, if you’ve turned on a radio in the past decade, will recognize a kind of anthemic euphoria in “Belong.” It sounds like everything and nothing all at once. Huge, bombastic melodies that let you make room for a bit of childlike wonder. I asked him about what makes an Axwell track:
I can never say if something is going to be a hit. I just go with my feelings. If you feel something when you work on the song, or if you feel something that you hear, it’s those feelings that are my mission...I just try to be as original as possible, try to create something new. And if something gets me excited, chances are it will get somebody else excited. I guess we have our sound. It’s hard to describe ourselves, but we have our sound, we’re trying new things.
He attributes this thread of success to a kind of cosmos–the circular natures of time, trends, and music. No, really:
Music is changing faster and faster every year. It goes down and up. It goes in circles. Music disappears and then it comes back in another shape. You have to try and stick to what you want to do. And maybe the time is right in the circle at one point. Major Lazer’s “Lean On” was huge–your best shot is not to try and make Lean On #2, because a million people are already doing that. We should try and do something as far away from that as possible.
Take that, EDM disbelievers (for what it’s worth, me, when I wrote this article two years ago). Axwell’s newest collab represents a decade of change and growth at the forefront of the electro scene. On tour in Europe, he’s already incorporating the track into his setlist to huge success. It’s worth noting that he and Shapov played the Axtone tent at Tomorrowland, the granddaddy of the worldwide electro circuit.
“He’s quite the professor in the studio,” Axwell says of Shapov, “he has what it takes to make good music. He doesn’t give up and he’s not content when it’s not ready. He’s the person that will make 100 versions of one song just to get it right.”
It’s safe to say that Axwell has a holistic view of the EDM scene. But when we spoke, he somehow applied these tenets to me, to you, to the human condition. It was a placid, educated, perhaps deserved middle finger to anyone who ever thought a DJ couldn’t get four Grammy nods.
I asked, as many likely have, how he has seen the market change as it’s become more saturated. “Everything is saturated in the world right now,” he remarked. “That’s the new norm I think, you just have to do your best at speaking out and trying to be different.” Indeed. We’ve all got 1000 e-mails, 400 HD channels, four more seasons of The Wire and seven “must-listen” podcasts on the docket. It’s exhausting to be conscious in 2016. DJs in particular are taking it to heart. Avicii isn’t touring anymore, Gareth Emery is penning thoughts on self-discipline, and make what you will of Mike Posner’s Pill in Ibiza. Axwell empathizes, but takes us out of the DJ community, and into the very real, shared world:
It takes–I mean, first of all, it’s a dream come true. I think that the more you remember that, the less it’s something to complain about. It’s easy to get stuck and take things for granted and eventually start complaining...I try to really look around and see what I’m able to do for myself, my family. The important thing is to really love what you do. If you’re trying to be someone you’re not, or you make music that you don’t really like, it becomes a problem.
For example, Avicii stopped touring, maybe he felt like he didn’t like to be on stage, he just liked to make music...I think that’s a great decision. I think he would be happy that way. I respect that decision...and it’s good to keep a balance and not get caught up in the party. If you can keep a good balance there, then you have a chance. I think it’s because we’ve been growing gradually. We’ve not been an overnight success...I think that was very healthy. Getting used to this lifestyle was probably very good. If it had happened overnight, I think it would all be a mess.
“Also,” he adds, “we’ve had friends around us since day one who keep us grounded. That’s been helping.”
Check out the new single here, or go see Axwell and Shapov live at Axtone Mondays at Aquarius, Croatia on 8/8 and 8/17.