Tim Bergling - the Swedish DJ and producer known as avicii - committed suicide in Muscat, Oman, in April 2018 at the age of 28. The worst happened when things were apparently looking up. The successful but troubled electronic dance music (EDM) star had retired from her incessant tours in 2016 to focus on her well-being. She had been weaned from opioids, prescribed by doctors when bouts of alcohol-induced pancreatitis caused debilitating pain and, later, surgery. He communicated regularly with a therapist, he was often surrounded by childhood friends, donated to charities. He meditated.
Having gone from pure party music to making songs alongside established stars like Coldplay Y Nile rodgersBergling was working on new material that he was excited about. A documentary about his meteoric rise and stress levels - Avicii: True Stories - had aired in 2017, apparently with a happy ending.
When it appeared on Netflix, True stories it resonated well beyond the club's culture, overloading the existing public debate around the mental health of performers. Viewers witnessed a life that was crumbling, aware of alarming practices that were normalized.
Stardom has always come at a high price, but in EDM, capitalizing on your hot streak seemed especially urgent. Aside from the usual hedonism, the hours an ambitious and in-demand EDM DJ had to maintain were grueling: several gigs in one night, sometimes in different countries or time zones, with constant travel (especially difficult for the flight-phobic Bergling ). and poor basic self-care. In 2019, an anonymous book by another industry expert, The secret DJ, delved even further into the lifestyle craziness.
Tim: The Official Biography of Avicii It retells the Bergling story, adding considerable context and lashes of pain: Parents Klas and Anki Bergling are important sources. Written by Swedish journalist Måns Mosesson and translated by a Academic from USA Brad Harmon, the book's slightly open tone finds adults with close ties grappling with the extremes of youth, from World of warcraft - a young Bergling obsession - to the wild west of club culture, through the monomaniac perfectionism of digital music creation.
The book manages to flesh out Bergling, a hyper-commercial EDM elf poster boy who wanted to be taken seriously as an artist. Mosesson is very good on the road to fame and the wider ecosystem around Avicii. A shy, curious and stubborn young man who feared cancer, suffered from severe acne and social anxiety, which affected his self-esteem. An interest in the esoteric led Bergling to name himself after a punishment zone of buddhist hell. It ended in something similar.
Mosesson had access to Bergling's rehab diary and just about everyone in his life: ex-girlfriends, childhood friends, fellow superstar DJs, psychotherapists. The author was also aware of Bergling's digital life: texts, emails, and message board posts; a level of intimate access that biographers have surely only dreamed of until now.
Former Bergling manager Arash Pournouri declined to participate. After Bergling's death, opinion online swirled around the relentless program that Avicii's leadership had presided over. But in a recent interview, Bergling senior was specific in exonerating Pournouri, with whom his son had reconciled, and eager to examine the bigger picture of the music industry, drumming for faster mental health interventions.
There are no knee-jerk conclusions here, just candor and context: Pressure, both external and internal, played an absolutely important role in Avicii's unraveling, as did the US prescription opioid scandal. Nearing its heartbreaking finale, Mosesson brings a number of factors into play in 2018.
Although he had kicked pretty much everything else, Bergling still smoked a lot of weed. The book looks at how insidiously or suddenly psychosis can affect THC users.
Bergling became involved with transcendental meditation, to which he attributed the reduction of his anxiety. But he meditated intensely for hours, eager to reach enlightenment quickly. In messages to his therapist, he confided that he had been confused by what seemed like a torrent of ideas. At the same time, Bergling texted his mother, full of love and excitement about the move from Los Angeles to Stockholm.
In the aftermath of Bergling's death, many of his closest associates sought help with their own problems and dependencies. The DJ's father is especially interested in the word "suicide" being used in relation to his son; to speak clearly about what mental health charity (Tim Bergling Foundation) configured in the DJ's memory called "a global health emergency."
