Well being young, the time when I started off was a good time because I didn’t have a job to focus on, but I still had school which, of course, is also really important ( laughs), but I had more free time than the average worker would have to do just music in their free time. Just this young guy, from Norway, who started making music for fun and then actually got a break with ‘Faded’ and made history.” In this interview with Rolling Stone India, Walker opens up about his influences, the genres he would like to explore and what scares him as an artist.Īs someone who started off young in the music industry, with your first track “Fade” releasing in 2014, how did you combat self-doubt and naysayers in the business?Īlso See See Ed Sheeran as a Glam Vampire in ‘Bad Habits’ Video It takes a lot of time to find the perfect melody, but it’s definitely worth the time you spend trying to find the perfect melody in order to write the perfect song.”Īsk him about the legacy he would like to leave to music and he breaks into a laugh again, “I have no idea. During production, he relies on his mood and gut as he sits down and tries to mess around with melodies: “Sometimes, I feel like I am getting somewhere and sometimes I’m just stuck with nothing.
That is actually what I want to try and focus on in my music, because I’ve always been a fan of melodies,” he reveals. You’ll be going around trying to remember the melody of the song or the vocals. You won’t be singing and going around beatboxing to the beat – most likely – or trying to remember where the bass line goes. “I think sometimes people focus too much on having the best drum sample or having the perfect drum beat for a song or the perfect bass line, but at the end of the day, the audience, they don’t think about whether the drums sound cool or if the bass sounds amazing, it’s all about the melodies.
Walker’s main priorities when it comes to making music are the melody, the melancholy and the mood. “What scares me is maybe overworking, working too much and that’s something that comes with touring,” says Walker. “If it weren’t for the military, I would probably be working at the nearby grocery store,” he chuckles. He was home when “Faded” debuted on the Norwegian VG-lista chart in December 2015, steering him to at least try and find a future with music. If not for his music garnering attention, he just might have. He intended to join the military and serve his country. Walker aged 17 was a dead-ringer for most of us, stuck in school and questioning what one ought to do with their life. It’s not difficult to hear Walker laugh, he weaves it into the exchange, which is so absurdly normal, it feels like breathing. When we meet him, Walker is sans his Airinum mask, letting us speak with the human being behind the music. When he has the penciled lines of a schedule disciplining him during tours, there is scarce any time but for looking out the window during car and plane rides, and yet he makes it a point to explore the historical locations of Mumbai, forgetting work and business to be a tourist – if only just for a couple of human moments. After opening for Canadian pop artist Justin Bieber in 2017, Walker was recently back in Mumbai to perform at the launch of YouTube Music India where his 30-minute set included Mumbai EDM outfit Lost Stories’ remix of “Faded” as an ode to the culture and music of the country. So, it’s just a matter of time before someone else lives my story,” he says. I learned everything through the internet. “I believe that anyone can relive my story, walk in my footsteps and achieve the same global success, especially with the resources we have nowadays.
He’s the millennial success story we didn’t know we needed, banishing the trite stereotype. He is striking a note with more than 2.3 billion listeners who are tuned into the melancholia and strength of the stabs, synth percussions and ripping bass that thrum beneath the 90 beats per minute of his powerful electronic melodies. There is an unspoken resistance and solidarity in his songs, the mask a symbol of unity and resilience even as his music videos pan over urban apocalyptic moodscapes. Five years later, Walker is an EDM force to reckon with and with good reason. He couldn’t have predicted the role that the online community would play following the release of his self-produced track “Fade” in 2014, and how a want to make royalty-free online gaming music would burgeon into the snowball hit that was “Faded” in 2015.
Inspired by programming, gaming, graphic design, movie soundtracks, and the genres of techno and electro house, Walker learned and honed his production chops on the internet. The 21-year-old British-Norwegian DJ and EDM producer had his first gig in front of a laptop screen. Alan Walker‘s path has been anything but conventional.