Hear Tiesto, Kaskade, Steve Aoki Pay Tribute to Avicii

EDM artists like Tiësto, Kaskade, Armin Van Buuren and Steve Aoki all remembered Avicii on Sirius XM’s BPM channel following the DJ-producer born Tim Bergling’s death at the age of 28.

“I knew him from the beginning, he used to send me mash-ups,” Tiesto said of Bergling. “I met him in Sweden when I lived there in 2010… he was a very humble, nice guy, very sweet.”

Early on in Bergling’s career, before “Levels” thrust the producer into the mainstream, Avicii had an official remix on Tiësto’s 2009 single “Escape Me.”

“He was amazing. He just always thought out of the box. He came up with different melodies,” Tiësto said of Bergling. “He inspired so many other DJs as well. He’s Kygo’s biggest inspiration.”

As for Bergling’s retirement from touring, Tiësto said, “He had a little bit of stage fright, so it was very tough for him to be on stage and perform. He loved to be in the studio.” However, in recent conversations, Bergling confided to Tiësto that he was considering touring again.

Kaskade also hailed Bergling as a brilliant trailblazer in the dance community. “He was such a smart guy,” Kaskade told BPM.

“The thing I like to think about with Tim is when he came out with the album that was so infused with country music and he went up there at Ultra and invited all those people onstage to perform… People were hating on that moment and really thinking to themselves, ‘What is this guy doing?’ I think a lot of the audience, it was lost on them because it was quite different… And then when the music came out, he seemed like the smartest guy on the planet because it did connect.”

Hear Aoki, Van Buuren and the Chainsmokers remember Bergling in the videos below. “When I really go back what Avicii did to electronic music, I literally can hear him in all these songs even if they aren’t his songs. He is one of the most important figures for EDM, that term, to even exist. That term is maybe 10 years old, and Avicii broke that term into existence. You know there’s a few artists who can do that, and he is one of them,” Aoki said.