Alan Walker unmasked

In an exclusive interview, the EDM virtuoso who's set to perform for Sunburn Arena holds forth on his WalkerVerse Tour 2022 and the possibility of collaborating with Indian artistes

Scores of fans in India screaming Where are you now... need to look no further. Alan Walker, who rose to fame with the electro house track ‘Faded’ at the age of 16, is set to bring his WalkerVerse Tour 2022 to fans in Hyderabad, Chennai and Ahmedabad this weekend.

The British-born Norwegian DJ and EDM producer will be performing at the 15th edition of Asia's largest music festival Sunburn Arena that's making a comeback after a pause during the pandemic. Now twenty-five-years old, Walker first performed in India in 2016 and has since made multiple trips, endearing himself to the Indian audience with his trademark mask, hoodie and the track ‘Faded’ whose popularity refuses to fade even after seven years of its release. Popular with gamers as well as party chasers, thanks to his collaboration with PUBG, the DJ has more than 15 billion audio and video streams worldwide, over 42 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, 849.9k on Twitter, 8.9 m on Instagram and 10 million subscribers on Spotify.

Over a video call from Norway ahead of his India tour, Walker says he is looking forward to bringing the WalkerVerse Tour to the three cities in India. "This is my first time in Chennai and I heard about all the artistes who had visited this city before. I am sure it is going to be an awesome experience,” he says, adding that he enjoys getting to know the city he's performing in by taking autorickshaw rides and eating at local restaurants. "The only downside to the rapid pace of my tour this time is that I don't have time to explore the city and be a tourist for a day or two. Everything is super tight and happening so fast," he says, adding that he hopes to visit Chennai just as a tourist in the future.

Walker’s penchant for movie soundtracks, gaming, programming and graphic design led to his developing an interest in techno and electro music. He created ‘Fade’ in 2014 as an instrumental tropical house track and later added electro house and released it on YouTube. Not too happy with the outcome,  he reworked it with a complete electro track and acoustic sounds, added lyrics and released it as ‘Faded’ in 2015  under the Sony Music Sweden label.

The uniqueness of this version is the 90 BPM (Beat Per Minute) — an unusual beat for an EDM track. Explaining why he prefers a downtempo, Walker says, “My original ‘Fade’, before it became ‘Faded’, was at 128 BPM. I felt something was wrong with it. So I brought it down to 90 and was happy at the way it opened up the melody and you can hear all that’s being played between each kick of snares and hi-hats’ claps. It allowed highlighting the melody more than what you can do at the higher BPM.”

Melody is a passion, if not an obsession for Walker, an unlikely orientation for an EDM composer. He took inspiration from Ahrix’s track ‘Nova’ and K-391’s melodic style for the re-release of ‘Fade’ and with vocals by Norwegian singer-songwriter Iselin Solheim who would be his singer for ‘Sing me to Sleep’ ’.

After ‘Faded’ topped the singles charts across the globe, a live show became inevitable. Walker made his debut live show at the Oslo X Game show in February 2016, which was followed by a tour across Europe for various dance music festivals. By then ‘Faded’ became a worldwide phenomenon, putting to rest doubts about whether people can dance to it. The uniquely melancholic mood that Walker presented connected with EDM audiences. There was no turning back.  Tracks like ‘On My Way,’  ‘Alone,’ ‘All Falls Down’, ‘Spectre’ and ‘Diamond Heart’ followed, drawing larger crowds at every gig that Walker helmed.