Avicii Talks All-Arena Tour, Dream Collaborators

A

fter closing out the dance tent at Coachella for two weeks straight, Avicii will have a few weeks off before his massive arena tour launches on May 17th in Houston, Texas. Several dance music stars, from Deadmau5 and Tiësto to Swedish House Mafia, have already made their way into arenas at certain stops on their tours, but Avicii will be the first DJ to hit arenas exclusively. “We’ve put a lot of effort and money into it. This is gonna be something no one’s ever done before in EDM ”“ not even kind of close on this scale,” Avicii tells Rolling Stone. “And this production really needs those really, really big spaces.”

Fans got a preview of Avicii’s show at Coachella, where the 22-year-old Swedish DJ took the stage inside a giant, mannequin-like head that opened up to reveal him. He performed inside the head throughout his set, against a backdrop of video screens and lights. According to Avicii, fans can expect much more on the official tour. “There’s still a lot of stuff that I can’t use at Coachella just because of logistical reasons,” he explains. “The setup we have at Coachella doesn’t allow us to use the whole production.”

While he won’t give away any details, Avicii says he’s inspired by Deadmau5’s stage shows when planning out the visuals for his own. “I’m inspired by how he brought it when he did his cube setup,” he explains. “All of that was new and that was super cool.”

From Madonna joining him onstage at Ultra Music Festival to his new denim collaboration with designer Ralph Lauren, Avicii is quickly becoming a favorite of the mainstream. His fast ascension is presenting lots of opportunities, like his recent remix of Lenny Kravitz’s “Superlove.” Says Avicii, “We get approached almost daily by new and kind of cool artists. I don’t really know what I can and can’t say, but there is a lot of interesting stuff coming up and I’m definitely looking forward to collaborating with new people and hopefully learning a lot in the process.”

Who would he love to work with next? “The dream collaborations right now would be Adele, or I always loved Coldplay,” says Avicii. “Doing something with Chris Martin would be amazing.”

While those collaborations may not be on the horizon just yet, there won’t be a shortage of Avicii music in 2012. “There’s definitely gonna be a lot of new music, and it’s not gonna be an album,” he says. “It’s gonna be singles and it’s gonna be throughout the year.” The DJ promises not to let his fast-rising star status affect his music. “I’ve always been releasing a lot of music and I’ve been making a lot of music, so that’s not gonna change,” says Avicii. “I haven’t really changed my music at all, either. Well, I have, but I haven’t sold out or gone a completely different way. It’s still gonna be what we’ve been doing pretty much up to this point.”