When Avicii tried to walk away from fame

“So sad. So Tragic. Good Bye Dear Sweet Tim. Gone too Soon.”

“Words can not describe how I feel right now. I am gonna miss you brother.”

Avicii, struggling with health and fame, tried to walk away from it all two years before he died

It was a decision that shook the electronic dance world, and one Tim Berling, then 27, did not take lightly.

Before Berling, the Swedish DJ and producer known as Avicii, announced his retirement from touring just five years after his 2011 song Levels launched his meteoric rise, he had to break the news to the people closest to him and his fans. “Two weeks ago, I took the time to drive across the US with my friends and team, to just look and see and think about things in a new way,” the musician wrote in an emotional letter on his website in 2016. “It really helped me realise that I needed to make the change that I’d been struggling with for a while.”

He was grateful for the opportunities but the lifestyle was exhausting. Avicii had cancelled tour dates in 2014 after having his gall bladder and appendix removed, and had been hospitalised twice in the preceding two years for acute pancreatitis.

“I will however never let go of music,” he concluded. “One part of me can never say never, I could be back . . . but I won’t be right back.”