Alan Walker: ‘In This Industry, A Lot Of People Will Try To Take Advantage Of You'

The producer on the evolution of electronic music, the politics behind a music release and what he would be doing if he wasn’t a DJ

- Jessica Xalxo

Alan Walker‘s path has been anything but conventional. The 21-year-old British-Norwegian DJ and EDM producer had his first gig in front of a laptop screen. 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. 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. Five years later, Walker is an EDM force to reckon with and for good reason. 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. 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.