Carl Cox on Avicii: “It was too much, even for a young guy”

Carl Cox has spoken about how he felt following the tragic passing of EDM star Avicii in April of this year.

In a recent interview with BBC Radio 1 the legendary UK DJ said that, following the news that the 28 year-old DJ/producer had been found dead  in his hotel room in Oman, he was “very, very sad because I could see he was not in control of himself.”

“We used to hang out backstage but he was a guy on his own, he didn’t have much of an entourage. It was just business, business, business all the time”, he added when asked by presenter Danny Howard about the mental health crisis in the music industry. 

Carl Cox joins the many, many figures in the music industry who have continued to pay tribute to Avicii – real name Tim Bergling – in the months following his death of suspected suicide.

“It was too much, even for a young guy,” added Cox. “The pressure was put on him and he was in trouble mentally. It was very sad to see someone who had so much to offer take his life.”

“He just wanted to be free to make music.”

Other recent tributes have come from Nicky Romero, who played a previously unreleased track from Avicii at a recent Ultra show in Singapore.

Tiësto also paid tribute to Avicii with 12-minute megamix live from EDC Las Vegas last month (May), whilst Pete Tong gave an opening address at International Music Summit (IMS) Ibiza in memory of Avicii.

Following the news of his death, DJ Mag’s digital editor Charlotte Lucy Cijffers reflected on the young DJs enormous influence on the global EDM community and on how his openness surrounding his struggles with fame, touring and alcoholism gave a troubling, if necessary, insight into a side of dance music the world often does not see.