They say everything is more obvious in retrospect—an adage that rings resoundingly true in the saga of Swedish House Mafia.
Operating at the pinnacle of a then-erupting stateside EDM boom, Sebastian Ingrosso, Axwell, and Steve Angello had reached the promised land in 2012. But rumors of a fractured dynamic in the group led to its disbandment, which shook the dance music community to its core.
And as Swedish House Mafia’s members explored solo endeavors, the group’s detachment ultimately settled in as an axiom that their once-harmonic relationship had gone irretrievably sour.
“We’re not best friends anymore, and that’s the truth,” Ingrosso famously asserted in 2014’s Leave the World Behind, a charged documentary that chronicled the band’s final tour.
In a candid interview with BBC News, Swedish House Mafia reflected on their split nine years ago.
Sebastian Ingrosso, Axwell and Steve Angello of Swedish House Mafia at Pacha Ibiza in 2011.
“We were drained, we were tired,” Ingrosso said. “So, of course there was tension and irritation.”
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“Now that we’re a little bit older and wiser, we look back and realize we needed a break,” he added. “We needed to miss each other. We needed to miss making music together again.”
The first semblance of a reconnection came in 2017, the group said, when they sat down for dinner in Stockholm. “A friend of ours said, ‘Come on guys, you need to get together,'” Angello recalled. “And we were like, ‘Alright, let’s have a dinner, let’s just talk.'”
Axwell, Angello, and Ingrosso eventually stayed up until 4AM, reminiscing over their life on the road and shared experiences during their breakneck rise to the top of EDM.
“All the memories we shared were the disaster ones!” Ingrosso said with a laugh. “You know, when someone messed up, or someone missed a flight, or someone overslept. Those were the memories we all had.”
Steve Angello, Axwell, and Sebastian Ingrosso of Swedish House Mafia perform at Café Mambo Ibiza in 2011.
Now that Swedish House Mafia’s comeback is in full swing, they’re preparing to hit the road in 2022 on a massive global tour, their first in 10 years. The tour will essentially function as a vehicle to aggrandize their upcoming debut album, Paradise Again. Details on the record are scarce and the guys have not yet announced a release date.
“We started out at 15 or 16 years old and it’s all we’ve done, our whole life, Ingrosso said of the band’s touring. “So it’s kind of like your backbone. I can’t wait to get out on stage.”
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