behind the scenes

Being a live performer
is a completely different craft from sitting in a room or a studio,
writing and producing music. I never really had the intention
of ending up performing or starting with DJing or anything. The music industry was so far away
that it was very much a dream, not something he was actually pursuing. When I met him, he was basically a kid,
mostly sitting in his room gaming, hanging with his friends,
and going to school, just you know, like a regular kid. I wasn’t that kind of a person
who would go in front of the class and have a performance or presentation
or anything. I really, really hated
to do that kinda stuff. The explosive success of Faded was
quickly followed by the expectations to what Alan could and should be
as a live artist. And at that point,
he had never set his feet on a stage. In the early days of 2016,
just a month after we releasedFaded, we realized that the demand for Alan
to make his live debut was eminent. Within the matter of weeks
we booked his live debut, which was an online stream TV performance
at the X Games in Oslo, Norway. You need to understand at this point
there was actually nothing in place in terms of the live operations. So everything had
to be done more or less from scratch. There were so many hours
that went into preparations. I’m practicing on DJing. So there was a lot of work to be done
in a very short period of time. You know, if people really understood
what kind of work, and how much effort, energy, and resources that are put
into visuals, lighting, how to put together and structure the set,
potential guest vocalists, guest musicians, strings, which we had–
you know, it’s a pretty complex and pretty big operation together, and especially when you do it
for the first time. Making it through that first performance,
I guess was in many ways a relief. But we also quickly realized there was
a lot of work to be done and a lot of improvements
that had to be made. With a full-scale festival tour
throughout Europe just eight weeks away, well we really had to get our grind on. I was so super nervous. Yeah, I was like, “Oh my God! I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Then came the phone call. Hi, guys. We got a call from the US. Does Alan wanna do
support on a Rihanna tour? I was like, “Okay, can’t say ‘no’ to this. Do I really dare to say ‘yes’?” I think every rookie makes mistakes
and certainly so did Alan as well. The big difference though is
that most people are fortunate enough to do that within, you know, their
pre-production rehearsals or whatever. Alan did it on his first show
on the first leg of the Rihanna tour in front of 70,000 people. I was unlucky and actually hit
the cue button on more of the songs and then I messed up. ♪ I can’t calm down ♪ ♪ Searching for so– ♪ Okay, that wasn’t supposed to happen,
but… Alan in that part of his career
that he was, should be doing mistakes. I hate myself for every mistake
that I make, but I also know that making mistakes
and learning from them is an important part of the process. If I didn’t make any mistakes, then I probably wouldn’t
have been where I am today. ♪ Where are you now ♪ Once he got warm,
he really picked up the pace. He was basically a frontrunner
in a rat race of more or less 30 festivals
in nine weeks. It feels like that summer
pretty much flew by in 15 seconds. ♪ Were you only imaginary ♪ ♪ Where are you now ♪ ♪ Where are you now ♪ ♪ Another dream ♪ ♪ Another dream ♪ ♪ Where are you now ♪ ♪ Another dream ♪ ♪ The monster’s running wild inside
of me ♪ ♪ I’m faded ♪ ♪ I’m faded ♪ ♪ So lost, I’m faded ♪ ♪ I’m faded ♪ ♪ So lost, I’m faded ♪ Facing the crowd used to be
one of my biggest fears in life. So to overcome that fear was
indeed a magical feeling. I never really thought that I would learn
and grow this much in such a short period of time. In early 2017, I flew with him to Miami
to catch his show at Ultra, more or less exactly one year
after Alan made his live debut. And to stand there and watch
that 19-year-old engaging, exciting, and conquering a crowd of 15,000 people, well to me that was a true testament
in many ways to the growth
and the evolution that he’d been through, not only as a performer but as a person. And anyone who’s been on the road can
tell you that life on tour is exhausting. It’s challenging, it’s tiring,
and it’s not nearly as glamorous as it’s set out to be. In many ways life on the road is
like a loop. You need a lot of rest and you don’t get a lot of rest
when you’re traveling. That is quite a challenge. What you do all day is basically consisting
of a never-ending repetitive loop of A) you start out jumping on a plane,
fly to a new country and a new city, get to the hotel, check in,
get out of the hotel to the backstage, do some promo, on to the stage,
do your show. And it’s all over again. There’s really no place like home. So it always feels good to come back home
to Bergen, back to my family and friends. But to be honest,
after a couple of days at home, I really just want
to get back on the road.