Alan Walker: DJ Behind The Mask
An English-Norwegian DJ and music producer who received international acclaim after releasing his song “Faded,” which received platinum certifications in 14 countries and is currently ranked 26th on DJ Mag. Alan Olav Walker, also known as DJ WALKZZ, who became the top DJ in 2017.
His story starts in Northampton, UK, where on 25 august 1997 he was born, His mom was from Norway, and his dad is from the UK, so he had the citizenship of both countries. Alan was interested in computers from the beginning. His major interests were programming and designing; later, he became a computer programmer and a graphic designer. (He designed his Music logo from his designing experience).
Alan was interested in music from a very young age; in 2012, when EDM music was becoming popular day by day, deadmau5 (Canadian), Avicii (Swedish), Tiësto (Dutch), and Guetta (French) were ruling the EDM music. And Alan was also fond of EDM music then; later, he thought of becoming a music producer in 2012 when Alan was listing a track off DJ David’s Whistle; it impressed me so much that he tried to reach out to DJ David just to know that how he produces his music, initially some of his influences were K391, Ahrix, film composer Hans Zimmerman and Steve Jablonsky. Still, listening to music and producing it are two different things Alan had no experience in music. It’s hard to become a music producer for someone who doesn’t have the basic knowledge of music theory, and the same case was with Alan.
He had a lot of tech experience but music, not at all. At the age of 14, he downloaded a new software FL studio- A Digital audio workstation, on his laptop and started his music production journey. He was new to music, so he started learning music through YouTube tutorials; eventually, he started uploading his music on SoundCloud and YouTube and improved his music based on listener feedback. After 2 years, in 2014, when he was 17 yrs. Old, he released his new song fade; this song didn’t get popular until it was re-released by NCS(No Copywrite Sounds), and this time it became the most popular video on NCS. It also reached number one on the Shazam Worldwide Top 100 Popular Songs in February 2016, and by March 2016, it became the world’s most Shazamed song.
Later in December 2015, his life changed utterly. With Norway’s Sony music and MER music, he launched, his new song faded, which Norwegian pop singer Iselin Solheim sang. Faded was the remastered version of fade, and it became more successful than its original. At the end of the year, the song was on the top charts of Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, and according to the iTunes chart, the song was at the top in 32 countries. The song currently has around 2.9 billion views and 21 million likes. After this big success, Alan dropped out of college so that he can entirely focus on his music carrier.
His story also matches with another music producer, an American rapper RUSS. He also had an interest in music from a very young age and started his career at the age of 14 and dropped out of college after his first hit song, losin Control. In 2015 Alan released his new songs spectre and force, which became an international hit. In 2016, he performed his first live in Norway’s winter x game; till this time, he had released many songs, and again in 2016, he released a new song, Sing Me to Sleep with Iselin Solheim, and It also became trendy.
The same year in December, he launched another new song alone. This also became a world popular; Noonie Bao sang this song; after all this, Alan’s music production kept on growing; he also collaborated with his inspiration K391 and David’s Whistle and released Ignite and Routine. He collaborated with the same persons who were his inspiration when he was 14 years and started launching songs with him. In 2016 his popularity was 55th, and in 2017 it rose to 17th, which was the highest jump in the top 100 DJs in 2017.
On 14 Dec 2018, he released his album Different World, which included his 15 tracks. The public and critiques appreciated it, and this album also resulted in the creation of another campaign, #creatordifferentworld, which was launched regarding climate change awareness. In March 2019, Alan, with an American singer, Sabrina Carpenter, and a Puerto Rican singer Farruko launched their song on my way; during this time, Alan also announced that he partnered with PUBG cooperation for the first anniversary of that game. A fun fact: Alan walker wears a mask, he wears it so that people focus more on his music than his face, and he got the idea of his mask from Hacking Group Anonymous and the Tv Series Mr. Robot.
Nowadays all most every Alan walker music videos, from Faded to Heading Home, his every video is consists of a story which is fascinatingly connected to each other; basically, the story is about the Walkers, an ancient civilization which left some traces of their existence and technology, and later a girl starts researching the topic of Walkers in-depth and finds out places where they used to live, traces of the stone monument, some contents of the capsules (which the walkers left behind), a megalith, etc. story in these videos is in such a manner that it shows a glimpse of past and future in an exciting way.
Alan Walker is only 23 years old and is a role model for thousands of artists and music producers. He proved that talent is no bounded by any age, and this is only the beginning of his journey.
