Swedish singer-songwriter and producer Benjamin Ingrosso wrapped up his Pink Velvet Theater a few weeks ago here at The Echoplex in LA - and while he was in town he was kind enough to stop by our studio. Hear Benjamin talk about some pivotal moments in his history as a live music fan and creator.
Beyoncé
Two and a half years ago, I went to Beyoncé’s concert in Stockholm, Sweden. I actually was not gonna go. We were rehearsing for my own tour, and we had one day left of rehearsals, and I thought, "If I go tonight, I will probably get too much inspiration," which happened. And I came back to the studio the day after and basically rearranged the last 15 minutes of the show thanks to the queen herself. I actually put in some parts of "Crazy in Love" in my own set. It was just a fantastic show, and it was three and a half hours long, and Beyoncé is our Michael Jackson nowadays. For me, it was the transition from "Love On Top" to "Crazy in Love." No one was expecting it to come. Then she kind of just walked, like a catwalk thing, with her dancers. But the fact that that song just came out of nowhere made me go crazy, and the whole crowd was just, "Wow." It was pretty epic.
Swedish House Mafia @ Coachella
My first Coachella, my cousin is one of the members of the Swedish House Mafia, so I grew up with these guys. And they had their comeback three and a half years ago, together with The Weeknd. I just remember that, as a family member to one of the guys, I was obviously very proud, but it also made me very hungry, and be like, "Okay, wait. If my cousin can headline Coachella, of course, I can headline Coachella someday." It was my first festival in the States that I've seen. One thing that stood out was the staging. They had this big kind of circle around the stage that was huge and it looked like a practical set from "Dune." It was so epic, and the lighting, that was insane. And it's hard to, you know, make people want to look at three guys DJing for one and a half to two hours, but they really made it interesting. And it was fun because my cousin and Axwell, we were in the pool during the day, and they were talking about how doing the intro and that The Weeknd would come back, he would rise up on stage behind them in like the... And I just remember they were explaining how that would be. And then standing, I actually stood next to Justin Bieber, and we were like, we saw the whole thing becoming reality. And that was, yeah, that was super cool.
ABBA Voyage
ABBA Voyage, I think everyone knows ABBA, I hope. Because as a Swede, we're very proud of these guys from this band. And I've had the honor to actually work together with one of the guys, Björn. His assistant, texted me like, "Björn wants to have a chat with you." And I thought, you know, someone is, you know, joking with me or something. I answered, "Yeah, sure." And all of a sudden, there he was, Björn from ABBA, being like, "Hey Benjamin, how are you?" And we had a chat for almost two and a half hours, and he actually just wanted to get to know me because he loved my music. I was very nervous and humbled at the same time. A month later, he texted me and asked me if I wanted to write a song with him for a musical. And we did. And he said, "We should definitely do this again. If you're ever in London, let me know because I really want you to go to the ABBA Voyage show."
So ABBA Voyage is basically a concert with the four members of ABBA as if it was 1978, which sounds crazy, but thanks to technology, these guys look like they did back then. I brought my mom, who's obviously a big ABBA fan, and we went to the show. And as a fan of the 70s music, for me it was so cool to watch an audience in this big arena dancing and screaming and singing along to four guys that is not even on stage. After just two, three seconds, we forgot that these guys were holograms, and we just acted like we were together with them. As a performer, it helped me a lot to realize that, of course, you have to be present when you're on stage. And the fact that they made these guys feel so present while they weren't even there is just mind blowing.
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