How Swedish House Mafia disbanded with a bang
When top electronic dance music trio Swedish House Mafia decided to break up, they filmed their final tour for a documentary, writes Chris Lee
A certain fatigue had set in for the multiplatinum-selling electronic dance music (EDM) act Swedish House Mafia in 2012. By the three members' own estimate, they had partied hard five days a week for six years straight, consuming mass quantities of booze and chemical stimulation, living to the fullest the hedonistic lifestyle associated with superstar DJs while travelling the globe to deliver their signature four-on-the-floor dance delirium to packed arenas.
But just as EDM was becoming an increasingly mainstream concern - with the group selling out Madison Square Garden in nine-minutes flat and its smash single Don't You Worry Child moving millions of copies to top pop charts around the world - Swedish House Mafia made a controversial decision: to call it quits at the peak of their success.
We felt, if we can't be 100 per cent dedicated and have 100 per cent pure energy for the music, we can't do it anymore
The concert documentary Leave the World Behind, which premiered at the recent South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas, chronicles the heady collision of interpersonal politics, money matters and block-rocking beats that came to define three Stockholm natives' final year together.
Steve Angello, Axel "Axwell" Hedfors and Sebastian Ingrosso left a lot of money on the table, choosing to break up after a five-year run in order to keep their friendship intact and their artistry unsullied by the bottom line. "We felt, if we can't be 100 per cent dedicated and have 100 per cent pure energy for the music, we can't do it anymore," Ingrosso says. "We said, 'Maybe we should call it a day.'"
Directed by Swedish House Mafia's creative director, Christian Larson, the documentary follows the group as they embark on their 2012 swansong: their "One Last Tour", 53 shows in 26 countries that sold one million tickets. Like any good rockumentary, the movie captures oceans of concertgoers in ecstatic reverie, the blur of travel - sold-out stadium madness from Mumbai to the Milton Keynes National Bowl in England, from Cape Town, South Africa, to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival - while also chronicling the rise of EDM as a dominant force in pop music.
Leave the World Behind joins a small but growing number of electronic dance music-focused feature efforts including Shut Up and Play the Hits, the 2012 doc about LCD Soundsystem's final gig; Meowingtons Hax 2K11, a concert film by electro music all-star Deadmau5; and the 2004 mockumentary It's All Gone Pete Tong. But unlike so many Behind the Music-style rock docs, Leave the World Behind is narrowly focused around Swedish House Mafia's "beginning of the end".
"For us, it's pretty weird when we see the film," Ingrosso says. "It's like seeing a wedding movie. Maybe a divorce movie. This is about three guys, who came from nothing in Sweden, who had a dream of DJing. Then the tsunami of electronic dance music shot over the entire world. The film is about that wave."