Avicii‘s second album Stories was released on Oct. 2, 2015, generating hits like “The Nights” and “Waiting For Love” and reaching No. 17 on the Billboard 200, where it spent five weeks.
Now, a new documentary mini-series is taking fans into the heart of the LP’s creation process. Stories on Stories, a three-part series screening on YouTube, presents never-before-shared archival footage of the 2014 and 2015 studio sessions that generated some of the music on Stories.
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Out today (Nov. 6), the lead episode shows the Swedish producer in a pair of studio sessions with Alex Ebert, the songwriter and musician widely known as the lead singer of Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros, as the pair work on the instrumentation, melody and lyrics that would ultimately form “For a Better Day.” (This song spent 17 weeks on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs beginning in September of 2015.)
The clips find a relaxed atmosphere in the studio as the pair hash out music and share some laughs in the process. “What I loved about Tim and was the first thing I really got to understand about him is how meticulous he is about the specifics of a melody,” Ebert says in the doc. “It’s almost like he was really in tune with the harmonics of the universe, where a melody should go, where a melody wants to go.” Watch an exclusive clip from the episode below.
The episode is careful to include an archival clip of Avicii himself saying that “I have every session filmed, we’re going to do something with that so people can see what actually goes on the studio. Maybe like a YouTube series.” The episode also states that since 2019, the family of the late producer born Tim Bergling has been archiving material from his laptop and drives to preserve moments from his life and career as Avicii.”
The other two Stories On Stories episodes will feature artists and producers including Gavin DeGraw, Rami Yacoub and Wyclef Jean, altogether exploring the origins of of songs like “Sunset Jesus” and more. The second and third episodes will premier on Dec. 4 and Jan. 1, respectively.
Bergling died by suicide on April 20, 2018. The seven years following his death have seen a wake of commemorative projects including a 2019 posthumous album, a biography, a photo book, a new track released in May and the Avicii Experience museum in the artist’s hometown of Stockholm.
Stories On Stories is presented by the Avicii Estate and Pophouse, the Swedish entertainment company that acquired 75% of Avicii’s recordings and publishing catalog in 2022.
