conducted business meetings from his bed. The once
meticulous DJ performances had turned careless,
playing the same track over and over. And he looked
ill: strikingly thin, with deep circles under his eyes.
A group gathered in Tim’s living room, among
them Klas, Tim’s siblings and his manager. Klas is
still haunted by the moment his son walked into
the room. “I saw in his eyes that he understood
something was going on,” he says. “It was one of the
worst moments of my life because you really feel
you’ve betrayed your son.” His voice cracks a little.
“But it had to be done.”
The intervention began at 7pm and stretched into
the early hours. Eventually, at about 2am, Tim agreed
to enter a treatment facility. Klas left the house that
morning elated, believing his son to be saved. “It was
naive. I’ve heard a thousand times that the fight starts
when you’re sober. But I was so happy, and you have
to remember the happy moments also.”
Tim left rehab healthier, which made his return to
performing all the more difficult. “Everything that
had been denied, or handled with alcohol, now
it became very clear,” Klas says. The gaze of the
crowd became unbearable. He asked the lighting
technicians to veil him in shadow, so his fans couldn’t
see his face. “For him it was very clear: I cannot do
this,” Klas says.
In March 2016 Tim posted an open letter on his
website, announcing his retirement from touring.
He performed his final show and parted company
with his management later that year.
Avicii: True Stories ends with a tranquil Tim playing
the guitar on a Madagascan beach. “It’s only been a
month since I did my last show, and I feel like I did
when I was 18,” he says in a voiceover. The implication
is clear: touring was the sickness, retirement the cure.
Klas, though, understood the complexity of the
situation. He knew Tim still drank on occasion and
suspected he still took drugs. But he also thought
Tim was getting better. “He was producing music,
he was working on his next album. We thought that
he was coming back.”
On April 19, 2018, Klas received a phone call from
an unfamiliar number. He knew Tim was on holiday
in Oman with friends; the caller was a new friend
he’d made on the trip, who’d become increasingly
concerned about his mental state. Terrified, Klas and
Anki booked the first available flight to Oman. Before
they could set off, however, Klas received another call
— and learnt that his son had taken his own life.
Klas makes a point to use the word suicide. “I think
you should call things what they are,” he says. For
Klas, the word is a rare point of certainty among a
thousand unanswerable questions. He doesn’t know
why, exactly, Tim ended his life. “That’s part of the
trauma,” he says.
The public wanted answers too. “It’s the way we
are as human beings. We want to have an explanation,”
Klas says. He refuses to point fingers. “Nobody is to
blame. If we should blame anybody, we should start
with me.”
Klas does believe, however, that the music industry
owes a greater duty of care to its stars. His son, after
all, is one of many to suffer in the spotlight. The year
before Tim died, Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington,
Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and SHINee’s
Jonghyun took their own lives. According to Avicii’s
official biographer, Mans Mosesson, Tim’s friends
used to fear he would become a member of the“27 Club”, a list of musicians who died at the age of
27, among them Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix,
Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain. Tim
was ineligible by just one year.
“It’s fame and fortune, and that’s a very dangerous
combination,” Klas says. “When you have an up-and-
coming artist there should be some structure.” He’s
conscious he doesn’t know what, exactly, needs to
change, “but a serious discussion couldn’t hurt”.
What he is clear about is that Arash Pournouri —
the manager who worked with Tim from the age
of 18 and who helped propel him to fame — was
not to blame for his son’s health problems. It was
Pournouri who met Klas in Ibiza in 2014 to share
concerns about Tim’s health. And it was Pournouri,
Klas says, who cancelled every remaining show that
year, despite Tim’s protests. Pournouri took part
in the 2015 intervention, again cancelling Tim’s
shows as he entered rehab.
“Tim was super-angry when we stopped him
touring,” Klas says. “We have to remember that he
was a grown-up. He earned his own money, he lived
his own life. He was not easy to work with from time
to time because he had his stubborn mind.”
In 2019 Klas and Anki launched a mental health
charity, the Tim Bergling Foundation. It has helped
Klas cope with his grief. In the aftermath of Tim’s
death, Klas approached his friends and collaborators,
asking them to finish the final Avicii album. All
profits from the album, Tim, went to the foundation.
When Klas conducts Zoom interviews, he sits
in front of a wall of framed Avicii albums. But he
struggles to listen to his son’s music with the joy
he once did. “I find it hard, still,” he says. “But I will,
one day.” Besides, it is Tim he grieves for — his shy,
sensitive son. “Tim is here,” he says, resting his
hand over his heart. “Tim was very proud of the
Avicii name, but he didn’t want to be Avicii. He
wanted to be Tim.” nTim — The Official Biography of Avicii by Mans Mosesson
is published by Sphere at £20. The Samaritans helpline
is available for free support 24 hours a day on 116 123Staging an intervention was “one of
the worst moments in my life. You
really feel you’ve betrayed your son”
From top: a happier Tim
in Madagascar after
he had quit touring; his
appendix and gallbladder
were removed in 2014BBC
The Sunday Times Magazine • 37