Hellberg - "All The Way"

Photo: Ossian Langenborg

After being premiered by Afrojack at Tomorrowland, Hellberg's first track on Wall Recordings, " All The Way ," was released last week. The young Swedish DJ/producer joined us to discuss the inspiration behind the track, his experience tuning in to watch the premiere of the track live, and more!

How did "All The Way" come to get signed on Wall? Did your remix of Fais ft. Afrojack - “Hey” play any part?

My manager, who's been in contact with Afrojack's team for about a year, sent them a few new tracks earlier this year. They really digged what we sent them, and we worked out a deal and then decided that “All The Way” would be the perfect introduction of myself to Wall and Afrojack’s fanbase. The remix of “Hey” actually came up after we already had signed “All The Way.”

What was it like having Afrojack premiere this song at Tomorrowland? Did you know he was going to play it? Were you tuned in to the live stream to see?

It was unreal. I knew he was planning on playing it, but I didn't want to get my hopes up too much since you never know what might happen. So, watching the stream, I was trying to keep my cool and prepare myself for the worst, essentially. Now the funny part is that right as he was about to play it, Tomorrowland's website crashed. There were ZERO issues with the stream during the entire 3-day festival, except for that small part of the show. It's like that could have happened in a TV show or a movie and when watching it you probably would have gone, “that's so typical, that could never happen in real life,” but it did. I was very pissed off and disappointed at that moment. Fortunately, most of the Tomorrowland sets are recorded, so I was able to watch it as soon as they put up Afrojack's set on YouTube, and when you see and hear your music being played at one of the world's biggest festivals in front of thousands upon thousands of people, the concerns you had over some technical difficulties disappear quite quickly.

What was the inspiration for "All The Way"? How’d you find and select the sampled voice?

I had a track last year that did pretty well on Spotify called “Slumber Party,” which had similar vibes as “All The Way” - very uplifting and driven by a vocal-chop-melody. So when that track got people's attention, I wanted to do another track that was in that style, but evolving the sound of it a bit. The sampled voice is a vocal I've had lying around for several months that I wasn't doing anything with, so I took that vocal, chopped it up and made it into a whole new thing.

What was the production process like? Did this track present any unique challenges?

The difficult part with this track was blending the synths/leads that you hear in the drop with the vocal chops, since they play two different melodies. That took a little bit to figure out, but other than that it came together pretty quickly. I think I made this track in December so for me it's a bit old already haha. When Wall picked it up, a new challenge presented itself though, and that was getting the final green light from Afrojack and his team, who are probably the pickiest team that I've ever worked with when it comes to the fine details. So that was definitely a challenge as well, I've sent so many different versions back and forth with their team trying to get the track to the level that they require. It's been very rewarding though because when they finally say it's good to go, 20 versions later, you know that it actually is good to go.

How has this track gone down when you’ve played it in your sets? Do you remember the first time you played it live?

I played it at a local club in Stockholm for the first time a few months ago, and it definitely got a great response. The problem though with the Stockholm crowd is that a lot of the time, as long as you slap a popular commercial vocal on top of your instrumental, they don't really care about what kind of drop it is or who it's made by. They just want to party and be able to sing along to it. I mean, that's great, and I dig the vibe, but unfortunately this means that I am not always able to play the stuff that I want to.

What does it mean to you to release on Wall Recordings? What’s your relationship like with Afrojack?

It's awesome. Wall has obviously been one of the leading dance music labels for several years, especially in the house music scene. And Afrojack has always been an inspiration for me, both musically and business wise. We met up in Gothenburg when he was over here playing at Summerburst, and after that we've chatted a bit on Twitter and such. He's a great guy, very nice and friendly and I really respect what he has accomplished in the scene and the doors he's opened up for others.