This year has already been a big one for Alesso, the Swedish DJ and producer behind dance megahits like “If I Lose Myself,” “Under Control” and “Let Me Go.” He started by releasing his long-awaited collaboration with Katy Perry, “When I’m Gone,” which the duo performed on Saturday Night Live after Perry featured the track in her Resorts World Las Vegas residency show.
Alesso then announced that he’ll be joining Bad Bunny’s stadium tour later this year, which lands in Las Vegas in September, and dropped news of his new Tao Group residency, which will make him one of the lead-off artists at the brand-new Tao Beach Dayclub at the Venetian.
“All this stuff has happened pretty fast, and it’s only March,” Alesso tells the Weekly. “It’s like I can’t even keep up with everything, but it feels like a blessing. I feel like it’s been so quiet in the dance-music scene; we had all these plans for 2020, then nothing was possible. I was hoping all this stuff would come to life, and some came sooner than I thought.”
On April 2, he’ll return to play Omnia at Caesars Palace—where he has only performed a few times—before his slew of summer Tao Beach dates kicks off on April 23. Here’s the rest of the Weekly interview with Alesso:
How much time did you spend with Katy Perry working on “When I’m Gone”? I had an idea for the song already, and I’d been working with some other writers. We wanted to find someone who could really nail the vocals, and she was the first person we were thinking about. She heard the song and she loved it, and then we met up to make some changes and make it more of a Katy Perry [song]. We were actually sitting on it for almost a year, and she had a baby and I had other projects going on. So it was [lucky] that we were able to find a date for it to come out perfectly in line for her and the residency. She’s a very easy person to work with and so professional, and she explained that she is only taking on projects now she really loves, and doing it because she likes the song and thinks it’s a dope opportunity. And it was fun for me as well, going back and forth for the vocals. She’s a superstar. And it wasn’t just because she’s a huge pop star, one of the biggest, it’s because her voice works so well on dance records. It’s hard to find singers that know how to sing on top of a song that has that much room and a lot of stuff happening.
You’ve been playing at the biggest clubs in Vegas for years now. Why was this the right time to make the move to the Tao Group and its venues? I always try to find the next new thing and I have a lot of experience in Vegas. This opportunity really came about after seeing their ideas about how everything is going to look [at Tao Beach]. It’s just so exciting to be a part of this. I love the guys from Tao Group. They’ve always been the best at what they do, so it was kind of a no-brainer. The dayclub is going to be something else.
Will we see you at other Vegas venues this year besides Omnia and Tao Beach? Omnia is also one of my favorite clubs because of the production in the club; I’ve just never seen anything like it. I’m so happy I get to do shows there as well, and it’s the same family and same energy. There will be some Hakkasan [dates] as well, but mostly it will be Tao Beach and Omnia.
So the other big project so far this year was your track for The Batman, “Dark.” How long have you been obsessed with Batman? Since I was born, I think. I am kind of obsessed, because of the whole story about him—how realistic it can be, the darkness. The whole concept of Batman is something I identify with, because he comes from pain and I’ve experienced some pain in my life. I think I connected with that when I was a kid. When The Dark Knight came out, I really started appreciating how he was being presented, and since then I’ve always been inspired by the comic books.
If someone asked me 10 years ago about my goals in music, obviously it was to become a DJ and make big dance records and collaborate with amazing artists, but a big [influence] is that I’m a big fan of movies, and scoring big, blockbuster movies has always been a goal and a dream. The opportunity to do this came, and I didn’t think it would come so soon, so I said yes right away.
Your song can be heard in the film. What was it like to see the movie and hear your work that way? Luckily, they said yes to one of the songs I created, and I couldn’t be happier. I got to go to the premiere and see the film, and hearing the song then was a different kind of happiness I’ve ever felt before. In the future, I definitely want to do more of that.
ALESSO April 2, 10;30 p.m., $30-$50+. Omnia Nightclub, events.taogroup.com.
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