September 29, 2025 • 13 mins
Celebrating another #1 for Swedish House Mafia, Axwell joins us for the FIRST TIME on America's Dance 30 to talk all things "Wait So Long"! He shares how the song was born, how long ago they started working on it, and how many Vs there were of the song before its final release.
Axwell also answers a question he has never been asked before, and we get to know him & SHM better w #FinkysFirsts!
Find out about:
Follow: @AmericasDance30 on all socials!
Count down the biggest dance songs in the country every week with Brian Fink on America’s Dance 30; listen on stations around the world!
Axwell also answers a question he has never been asked before, and we get to know him & SHM better w #FinkysFirsts!
Find out about:
- if music was the first thing he wanted to get into growing up
- if 'Axwell' was his first choice for an artist project name, and what other pseudonyms he had
- if 'Swedish House Mafia' was their first choice for the project name
- his first time playing for a crowd
- the first dance song that made him fall in love w EDM
- the first thing he notices about a crowd when he steps out on stage
Follow: @AmericasDance30 on all socials!
Count down the biggest dance songs in the country every week with Brian Fink on America’s Dance 30; listen on stations around the world!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ax Well. It is an absolute honor having you on
America's Dance thirty for the first time. We're going to
be chatting all about Wait So Long. Coming up. We're
going to get to no ax Well a little better
with Thinkey's first and ask you a question that you
have possibly never been asked before. Axwell, the Icon, Welcome
to America's Dance thirty for the first time.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Dance counting down the biggest dance songs in the country.
This is America's Dance thirty. It is great seeing you.
Thank you so much for your time. Congratulations on another
number one for Swedish house Mafia with Wait So Long.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thank you guys, Thank you for the support. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Now I can't wait to talk about how this smash
was born. But first let's get to know ax Well
a little better with Thinky's First.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So, I always love finding out the origin story of artists.
I know that you got into music at a really
young age as a kid. But when you were growing up,
was music the first thing that you wanted to get
into or was there something else you wanted to be.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
No, I think like it was the regular thing like
becoming a firefighter, maybe a police, maybe a pilot. Then
farming was really high up in my interest. You know.
It was like, I don't know, we lived in the
countryside and I just loved the sort of the machinery
side of the things, so that was that was one thing.
(01:45):
But then yeah, we moved away from the countryside, so
I had to scrap that, and then it had to
be music.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So what scraped the firefighter idea?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, the firefighter idea, I don't know what happened there.
That just faded away.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Now, the name Axwell is obviously very close to your
real name. I read that when you were coming up
with the name. It was actually a take on some
nicknames as a kid.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, so like I have friend and you know, like
you know how friends work on each other's names, like
just like saying different versions of your name, and so
it was like ax so Axela and Uxlam and Axwell
house x meister Mac. You know, it was like all
these things, and I was like, let's just just let's
(02:31):
settle with Axwell. Then you know it's kind of closed
and sounds okay.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Now, when you were trying to decide on the artists,
project name was axwell your first choice or were the
other names you were considering?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
So I've had many weird names in the past. Quaysar
was when I was like, oh Quasar, you know, that's
like a cool name. Then O Excel has been one name.
Funk puppy, really bad name.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I'm glad you said it.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
My whole gunny people star beach Mambana has been a
name that's been with me. Also, jet Lag an Axer. Yeah,
so there's plenty o there if you want to look
around for different names.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And were you just using them as all different pseudonyms.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, Because like when I started to make music, that
was a thing, like you were releasing records with different labels,
so like one record goes there, one record goes there,
and they all had sort of the rights to that name,
so you had to come up with new names every time.
But it's kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
It's gotta be tough keeping up with them though.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
More Also, like a band named me and Steve together
we called Supermode and we released one song.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
And what an iconic song that was.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, but it's kind of like that was the culture
back then, just like boom Let's just we were inspired
obviously by that punk and their record music sounds better
with you under the name Stardust, right, And there was
so many of the French like using different names for
different records, so we were inspired by that.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I think now along the same lines, I know the
name Swedish House Mafia. The lore is that it came
from fans named you guys that when you guys were
trying to decide on an artist project name for it
was Swedish House Mafia the first choice.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Now we didn't even think about that name, but it
was a sort of an angry person online at a
forum was complaining on when we were djaying together or something.
It was like, Ah, who do they think they are?
They like they're the worst? Do they think they are
like the Swedish House Mafia or something like, Yes, that's exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So have you guys ever met that person in real life?
Maybe we have, but we're probably don't. From one day
right now, you guys just recently did a massive show
at Arthur ash Stadium in New York. You've got an
incredible show coming up at a huge stadium in Sweden,
which tickets just went on sale for. But do you
(05:08):
remember the first time playing for a crowd.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, well I do remember my first show,
which was some other DJ canceled in Italy and I
was called up by somebody said yeah, can you do it.
I'm like, I'll figure something out. So I borrowed vinyl
records from somebody put some in my bag when they
(05:33):
were super excited. You know, I haven't been on planes
much back then, so I was flying from south of
Sweden to Italy, meeting up with an Italian there drove
me to a city a couple of hours away. We
couldn't really speak because English wasn't the native language in
Italy at the time. And yeah, I came there out
(05:56):
in the stick somewhere, ready to go, super nervous, and yeah,
the power went out, so it was so but the
canceled show is still a show. So that was my
first show. But I think in general, my first couple
of shows were super shaky because I was very nervous,
(06:17):
and back then, playing vinyl, you can't really be nervous
because you have to put the needle on the record
super delicate otherwise, like so I was like holding the
needle with two hands like this, trying to put without
scratching it was like super difficult sweating and it was
(06:38):
not great the first couple of times, but I kind
of learned along the way. I didn't like I didn't
have time to bedroom DJ. I just had to go
out and get it.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And I totally get that. One of my first times hosting,
you know, holding the microphone and my hand was like this,
I was holding it with two hands.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Now side note, being an amazing solo DJ and being
a part of an iconic trio, is it weird doing
a show by yourself and then having to hop into
the mode of doing it with all three of you guys.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
No, it's fun to do different things like we've done
it so many times, so it's not weird. It's just
different modes, which I like. I like to switch between those.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Gotcha. Now, you've been in the scene for a long
time with some iconic songs that have made people fall
in love with DM. But do you remember the first
dance song that made you fall in love with DM?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I do. It was well, I don't know if it
was called EDM back then, but it was. I was
listening on the radio and heard you Don't Know Me
with armand Van Helden and I was like, what's going
on with the music here? It's like disco, but also
there's something going on with like the music songs different,
(08:03):
Like I didn't know what it was. It was obviously
filtering and effects and stuff. I was it was just
like this new wave of I guess the French house music.
But yeah, that was that song that really got me interested.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And it's such an iconic song. Now finally in Finkey's first.
You know, as I mentioned, you've done some iconic shows.
I was actually in the crowd for the Swedish House
Mafia retirement show at Ultra with like seventy five thousand
people there. What is the first thing you notice about
a crowd when you step out on.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Stage their facial expression.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
You actually lock in on that.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, you can see sort of the front row what
their facial expression is. It's like if they're smiling, if
they're excited, you know, and that's like quite reassuring when
they are.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
So for everybody that's going to be at an actual
show or Swedish House Mafia show first row, make sure
you're when they step out. I mean it helps, you know, absolutely.
Let's talk about this smash. How was wait so long?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Born you know what it was as with us always
A long time ago, I was in France listen driving
a rental car, listen on the radio. It was a
radio station there that played this song. I was like,
what the hell like this old song Wait So Long.
I was like, wow, this is so good. I just
(09:30):
wished I could hear I could loop sections of it
more and skip b other sections. I just wanted to
hear this section like in this world more like our world,
like house music world. So basically I was like, wow,
this has to be done somehow, and I reached out
to plan B who is the singer, asked for the parts,
(09:53):
and then obviously I didn't do anything, but it was
always in the back of my mind like, someday this
song will, you know, enter our dance music world. Somehow
I need to make it happen. So yeah, it was there.
A couple of years passed and this spring was working
(10:13):
on another song and I didn't feel like the vocal
was really so amazing, so I was like, well, maybe
now's the time to try with you Wait so Long vocal,
and it was like give me goosebumps, and I was like, okay,
this when this happens it has to happen, you know,
when you get that feeling, amazing feeling when you put
(10:34):
a vocal on top of something for the first time,
you get this new ah, these vibes of you know,
something you haven't heard before. And then I was like, okay, boom,
here we go. And then we started to work on
it together, me and the guys, and finished it off
and phoned up Planned Being and said, hey, you remember
(10:54):
stems for like five years ago. Yeah, we're good now,
so let's go.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
And was Plan B's reaction because obviously that's a whole
other world.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
He's definitely moved on obviously and done other things. But yeah,
I just felt like this song never really got the
recognition it deserved back in the day. So I just
felt like, listen, bro, we want to bring this out
in the world with us and you one more time.
And I think he was happy, And yeah, I think
(11:26):
he liked the result, That's what he said, at least hopefully.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
I mean, it turned out an absolute smash. Now. Something
I love to find out about songs is how many
different versions there are from when you start working on
it all the tweaking to when you finally mastered and
put it out. Do you remember what the final V
was of Wait So Long?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, you know what, this one wasn't so bad.
Actually most of the time there's a lot of versions,
but we didn't go in so many different directions on
this one, to be honest. There was like a pretty
clear version demo wise, and we kind of stuck to
it till the end. But obviously with all mixing and
(12:06):
you know, tweaking and that, I would say probably thirty
versions maybe.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Not too bad. Now with the three of you, is
there a lot of back and forth trying to decide
what changes to make in songs?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, for sure, because there's all of a sudden, like
there's six years listening, so we hear different things, we
listen to different things, and we try to you know,
be aligned and listen to the same things at the
same time. But yeah, in the end, I think that
we all respects each other's opinions, so it all works
(12:46):
out in the end, you know the best. Like we
take everybody's opinions and we put it into the song
and we move it forward eventually.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Well, congratulations on this song going number one. Congratulations on
everything going on for you guys right now. Thank you
absolutely now before I let you go, I asked chat
ept to give me a question that Axwell has never
been asked before. So I gotta test this out, all right,
all right, if for some reason you had to completely
(13:15):
clear a dance floor, what song would you play? I
wouldn't play.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
On really loud volume. It will eventually clear that Dan definitely.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Axwell. Thank you so much for your time with us
on America's Dance thirty. Thank you, thank you, thank you
for having me answer counting down the biggest dance songs
in the country America's Dance thirty
Ax Well. It is an absolute honor having you on
America's Dance thirty for the first time. We're going to
be chatting all about Wait So Long. Coming up. We're
going to get to no ax Well a little better
with Thinkey's first and ask you a question that you
have possibly never been asked before. Axwell, the Icon, Welcome
to America's Dance thirty for the first time.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Dance counting down the biggest dance songs in the country.
This is America's Dance thirty. It is great seeing you.
Thank you so much for your time. Congratulations on another
number one for Swedish house Mafia with Wait So Long.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thank you guys, Thank you for the support. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Now I can't wait to talk about how this smash
was born. But first let's get to know ax Well
a little better with Thinky's First.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So, I always love finding out the origin story of artists.
I know that you got into music at a really
young age as a kid. But when you were growing up,
was music the first thing that you wanted to get
into or was there something else you wanted to be.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
No, I think like it was the regular thing like
becoming a firefighter, maybe a police, maybe a pilot. Then
farming was really high up in my interest. You know.
It was like, I don't know, we lived in the
countryside and I just loved the sort of the machinery
side of the things, so that was that was one thing.
(01:45):
But then yeah, we moved away from the countryside, so
I had to scrap that, and then it had to
be music.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So what scraped the firefighter idea?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, the firefighter idea, I don't know what happened there.
That just faded away.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Now, the name Axwell is obviously very close to your
real name. I read that when you were coming up
with the name. It was actually a take on some
nicknames as a kid.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, so like I have friend and you know, like
you know how friends work on each other's names, like
just like saying different versions of your name, and so
it was like ax so Axela and Uxlam and Axwell
house x meister Mac. You know, it was like all
these things, and I was like, let's just just let's
(02:31):
settle with Axwell. Then you know it's kind of closed
and sounds okay.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Now, when you were trying to decide on the artists,
project name was axwell your first choice or were the
other names you were considering?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
So I've had many weird names in the past. Quaysar
was when I was like, oh Quasar, you know, that's
like a cool name. Then O Excel has been one name.
Funk puppy, really bad name.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I'm glad you said it.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
My whole gunny people star beach Mambana has been a
name that's been with me. Also, jet Lag an Axer. Yeah,
so there's plenty o there if you want to look
around for different names.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And were you just using them as all different pseudonyms.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, Because like when I started to make music, that
was a thing, like you were releasing records with different labels,
so like one record goes there, one record goes there,
and they all had sort of the rights to that name,
so you had to come up with new names every time.
But it's kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
It's gotta be tough keeping up with them though.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
More Also, like a band named me and Steve together
we called Supermode and we released one song.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
And what an iconic song that was.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, but it's kind of like that was the culture
back then, just like boom Let's just we were inspired
obviously by that punk and their record music sounds better
with you under the name Stardust, right, And there was
so many of the French like using different names for
different records, so we were inspired by that.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
I think now along the same lines, I know the
name Swedish House Mafia. The lore is that it came
from fans named you guys that when you guys were
trying to decide on an artist project name for it
was Swedish House Mafia the first choice.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Now we didn't even think about that name, but it
was a sort of an angry person online at a
forum was complaining on when we were djaying together or something.
It was like, Ah, who do they think they are?
They like they're the worst? Do they think they are
like the Swedish House Mafia or something like, Yes, that's exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So have you guys ever met that person in real life?
Maybe we have, but we're probably don't. From one day
right now, you guys just recently did a massive show
at Arthur ash Stadium in New York. You've got an
incredible show coming up at a huge stadium in Sweden,
which tickets just went on sale for. But do you
(05:08):
remember the first time playing for a crowd.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, well I do remember my first show,
which was some other DJ canceled in Italy and I
was called up by somebody said yeah, can you do it.
I'm like, I'll figure something out. So I borrowed vinyl
records from somebody put some in my bag when they
(05:33):
were super excited. You know, I haven't been on planes
much back then, so I was flying from south of
Sweden to Italy, meeting up with an Italian there drove
me to a city a couple of hours away. We
couldn't really speak because English wasn't the native language in
Italy at the time. And yeah, I came there out
(05:56):
in the stick somewhere, ready to go, super nervous, and yeah,
the power went out, so it was so but the
canceled show is still a show. So that was my
first show. But I think in general, my first couple
of shows were super shaky because I was very nervous,
(06:17):
and back then, playing vinyl, you can't really be nervous
because you have to put the needle on the record
super delicate otherwise, like so I was like holding the
needle with two hands like this, trying to put without
scratching it was like super difficult sweating and it was
(06:38):
not great the first couple of times, but I kind
of learned along the way. I didn't like I didn't
have time to bedroom DJ. I just had to go
out and get it.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And I totally get that. One of my first times hosting,
you know, holding the microphone and my hand was like this,
I was holding it with two hands.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Now side note, being an amazing solo DJ and being
a part of an iconic trio, is it weird doing
a show by yourself and then having to hop into
the mode of doing it with all three of you guys.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
No, it's fun to do different things like we've done
it so many times, so it's not weird. It's just
different modes, which I like. I like to switch between those.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Gotcha. Now, you've been in the scene for a long
time with some iconic songs that have made people fall
in love with DM. But do you remember the first
dance song that made you fall in love with DM?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I do. It was well, I don't know if it
was called EDM back then, but it was. I was
listening on the radio and heard you Don't Know Me
with armand Van Helden and I was like, what's going
on with the music here? It's like disco, but also
there's something going on with like the music songs different,
(08:03):
Like I didn't know what it was. It was obviously
filtering and effects and stuff. I was it was just
like this new wave of I guess the French house music.
But yeah, that was that song that really got me interested.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
And it's such an iconic song. Now finally in Finkey's first.
You know, as I mentioned, you've done some iconic shows.
I was actually in the crowd for the Swedish House
Mafia retirement show at Ultra with like seventy five thousand
people there. What is the first thing you notice about
a crowd when you step out on.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Stage their facial expression.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
You actually lock in on that.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, you can see sort of the front row what
their facial expression is. It's like if they're smiling, if
they're excited, you know, and that's like quite reassuring when
they are.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
So for everybody that's going to be at an actual
show or Swedish House Mafia show first row, make sure
you're when they step out. I mean it helps, you know, absolutely.
Let's talk about this smash. How was wait so long?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Born you know what it was as with us always
A long time ago, I was in France listen driving
a rental car, listen on the radio. It was a
radio station there that played this song. I was like,
what the hell like this old song Wait So Long.
I was like, wow, this is so good. I just
(09:30):
wished I could hear I could loop sections of it
more and skip b other sections. I just wanted to
hear this section like in this world more like our world,
like house music world. So basically I was like, wow,
this has to be done somehow, and I reached out
to plan B who is the singer, asked for the parts,
(09:53):
and then obviously I didn't do anything, but it was
always in the back of my mind like, someday this
song will, you know, enter our dance music world. Somehow
I need to make it happen. So yeah, it was there.
A couple of years passed and this spring was working
(10:13):
on another song and I didn't feel like the vocal
was really so amazing, so I was like, well, maybe
now's the time to try with you Wait so Long vocal,
and it was like give me goosebumps, and I was like, okay,
this when this happens it has to happen, you know,
when you get that feeling, amazing feeling when you put
(10:34):
a vocal on top of something for the first time,
you get this new ah, these vibes of you know,
something you haven't heard before. And then I was like, okay, boom,
here we go. And then we started to work on
it together, me and the guys, and finished it off
and phoned up Planned Being and said, hey, you remember
(10:54):
stems for like five years ago. Yeah, we're good now,
so let's go.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
And was Plan B's reaction because obviously that's a whole
other world.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
He's definitely moved on obviously and done other things. But yeah,
I just felt like this song never really got the
recognition it deserved back in the day. So I just
felt like, listen, bro, we want to bring this out
in the world with us and you one more time.
And I think he was happy, And yeah, I think
(11:26):
he liked the result, That's what he said, at least hopefully.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
I mean, it turned out an absolute smash. Now. Something
I love to find out about songs is how many
different versions there are from when you start working on
it all the tweaking to when you finally mastered and
put it out. Do you remember what the final V
was of Wait So Long?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, you know what, this one wasn't so bad.
Actually most of the time there's a lot of versions,
but we didn't go in so many different directions on
this one, to be honest. There was like a pretty
clear version demo wise, and we kind of stuck to
it till the end. But obviously with all mixing and
(12:06):
you know, tweaking and that, I would say probably thirty
versions maybe.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Not too bad. Now with the three of you, is
there a lot of back and forth trying to decide
what changes to make in songs?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, for sure, because there's all of a sudden, like
there's six years listening, so we hear different things, we
listen to different things, and we try to you know,
be aligned and listen to the same things at the
same time. But yeah, in the end, I think that
we all respects each other's opinions, so it all works
(12:46):
out in the end, you know the best. Like we
take everybody's opinions and we put it into the song
and we move it forward eventually.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Well, congratulations on this song going number one. Congratulations on
everything going on for you guys right now. Thank you
absolutely now before I let you go, I asked chat
ept to give me a question that Axwell has never
been asked before. So I gotta test this out, all right,
all right, if for some reason you had to completely
(13:15):
clear a dance floor, what song would you play? I
wouldn't play.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
On really loud volume. It will eventually clear that Dan definitely.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Axwell. Thank you so much for your time with us
on America's Dance thirty. Thank you, thank you, thank you
for having me answer counting down the biggest dance songs
in the country America's Dance thirty
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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