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Axwell & Ingrosso manager responds to split

By | Published on Monday 21 September 2015

Axwell /\ Ingrosso

Artist manager Amy Thomson has “reluctantly” responded to the news last week that she is parting company with Axwell & Ingrosso, ending a long-term business partnership with the duo that began, of course, with the EDM phenomenon that was Swedish House Mafia. In a lengthy note to Billboard, Thomson said she felt the need to respond because of all the online speculation that has followed last week’s announcement.

Looking back at her twelve years working with the three Swedish House Mafia guys, she says that: “Whilst the business around house music – since someone named it EDM in order to bottle it and sell it more – has grown up, and become more official, and the entourages have grown, and the shows have got bigger, and I played my part in all of that, good and bad. At the very heart of it, we were just four people, loving every single second of what we did, and using music to scream out all of our frustrations with life and we went on one hell of a crazy ride”.

On the Mafia venture, she adds: “We didn’t book Madison Square Garden that first time around to try and look big, we just wanted to see where we could put a rave that had never been done before – throw the greatest parties on the planet, and ride a wave we already felt turning. We would book venues and then wonder what show we could afford to build, blundering around the world of pyro and LED like kids in a candy shop. It was an incredible time”.

Thomson insists that she and all three Swedish House Mafia guys remain on good terms, even if it took a while to get over the hype and heights of that venture, and the rumours and speculation that followed when the project was retired. “When [Axwell & Ingrosso] headlined Ultra this year, and subsequently closed Coachella, that moment came. We got over it. We started to smile again and have fun with everything, the gossip had stopped, an identity of our own had begun, reunion tweets were dying down and the first question in every interview wasn’t ‘when is SHM getting back together'”.

She then explains that: “In the summer of this year, it was clear to all of us this chapter was done. People need to understand, there is no contract or job title that covers the friendship we have, and it would be wrong for any of us to cling to a structure where we don’t feel challenged, creative, at our best. I’m 40 years old now, I live in LA, my eyes are so wide open as to all of my own dreams and the guys have their dreams, and for once, we just hugged it out and agreed we should go our separate ways”.

Concluding, she writes: “For me, it’s time to shift my focus, and for them it’s time to have a fresh set of eyes on their incredible music and shows … [so] it’s time to move on now. It’s mutual and for anyone who wants a story beyond that, I wish you the best of luck making it up”.

Which sounds like a fun challenge to me. You can send in your made-up split theories on a postcard. Meanwhile read Thomson’s own correspondence in full here.



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