Avicii’s death on Friday devastated the music industry, including artists who worked with the producer, those who appreciated him from afar, and also the executives who helped him along in his career—namely Geffen Records president Neil Jacobson.
As a veteran A&R exec, Jacobson worked with Avicii on his 2011 song “Levels,” a major breakthrough in the producer’s career. Jacobson continued to work with Avicii during his following releases.
But just before Avicii passed away, the two had been talking about his forthcoming project, Variety reports.
“We were working on it and it was his best music in years, honestly. And I know because I [A&R’d] all of his albums. He was so inspired. He was so psyched. We had done a month of grinder sessions. We had to actually put end times on the sessions because Tim [Bergling, Avicii's birth name] would just work for 16 hours straight, which was his nature. You had to pull him out. Like, 'Tim, come on. Go to bed. Get some rest.' … It’s just a tragedy. We have this incredible, magical music,” Jacobson told Variety.
However, he has “no idea” what will happen to the next record. “I’m going to sit down and talk to the family once everybody has a chance to take a breath. I’ve never actually had this happen with an artist I’ve worked with before and this closely. So, I don’t know. We’ll try to get some advice from the family and everybody’s going to put their heads together and try and do what we think Tim would want us to do.”
Jacobson revealed that the album includes a “few” features, though he’d “rather not say who. Tim had a list of people he was hoping we could reach out to for this album. That was actually the last communication I had from him two days ago, and that’s haunting.”
No additional statements have been released about the cause of death.
