Personal Touch

10 April 2012 | 7:14 am | Cyclone Wehner

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The Swedish tech-house DJ/producer Adrian Lux, born Prinz Adrian Johannes Hynne, has a secret past - as a model. “It's actually a lot of hard work modelling,” he of the sharp cheekbones maintains. “I never did it that much. It seems like a very easy job – but you can be really good at modelling and I don't think I was [laughs]. So, for me, choosing music wasn't a very hard decision.” Hynne didn't need to deprive himself of food – “I'm, like, super skinny” – or work out for clients such as the Swedish department store Nordiska Kompaniet. It was “just posing for hours” that bored him.

The Stockholm native was already DJing in high school, favouring hip hop and reggae. He'd make the inevitable move into producing with early singles like Strawberry (accompanied by the very bloggable Rapclash Remix with Rye Rye). Hynne's big break came in 2010 with Teenage Crime, featuring the vocalist (and Sebastian Ingrosso protégée) Linnéa Martinsson, aka Lune, issued on Axwell's Axtone Records. It was a mega hit here in Australia, clocking up platinum sales and voted #6 in the triple j Hottest 100. Along the way, Hynne remixed Britney Spears' Hold It Against Me, though, according to him, his most recognised tweaking is that of Pnau's Solid Ground.

In fact, Hynne was seemingly destined to pursue the creative arts, with both his parents in the field, his mum a fashion photographer and filmmaker and dad an old punk rocker. “We share a lot of musical taste,” Hynne, who plays guitar, says of the latter. “He's very talented and so it's always good to ask him about stuff.”

Hynne has just released his eponymous debut album through the US label Ultra Records. “It's a personal album. I tried to make it not just a bunch of singles but actually as an album and something that will be maybe nice to listen to. I'm very happy with how it sounds now. I worked mainly with friends, as I always did – like with Teenage Crime, Linnéa was singing, she's a friend of mine. I have some guest artists as well. But, overall, it's a personal album.” The album takes in his recent hits Teenage Crime, Boy (with his girlfriend Rebecca Scheja's outfit Rebecca & Fiona), Alive, Fire and Burning.

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Sweden has again emerged as a hotspot for dance and pop music with acts as diverse as Avicii and the electro-pop Niki & The Dove, finalists in the BBC Sound Of 2012. Robyn has even covered Teenage Crime (check it on YouTube). Hynne nominates as his favourite DJ Swede Eric Prydz, who, alas, limits his touring due to aviophobia. (“It's kinda fucked,” he admits.) And Hynne does feel part of a movement – and something distinctly Scandinavian. “There's sort of like a melancholy in Swedish music that kinda comes back all the time with Swedish artists – 'cause I think it's a thing that we're good at.” Outside of club music, he listens to “a lot of indie, pop, rock, kinda stuff... It can be chill or ambient music or maybe like some Tegan & Sara or The Naked & Famous.”

Hynne is returning to Australia to join the Groovin' The Moo festival road train. “There will be a lot of new tracks. I will make this set very personal, just [play] things I like or a lot of friends' stuff and a lot of my own kinda beats and, of course, a lot from the album. I'm working on that right now, making a really good show, so that will be nice to play.”