Alan Olav Walker (born 24 August 1997) is a British-born Norwegian DJ, YouTuber and record producer primarily known for the critically acclaimed single “Faded” (2015), which was certified platinum in 14 countries. He has also made several songs including “Sing Me to Sleep“, “Alone“, “Darkside“, and “On My Way“, all of which attracted millions of views on YouTube.

In early 2017, Walker’s channel emerged as the most subscribed YouTube channel registered in Norway, with then 41.9 million subscribers as of May 2022. He also has the most views of any Norwegian creator, with approximately 11.1 billion views as of 21 February 2022. Although many critics and fans have viewed Walker as one of the pioneers of electronic dance music, several have criticized him for hiring “ghost producers”, while some fans were divided and generated concerns over his usual departure from his typical production style, most notably in his recently released songs.

Early life

Alan Olav Walker was born on 24 August 1997 in Northampton, England, to Anglo-Scottish British Philip Alan Walker, and his Norwegian wife Hilde Omdal Walker. As a result, by his international parental inheritance, he was granted dual citizenship from both the United Kingdom and Norway.[4][5][6]

He grew up with two siblings, an elder sister named Camilla, who was also born in England; and a younger brother named Andreas, who was born in Norway. At the age of two, along with his family, he moved to Bergen.[2][7] Walker later found interest in computers, a hobby which has driven him deeper to computing graphical design, and musical programming. He initially had no musical background, but was able to teach himself by watching YouTube tutorials based on musical production.

Career

2012–2016: Career beginnings and breakthrough

In 2012, Walker was listening to a song by Italian DJ David Whistle (also known as DJ Ness) and reached out to him to find out how he produced his music. He was inspired by EDM producers K-391 and Ahrix, and by film composers like Hans Zimmer and Steve Jablonsky.[10] He started producing his music on his laptop using FL Studio. In July 2012, with the help and feedback from his fans online, he began pursuing his music production career and slowly began posting his music to YouTube and SoundCloud. Starting as a bedroom producer, he was better known as DJ Walkzz before signing a record deal and releasing his debut single in 2014.

Walker released the track “Fade” on 17 August 2014.[11] The track gained attention after its re-release via the record label NoCopyrightSounds on 19 November 2014.[12] Walker stated that the creation of the track was inspired by K-391 and Ahrix, whose tracks were also picked up by the record label. The track has over 400 million views on YouTube,[13] 115 million plays on Spotify,[14] and 41 million streams on SoundCloud.[15] The tracks “Spectre” and “Force” followed in 2015.

Walker signed with MER Musikk under Sony Music Sweden and released his next single, “Faded”, a remastered vocal version of “Fade”. It was released on 8 December 2015 and featured uncredited Naustdal pop singer Iselin Solheim.[16] The single topped the year-end charts in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, iTunes charts in 33 countries, as well as entering top 10 in Spotify Global Chart. The music video on YouTube has over 3.2 billion views and 24 million likes,[17] placing it among the top 10 most-liked YouTube videos. It has over 1.6 billion plays on Spotify,[18] and is also one of the Top 10 Most Shazamed tracks of 2016.[19] The single also received official remixes from Tiësto,[20] Dash Berlin, and Hardwell. He later released an acoustic “restrung” version of the song, with all the EDM elements taken out.
Walker quit high school in January to pursue his music career.[22] On 27 February, Walker made his performance debut at the Winter X Games in Oslo, where he performed 15 tracks including the song “Faded” together with Iselin Solheim.[23][24] By March, Walker had produced 30 to 40 songs in total, but “Faded” marks his first single with Sony Music Sweden, and the first to achieve such global success.[19] On 7 April, Walker teamed up with Zara Larsson at the Echo Awards in Germany. Together they performed each other’s songs “Faded” and “Never Forget You”.[25] Four weeks previously, he achieved the first place on NRJ Euro Hot 30 for the first time, which only has been achieved by one other Norwegian artist, Kygo.[26]

The single “Sing Me to Sleep” was released on 3 June, featuring female vocalist Iselin Solheim, the same vocalist as in “Faded”. The song topped iTunes charts in 7 countries. Its music video on YouTube has over 570 million views,[27] and it also reached 250 million plays on Spotify.[28] Another single titled “Alone” was also released on 2 December of that same year, incoperating uncredited Swedish singer Noonie Bao.[29] The music video on YouTube has over 1 billion views,[30] the track also gained over 390 million plays on Spotify.[31] The song was described as “the final piece of a trilogy consisting of ‘Faded’, ‘Sing Me To Sleep’ and ‘Alone'” by Gunnar Greeve, Walker’s manager and co-writer for the single.[32]

On 21 and 22 December, Walker held the concert “Alan Walker is Heading Home” in his hometown Bergen at USF Verftet, where he performed 16 songs and tracks together with Angelina Jordan, Marius Samuelsen, Alexandra Rotan, Yosef Wolde-Mariam, and Tove Styrke as singers.[33][34] The concert was officially live-streamed on YouTube.[35] He premiered several unreleased tracks, including a restrung version of “Sing Me to Sleep”, as well as “Heading Home”, the latter of which was first performed during his debut at Winter X Games. The song “The Spectre”, a remastered version of his earlier track “Spectre”, was also performed during the concert.

On 23 December, Walker released the video for the single “Routine”, which premiered on his concert in Bergen two days earlier and on some concerts on the “Walker Tour”. The track was made in collaboration with David Whistle. Its music video on YouTube has over 58 million views,[36] and 47 million plays on Spotify.

2017–present: Different World, World of Walker and other projects

At the beginning of 2017, Walker’s YouTube channel became the most subscribed channel registered in Norway, after passing about 4.5 million subscribers, and had the most views among Norwegian YouTubers at around 7.7 billion views as of 25 January 2020.[38][2] Between February and April, he toured around America including attending the Euphoria Festival in Texas.[39] In 2019, Alan’s music video ”Diamond Heart” received a nomination for Best Cinematography at the Berlin Music Video Awards.[40] His music video for ”Heading Home” featuring Ruben appears on the festival’s 2021 Silver Screenings selection list.[41]

On 26 November 2021, Alan Walker released his second studio album titled “World of Walker”, which consists of 15 tracks, primarily made in electropop and EDM.[42] In 2022, he announced his new Walkerverse world tour, alongside his upcoming album of the same name that will be released in two parts. The first part was released on June 17, 2022, which consists of five tracks: a remix of “Adventure Time”, originally written and produced by Philter, “Somebody Like U” with Au/Ra, “Blue” with Ina Wroldsen, and previously-released songs “The Drum” featuring uncredited vocals by Kristin Carpenter and “Hello World” with Torine.[43] The second part is scheduled for release on November 18, while one of its songs titled “Extremes” with Trevor Daniel was released on September 30.

Artistic image

Walker was originally known as “DJ Walkzz” or “Walkzz” when he started out. He ended up using his real name, Alan Walker, as his artist name after signing up with a record label. He designed his logo in 2013, a symbol consisting of intertwined letters “A” and “W” which are the initials of his name. He uses a hoodie and face mask when he performs on stage. When asked why he uses a mask during an interview with Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, he stated that “It is to keep a low profile while maintaining the mental image they have given me. I think it’s pretty cool. A little twist that makes people ask themselves questions about who really is the person behind Alan Walker.”[45] On an episode of his Unmasked series, he stated that “The mask is more of a sign and a symbol of unity and being alike each other, rather than me being different.”