Love Letter to a Record: Jordie Ireland on Avicii’s ‘True’

January 30, 2023

Music Feeds’ Love Letter to a Record series asks artists to reflect on their relationship with the music they love and share stories about how it has influenced their lives. Here, Sydney producer Jordie Ireland reflects on the impact of Avicii’s debut album, True (2013).

Jordie Ireland is a guitar-oriented producer based in Sydney. Ireland’s debut EP, Stages of a Heartbreak, came out in November 2022 via Avoca Drive/Sony Music Australia. The five-song release features collaborations with Norway-via-London alt-pop artist bby ivy (on the single ‘Crying at this Party’) and LA singer-songwriter david hugo (on ‘Bad Days’), as well as Cam Robertson and Dasha.

Jordie Ireland’s Love Letter to Avicii’s True

Jordie Ireland: Dear True by Avicii; I struggle to come up with words to express the way that I truly feel about you, but to sum it up, thank you.

I remember hearing you for the first time back in 2013 but didn’t know you would change my life forever until a few years later. I remember listening to you, front to back, thousands of times in my teenage years, dissecting every sound, every instrument and spending countless late nights trying to recreate you. I would never come close, but it inspired me to take music more seriously and turn music from a passion into a career.

I remember hearing you live for the first time, and this was one of the closest things I’ve ever had to a religious experience. I remember playing you during my first trip to Los Angeles whenever I needed inspiration or motivation when times were tough. Avicii became an inspiration for me and I remember thinking, “I want to be able to achieve just an ounce of what he was able to in his career.”

You continue to inspire the way I write music in the studio. The way you make people feel every word, every memory and every moment still inspires me everyday. You motivated me to not only work on my production skills but also to become the songwriter I am today. Without you, my career in the music industry may not even exist.

I just released my first EP, Stages Of A Heartbreak, worldwide with Sony. It’s the first body of work that I have put out and during its creation, I constantly referred back to you to see if I could achieve anything close to what you did for me when I first listened to you.

So, thank you. Thank you for existing and thank you for being an expression of your composer’s emotions and art. Oh and also, I hope you don’t mind, but I got a tattoo of you to remind me of the way you impacted my life and career. It also helps to keep me grounded and remind me why I do what I do. Thank you True – I love you.