Jonas Erik Altberg (born
December 22,
1984, in
Halmstad,
Sweden), better known by the
pseudonym Basshunter, is a
Swedish musician and
DJ. Basshunter describes his own music as
Eurodance, while others may also interpret it as
eurotrance,
club, and other electronic music genres. Basshunter is managed by former Warner Music A&R agent Henrik Uhlman, and is represented in the United States by
Mayar Zokaei.
He has become famous for his songs "Boten Anna" and "Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA", in part owing to their references to geek culture.
Biography
Jonas Erik Altberg was born on
22 December 1984 in
Halmstad,
Sweden. He lived with his parents and younger brother near Tylösand, a famous Swedish beach. He started to produce music under the
stage name "Basshunter" in 1999 with the computer program
Fruity Loops (Now: FL Studio), and released his first album,
The Bassmachine, through his own
home page in 2004. His interest in music became greater as he progressed. After several demo songs spread over the internet, he started to get phone calls from dance clubs that wanted to hire him as a
DJ. In April 2006, he signed his first contract with
Warner Music, releasing his first single, "
Boten Anna". In Scandinavia, the song became a hit instantly and was the first ever
Swedish language song to reach number one on the
Dutch Top 40 Chart. His
major label debut album,
LOL <(^^,)> would chart all over Europe and launch him into the forefront of dance music. When Basshunter reached 50,000 friends on
MySpace, he celebrated by releasing "Beer in the Bar - Myspace Edit" and chatting via
webcam with fans]. In 2007, Altberg released a re-recording of "
Boten Anna", titled "
Now You're Gone", featuring entirely rewritten lyrics to appeal to a foreign market. The song subsequently charted at number one on the
UK Singles Chart, and stayed there for 5 weeks.
Throughout 2007, Basshunter has been working on a new album, titled Now You're Gone: The Album, after the leading single, was released on 14 July 2008. He has also released a small clip of "Camilla", while the song "I Can Walk On Water, I Can Fly" leaked unintentionally. After a planned release, "Please Don't Go", another single, was cancelled in an email to subscribers of the Hard2Beat newsletter. The single release was instead switched to "All I Ever Wanted", an English re-recording of "Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA", in the vein of "Now You're Gone". Within the single newsletter, it was also revealed that the next album was indeed "on its way", along with the single, and that the album would be English reworkings of classic Basshunter songs.
The third single to be released in the UK will be "Angel in the Night" and not "Please Don't Go", which many fans speculated would be released instead.
When interviewed by Mirror.co.uk, Basshunter stated he would like to do a collaboration with Madonna as well as Robbie Williams stating their legends.
Personal life
Altberg has been diagnosed with
Tourette syndrome.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Remixes
References
External links
