INDUSTRY REPORT # 41 | CATCHING UP WITH SWEDISH EGIL

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INDUSTRY REPORT # 41

Catching up with SWEDISH EGIL

September 2nd, 2025 by Traci Turner

There are not many stations that inspire the nostalgia and devotion quite like the early days of KROQ-FM. Jed the Fish, Freddy Snakeskin, Richard Blade, Rodney Bingenheimer, Dusty Street, Poorman, April Whitney, and Swedish Egil were our rebel buddies, playing the music other stations wouldn’t.

The radio business changed, but through the amazing technology that was one of the causes of said change, we can still hear many of our favorite voices whenever we want.

Swedish Egil (“Eagle”) Aalvik began his career as a club DJ in Scandinavia and Europe, then headed to our shores in the ‘80s. He landed at KROQ, and with his unmistakable voice, helped break some of the biggest alternative artists – Nirvana, UB40, Red Hot Chili Peppers included.

His love of new music moved him to the iconic MARS-FM in the ‘90s (until it shut down because the radio business hates to see us listeners happy), then as founder of Groove Radio.

There he shared his love of club and techno artists like, KMFDM, The Prodigy, Orbital, Moby, and The Chemical Brothers.

Today, Swedish Egil is still sharing the newest dance tracks on GROOVERADIO.COM and performing live at top club events.

Plus, he joins other beloved KROQ voices Richard Blade and Doug “Sluggo” Roberts on SiriusXM’s 1st Wave as one of the on-air personalities.

Now, imagine what kind of music collection someone like Egil would have. Then imagine what it would be like to own a piece of it. If I can be cliché for a sec: You no longer have to imagine it! It can all be yours! Over two weekends in September, Swedish Egil is selling off more than 20,000 albums from his collection.

More. Than. Twenty. Thousand.

Only one man could explain – Mr. Swedish Egil himself.

Traci: You and I passed each other like ships in the night at KROQ. I arrived as an intern after you left for MARS. How long were you at KROQ?

Egil: From ‘82 to ‘91 at KROQ and then I got an opportunity to start at MARS-FM with Freddy Snakeskin. Freddy Snakeskin was the program director at KROQ, and he hired me and we had a good relationship throughout my entire time there.

He continued: Then, other program directors came in and took his place and eventually he was gone, but we kept up our relationship. The previous owner of KROQ, Ken Roberts, started MARS-FM with Freddy, and Freddy hired me as the music director, and I was doing middays, and it was great.

Traci: I loved MARS so much and I was so sad when it went away.

Egil: Yeah, that was way too premature. If you look at where house music and techno music is today, it was way too premature to take it away. [After owner] Ken Roberts flipped it from MARS to JAZZ FM, every three months, when the ratings book would come out, I would call him up and go, “Hey, Mr. Roberts. The rating’s better before – doing MARS – or better now?”

(Chuckling) After four years, he finally gave it back to me. He wanted Poorman to be part of it, so Poorman was a morning guy. Then we did the Groove Radio 103.1. Yeah, it was amazing.

Traci: I loved that one, too. Once again, ahead of its time! The Orb, Orbital, The Prodigy, I mean, some of those Groove Radio artists are still putting out fantastic stuff.

Egil: Yes.

Traci: Through all of these eras, you have gathered a massive record collection and now you are selling most of it. Why?

Egil: Well, I wanted to fix up my house. I had floor to ceiling shelves everywhere, in the bedroom, in the living room, in the hallway, and it was just too much. From about 2000, when CDs became really good, I stopped playing vinyl. In order to play exclusive music, which was more important back then than it is today, because now it’s so easy to get a hold of music, but back then, we would make acetates of hard to find music or really unique stuff or unique remixes. I switched to CDs and have been on CDs ever since. There were so many more advantages from a DJing point of view, I thought, to DJ CDs. I never looked back. I was never a purist that had to play vinyl.

Egil went on: So, I had carpeting and I wanted to put in proper floors. In order to put in the floors, I had to take down the shelves and I put all the records in boxes. All of a sudden, I had too many boxes! (chuckling) It just filled up the garage. It was just ridiculous. My friend Paul Oakenfold took down his entire record collection, and I went to the first day of his sale when he had this big drop. He probably had about 10,000 records.

He continued: I went to The Record Parlour in Hollywood and as it turns out, the two owners, Chadwick (Hemus) and Chris (Honetschlaeger) were fans of mine and had been listening at KROQ and MARS and Groove Radio and 1st Wave. So we became friends right away and they suggested, “Why don’t you try to sell your records through us?” and I saw that Paul had a great experience. They came and picked up all the records and took them over to the store.

Traci: Is there a difference on the weekends?

Egil: On the 13th, we’re going to have the big drop. That’s when everything is dropping. On the 13th, it’s more of the ‘80s music, and then on the 20th, it’s going to be more of the electronic music.

Traci: Are items going to be regular “for sale” or auction or both?

Egil: Both. Mostly selling and they are doing little teaser sales. They do auctions every Monday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific.

Traci: What is the strangest or the rarest album?

Egil: That’s a tough question because I’ve been flipping through so many records! One that’s really close to my heart is Freur – who later became Underworld – and “Doot-Doot.”

Traci: The chokehold that song had on me back in the day and trying to find a recording of it!

Egil: I found an extended six-minute mix of that song. I was just so happy to find that! Then a lot of Chemical Brothers, a lot of the music that you were talking about, Orbital and The Orb. I ended up with a lot of signed records. The signed records were some of the ones that were the closest to my heart. Left Field, Daft Punk, Madness, Toni Basil, Inspiral Carpets, DEVO, Tiësto, Armin Van Buren. We became good friends. Roni Size, when I was playing drum and bass. A lot of good ones.

Traci: I know you have a lot of Depeche Mode in there, and if that’s a hassle, I’ll get those from you now…

Egil: (laughing) Yeah, that’s what everybody is saying! Depeche Mode is certainly one of the popular ones.

Traci: How many records are you keeping at home for yourself?

Egil: I’m keeping about a thousand, I think, maybe 1,500. So quite a bit. I had taken down my turntables and I set them up in my living room. I did that first because when I started out as a DJ in the late ‘60s in Sweden, I was playing seven-inch little singles. I have a lot of singles, and throughout the ‘80s, I collected singles and also from the ‘70s. I have a bunch of those still. They’re in boxes, but my goal is to eventually take them out one day and be able to spin them. I was never like a turntable-ist or anything like that, so they’d be like just playing them like I did back in the day, but I would do that for the fun of it.

Traci: I know you’re on SiriusXM 1st Wave now, but what else are you doing?

Egil: Well, Groove Radio 24/7. We’ve been doing Groove Radio since 1992, right after MARS-FM. The specialty shows that I do on Groove Radio are Groove Radio International – which also airs on Insomniac Radio One every Tuesday at 11 p.m. PT. I do something called the Top 5 Grooves, which is also a podcast. But we add five new songs to the Groove Radio playlist every week.

He continued: I introduce those five songs in a podcast and then I do something called the bonus mix, which is Groove Radio International, a one-hour show featuring my mix. But because I love to DJ and I get so much music and I want to keep up practicing or maintaining a skill, I do an hour and a half mix, a 90-minute mix. I take that 90-minute mix and it’s not really hosted. I just have jingles and IDs on it saying what it is. But then we play that mix, too.

Traci: You were always at the forefront of new music, so I’m glad you’re still there, sharing those artists. Plus I get to enjoy you on SiriusXM 1st Wave, which my college kid listens to as well.

Egil: Wow, that’s amazing.

Traci: I enjoy seeing the younger generations liking that music. Hopefully your albums will be in their hands soon! Is it just vinyl?

Egil: There are CDs, too, so there’s a total of 25,000 vinyl and CDs. I’m going to be in the store at The Record Parlour in Hollywood on two Saturdays; September the 13th, when the first drop is, then for the electronic dance music drop on September the 20th, a bunch of my DJ friends are coming down to DJ, do like maybe a half hour set live in the store.

Traci: Well that sounds like all kinds of cool.

Egil: Yeah… See, the thing is, my record collection was sitting here for so many years that I didn’t touch the vinyl for many different reasons. They were unorganized, didn’t really have time to organize them, some of them were high up on the shelves, so it was difficult to get down. The record collection was just sitting there. But every once in a while, I would go and look for something and find it, then go, “Oh, my God!”

Egil went on: I have a good friend of mine, the engineer that helped me put up Groove right here in our house, Terry Bradshaw. He really treasures vinyl, and he has super special equipment; he’s an audiophile and has a special turntable. He really takes care of the records; he is somebody who really treasures it. My biggest hope is that the collection will go to people who will be able to treasure the collection. So another generation, or other people can have these records and look at them. Many of them have stickers on them, BPM stickers, and even stickers that when I would leave a record for the music director at KROQ, I would put a sticker on it that said, “Return to Egil’s locker.” So some of these records still have those stickers on. And I hope that somebody will be able to enjoy that and go, “Man, that’s cool.”

If you are in the LA area, stop by The Record Parlour and check out Swedish Egil’s record collection.

The big sale takes place September 13th-15th and 20th-22nd, so go grab yourself a cool piece of music history!

TO FOLLOW

GROOVE RADIO

SID 250902 | JIMMY ALVAREZ | EDITOR