Ahead of receiving the prestigious Polar Music Prize, legendary musician and producer Nile Rodgers discusses his royal run-ins, working with Avicii and his unmissable signature style
Next week, in the presence of the Swedish royal family, legendary musician and producer Nile Rodgers will claim the prestigious Polar Music Prize. Founded by ABBA manager Stig Anderson, the award, which typically honours one contemporary musician and one classical musician (the classical recipient is Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen), celebrates “significant achievements in music” and comes with a cool one million Swedish krona prize. Rodger’s initial reaction to hearing he was one of this year’s laureates? “It was such a shock to me,” he says, smiling that megawatt smile via Zoom.
The ceremony won’t mark the first time Rodgers, a prolific producer (he’s behind hits for Madonna, David Bowie, Diana Ross and Daft Punk), guitar legend and co-founder of the band Chic, crosses paths with King Carl XVI Gustaf. That was some years ago, when Rodgers took the stage with Chic at a benefit concert in Stockholm. “I looked out in the audience and someone told me, ‘That’s the king of Sweden’,” says Rodgers. “And he was playing air guitar.” Rodgers is quite certain that the song that got the King grooving was ‘Good Times’.
Photo: Getty
Rodgers hails from New York but his ties to Sweden run deep. At the height of Chic’s success in the late 1970s, the band was signed to Atlantic Records. The other big dance group signed to Atlantic at that time? ABBA (though Rodgers reminds me that Chic’s ‘le freak’ remains the best-selling single in the history of the label, outselling even ‘Dancing Queen’). “If you think of the effect [ABBA] had on the world and the effect their music was having on America – we were there at that exact same moment,” says Rodgers. Despite this, he only met the members of ABBA in recent years, developing a fast friendship with Björn Ulvaeus. Rodgers was even treated to a private showing of the avatar-fronted ABBA Voyage in London.
If you think of the effect [ABBA] had on the world and the effect their music was having on America – we were there at that exact same moment.
Nile Rodgers
Though Rodgers was in the studio with Swedish super producer Max Martin (and Coldplay) just a week or two before we chat, perhaps his most memorable Swedish collab was with the late Tim Bergling, better known as Avicii. Rodgers and Bergling first met backstage at the latter’s show at Radio City in New York (Rodgers had felt a good energy from the audience and requested an intro). Bergling was suitably flabbergasted. “He flips out, he’s blown away, like, ‘What are you doing back here?’,” Rodgers recalls. “And I just said, ‘I came to meet you because I love your music. I just wanted to feel your vibe’. We became, in that short period of time, almost like brothers.”
The most indelible result of their friendship was the 2014 track ‘Lay Me Down’ (written by Bergling, Rodgers, Adam Lambert and Ash Pournouri, the song has amassed 50 million some odd streams). But as Rodgers describes, that was just the tip of the iceberg – and he’s not just referring to their backlog of unreleased music. “What we did doesn’t reflect the depth of our relationship, because the public only knows hit records,” says Rodgers. “They don’t know the times you go out for dinner, the times you spend talking to each other, the times you spend just being together as friends, not necessarily making music.”
While the Polar Prize celebrates Rodgers’ musical endeavours, another thing worth celebrating is his singular sense of style. When I ask him about its genesis, he quotes an unnamed jazz musician: “Before they hear you, they see you.” It’s something he heard as a kid and it’s stayed with him from the time his mother and stepfather would dress him “like an adult” (suits, ties, ascots) to today. He stands up so I can take in his outfit in its entirety: white, distressed cargo trousers and a simple white t-shirt, paired with pearls, that signature hat and chunky Chanel sunglasses (he’s been an ambassador for the French house since 2022).
Photo: Getty
Photo: Getty
Anyone who’s had the pleasure of attending a Chic concert (the King included) knows the band looks almost as good as they sound. It’s an aesthetic born of an unlikely mashup of inspirations, the biggest being Roxy Music. Rodgers first saw the English band with his at-the-time girlfriend in London and was blown away by their couture looks (not to mention, the turned-out aesthetics of their audience). “It was a completely immersive experience in music – I had never experienced that before,” he says. “And I said, ‘Let’s do the Black version of that’.”
The second inspiration: Kiss. It wasn’t their iconic stage makeup that struck Rodgers, but rather the notion of anonymity – once Chic stepped off stage and into their street clothes, they were unrecognisable. Meanwhile, on stage, the band wore more-is-more looks by Fendi, Norma Kamali and Karl Lagerfeld, often shopping in the women’s section. “No Black artists were doing that,” he says. “It was a new thing.” Today, the immersive experience pioneered by Roxy Music and Chic permeates all genres of music, most notably in the visual, multi-look worldwide tours of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift.
Photo: Getty
We’ll have to wait and see what Rodgers wears to accept his Polar Prize. As for where he’ll keep it? That’s also TBD – he isn’t the sort of guy that stores all of his awards and gold records in one room (it would have to be a pretty big room; in addition to all his music industry decorations, he’s also collected awards for composing video game and commercial soundtracks). “I went to Michael Bolton’s house, or Quincy Jones’ house, and I always felt weird because they always have a million awards in one place,” he says. “And I’m like, ‘Dude, I know you’re Michael Bolton’.” Instead, Rodgers scatters his awards around… around his five homes, that is.