On the evening of the inaugural show of Hardwell’s first ever Ibiza residency, I sat down with one of the world's biggest DJs for a quick chat moments before he was to take to the Ushuaia stage.
I’d obviously done my research on the Dutchman prior to our meeting and I had an idea about his background and what he was about, but I didn’t know what to expect from our talk.
My music taste lies firmly in the underground – whether it’s the sound of jacking ‘90s deep house or the kind of dark raw techno you hear in Berghain, the music I love is miles apart from EDM and the music Hardwell makes.
This thought left me wondering if it might be difficult to connect with an artist like Hardwell, though once he met me in the Ushuaia green room, shook my hand and sat down with a beer to chat with me I found him to be a hugely likeable guy who cares about what he does.
Whilst his music might not be to my taste, prejudices were swept aside and the Dutchman explained to me about his very early introduction to dance music, his Ibiza experience and his surprising listening habits.
I just wanted to start with your first experiences of Ibiza and how it all started for you here? Well, atually, as a young kid I always dreamed about Ibiza, you know? It’s known as paradise for dance music in general so when I started DJing it was always a dream for me to perform in Ibiza.
In 2010 I got invited by Tiesto to play with him at Privilege and that was actually my first Ibiza experience and from that point I actually started touring in Ibiza and played basically all the clubs on the island.
So I think the next natural step was to do my own residency here and Ushuaia asked me to do my own night, of course I just said yes. It’s one of the best clubs on the island, so I’m really honoured to be doing my first ever residency.
Obviously you have your first residency – what was it about Ushuaia that made it the right venue? Yeah, there’s so many good clubs on the island. Personally, Ushuaia is my favourite. Just because when you’re on a summer vacation, the sun is shining and you’re on the beach – you want the best party experience you can imagine and to be at a pool party and just to be outside is great. It ends at midnight, just before the real nightlife starts in Ibiza, and it’s a great warm-up.
It’s the perfect club – technically it has the best sound system on the island, the visuals are stunning and it looks absolutely amazing.
What can we expect from your sets over the season? Well, this is one of the few gigs where I actually play for 3 hours. Normally when you’re booked at a festival you play for like an hour and a half or two hours in a club. So yeah I’m going to play 3 hours, everything is improvised so I just want to read the crowd and just give them the best experience possible man.
I think that’s the kind of image of Ibiza – all of the DJs take people on a journey here. They’re on vacation and you don’t know what to expect. You just go with the flow and see where it ends.
Just going back to what you were saying earlier about Tiesto inviting you here – I know he was one of the first DJs you got, into so what was that like? Yeah that was definitely a big deal for me, definitely. He’s always been a huge role model for me in every single way. To be invited by him, besides it being a really big honour it was one of the biggest nights you could perform in Ibiza.
We got in touch by email because he was really into my productions and we were emailing back and forth – I emailed one of my new songs and he really fell in love and he was like ‘I really want you to be one of my performers at my Ibiza residency’. That’s the first time I got to the island! In a very good way as well because I played the biggest club at that time, Privilege.
You were very young when this was all happening – How did you get into producing at such a young age? Well, I started playing piano when I was four years old and I was always into music. I think I was 10 years old when I discovered dance music. It really got me, the synthesisers and the way they tweaked the sounds and it was so different from the stuff they played on the radio at the time.
I wanted to make the music as well, so I was searching on the internet about how the synthesisers worked and downloaded the cracked version of Fruity Loops, and I was just messing around with different sounds. I did that for two years and when I was 14 years old I signed my first record deal.
So young! Also, because dance music is so important in the club environment, but you were too young to experience it on the dance floor – how did that effect things? I had no club experiences at that time because I was 12 so I was just listening to other people’s productions. I was buying CDs and luckily I had Tiesto’s record store in Breda so I bought all my vinyl there.
I was just listening to all the big club bangers and I was just trying to re-do the synths and put my own twist on it.
I know you’ve said you prefer it to be all about the music. With some of the big EDM shows there’s a lot of production and loads of visuals – how do you get the balance right? I’m okay with it – when I play a big show everybody is used to it and everybody wants me to be a part of that show, everybody wants me to perform on a stage like that with all the fireworks and the visuals,
I’m okay with that. But when I do my own shows I always prefer it to be all about the music. If they shut down the stage and every single light I think people will still have a good time because it’s all about the music.
I think you can tell by the guys who I have invited as guests at Ushuaia, they’re all good friends of mine. These are guys I really trust and look up to music wise. I think that’s really important when it comes to creating a proper club night here in Ibiza.
It’s not about every single DJ, every single hour banging out the big records, it’s about the whole night. That’s why I always say it’s more about the music than the whole production on the stage.
EDM comes under a lot of fire from a lot of people, particularly underground artists – are there any underground house and techno artists that you listen to that people might not expect you to? I’m a big lover of dance music in general and in every single way. If I listen to music myself, when it comes to dance music I always listen to deep house, tech house and techno, like always. I never listen to like EDM or whatever people call it nowadays, you know, the big room sound.
I listen to guys like Solomun, every deep house thing, there are so many good deep house DJs these days. Even Franky Rizardo, who is playing at my night, he is one of my best friends, but the radio show he is doing with Flow, I think it’s great. I also love Eric Prydz’s sets, which are totally different from my sound, but I love the way he plays and his productions. I listen to all kinds of different stuff in dance music.
In the future would you see the sound of your productions moving towards something different? Yeah, definitely, that’s what happens, and over the past few years as well. As a producer when I’m in the studio I never want to get stuck in one certain sound. I always try to come up with something new.
I think over the years your sound is always developing especially right now as I am working on my debut album. There’s super poppy tracks, but also super underground tracks that you would never expect from Hardwell and everything in between. When I DJ as Hardwell I have to play to the crowd – people expect something from me. I always play that certain sound.
It’s not the direction I’m aiming for, but I think when I’m working on the album, I have the feeling I can work on my diversity and I can produce whatever I want and the music I like. I like pop songs, but I also like more underground songs. As long as it’s good music and I believe in good music, it will be on my album. A lot of people will be surprised by the album. I’m aiming to finish it after the summer as obviously the summer is really busy!