We recently sat down with one of the living legends of Dance music for a chat.
When you hear the name Hardwell, what’s the first thought that comes to your mind? ‘Spaceman‘? Ultra Miami? Electro House? Whatever you think of, though, theIt’s incredible that artists like you, as big as you, still have problems clearing samples. It’s a whole world.
You don’t want to push that, you know? I’m not really a sample kind of guy. 80% of my songs are original songs that I wrote myself. But sometimes it’s super cool if you have an idea and you love a track so much, why not sample it? And introduce a completely new crowd and… you know, my fans are so much younger! They don’t know that song from 2001. They were probably born after 2001. Sometimes it’s really cool to sample something and introduce a new generation to a record that I loved when I was younger. It makes me feel old when I say this kind of stuff. [laughter]
Haha! Well, how’s the reception been on the track? How does the crowd react to it? Is it kind of a highlight moment in your sets?
Definitely, yeah. Especially at Ultra, when you play the new, new music.
That no one knows.
No, that’s always the most anticipated moment. People know that I’m always dropping a lot of unreleased stuff. I think that’s the coolest thing when you see a DJ live. I think the best part of my job is to introduce and educate people about new music, instead of playing out the hit songs. It’s super easy for me to go on stage and bang out my ‘Every Time We Touch’ remix which everybody loves, and that’s fine. I can play out Spaceman, which everybody loves. But in the end, I think it’s always cooler to play the new stuff and the unreleased stuff, and educate them with new sounds and new directions of music.
And it gets you excited as well, because if you play Spaceman every single time for 10, 15 years…
But I have to, though, I have to. You get what I’m saying.
Another topic, the sample pack you released a little while ago with Apple. Well, that’s absolutely neat! What inspired you to share a piece of your sound, your textures, even your identity with other producers, new producers and everything?
Well, even with Revealed, my record label, I always try to help out new talents, guide them, do the A&R. I’ve been working with Logic, which is a digital audio workstation (DAW) from Apple, since I was 18, so I’ve always been with Apple. And when they approached me and asked if we could do something together like a sample pack, I had just finished the album REBELS NEVER DIE, I was like, “You know what? I can take inspiration from all of those kick drums and from the album itself and finally release that“. Because I got so many questions about the kick drums, about how I programmed the basslines and everything. I mean, first of all, if Apple approached you to do a collaboration, you can’t say no. [laughter]
Absolutely.
And secondly, it’s a perfect collaboration to be able to finally put out a sample pack in this way. I don’t ask for any money. It’s a free sample pack, I don’t want to be that guy, “Follow me on YouTube, buy my sample packs!”, I don’t care. If you really want to help people out you should do it for free.
The last question to close this. Do you hope you can keep inspiring and shaping the sound of EDM like you’ve been doing for the last decade or so, or do you feel like it’s time to leave that to someone else?
Hardwell: No pressure. Good question. No pressure. [laughter] No, I always try. I love Dance music so much. I need Dance music more than my own oxygen, I’m not even kidding! I always try to push every single boundary in Dance music. I want to keep it interesting for myself and for the crowd. Obviously, everybody follows, kind of, trends. Even after the REBELS NEVER DIE album, I took a lot of inspiration from my childhood, from the Dance music from back when Tiësto was coming up in 2001. 99 even. Around that time. It’s always like a cycle of music. I just try to make my version out of it, and I’m glad to see that so many people got inspired by that. I’ll always try to look out for new genres, new ideas. If somebody gets really bored real quick, that’s me. So when I’m in the studio, I always try to do something different.
It’s incredible that artists like you, as big as you, still have problems clearing samples. It’s a whole world.
You don’t want to push that, you know? I’m not really a sample kind of guy. 80% of my songs are original songs that I wrote myself. But sometimes it’s super cool if you have an idea and you love a track so much, why not sample it? And introduce a completely new crowd and… you know, my fans are so much younger! They don’t know that song from 2001. They were probably born after 2001. Sometimes it’s really cool to sample something and introduce a new generation to a record that I loved when I was younger. It makes me feel old when I say this kind of stuff. [laughter]
Haha! Well, how’s the reception been on the track? How does the crowd react to it? Is it kind of a highlight moment in your sets?
Definitely, yeah. Especially at Ultra, when you play the new, new music.
That no one knows.
No, that’s always the most anticipated moment. People know that I’m always dropping a lot of unreleased stuff. I think that’s the coolest thing when you see a DJ live. I think the best part of my job is to introduce and educate people about new music, instead of playing out the hit songs. It’s super easy for me to go on stage and bang out my ‘Every Time We Touch’ remix which everybody loves, and that’s fine. I can play out Spaceman, which everybody loves. But in the end, I think it’s always cooler to play the new stuff and the unreleased stuff, and educate them with new sounds and new directions of music.
And it gets you excited as well, because if you play Spaceman every single time for 10, 15 years…
But I have to, though, I have to. You get what I’m saying.
Another topic, the sample pack you released a little while ago with Apple. Well, that’s absolutely neat! What inspired you to share a piece of your sound, your textures, even your identity with other producers, new producers and everything?
Well, even with Revealed, my record label, I always try to help out new talents, guide them, do the A&R. I’ve been working with Logic, which is a digital audio workstation (DAW) from Apple, since I was 18, so I’ve always been with Apple. And when they approached me and asked if we could do something together like a sample pack, I had just finished the album REBELS NEVER DIE, I was like, “You know what? I can take inspiration from all of those kick drums and from the album itself and finally release that“. Because I got so many questions about the kick drums, about how I programmed the basslines and everything. I mean, first of all, if Apple approached you to do a collaboration, you can’t say no. [laughter]
Absolutely.
And secondly, it’s a perfect collaboration to be able to finally put out a sample pack in this way. I don’t ask for any money. It’s a free sample pack, I don’t want to be that guy, “Follow me on YouTube, buy my sample packs!”, I don’t care. If you really want to help people out you should do it for free.
The last question to close this. Do you hope you can keep inspiring and shaping the sound of EDM like you’ve been doing for the last decade or so, or do you feel like it’s time to leave that to someone else?
Hardwell: No pressure. Good question. No pressure. [laughter] No, I always try. I love Dance music so much. I need Dance music more than my own oxygen, I’m not even kidding! I always try to push every single boundary in Dance music. I want to keep it interesting for myself and for the crowd. Obviously, everybody follows, kind of, trends. Even after the REBELS NEVER DIE album, I took a lot of inspiration from my childhood, from the Dance music from back when Tiësto was coming up in 2001. 99 even. Around that time. It’s always like a cycle of music. I just try to make my version out of it, and I’m glad to see that so many people got inspired by that. I’ll always try to look out for new genres, new ideas. If somebody gets really bored real quick, that’s me. So when I’m in the studio, I always try to do something different.
