Hardwell

Pseudonym

Hardwell's pseudonym comes from an idea of his father, who translated his surname into Latin and English. "Cor" means "heart" and "Put" means "well". However, he changed the "heart" to "hard".

Musical beginnings

Hardwell was born in 1988 in Breda and began to orient himself on music in early years. At the age of 4 he took piano lessons for the first time and received a training at a music school Already at the age of twelve, he produced his first own songs in the field of electro while he originally was active as a hip-hop-DJ. Through his participation in various competitions, he became a big name in Breda’s DJ-scene and had the chance to prove his abilities. One of his idols was the DJ and producer Tiësto, who also came from Breda, and made the jump into the upper EDM-scene in a similar way.

Through the change of hip-hop to an underground scene, Hardwell decided to change his genres to commercial electronic dance music. He started producing remixes and uploaded them on several platforms on the Internet. At the age of 14 Dutch producer duo Klubbheads listened to him and offered him a record deal with "Digidance". Three weeks later he made a first official release with the 2-disc-record "Bubbling Beats 1", whereupon he toured through the Netherlands and increased his performances to appearances in well-known clubs. His first official single "Play It Around" came out in 2006, and became a big hit in German clubs. The single featured a combination of different musical genres, which were popular at that point of time as well as his own style.

2007-2010: Musical breakthrough and "Revealed Recordings"

At the end of 2007 he released the song "Never Knew Love". He produced it as a collaboration with Greatski and reached a placement in the official German single-charts for the first time. Remixes for Gregor Salto’s and Chuckie’s "Toys Are" together with Dutch DJ and producer R3hab as well as a mix of "You Do not Love Me" Sidney Samson and Skitzofrenix in 2008 responsible for national fame and were decisive to stay at the top of the dance charts for weeks. Also in 2008 he produced a mash up of the tracks "Be" by Steve Angello and Laidback Luke and "Show Me Love" by Robin S.. He published the bootleg with the title "Show Be Love". It developed a big success; in that case it was played by many different popular DJs and received positive resonance by Laidback Luke and Steve Angello. In December 2008 the two producers decided to release the track as an official cover version of "Show Me Love". A new remix by Hardwell was contained on the single.

In 2009, Tiësto contacted him by email and told that he was a big fan of his music and invited him to one of his performances. At this one they performed together on the stage and Hardwell finally built up a large national fan base in the Netherlands. Hardwell's success developed through gigs on media events such as the "Dancevalley Festival", who’s official anthem was produced by him under the title of "Twilight Zone".

In 2010 Hardwell founded his own record label "Revealed Recordings". His intention was to be able to influence the development of the electronic dance music and to form a platform for young talents. He also wanted to gain international recognition with the establishment. He was able to find recurring EDM-artists such as the duo W&W as well as his personal friends Dannic and Dyro. Together they build the Revealed Family. As a label owner, Hardwell has a great influence on the company's artistic direction and decides on the releases. Since the label was founded, an annual compilation called "Hardwell Presents Revealed" gets released, in which he presents special tracks of his label together with his own new songs. On the website of the label, a vote was delivered for the five-year anniversary, with the possibility to vote for everybody’s favourite title of the last few years until 20 May 2015. The best 100 were released on a sampler. The top three consists of Hardwell's "Spaceman", KSHMR and DallasK's "Burn", and "Left Behind" by Paris Blohm & Taylr Renee.

2011-2012: "Hardwell on Air" & "Spaceman"

In 2011, he signed another record deal with the German record label "Kontor Records", where artists like Blasterjaxx, DVBBS and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike are under contract as well. Through this, his publications reached a higher reach and far more support all over the world. In March 2011 Hardwell started to present his own podcast "Hardwell On Air". This is a one-hour selection of songs by different artists. The podcast has developed into an internet success and is now broadcast by numerous renowned radio stations like Slam! In the Netherlands as well as Sirius XM in the United States worldwide and shows hundreds of thousands listeners.

In the same year, the desire to work with Tiësto was fulfilled. After numerous studio work, the track "Zero 76" was finished. The telephone prefix "076" of their hometown Breda was decisive for the title. They also appeared at the Tomorrowland festival in Belgium in 2014. On YouTube their "b2b"-set has been watched by millions of people in a short period of time. With the successor single "Cobra" he reached the Dutch single charts for the first time in five years. The track was used as an anthem for the festival "Trance Energy 2011" and reached position 1 of the Beatport charts. "Encoded" followed with a similar success and was used as the introsong for his podcast.

In 2011, Hardwell was ranked first in the "Top 100 DJs" category by DJ Mag and climbed to # 24 as the second-tallest newcomer behind Skrillex. At the International Dance Music Awards 2012, he also won the Best Break-Through DJ award. The he could go against Alesso, Ørjan Nilsen, and Dada Life.

On 31 July 2012, the track "Spaceman", which became one of his greatest successes, and sold over half a million times in the US, was released. It was called one of the biggest club hits in 2012 and got played on a high number of festivals. Also it gets titled as the mother of Big room house. A vocal version with Mitch Crown brought him another placement in his homeland. In the following years, several remixes of the song were published, as well as a mash-up with a Hardwell-produced hardstyle remix of Blasterjaxx and W&W’s "Rocket", which he used for numerous sets as an outro song. The Mash-Up received very positive criticism and was viewed several hundred thousand times on the internet.

On the basis of his success, the organizers of important music festivals drew their attention to him, this made him being the headliner of Creamfields, Electric Zoo Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, Ultra Music Festival and Nature One. Another highlight of his career was his performance at Tomorrowland 2012. The related video counts up several tens of millions of clicks. His set was named as one of the best of the year. In the fall of 2012 Hardwell reached the sixth place in the ranking list DJ Mag Top 100.

2013: Opening of the "I Am Hardwell Tour" & "Best DJ of the World"

On 29 January 2013, Hardwell started a bus tour through Canada, together with his DJ colleagues and best friends Dannic and Dyro. This was done in connection with "Revealed-Recordings" and gave the trio the name "Dutch-House-Mafia". Dyro and Dannic also accompanied Hardwell on his North America tour in summer 2013. The single "Apollo", released on 1 February 2013, was another great success and reached the charts of many European countries, including Austria, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The singer of the song is Amba Shepherd.

Shortly after "Apollo", the song "Never Say Goodbye" was released. It represents a similar style and developed into another club hit. The song was recorded with his good friend Dyro and the American singer Heather Bright a.k.a. Bright Lights. In April 2013, he launched his first worldwide tour entitled "I Am Hardwell." In parallel he took over the Mainstage at the Ultra Music Festival and hit his Tomorrowland Liveset from last year from the first place of the most viewed live-DJ-sets with over 80,000 viewers.

In the summer of 2013 he also appeared as headliner at Tomorrowland. Later in the summer, the single "Jumper" appeared in collaboration with the DJ duo W&W. It represents the biggest club-hit of the whole year together with Martin Garrix’ "Animals" and DVBBS' "Tsunami". Hardwell also adapted his style of the growing big-room house fan base with "Countdown", with which he reached the German single-charts once again. With the American singer Matthew Koma, he released the track "Dare You" at the end of 2013, which followed the success of "Apollo".

In the fall of 2013, he was voted as the best DJ by the votes of the DJ Mag. With an age of 25 to that point of time he became the youngest DJ which reached that title.

2014: Documentary & works on the debut album

In January 2014 he published the documentary "I Am Hardwell", which tells the story of his career. For this documentary he was accompanied by the director Robin Piree for two and a half years. His life’s motto is "If you can dream it, you can do it", because as a 16-year-old he dreamed of being the best DJ in the world. In parallel the soundtrack to the film appearedas well. In this his biggest successes were presented. Tourdates were planned for the start of 2015.

Since the shootings for the movies started, Hardwell has been working on his first studio album, preferring his home-studio to the professional studios in Los Angeles. He named the home atmosphere as the most important reason.

As the first result of his work the track "Eclipse", which opened each of his Livesets since November 2013 came up. Among fans, the ID track received the unofficial title "Titan", with the demands for its publication a running gag among his fans came up. In an interview with DJ Magazine, Hardwell promised to release his album in 2014. Many tracks from the new album were introduced by Hardwell at the Ultra Music Festival 2014 as well as the Tomorrowland Festival.

After a first collab came out, Hardwell the possibility to work with Tiësto again arose. With his set "Hardwell & Tiësto b2b" at Tomorrowland 2014 they presented one of the weekend’s highlight. It was announced during the festival itself as a big supprise. One track that was played, was a new collab and featured Matthew Koma’s vocals. Hardwell then devoted himself to completing his album.

In September 2014 the release of his studio album was postponed to the beginning of 2015. A world tour was announced for the time after the release date. At the same time, the third official single release came out of the album. It is titled "Young Again" and contains vocals from British singer Chris Jones. The song was produced similar to "Dare You", not basing on big-room style, but basing on a melodious progressive house-drop. Like it happened to "Dare You", the single missed the entry to the German single-charts, despite high downloads chart placements.

In November 2014, Hardwell presented the long-awaited single "Don’t Stop the Madness" with W&W and American rapper Fatman Scoop as the third single release of his album.

In December 2014 Hardwell announced the official tracklist and cover of the album. Collaborations with DJs like Tiësto or Headhunterz as well as singers like Andreas Moe or Mr. Probz. Also, first previews of some of the songs, including the track "Follow Me", which was recorded in collaboration with R&B-singer Jason Derulo. At the same time, he announced his second world tour called "I Am Hardwell - United We Are" At the end of the year 2014, a minimix of the album unintentionally succeeded in the Internet and was virally distributed within minutes. In January 2015 the instrumental song "Eclipse" was released as a download single.

In the DJ-Mag placements, he held his number-one position for one more year.

2015: "United We Are"

Already prior to the release of the album, his Podcast "Hardwell On Air" celebrated the 200th episode which made new animations being introduced in the video releases. Number 201 of the podcast had the subtitle "United We Are" on it and was a pure presentation of all the tracks of his album.

On 23 January 2015 "United We Are" has been published worldwide. The single "Sally" was released one week before on 16 January 2015. It is a combination of rock music, big-room and Melbourne bounce. The track was recorded with the British singer-songwriter Harrison Shaw and is the first song of the Dutch DJ, which was able to enter the German single charts. As a "Thank you" for the massive support of his album and the celebration of two million followers on Twitter, Hardwell uploaded a video of the first two hours of the kick-off event to his new tour at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam on 24 January 2015. End of April In 2015, the single "Echo", sung by singer-songwriter Jonathan Mendelsohn, followed. Both the trance-song and the complex music video received positive criticism.

On the "Ultra Music Festival" 2015 Hardwell presented numerous other unpublished songs like "Mad World" with the singer Jake Reese, "Survivors" with Dannic & Haris, "Off the Hook" with Armin Van Buuren, as well as numerous tracks from artists who were signed to his label. In addition, there were performances on "Tomorrowland Brazil" and "Tomorrowland". Together with DJs like Dannic, Dyro, W&W, Kill the Buzz, Headhunterz and Newcomer Julian Calor, he hosted his own "Revealed" Stage, named after his label. In September 2015, there was also a performance at the TomorrowWorld festival in the USA.

In July 2015, the sixth episode of his Revealed-Presents compilation was released in parallel with "Survivors", which, similar to its predecessors, gained great success. In addition, the W&W remix of his song "Birds Fly" and his upcoming single "Chameleon" was presented for the first time. "Chameleon", a Jungle Terror collaboration with producer Wiwek followed one week later as a single. Two months later, the release of his Armin-van-Buuren-Collab "Off the Hook" followed. On the one hand, the old-school touch was praised; on the other hand, the song was also described as a very special. Just some weeks later "Mad World", which has been expected since May 2015, was released and features vocals by Jake Reese. However, the melody of Leadsound contains a melody-sample of the song "Smile with Your Eyes" by the musician Yeck Mar.

In October 2015 he lost his top position of the DJ Mags to the Belgian brothers Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike. In the course of this, a series of criticism followed. As a reason of that was mentioned, that they worked with disproportionate promos-actions.

During the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) in October 2015 Hardwell's second documentary "I Am Hardwell - Living The Dream" was premiered. Robin Piree was involved as a director. Two days later, on 13 October 2015, the film went on in cinemas. On 7 November 2015 Hardwell presented the biggest DJ-solo show in Germany. This was hold in collaboration with the "BigCityBeats World Club Dome". It was hold in Veltins Arena in front of over 40.000 visitors. The normal tickets for this concert were sold out within three days. This record was hit in November 2016 by the Belgian DJ duo Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike who also appeared at the World Club Dome in the Veltins Arena. They reached a number of 45.000 visitors.

A remix version of his studio album "United We Are" was also announced for the autumn of 2015. This one contains the original tracklist, but all songs were remixed by different artists. These were, among others, W&W, Vicetone and Frontliner. The entire tracklist was presented in episode 244 of his Hardwell on Air podcast. The release date was 4 December 2015. In parallel Armin van Buuren and him, each presented an action figure. The whole thing mainly caused moderate criticism, since the price was very high.

In addition, late in the year 2015, a rumor that the most of the songs of Martin Garrix’ upcoming album had been registered at ASCAP’s repertory. This also included his collaboration with Hardwell, named "MusicBox", which has been expected since 2014. Originally, it was supposed to appear as a 160th release of Revealed Records between April and May 2015, after the drop of the song experienced a rework. In the forum reddit, he announced in 2017 that the song will not be released.

On 13 December 2015, Hardwell organized a free concert entitled "The Biggest Guestlist" in Mumbai. With this performance, he did a world record of the same name. In addition, he donated all the proceeds of the festival as well as the ones from the fans to the Magic Bus Charity Project, which enables children from poor backgrounds to achieve better education in cooperation with the "United We Are Foundation" and "Guestlistevents in".

2016: Final "I Am Hardwell" performance & movement to the hardstyle

In December 2015 the musician announced that a collaboration with Afrojack is supposed to be released in early 2016. The song is based on the electro-house style, which the two producers represented between 2010 and 2013. In parallel premiered Hardwell, a long-anticipated track created in collaboration with the DJ Kura as well as an instrumental track called "Break the House". The song ended up as a production of Kill The Buzz, to which Hardwell will also be involved. On his 27th birthday, on 7 January 2016, Hardwell released a free track titled "Blackout", which he described as a production in his "old school" style, reflecting the style he had with "Cobra" and "Encoded". "Blackout" came very well with the fans and received already very positive feedback in advance.

On 8 January 2016, the song Perfect World by the Dutch singer Maan de Steenwinkel appeared. It was released as part of the casting show The Voice of Holland, whose sixth season she won. The title was produced by Hardwell. The song went up to 31th place in the Dutch single charts. He commented on the cooperation:

I’ve met Maan 3 weeks ago as I also followed her performances on ‘The Voice Of Holland’ from the beginning. I think she is a great talent and I know for sure that she will have a successful career in the music industry. She has my full support and I’m proud to be the producer of her first single ‘Perfect World’

"Hollywood" with Afrojack appeared on 25 January 2016 and jumped directly to # 1 on the Beatport charts. The second single of the year was the second collaboration with Jake Reese Run Wild . However, already in summer 2015 in was announced to be released in March 2016. The final release found place on 29 February 2016. Unlike "Mad World" "Run Wild" is much more electro-house-heavy, having Hardstyle-synthes on it as well. Just a month later, on 29 March 2016, Hardwell published his Kura-collaboration "Calavera". This one reached the first place on the Beatport charts again.

At the Ultra Music Festival in 2016, he premiered the final version of his long-awaited W&W collaboration. The instrumental version was already played in 2013. A first finished version was premiert in 2013 and contains vocals by Harrison. Anyway the three musicians haven’t been satisfied with that version, which led to the productions of the version with Crunk-vocals of the US rapper Lil Jon. In addition, Hardwell played his next release, "8Fifty", in collaboration with his revealed colleague Thomas Newson. However, the release was heavily criticized since Hardwell has a lot of alternative projects running, which accord to higher potential. These include "Live the Night", "MusicBox" or "What We Need". In addition, a collaboration with Craig David, who appeared live on stage, the second production with Blasterjaxx "Going Crazy" and a Kaaze-Collab produced with a progressive-house-style celebrated their premiere.

On 20 May 2016, his remix of The Chainsmokers’ and Daya’s "Don't Let Me Down", produced in collaboration with Sephyx, was released as a remix-single. This can be classified without any doubt into the Hardstyle-genre and is, according to his "Rocket"/ "Spaceman"-mash-up and "Nothing Can Hold Us Down" his third production in that genre.

On 24 June 2016 Hardwell published the seventh part of his "Hardwell-presents-Revealed" compilations. In the course of this release appeared also the studio versions of his solo hardstyle debut "Wake Up Call" and the title "Going Crazy", which is also here as Mash-Up with "Apollo". "Wake Up Call" continued to be released on 3 August 2016 as a free download. On 29 August 2016, he finally released "Going Crazy", his second collaboration with Blasterjaxx on Beatport.

The collaboration with Craig David, called No Holding Back, which was premiered at Ultra-Music Festival, was released on 19 August 2016. This single was particularly appreciated by critics, as it was the first time since his collaboration with Funkerman on United We Are, the he proves his skills in deeper sounds. Especially elements of the UK Garage and Deep House sound were used. On the other hand, the criticism of the fans of his usual big-room style was rather low. In his final concert of his tour, just one week later the fans waited in vain for a guest appearance by Craig David and the title remained utterly unplayed. Not even the much more aggressive remix of Henry Fong took place in one of his sets, which caused a lot of confusion.

In his performance at the BigCityBeats World Club Dome, Hardwell announced that his last show of the "I Am Hardwell - United We Are" world tour would be taking place on 27 August, at Hockenheimring in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Together with Big City Beats, the largest lighting installation in Germany was planned to be created. In this case a roof of light, above the Hockenheimring was supposed to be erected. In addition, the light show and the design of the Mainstage were described as breathtaking. As warm-up acts, Funkerman, Kill The Buzz and Dannic were playing from 5:00 to 08:30 pm. Hardwell played in contrast to his other shows, 3½, instead of 2 hours. As guests, he brought singer Haris on stage for his upcoming single "What We Need" as well as hardstyle DJ Atmozfears for their long-awaited collaboration. In spite of temperatures of more than 35 °C, free water was renounced, which is one of the few criticisms.

On 13 October 2016 the short-term single "Thinking About You" was released together with singer Jay Sean. This single also contained features of the Pop-music, as well as influences of Future and Commercial House. On the other hand, the song was high on the download charts and the radio program. Hardwell finally produced a festival remix together with Revealed colleague Kaaze at the end of October 2016, with which he covered the Progressive House section. Hardwell's "Get Down" together with W&W hit a few weeks later on Hardwell on Air. He was already playing that track since March 2016, where UMF was hold and was supposed to be the announced collaboration with Yellow Claw for a long time.

In the DJ-Mag placements, Hardwell fell one more time and landed third. In addition, Martin Garrix reached the top, with which he got the rank as the youngest number one. While Hardwell was 25 years at the time of reaching place-one, Garrix was 20. In the course of the controversy surrounding this year's DJ Mag awards, he held a statement at his ADE-performance on 21 October 2016. In this one he challenged the guidelines of the rankings. He explained with the example of Atmozfears that production talent would not matter, since Atmozfears would be way more talented in the studio without any placing on DJ-Mag. Dannic would have a better talent behind the DJ desk and dropped drown in the DJ Mag.

After it was called the long-awaited collaboration with Atmozfears, Hardstyle's newcomer Dr. Phunk announced a remix EP, around his "Apollo"-remix. In addition to this he mixed the songs "Run Wild" and "Nothing Can Hold Us Down". The EP appeared on 9 December 2016. With the release, he announced a collaboration and a second EP. For this he took "Young Again" among a few other tracks.

On 12 December 2016 he released the song "Baldadig", which was produced in collaboration with the DJ Quintino. This was received by the fans a far more positive than "Get Down". A mash-up with the song "Temperature" by Sean Paul was very popular. Shortly thereafter, a reworked version of the song "Crank" from Jewelz & Sparks appeared on "Revealed Recordings". There he first operated with the pseudonym "HWL".

Spring 2017: Reformation of the label & UMF-performance

In Laidback Luke’s Mixmash podcast of 1 January 2017, the studio version of Hardwell's second collaboration with "Revealed" member Kura was premiered on 1 January 2017. Earlier in 2016, the track was called "You ain’t Ready", and was featured in Kura's radio show, consisted only of bridge and drop. By the end, the track was renamed to "Police". The song represents a crossover of the genres reggae, big-room, hardstyle and trap.

On 2 January 2017, Hardwell released the song "Break the House", which he produced together with Kill The Buzz in December 2015. This is the first publication in the new "Revealed" design. Due to his 29th birthday on 7 January 2017, he released the song "Party till the Daylight" as a birthday gift for free. He entered the bass house genre for the first time with that track. This was deceiving, as people were speculating if Hardwell was really the man behind the track since the premiere in June 2016. He also announced that the 300th episode of his "Hardwell-on-Air" on 20 January 2017 would be a very special episode. Guest appearances were done by Blasterjaxx, Wiwek, Jay Hardway, Don Diablo Suyano and Kill The Buzz. In addition, Dr. Phunk was an interview partner.

From 2 to 3 February 2017 Hardwell made a reworked version of the song "Spaceman" available for a free download. This was due to the 5 year anniversary. The new cersion included vocals by singer Heather Bright. The common version already appeared as a free-track from Bright Light's site in 2015. Hardwell said that he organized a contest for the best vocal version of the song after the instrumental version was released back in 2012. Already at that time Heather Bright sent her version and Hardwell himself chose that one as a final vocal version. The management, however, decided for Mitch Crown's "Call Me a Spaceman".

On 10 February 2017 the song "Go Down Low" by Badd Dimes was premiered in the 300th "Hardwell-on-Air" episode. Title track of the single is a remixed form of the song, done by Hardwell. In parallel, Dr. Phunk announced that their announced collaboration had been finished. In January 2017 his collaboration with producer Kaaze was finished. New vocals by Jonathan Mendelsohn were added but the release was delayed up to summer 2017.

At the Ultra Music Festival 2017 on 26 March 2017 he premiered new productions with Austin Mahone, Maddix, Moksi and Henry Fong. Critics praised his set since he decided to play a strong variation of musical styles and to present many new songs, what makes his appearance being different from others.

On 12 May 2017 Hardwell released his single "Creatures Of The Night" featuring Austin Mahone. This track did not represent his typical big-room style, but much more the, in 2017 very popular future bass style. In his home country, the song could enter the official single charts. In other European countries, "Creatures of the Night" achieved high rankings in both streaming and download portals.

Summer 2017 "Make the World Ours" & "Hardwell & Friends EP'S"

On 20 June 2017 Hardwell released the first version of the song "We Are One" on Taiwanese record label Eternal Music. This version was done for the Asian market and features vocals of Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai. As an instrumental version, the song got its premiere at the Ultra Music Festival of the previous year and was suspected to be a collaboration with Julian Calor or Armin Van Buuren. In fact, the track was just solo.

At the end of June 2017 a track by Hardwell could be heard during the so-called "Endshow" of the Saturday of the Defqon.1-Festival. The footage that was used in the video revealed the official name as "Make The World Ours". This song can be classified into the genre hardstyle and received very positive feedback. Two days later, on June 20, 2017, Hardwell published it officially on his own record label. It was speculated beforehand that the track would be released on "Q-Dance".

For summer 2017 the publication of two EPs was announced. At Ultra Europe, Hardwell premiered a collaboration with the Dutch dj duo Sick Individuals, that had been working on his record label for years. He also played the long-awaited second collaboration with Afrojack, which had previously been rumored to be an Afrojack & KIIDA production. The song was completed after Hardwell's private jet had to make an emergency landing and Afrojack took him to his plane.

In the 326th episode of his "Hardwell-on-Air" podcast, published on July 21, 2017, he announced that the first part of his "Hardwell & Friends EP" would be released on upcoming Friday. Until then, he wanted to release the songs as singles day by day. The song "We Are Legends", which developed in collaboration with Kaaze and Jonathan Mendelsohn, represented the beginning of that project on July 24, 2017. On July 25 there appeared the official "Revealed" version of his track "We Are One". This version did not include Jolin Tsai's vocals, but instead of that the voice of Alexander Tidebrink. "Police (You Ain't Ready)" with Kura followed the next day. Also named on the single, was reggae artist Anthony B, whose vocals were part of a sampled, that was used in the break. The tracks roots reach back to January 2016, where Kura already presented the first drop of the song in his podcast "Ambush Radioshow". The releasing series continued on the following day by the track "All That We Are Living For". This song developed in cooperation with Dutch hardstyle dj Atmozfears and singer M.Bronx and was already premiered a year earlier at the final "I Am Hardwell Show" at "Hockenheimring" in Germany. "Smash This Beat" ended the week. The track represents the latest production, due to its first play at Ultra Music Festival 2017 and was recorded together with newcomer dj Maddix.

In the 330th episode of his radio show, he teased the tracklist of the second part of the second volume of his "Hardwell & Friends EP". Already several days before, the cover was released and due to that every collaboration partner as well as the associated ids. "Badam", that was recorded together dj Henry Fong and vocalist Mr. Vegas, was already announced to be a part of the EP in early June 2017 in an interview at Ultra Singapore. Hardwell and Mr. Vegas came in contact by a festival promoter, while Fong and him were already in contact for years. Secondly there is a first official collaboration with Kill the Buzz, after they were already working together on the tracks "Don't Give Up" and "Break the House Down", more or less uncredited. Titled as "Still the One" the song was played earlier this year by Kill the Buzz for the first time. At that time, it was not prognosticated to be a collaboration-track, among other things, because it was never played by Hardwell. A reason for that is, that the track consist of an instrumental track, which was produced by Kill the Buzz alone and some vocals Hardwell originally recorded for a collaboration track with Max Collins. They decided to combine the tracks after noticing, they fit together. The oldest track is represented by the song "What We Need", due to its premiere at Queens Domain in early 2015. After the track was not released in summer 2016, although Hardwell and Haris confirmed it as their upcoming single when they performed it together at Hockenheimring in Germany, they didn't mention the song in a proper context and didn't perform it longer.- Haris then replied a tweet on twitter on August, 1st, in which he confirmed, that they plan "something special" with it. Beside a bass house track with Moksi, that was premiered at Ulra Music Festival 2017, called "Powermove", also the long-awaited collaboration track with Dr. Phunk is part of the ep. The song is called "Here Once Again" and was already confirmed to be released in early July 2017, but due to the releases of the eps, the release was postponed. On September 22, he released his long-awaited collaboration with KSHMR, called "Power".

Musical style

Hardwell's style can be classified in different sub genres of the electro-house music. He describes his starting style as influenced by the hip-hop underground scene. Between 2005 and 2006, he developed his style more commercially and over time his productions were increasingly based on a mix of Tech House and Dirty Dutch. Around the year 2008 his songs became slower and more commercial. In parallel, he experimented with elements from other genres. During that time, he came up already with build-ups, which were very similar to the big-room genre that had emerged years later. With the release of the Single "Feel So High" in 2009, he published a tech-house song that corresponded to the classical progressive house, which was dying out, especially at the time.

At the beginning of 2010 he joined the growing EDM genre and increased his talent in the area of production with singles like "Move It 2 The Drum" or "Asteroid". 2011 there appeared his first successful singles in the field of electro house with "Zero 76" and "Encoded". With "Spaceman", he co-founded the big-room scene in 2012 and established himself permanently in this subgenre. One year later his singles "Apollo" and "Never Say Goodbye", which gave him a place in the modern progressive house style. By 2015 his singles could only be classified in these two areas.

On his studio album "United We Are", he used a trance-characteristics of trance music for the first time for his track "Echo" as well as Deep House sounds for "Birds Fly". All in all he received very positive feedback for those productions. In addition, Chameleon followed a song in the Jungle-Terror style, which he continued with the W&W number "Get Down". For the first time since "Don’t Stop the Madness", "Hollywood" embodies a track corresponded to the Dirty-German-music in the spring of 2016 in parallel with a previously unpublished production with KURA from the section of the Trap music.

Starting from 2015, his syntheses were increasingly oriented on hardstyle samples. Already his Headhunterz collaboration "Nothing Can Hold Us Down" was created solely on hardstyle-based sounds. Also his solo productions "Run Wild" and "What We Need" contain countless features of this genre. He also presented the song "Wake Up Call" at the Biggest Guestlist Festival in Mumbai, which was initially suspected as the long-awaited collaboration with Hardstyler Atmozfears, but at long last was confirmed by Hardwell as a solo production.

Since 2016 he has not only played a hardstyle-drop as a final of his sets, but in the last "I-Am-Hardwell" show at the Hockenheimring in Germany even eight individual titles. At that show he premiered his collaboration with Atmozfears as well and it has almost not even one characteristic of his big-room style. It was also a collaboration with Hardstyle-newcomer Dr. Phunk, which was presented at the end of 2016. He drifted into the raw-style with that track. His single "No Holding Back ", represents his first movement into the UK garage. The track represents elements of the Deep and Tech House scene as well for the first time since he released his Funkerman-Collab "Where Is Here Now".

On January 7, 2017, he released the song "Party till the Daylight", a production in the Bass House style, with which Hardwell made his debut in this genre. At the Ultra Music Festival, he premiered his "Future Bass" debut with the song "Creatures of the Night”.

Equipment

By the year 2015 Hardwell still produced in his parents' house in Breda. On January 20, 2015, Hardwell first presented his current studio. It was designed by studio designer Jan Morel.

In the studio he works with a Roland A-49 MIDI Keyboard Controller White, Crane Song Avocet Remote II, and a Solid State Logic XLogic G Series Compressor. "reFX Nexus 2" is one of his favourite plugins. On 11 March 2015 he published a soundset for the synthesizer software "Sylenth1".

On his performances, Hardwell is mostly seen with Sennheiser HD 25 II headphones. According to his Technical Rider, he works with a Pioneer DJM-800 Nexus or a DJM-900 Nexus mixer. In addition, his set-up contains four interconnected Pioneer CDJ 2000s.

Personal Information

His mother Anneke and his father Cor van de Corput are active in a foundation for DJs, which tries to protect the artist from the consequences of a contract with, among other things, managers and record labels. His father also commented on Martin Garrix' differences with "Spinnin' Records": "He did not recognize that he is not the owner of his own music [...] He is the typical example of a little boy entering the world of music, dealing with specialists and at that time do not recognizing the consequences of the signing of the contract."

At a young age, he was active in various areas of Martial arts, including Judo. Furthermore, in 2016 he could have been heard as a voice actor in the animated film "The Secret Life of Pets ". There he gave his voice to the little pug Mel. It was decisive that he himself is the owner of a pug named Jäger. Since 2014 he is in a relationship with the Dutch event manager Yanicke Agnes. They met in a bar in his hometown of Breda in 2013. His annual salary is estimated at 9.5 million euros.

Discography