WILLEM Rebergen has stormed up the Top 100 this year, illustrating perhaps that the influence of the hardstyle splinter of dance music is gaining further momentum. Naturally, the Dutchman is pretty pleased about the whole business. “I took a lot of time this year to return to myself,” he says. “Especially now that my career is skyrocketing I wanted to make sure that I knew what’s important for me. Get back to the basics and build from there. “I have already achieved so much more than I could have ever dreamed of; I could not have imagined it when this all started. So when I came to that realization that everything from this point is an extra on
tyle: Hardstyle. Least known for: Voicing Fred and George Weasley in
the Dutch version of Harry Potter. Tune of 2012: “I will let you know when the year is over.” Breakthrough DJ/producer of 2012: “Code Black.”
top, a lot of weight fell from my shoulders. I’m enjoying the ride, just doing what I am best at.”
A slew of remixes this year for the likes of Nicky Romero, Kaskade and Hardwell have upped his profile, and most certainly contributed to this additional exposure. “Doing remixes for other genres makes so much more sense than remixing stuff in your own genre,” he says. “It gave me a whole different approach in producing hardstyle and I hope the same fans will benefit from that.” Well, it certainly won’t hurt. BEN ARNOLD
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If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be? “The ability to completely disappear. That would mean ultimate freedom.” Should you play for the crowd or for yourself? “Both. I produce for myself and I play for both me, and the crowd.” What does EDM mean to you? “The rhythm of my life.” Should celebrities be DJs? “I don’t really care, everybody is equally special and should be able to do what they really want to do.” Have you ever been thrown off the decks? “No.” Are you a DJ if you don’t beat match? “Beat matching is simple, so let that be the least you can do.” Where’s the next dance music capital? “It’s bound to be somewhere on planet Earth.”
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SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA
IN June this year, the Swedish House Mafia announced they were to split. It was unexpected. So for them, 2012 signified having done what they set out to do. However you feel about their crowd-pleasing output, these three Swedes broke the US, the UK and Europe in a little over three years, a feat that few other electronic acts have achieved in the history of dance music. They collaborated with Pharrell Williams and Usher, made a clutch of platinum-selling singles and went to No.1 twice in the US dance chart. Whichever way you slice it, they took dance music to the masses. “We felt we surpassed any dreams that we had,” says Axwell. The UK was among the band’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders. So it’s heartening that the biggest moment for the band — not just for this year, but for the whole shebang — was selling out Milton Keynes Bowl this summer. Ask any of the band, and they will tell you the same. “When I watch the video for ‘Don’t You Worry Child’, the live video from Milton Keynes, I look at it and I think, ‘Did we actually fucking do that?’” says Sebastian Ingrosso. “Three DJs producing music on
our computers, this is what we do, and people actually like it? And sing along?! That’s fucking weird. It’s a blessing and something I can tell my grandkids. It was very emotional, because it was our last UK show together. There were a lot of feelings that night. Absolutely the biggest moment of Swedish House Mafia’s career, I think.” Axwell agrees. “It was insane, overwhelming,” he says. “It was like performing in front of 60,000 great friends. None of us are rock stars, but I guess that’s as close as we’re going to get. For that moment, we were.”
Each member has always maintained their own careers before and during their stint as the biggest Swedish supergroup since Abba, so it’s unlikely we shall be seeing the last of them once their world tour runs its course, winding up in Los Angeles next March. But in what guise remains to be seen… BEN ARNOLD