U
p until a few years ago, the militant kick drum barrage of hardstyle was an almost exclusively Dutch phenomenon. Mega raves in the Netherlands such as Defqon 1, Q Dance and Qlimax brought thousands together to celebrate at huge unholy churches of hard-hitting sonic
mayhem and lazer-fueled production, but beyond the Dutch borders, the sound was a minority concern — submerged by the dominant global forces of house, progressive and techno. But times are changing. In the current EDM melting pot, the hardstyle sound is crossing over and bleeding into the mainframe more than ever before, and innovative ambassadors such as 27-year-old Willem Rebergen, best known as the more menacing Headhunterz, are leading the charge.
Just study the facts. Right now, Willem is sitting pretty as the 11th most popular DJ on the planet according to our annual Top 100 DJs poll. In the past 12 months, he has remixed massive tracks from EDM megastars like Russian prodigy Zedd and US house legend Kaskade, signed a record deal with the all-powerful dance label Ultra Records and watched his monthly Hard With Style podcasts grow from strength-to-strength — all spreading his intense musical message across the globe. Is the hardstyle revolution stirring? “Maybe people think at first that hardstyle must mean it is too hard, too aggressive for them, but when they actually hear it, they realize that it’s energetic, euphoric, different… it’s something they can get down with,” remarks Willem. While Willem admits that the main heads still come
from Holland, he’s continually surprised — and pleased — by just how deep the hardstyle sounds have penetrated. “Last year I was at Tomorrowland hanging out with Zedd and Porter Robinson. I wasn’t even aware that they knew me or knew my stuff, but they said they had been listening to the podcast and getting inspired by it. Stuff like that is really cool. Even Skrillex is aware of the sound. I got to talk to him for a little while and he actually knew my stuff, which really surprised me. It says something, it shows that it is growing and spreading out.”
SMALL TOWN BOY When we catch up with Willem he has just come back from a tour of Australia, where he finished off by playing a 12,000-capacity arena in a racetrack at a huge outdoor festival. At the hardstyle megaraves in Holland, he is greeted with the fervor and fanaticism of an EDM Justin Bieber. But it all started from much humbler beginnings. “Hardstyle was kind of popular where I lived in my hometown in the local club,” he remembers. “When I
decided to make music, hardstyle was the first thing that came to mind, because I wanted to impress my friends. My goal at the time was to play as the resident DJ at the local club, so I started to make that music. I hoped one day I could play my own track and that club. That was how I started.”
Initially producing with friend Bobby van Putten as Nasty D-Tuners, Willem and Bobby took on the name Headhunterz when signing to the prestigious hardstyle label Scantraxx. Bobby soon left to focus on other genres, with Willem flying the Headhunterz flag on his own. Before long, his consistent stream of hard- hitting, party-starting scene anthems had earned him an unparalleled reputation as hardstyle’s leading production force. “At the time when I started, hardstyle had more techno influences; it was more monotonous I’d say,” he remembers. “What I did, was added a real musical edge and started to combine the sound with melodies and nice chords. I found this trick where I changed the pitch of the kick to make it follow the chord pattern. That became a really big trend within the scene and I was one of the first to do that.” Like so many Dutchmen, Willem was hugely influenced by the nation’s primary musical export of trance. “When I first started producing, I was definitely listening to a lot of trance music,” he recalls. “It was around the time when Tiësto was starting to get really big worldwide, and I just loved his melodies. It was a matter of combining that with the hard energy of hardstyle, and that is how the sound evolved. Right now, though, there are influences coming in from all sorts of places, from electro house and dubstep.”
WIDE APPROACH Listen to Willem’s monthly Hard With Style podcasts and it is abundantly clear that the Headhunterz sound is hardstyle in both name and spirit; heavy, kick-drum- led rave madness at its rawest and purest. But what also becomes apparent is the depth of sounds and influences that Willem draws on; from soaring emotive breakdowns, to dubstep influences and EDM-synth surges. Given the fanaticism and purism of certain hardstyle fans, has this wide approach always been met with approval? “Let’s say the producers are very happy with this evolutionary process,” he remarks diplomatically. “As a producer you don’t want to be imprisoned. But you do get the die-hard hardcore fanbase who aren’t so happy. Music is very much based around memory. When you hear a certain song, it reminds you of a certain period in your life or a certain experience, and people hold on to that experience and want to have the same sensations with the new music coming out,
but it’s not always possible… everything changes.” As Willem puts it, “we need to feed the memories, but also create new memories and new experiences”. To that end, he remains dedicated to mutating and evolving the hardstyle template into new forms. But while former hardstyle ambassadors Showtek have consciously distanced themselves from their origins and re-branded themselves as an EDM act, Willem is in no rush to follow suit. “They decided to say goodbye to hardstyle and not represent themselves as a hardstyle act, and find their own way somewhere between hardstyle and house. I think they are really brave for that, as they got a shit load of bad reactions on the internet. But they did, and now they are really getting popular.”
HARD WITH STYLE For the time being, Willem is keeping his sound strictly hardstyle. “For me it’s really important that things just happen naturally,” he explains. “When I am in the studio, I can’t force myself to do something different… it just doesn’t feel right. The only way to naturally produce something is to just let it come out. I am not planning to change my sound to anything. It just has to happen. I just have to surrender to what comes.” As well as his own output, Willem remains dedicated to offering a platform for the next wave of hardstyle innovators through both the Hard With Style podcasts and the label of the same name. “The key word is still hardstyle — that’s what the music is — but I really encourage the producers to do whatever they feel like doing and go wide in their influences. Like my podcasts, I start off really euphoric and end up with the really hard stuff.”
In that sense, the Headhunterz sound has a unique balance. Loyal to his roots, Willem is firmly established as the leading force within the hardstyle movement, but open-minded enough to appeal to the wider EDM masses at large. A duality which has certainly helped his growing profile in the US, and may help him achieve success on the biggest stages around — but on his own terms. “In general the US crowd that goes to those parties really want to rave; they look for energy. And hardstyle has a lot of energy to it. In the US they are more open too. In Holland, if you like hardstyle then you don’t like house, and if you like house you don’t like hardstyle. It’s not as simple as that, but that is how it is for a lot of people. “In America, I have played on stages with Feed Me, Avicii and Dash Berlin and people really seem to appreciate me, so it’s about taking that to the next level.”
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