What makes EDM such a unique category of music is how many sub-genres are linked back to the overall sound. Whether it be progressive, electro, trance, or trap, the list definitely doesn’t stop. But with each category comes a list of producers and DJs who are often classified into those categories and make those specific sounds from when they start to when they end. With restrictions around every corner, Willem van Hanegem and Wardt van der Harst also known as W&W, see no restrictions and infuse all the genres they know and love.
Coming together back in 2007, the rest has become history and the duo that is W&W have become worldwide superstars. Sitting in at the #14 spot on the DJ Mag Top 100 List for 2013, the duo continues its climb to the top and its continued pursuit of making the best music around. Last week, WhiteRaverRafting was lucky enough to sit down with the dutch duo and talk about music, life, and everything in between. Check out the interview below and enjoy learning a little bit more about W&W!
WRR: First off, welcome back to Miami guys…what is it like to be back at Miami Music Week? You play on Saturday
W&W: We just love the vibe down here it really is amazing. You can just be walking down and the street and you get to see all of your colleagues you don’t get to see that often. It is like seeing the entire family for one big get together once a year. We are here to have fun, play our music, and just hang out!
WRR: Last year you guys were playing on the ASOT stage this year you will be playing on the mainstage, do you find yourself preparing in a different way considering the change of stages?
W&W: For us it’s the other way around, when we play the A State Of Trance stage we like to focus our sets and go for a little more of a trancer vibe. So on the main stage we are really looking to do our own thing, we feel less restricted. But you have to remember at the same time we don’t want to go out there and just play the big room popular tracks. This set we plan on debuting just around 90% new material which is really really exciting and we are just going to see what is going to happen. This is the biggest stage showcase to play our new music and hopefully the crowd likes it!
WRR: You have been all over the world with Ultra over the past several months at Ultra Buenos Aires and Ultra South Africa, what sort of energy did those crowds have when you guys played there, especially being able to play with all of your friends at these shows…the pictures of you guys from these shows seriously made all of us extremely jealous!
W&W: We have been testing out some of the new tracks at say Ultra South Africa and Ultra Buenos Aires. The crazy thing is, some of the tracks we just made last week. We look at our set and say what kind of tracks do we need to make our set work perfectly. We have about 5 or 6 new songs we have just made rather recently to be perfectly honest.
WRR: So I sat down yesterday with Blasterjaxx and they were talking about how excited they are to release your newest collab which you did with them, how excited are you to release this track?
W&W: Yeah we are going to be premiering this track for the first time on a live broadcast, but obviously there have been leaked videos on Youtube and Instagram. It was really great working with them, they are two really cool guys and we became really good friends very quickly. We play their tunes, they play our tunes, but it really goes back to just being friends. We just connected really well. The day in the studio we spent probably like 60% of the day just talking and hanging out and the other 40% was spent making music.
WRR:You have guys have been touring non-stop around the United States recently, what sort of role have you seen the United States play in the growth of electronic dance music on a global scale?
W&W: In Europe actually right now it is really starting to pick up because of the explosion of dance music that is occurring over here in the United States. Everybody looks at America and they see what is going on and the trend starts to grow very quickly. People see live streams of Ultra, EDC, and Electric Zoo and they are just like wow, this is amazing!
WRR: I have to ask, what are your favorite cities in the United States?
W&W: We love New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, actually you know what, we love every city! Every city offers their own unique vibe and we appreciate and love everyone who comes out to our shows in whatever city that may be!
WRR: Mainstage Music has grown tremendously over the past year, most recent releases coming from the likes of Armin Van Buuren, Jochen Miller, and even your own tracks. What are the ideas behind mainstage music? What does your label mean to each of you?
W&W: We of course like to support new talent and we want tunes that are different and don’t go with the normal trend of music. The Armin Van Buuren track is such a totally weird tune with a hardstyle, trancey, big room edge. We like that in the middle sort of music. Also lets take Jochen Miller’s track for example, it also has that trancey influence, but drops into the dirty dutch sound its so raw, we love it. People can expect more housey stuff, for trancey stuff, and everything in between.
When we play our sets we go through every genre of EDM such as hardstyle, progressive, trance, big room, just like our sets we want our label to unique and have all those different sorts of sounds.
WRR: What goes into the making of an original W&W track? What sort of mind sight do you guys have before entering the studio as well as when you guys are in the studio?
W&W: The thing we really want when we go into the studio is a catchy melody, I don’t know why, but we always want that catchy melody and big euphoric feeling. We just have always pictured our tracks getting played in big rooms and in front of big crowds, so in return we always want our tracks to have that big room vibe that makes people say wow when they hear it.
WRR: Do you guys ever find yourselves tailoring your sets depending on what sort of venues you are playing at?
W&W: To be perfectly honest when we play at the bigger places we feel more at home. At the same clubs we feel a little bit awkward because we are playing those big room anthem tracks we love to play and it just doesn’t feel right. We are also really tall guys, so playing in those DJ booths tend to get a little bit claustrophobic, we have both hit our heads more times then we can count
WRR: What got you guys into music all those years ago?
Willem: When I first heard dance music I loved it so much and then I was just checking it out, and realized the next step was to DJ and then after that was to make the music myself.
Ward: Dance music has always been on the radio playing people like Tiesto and Armin Van Buuren, I was like 12 and this was the music that was being played on the radio. It was very easy for me to get into it with all the exposure I had growing up
WRR: You guys saw a massive rise in the DJ Mag Top 100 list this past year, how do you guys feel about this ranking and what does it mean to you?
W&W: What it really means to us is that we have fans that are willing to go out and take the time to go to a website and vote for us and that is what we really appreciate. It really is amazing how dedicate our fans are to our music and us. For us it isn’t about competition rather it is about the music we like. The number don’t mean anything because we are all out there doing different things, there is no difference between us at #14 then there is at say someone at #30. There are so many different styles, how can you classify it into just one list
WRR: You guys have become known for your unique blend of electro, progressive, and trance…what do you guys think you do that makes you guys stand out?
W&W: When we first started we thought it was impossible, we listened to so many different types of music. We felt when we only did trance, we were stuck and limiting ourselves to only one specific type of genre. Back then it was either you were trance, progressive, or electro, you did what you did and stuck to it.
We have stuff that we can release right now if we wanted to, that back then wouldn’t have been accepted. We have always done releases for all genres of EDM whether it was something we released or under a different moniker at the time. This has always been something we wanted to do, so we just went for it.
WRR: I have to finish off with one fun question, give me one fun fact your fans don’t know about each of you?
W&W: We both don’t have our driver’s license and we are 25. We both do own bicycles though even though we are hardly home enough to use them. Its like a 6 month process, we just don’t have time!
Photo Credit: Facebook
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