Wouter and Sjoerd Janssen are quickly becoming not just legends of dance, but legends of music. In under a decade they have shattered all expectations with their productions and remixes, conquered all four corners of the world and smashed every major chart worth hitting. 2013 sees the boys shift direction, Dan Prince gets the all important exclusive…
Guys welcome back to DMC WORLD. To coin a quintessential British phrase…you are on fucking fire right now! Life good yeah?
“Haha, yes we are in a kind of roller-coaster right now. Since the success of Cannonball it’s going crazy! Well, it went well before but for Cannonball (the song we produced together with Justin Prime) we received a golden record in Holland & Belgium. And in the rest of the world the song is going off as well! And if you look to our schedule, you can definitely say that we can’t complain on the moment.”
Well where do we begin? The last time we spoke last summer we touched on you widening your musical boundaries. You explained that you wanted 2012 to be the year that was going to give you a new dimension. Before we talk about this year…how do you think 2012 panned out for you with your plans to take to the main stage in 2013?
“Think it went pretty well though. Of course we shocked the world by doing something completely different without even announcing it. And no matter what people thought of it, we created awareness around the name Showtek. So 2012 was a year that we had to convince people about the direction we chose for, create new fans and most important we had to believe in ourselves. We had a plan and we had to walk through some shit to reach the mountain haha, but you can whatever you want, as we did something that we really wanted to do, as artists and as persons and we did it. And the funny thing is, some of our old fans who hated our new stuff in the beginning fell in love again with the new Showtek; ok we might have lost some fans but besides the new fan base we created we took a lot of our old fans with us, which is really cool! So it was a risky year, because our career is like a basketball game, you can win or lose but you just have to know when to shoot a 3 or make a slam-dunk.”
One of the feelings I got from you during the interview was that you didn’t feel you were getting the respect for your actual musical skills?
“It might have been hard to explain to people why we made that switch and it’s understandable that people don’t know all the facts. Some people just know us as Showtek, not as producers Wouter & Sjoerd Janssen. We even make pop and r&b/hiphop on the moment. But that’s the thing, as an artist you’re always 3 steps ahead in your head cause you know what you’re doing, you know what happening and where you working to but the world doesn’t know that!”
So after dominating the hard dance scene you have changed direction – moving towards the house scene albeit with your party starter banger attitude. Tiesto, Hardwell and Bassjackers have all been on the collab tip recently – why these three in particular?
“We worked with Tiesto in the studio to co-produce some of his music, so that was easy. We made a track together and we felt like putting our name on top of this track as well, ‘cause it was a mixture of Showtek & Tiesto. With Hardwell we decided to do something together because we talked about it a few times. When we send him that melody he called us immediately and we jumped in the studio together and finished the song. We met Bassjackers at WMC last year and we really get along together. It was really fun to be in the Studio together and the track turned out really well. All this collabs made it a bit easier for us to change styles.”
Miami WMC 2013 rocked to ‘Cannonball’, ‘Crunk’, ‘Get Loose’ and Slow Down’ – tell us about some of the big Miami parties you enjoyed playing these at…
“Yeah Miami was crazzzzzy!! Parties, Booze and to many Latina’s and a lot of Showtek music. Think the coolest show was The Showtek Party @ The Clevelander Hotel , where we invited Bassjackers, TV Noise, Jordy Dazz & Rehab. It was a sold out party and everybody was drunk as hell! Hahah.. Club Liv with Laid Back Luke, Dirty Dutch with Chuckie and the Spinnin’ Party where other great parties!”
What is the current top 10 you are spinning right now?
1. Showtek & Noisecontrollers – Get Loose
2. Showtek – Slow Down
3. Deniz Koyu – Rage
4. Moti – Krack
5. Ummet Ozcam – Here & Now
6. D-Rashid & Blasterjaxx – Where we go
7. Hard Rock Soaf – Rasputin
8. Hardwell feat Amby Sheppard – Appollo (Lucky Date remix)
9. Diplo – Set it off , feat. Lazerdisk Party Sex (Sleepy Tom Remix)
10. Showtek & Justin Prime – Cannonball
The EDM sound has been sweeping America for the past 12 months or so, all of a sudden the wind is changing and the kids on the dancefloor seem to be getting a little more savvy. They are getting a little bored it seems with the same old manufactured music and are looking for new avenues of dance music to rock to. Your sound is bang in vogue right now and is tipped as the next big stomping noise to take America…
“Haha, we think the Showtek Sound is working really well on the moment. But we wanna shock people once in a while so don’t be surprised if we do something crazy and new!”
Which DJ did you have the most fun with in Miami. Tell us a great messy story…
“Jordy Dazz is also a friend of us and we spend the whole week together in Miami, haha we had an amazing time. Remember a crazy night, well don’t remember the whole night but the one thing we can’t forget is that we spend so much money on shots, 50 dollar per shot and we where too drunk to even think about it…but the credit card statement said enough! Anyway we ended up at 8 o’clock in the morning eating shit food at MacDonald’s looking like 16 year old kids, crunked up!”
Biggest record at Miami?
“Showtek & Noise Controllers – ‘Get Loose’
Gotta ask. You didn’t play at Ultra this year in Miami – you would have rocked the stage guys. Next year?
“Yeah think so! Get Loose, Slow Down and Cannonball where some of the top tracks being played at Miami so we definitely would like to climb the stage. And we would have the time of our lives! But everything has a reason so maybe next year?”
You love Daft Punk – what do you think of the new material…has it lived up to the hype, some have called it Dad House…
“Didn’t hear the new stuff unfortunately. Dad House? Haha…maybe it’s a good gift to our manager at the 2-Dutch Agency?”
What are the last three tunes you played on your I-Pod?
Rihanna – Stay feat Micky Ekko
Maroon 5 – Daylight
Justin Timberlake – Mirrors
You drove across the entire of the US last year, city to city on a cool tour bus with your girlfriends experiencing the kind of shit we all saw our rock & roll heroes do in the 60s and 70s. What was the biggest ‘fuck – is this really happening to us moment?’
“Haha, well the whole picture. Having meet and greets, going on stage, interviews after the show, creating your own after party, hop on the bus, sleep for a while and wake up in a different city and do the whole thing again. Just amazing!”
Who was in charge of the tour bus music and what were the sounds coming out…?
“Well, hard to say we had like 70’s music going on like the ‘ smoking weed ‘ music. But not too much though, ‘cause we are in music all day. And the bus driver was the boss by the way, he was a really funny guy and he didn’t want to hear hip hop! That’s why we had our own subwoofer!”
What do each of you bring to the studio – who excels where?
“Protein Shake haha!! And a good idea. Wouter is the melody guy and Sjoerd is more the editing guy and together we engineer and produce the whole track.”
It’s your birthday. You have hired a villa in Ibiza. Who are the 3 DJs you invite to spin – and which artist do you ask to sing you Happy Birthday?
“DJs – well we wouldn’t invite Steve Aoki ‘cause he would trash the house haha. Like him as a guy tho! So three DJs: Jordy Dazz (he is the best DJ there is on the moment), Knife Party (cause we love their productions) and maybe Pauly D cause he brings so many girls! All my friends can sing our birthday song, ‘cause that’s much more fun!”
What is coming out next from the Showtek studio…
“Secret!! Some heavy duty material is coming up!!”
And finally, a quote from a recent interview with you…”Although we came from that harder genre, we’re totally focused on something new because we were bored with the scene.” There are lots of people around the world who aren’t bored with the scene and still adore you. What’s the message…?
“Imagine that you do the same round and tricks for ten years and that scene wasn’t growing at all. We played at all major festivals and produced many signature tracks in that scene, so the challenge was gone. Besides that, the music became harder and harder and that was totally the opposite of what we wanted to do. We didn’t belong there anymore and with all respect but we needed to go to the another level, to explore our musical desires which wasn’t possible in the scene we were at, at that time. And we evolved as persons as well, don’t get us wrong but it’s the evolution of life. And to all the people who still love that music – enjoy it, cause we don’t mind.”
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