hardwell how are you i'm great how are you man i'm doing really good man you know your energy i can tell even though i'm looking at you through a screen which is just all too common still these days that your energy is great and that you want to do this and that must be a relief for you that that coming back with new music and and getting ready to do tours and do shows after an extended break that there's a willingness to do this that you're not
on the treadmill anymore and someone's picking the speed you know yeah it feels amazing i really needed that time off but on the first hand i i never hated music i had never hated my life or fans or anything you know i just i was just exhausted of the whole
touring and i felt really disconnected from my own music because it felt like almost like a formula that i had to produce like the same things over and over again if i didn't do that defense they wouldn't accept it and it was like
an endless cycle of all those things and when i when i took the break and well i really took a break though like almost a year that i haven't visited my own studio while my studio is in my house so wow when i got back in the studio yeah i
felt really refreshed and really happy to create something new that was more close to me more personal i'm really you know grateful that you want to have this conversation i've been waiting for somebody to raise their hand and say hey anyone
want to talk about that crazy few years that happened you know a decade ago where it was just out of control and the business and the money and the success and the the momentum and the energy and the love and the judgment and all the stuff that
comes with just being in the zeitgeist you know i want to talk about that and and i feel like you're the first you know best person to have this conversation with because you reached heights that almost no one
else in your peer group reached and yet you had the foresight and the space and balance to say i need to stop and i think there were some people who should have stopped and didn't and some who tried and couldn't
and i guess my question to you is how hard was it making that decision when there was so much wind at your back that was a really tough decision it was such a hard decision that i and i didn't even reach out to my own parents or my manager or
anybody in the first place normally like i i if something is like i i if i don't know how to deal with something the first person i talk to is my or my parents or my manager or even like personal stuff but this felt so personal
i was struggling with something inside myself that i didn't talk with anybody and i just one day i was just like i have i have to take a break because i open my email i only emailed my my dad and my manager and it's like i'm taking a break this is not a
discussion i'm just taking a break i'm done i'm done living this wonderful dream that everybody thinks it is but i'm just done dealing with jet lag i held my i couldn't sleep anymore my own house felt like a hotel room
it was super weird like a lot of signals that i had to stop for a while and then on the other hand how hard the decision was even harder when you think about like yo my tour manager uh he has quit his job my sound guy the guy who makes my visuals
so yeah it was a really tough decision but i had i had to do it and i'm really glad that even like in my inner circle my own team really accepted it it's great for us as fans to better understand what some of the challenges of that era work
because people talk about that time when edm was a moment and they think it's like and it was the greatest time i was like oh man i was leaving college i was doing this and i just always remember those events and those moments and the
hardwell dj's set from that festival and that festival but man it was it was a lot right it was a lot and and i think that you know the dream of of constant travel and success and everything else that came with it also the need
to prop yourself up and be able to deal with people at that level of intensity can drive djs and others into into a lot of alcohol i drank a lot of alcohol when i was djing at the height of that i was doing a lot of shows i was in a lot of
festivals you were on there was always alcohol in the dressing room in some cases it was drugs for people i never did that there's a lot of that kicking around how was that for you like was it challenge like how did you get
through that time just as a person dealing with people obviously there was like a lot of alcohol as well i never had an alcohol problem luckily but i always could handle my alcohol but that was like the painkiller man when you felt e uh oh man i'm tired
i just you know i just did two shows yesterday now i'm here tomorrow world closing main stage whatever okay vodka rebel here we go and it works but our that's like the worst thing to do now now i realized that but at that
point it was just normal luckily i'm i never use drugs in my life because i'm scared of it that's like the biggest reason but um yeah i see it that that lifestyle it's not healthy nobody is gonna continue doing that for like 20 years in
a row that's impossible even on the on such a high i did like 200 flights a year and come in combination with sleeping on on in different time zones drinking not working out eating a lot of burgers because you're basically living at the
airport yeah it was uh i this is the part that nobody as you mentioned nobody talks about it but there's a reason for it because a lot of people like why are you complaining man i've heard that from a lot of artists in different genres when
we have conversations like this there's a part of this it's almost like a shame mechanism that makes people scared to kind of show that side of the life but we need to know as fans and as an industry we need to know
because that old excuse of like this is what you wanted this is every dream of yours coming true you're making money you're doing what you love great but i'm also a person and with that success comes the responsibility to as you said keep people employed
there's a fear of not wanting to lose your position in the queue right i've got the success i've worked hard for it i don't want to lose it like let's take a look at number one dj in the world right that matters in mixed
mag that matters in those magazines that is a serious calling card and you've won it multiple times but you can honestly like i'd love to know what your thoughts are once you get to that cover then the fear kicks in because what happens if i don't get it
next year exactly that's that's that's a pressure on your shoulders and there's no way you can get rid of that because you are that number one dj oh so that's that's it that was my career i can only come down from this point you know it's it's
weird and talking about that that was like the weirdest year ever in my career because i worked so long i started in holland doing all those shows go to belgium europe eventually america playing all the shows becoming the
number one dj in the world they building a fan base you become the number one dj in the world and people don't buy tickets to see you anymore they buy tickets to see the number one dj instead of hardwell it's so weird a lot of people won't
realize how much work you put into your craft before people even knew what you'd become hardwell is not like your real name per se you know it's it's something that you created to help to position and build a world around your music um but who you were before
that you were already teaching you know learning instruments applying yourself um you were somewhat of a teenage prodigy i mean you were signed at the age of 14 right i mean in a way you never got a chance to live a normal childhood that's
true yeah i was 14 when i even started playing the clubs in holland already and headlining festivals and that's always like its story that comes back in every interview but i had to take my priorities with me because i wasn't even
allowed to enter the under 18. so uh yeah i was really really young and uh that that really felt when i took that sabbatical i i really took the time to grow as robert as a person not as the artist anymore because i invested basically
90 of my time on this planet in in the artist in becoming a bigger and better version of myself as an artist and never as as a person robert can i call you robert of course robert when you thank you when you think back on that
with a little bit of perspective and again let's just make this really clear to anybody who's investing in this conversation this is not about complaints neither robin or myself are trying to establish this kind of grim reality around what success is right but it does
come with a reality that needs to be acknowledged and so with the benefit of perspective in hindsight and you think back to yourself as a young child when you're still a child i mean you're teenager but you're still you're a young
adult you're not you're not at a maturity level yet do you think it was healthy for you to start that young do you have any not regrets regrets is the wrong word because your life is as you make it and it's moving in the right direction but
do you feel like it's too young to begin to play in an adult world uh maybe maybe yes maybe no it's uh i think the difference is when you're like 14 right now even like we can have this is a different subject with social
media nowadays like all those young upcoming inspiring producers and i'm talking about like the kids from like 12 like 14 years old before they know they got a record deal or like a release on one of the biggest labels and it's not normal like i don't regret being that young because i i kind of had the right guidance for my parents but if you don't have that if you don't have people that really care for you i'm not talking about like a manager or
whatever no the people who really know you the people who will listen to you at your lowest point you tell the you know the the things you're most upset about i i get it it's really important to have like a solid base like a personal like a family and nine
out of ten times it those people are your parents but it's really important to have like a solid base before you go into like a breakthrough like that because at some point you will get like lost in this world it is it is
amazing if you walk in this world it makes sense to me that you would have started so young because you grew up in a community where electronic music has such a powerful and strong foundation and influence around the world
if you're into dance music the term dirty dutch is is is no mystery to you and the idea of dutch dance music is like at a forefront i've spoken to many people who make dance music and electronic music at the highest level who often refer to the dutch sound as
the gold standard um as for you as a young person growing up knowing that electronic music was always already thriving there was nothing for you to necessarily invent but there was something for you to fit into how was that process for you of
establishing your name and your style in a city and in a country that already is so steeped in quality i think what really helped is er ty's fiesta he's born and raised in the same super small city in the side of holland where i'm from and
he was always in the news like when he became the number dj in the world and he did his first concert and since he was from the same city he's like yo if he can do it i can i have a chance you know he's also a guy from radar he's not from
amsterdam he's also from the same small city and i just started working on on my production skills and that was like different people don't even understand like a lot of dj's that don't produce their own music which is
fine but always i will i was always working on my more production side and after that i became a dj i creating music is always for me like kind of the number one because then you can create something that doesn't exist and that's always like
the best feeling and that's the the even better feeling than that is creating something and then playing it out for yourself well i think you made a really important distinction between the successful eras of dance and club music
and in the of the past and the one that occurred from 08 to about 1314 right and that distinction as you as you eloquently put was that you were making and creating a sound and then you had to go and play it for people and
ultimately bring it to life before that djs were going in the studio with engineers and trying to bring their dj sets to life through original music you know a lot of people were already playing clubs and djing and touring around the world and then someone would
be like you don't have a song to play it's like damn i need to go find make a song so i can play it out you guys had to figure out how you were going to come become performers it was in reverse and i can imagine that that that really
raises the anxiety level too because that room you're in right now robert hardwell studio is a safe safe place what was it like when somebody came in with a packed bag and said dude shows to play you got to bring these
songs to life creating something in here i always refer to that in in my in my in my head as well when i'm on stage it's all created in this small room everything you hear on like tomorrowland or ultra it just comes from this room me
by myself creating music it's it's just weird that it still doesn't get to my mind i think a lot of artists will relate to this but that you create something something can come can come to your mind like really quick in 10 minutes you have like
basically a drum loop and that's the magic that's the magic we can never really explain or understand and then like millions of people are touched by it or listen to it or you played at a festival in front of 20 000 people but
that's the bit i'm really zeroing in on is is that you have the ability and the talent and the inspiration and the guidance to be up from from from your peers of the past to sit in that room and conjure up magic but then you have to go and and and
lean into the process and don't get me wrong playing shows in front of thousands of people creates a magical feeling but it's part of a process at that point right it's like all right i have to go and entertain people now do
you think you're a natural entertainer or do you have to learn how to do it no i really had to learn it i think it it especially with all the shows in the beginning that i did in holland it really took a lot of time for me to well get used to being on stage
oh you it's okay for dj to show that you're enjoying what you're doing right right right especially in the beginning i was so focused on mixing i just didn't want to make any mistakes i was just focused on mixing and looking down not looking at the
crowds just make making sure that all my all my transitions were like in the right the right timing and i'm glad you said that because that shows a real a real detail and care toward the craft of djing whereas i think what
ultimately part of what undid the edm craze is that is that after a while it really became more about the event and less about the craft of djing and if you begin in something which which is which has a soul to it and then you end up
kind of cutting corners on the thing that truly matters in order to get to the end it's the it's the long it's the long slow goodbye of whatever that is i think at that point right and you're a dj you had to teach yourself how to dj and
become a dj how nerve-wracking was it when you'd find yourself in rooms with people who'd been doing it longer that you admired and it was your turn to get up because djs know other djs and they we certainly know djs who can't do it
i don't know like in the beginning you're just beat matching but then there's so much more to the art of djing like greeting the crowd and i know this all sounds super cliche but it's true you know you can drop a record in the first 10 minutes of
your set and the whole record doesn't work and like later on in the set like 30 minutes later it's the biggest hit you could play that night and that's just experience you cannot learn that like it's there's no rule there's no
guidance there's no book you can read to understand this it's making hours in front of thousands of people and just naturally i don't know like it's it's like a sixth cent i don't know how welcoming and and how supportive is the dutch electronic
music scene as a whole is it competitive is it does it challenge your ability in order to fit in do you have to justify your place or is it arms around each other right from the get-go and a desire to succeed as a whole we're all
like good friends in every genre even like you can tell that for example if you take fiesta and armin or like from back in the day when thais even was like a trans d they even know all the hip-hop guys in holland like everybody knows each other
in every single jar and everybody's helping each other and i think that's a good thing that holland is that small you can drive like two hours and you've seen almost every city in the country and that's why everybody knows each
other and the music scene is really small and i think that really helps the competition is on such a high level like i mean like the standard of creating music and djing and that's why basically all the people always say like i don't know i don't get
this man every dj from holland is talented it's not talented it's like the standard so how would you sum up your time like in particular the the couple of years before we went into quarantine i really took some time off of music um
because i wanted to reflect on myself as a person and if i'm gonna go back on stage what what kind of music do i want to play i i really felt disconnected at some point from i've really myself like i felt disconnected from myself as an artist
even music-wise was it challenging robert to not open the door and go in your studio i mean it's in your house you are literally ignoring a room in your house it is in the basement though so i have specifically i have to go
downstairs to go to the studio but um yeah i i i just the moment i walked back into the studio i just wanted to create whatever i i felt like making no deadlines not thinking about oh this is gonna work on the dance floor this is
a big time record this is techno this is trends i don't care i just gonna make music that i want to hear on a festival and i just want to create music that i really feel and i went back in my own final collection listening to records
that i bought as a kid like as you mentioned i was like 14 years old when i started djing with vinyl and i i just went back to the all those memories like what was the reason as a young kid as a 14 year old why i bought this record
there was something significant in this record is a lead sound it sends out a baseline what did i like about this record and why and i've been just listening to all those records for days in a row and i took that as an inspiration to create
the new album did you create parameters for yourself of what not to do did you retire certain synth presets you know drum programs that or or sample libraries that you'd used in the past were you searching for inspiration by not leaning
back because over time you just build this library of sounds and it becomes your signature sound well i said goodbye to a lot of samples and patterns and i didn't want to go back to the famous like uh snare patterns in the build-up
i went back to like the old old stuff like a 909 snare uh um the funny thing is i used a lot of old sample packs like old sample packs and not like the the standard cashmere sample bank that everybody is using right now
not the famous hardwell big room superstar since nah i wanted to create everything from scratch that's awesome man i mean for you to have created things that other people use because they wanted a taste of your sound and
then to turn your back on your own sound must have felt like you were disassociating yourself from your own identity it's not that i didn't want to use it i just wanted to challenge myself it's so easy to come back do the same trick again and were
you feeling that way back in 2018 i mean how visceral was that feeling that like wow man i'm in the back of a minivan on my way to the airport and i've made this song 50 times and i know what's going to work i know which buttons it's going to press on the
crowd i know what people want to hear were you having thoughts of that nature was it that clear in your mind as you just mentioned that's exactly how how it went in my in my head like that um i think the perfect example was the
tomorrowland 2018 said i played it's i love that set don't get me wrong but that in the end when i when i was in my sabbatical i watched that that setback that was exactly what i didn't want to do anymore because there was a there was so obvious
how how i played that set not like in a commercial way but like in a formula way i think every hardware fan was expecting oh he's gonna close with this song he's gonna probably play that hardware remix in front of that and
i was done with that like now i'm just djing again i'm just having my my sd cards my usb's and no order and just banging out stuff that i like to play and one time it's more techie the other the other time it's more big room-ish i
don't care anymore and that that's the feeling you need as a dj the album begins with a song called broken and uh it's a very personal message at the very at the beginning of an hour and you realize that you know you really are introducing us to a personal journey
that is then open for us to apply to our own lives and you finish that introduction with a very clear statement you know i'm going to show you who i really am um the idea of creating a new album coming back and going straight into an
album to me is admirable this scene wasn't built out of albums it was built out of songs singular moments that moved a lot of people and you build your set around it you it's clear to me you wanted to make that statement that i'm going to come
back and i'm going to make a serious statement through a body of work yeah i i really wanted to create this album uh not just a comeback set or a couple of new songs and play my old songs as well and make a combination out of it
even for ultra miami i made the decision to only play new song basically the new album not combined with my old stuff well i played spaceman but in a new version i created myself but besides that i just i wanted to make a statement
this is what i'm doing right now this is what i love to do and as i just mentioned in the previous question um that's djing just banging out stuff you like to hear not playing that hit record that you know the crowd
will love no just going all in playing new stuff and well that was an anxious moment i'm just gonna be really honest how did you feel when you walked off stage did you feel like it was universally appreciated definitely not that was the thing
because um it felt bo i was like emotionally drained of of of detention of a comeback show playing all the new stuff and knowing that there are a lot of fans expecting me to do that big room stuff and do the hardware matchups with with hip-hop
songs and closing with hardstyle and nah that didn't happen so i know a lot of people were like sad or or even even mad that i didn't do that anymore that i changed but that was at that moment when i started releasing the
songs of the album when people have access to the higher quality and the the the music how it's supposed to to sound like and that was the moment like a lot of people started to appreciate what i was doing to your point short of going up there
and playing that tomorrowland set exactly as you did back in 2018 you were never gonna get any other reaction people wanted you to pick up where you left off i i really felt even for dance music it was time for for a change you
know even for me as an artist i think if you're a true fan you will appreciate that i'm developing my sound and trying something new i'm not saying this is better or my old stuff is better nothing is better it's different
but it's great for an artist i think you should appreciate as a fan and artist that he's trying to develop new stuff trying new styles try to combine new stuff same goes for swedish house mafia they did something totally new i love that swedish house mafia um
yeah it's amazing it's not without its humor robert a song like pac-man first of all that's not fundamentally effectively true from what we can tell i don't believe that pac-man actually stands for program and control but the fact that
you made that up is epic thank you and the story is interesting and it's fun and it's tongue-in-cheek and at the end you know you throw just your hat in the ring on it a little bit with with that sort of if we had been influenced by pac-man then we'd be
running around clubs throwing pills down our throats and listening to repetitive electronic music i mean it's your way i feel of saying i get it i'm in on it i've made it but don't think that i'm not aware of it exactly yeah yeah it's a culture thing
almost like we're used to it this is this is dance music we're doing it and yeah i i when i when i heard that the whole the idea of the track and the sample and i loved it man that's the most repetitive track on the album that's the
whole cliche thing about it that's what i mean you're in on the joke and you've actually you know you've shown that listen you want me to do that i can do that yeah exactly will you do it again if if you feel the urge are you just
following your inspiration at this point if if something came to you one day if you went upstairs after this conversation and the right chemistry of ingredients throughout the day led you to want to make something that just
hit the big room would you do it yeah never say never i like if i feel the inspiration to make something new but that is that that's that's the answer something new i'm not saying i'm not never coming back to big room but i i will always use that as an
inspiration if it sounds refreshing i'm not gonna do the same formula again and making a copy of one of my older songs because it works or it streams i i will 100 but if i come up with something new and which feels exciting to me
yeah why not i i think about 2018 though and i think about your decision to walk away and coinciding on the same year that we lost one of the great artists of that scene and of and of music in general and we lost avicii and i think a lot has been
talked about and continues to be talked about thankfully about his condition and ultimately what contributed to to to his check the challenges that he faced did that was that sort of on your mind at that point were you aware that that
the wheels were turning off for people that you admired and for your peer group and that in some respects you had to like focus on your health like 100 like for me the the debt of tim was definitely the trigger for me to well
pull the trigger myself and like yo i'm taking a break that's it like i'm losing one of my friends now and worst feeling in the world and yeah there's no way that there is no solution in between there's no way you you you can still tour
and then you what obviously you can stop drinking take more time off to start doing your workouts and that kind of stuff but you still have to deal with the jet lag the time zone your relationship at home uh not seeing your friends that's the
touring schedule and i really wanted to take the time to develop myself as a person even more i i really felt like that i was stood still as a person and that i only developed myself as an artist and yeah i needed that i needed that break to
well to to to i don't i don't want to say like getting back down to earth but living a normal life that was that was this is the only thing that tim said he wanted to live a normal life not being famous not making music
at a certain point he lost his his his feeling of of being a normal human being and that's that's a weird position to be in his influence was so far-reaching and his talent was so clear so gifted but as someone who knew him well and as
the legacy is in our hands now to to to continue to build around the the greatness that he achieved in an all too short period of time what for you made him so special and so unique someone you got to know personally and someone you admired
creatively he was the best musician electronic musician i've ever met and he still is still this day and i'm yeah you never you're never going to convince me that someone better in making melodies and chords and
writing such catchy catchy hooks and he knew exactly what he wanted uh songwriting the way the singer should sing the way he wrote his melodies his signature and every song still being super diverse he he could make like a super rolling electro song
with lenny crevice on the other hand like wake me up with a country a country hook in it it's unbelievable and even as a as a as a person you know he was such a nice guy such a humble person and yeah i'm really glad we did so many
shows together and yeah that we became friends over the years and i learned a lot from him when i think of him i think it's sort of weird so i know it's an early cut but i just remember the first time i heard that and the the weight the progression
the way he finds his way back to the start to me was like this is mozart like this is beethoven it was truly unseen in dance music there was no way you could make music like that even not even in trans music because they always
kept going with the same arpeggiators and the same chords and the same emotion and tim came with chords not even if you strip those songs down and take away the 4x4 kick drum even if you consider it a pop song it is next level not even it was even scene
and dance music man i i love to hear you find a new voice through your music i wish you all the best on this tour sold out back in the big rooms bro but i just know that you're in charge now thank you for having me man thank you you