 Armin van Buuren is definitely a happy man.
He’s holding firm at number 2 in the prestigious public-voted DJ Top 100 and he’s holding a number 2 position at the Dutch Release DJ top-100! But that’s not all…
2005 has brought three new significant awards. ‘Best Radio Show’, and ‘Best Compilation’ for A State of Trance 2004 at the Miami Winter Music Conference Awards. His new released album Shivers (on which he debuted as a songwriter) won the award for best album of 2005 at the Release Dance Awards.
Trance has continued to grow and the WMC awards reflect Armin’s success in producing and playing quality tunes that both excite existing fans and bring new people to the scene. “I think trance is becoming a broader term for a lot of different genres; it’s no longer a specific kind of music within the dance scene,” says Armin. “Trance has elements of all different types of music. I play a lot of tracks that are labelled as progressive, tribal progressive, techno, trance, euphoric trance, vocal trance, melodic progressive. These days it’s really hard to label a specific sound. Styles are coming together and evolving into this all-over new sound, which is basically dance music going back to its roots. There’s so much good music out there and I don’t want to limit myself to just one style.”
Born in Leiden, Holland (on December 25, 1976) to a musical family, Armin indulged his passion for music from a young age. He actually spend all the money he earned with his paper round on records. His mum won a computer when he was 10, “So as a little nerdy kid I was writing my own basic programmes, and learnt about the technology from there.” He progressed from making low-profile mix tapes for friends to higher profile mixes when he discovered experimenting with different sequences on his computer through his uncle. “I was so stunned by what I saw him doing on the computer, that I got addicted to creating music right there and then!”
“I loved dance music immediately – this great rebellious sound that was so different to the ‘beautiful’ songs of the years before”. Citing electronic pioneer Jean Michel Jarre as a major influence (famed for his awesome visuals as well as his groundbreaking synth sounds), as well as Dutch producer Ben Liebrand. Ben later mentored him in his mixing and producing. Armin was soon well known for his stand-out tunes that graced compilations across the globe.
But besides having a musical career, Armin thought it was wise to have something extra in case the DJ’ing didn’t work out. So he studied for a law degree.
The final year of his course was inevitably stretched as he juggled his studies with his increasingly hectic schedule; his rise to fame included lots of productions and remixes, as well as playing out to packed clubs every weekend. It took him three years to graduate, but his everlasting determination made him succeed!
While the remix offers lots of opportunities, Armin only takes on tracks that he really loves and that he wishes he made himself. He wants exactly the same for his compilations. And that’s what keeps him one step ahead.
His desire to showcase more of all the great music out there, along with the number of people sending him tracks they wanted to release, led to the obvious step of starting his own label, Armada, in 2003.
" Maykel Piron was head of A&R for Warner Music, and we always said we'd start a label together. As we both were on Ibiza for a weekend, we started talking about really doing it. He felt like he wanted a new challenge, and so did I". They teamed up with a third partner, David Lewis, who'd previously managed Armin. "What we wanted was a company that could offer everything for an artist: representation, a booking agency, and a record company. Artists can choose full management, or to just release a record or play out at gigs. Armada lets the artists choose what they want without telling them what to do".
Freedom is something that Armin fully appreciates as an artist, "Producing gives me much more freedom since I can experiment more, it’s less predictable than DJ’ing for me.
He captured his ‘own’ sound on his debut artist album, 76, for which he scored a prestigious Dancestar Award 2004 nomination (Best New Artist Album). “I’d always wanted to do an album, but there’d never been the time or the money. Scoring the number five position in DJ’s Top 100 poll the previous year helped to get labels interested, and I finally got into the studio. Basically everything I’d learned in the past 10 years fiddling around in my bedroom with equipment helped me create this album.”
Undaunted by the stir that his first album caused, Armin has placed himself at the top level with his much anticipated second artist album, Shivers. The title track topped the charts, and the second single was the anthem for massive Dutch party Sensation White. Armin jetted round the world for collaborations with people like Gabriel and Dresden, with whom he recorded in San Francisco. He also worked with the honey-voiced Nadia Ali. “We recorded a track in New York, and I’m really really proud of it!” I wanted to take things a bit further with the album – my definition of an artist album is something you can put on at home or in the car and really listen to – so it’s 10 brand new tracks that are very diverse. It holds probably the most diverse things I’ve ever done. “As a DJ you always have to take the crowd into account, but as an artist you have the freedom to make whatever you like, and I just love that creative process”. Shivers appeals to a much bigger audience than 76, because it has a lot of rock and pop influences in addition to trance influences. 76 was almost like a ‘best of’ compilation because a lot of my earlier works were on there - it was sort of ending an era. “Shivers really is about the work I’ve done in the last two years. I created the luxury for myself that I had about 20 tracks by the time I needed to finish it, I only selected 10 . As I worked the album just got better and better, so it was like drawing a line and saying ‘that’s it’. It was really hard to stop the creative process!”
Clearly on form for a third album, (“I’m already working on it” admits Armin) the experience of making Shivers has opened a world of possibilities. “It was particularly interesting for me as I’ve really got acquainted with songwriting this time rather than purely thinking technically. Fortunately I’ve found the right people to work with – I knew all about dance music and they knew all about songwriting - so it’s been a perfect collaboration.
After four years of fronting his own weekly radio show A State Of Trance nationally, it’s now being broadcasted on several radio stations internationally. Now online and on fm stations, his website (www.arminvanbuuren.com) details who is broadcasting it – and the list is still growing. “There’s more new listeners because more people have access to it now. I think trance is a universal experience; it’s one of the first musical genres that really proved its power through the internet, and I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for downloads!” |
