Hardwell et Mike Williams

Hardwell has been a DJ since a young age and has been involved in making music at an even younger age. He first started his interest in music playing the classical piano at the age of four and by the age of 12 he was already starting to DJ. Only a year after he picked up DJing he was signed to his first record label and at the age of 14 he was performing regularly at clubs in the Netherlands.

Hardwell was starting to gain attention with his remixes of the songs “Summer Jam” and “Lass Uns Tanzen”, but he really broke into the mainstream with his song “Show Me Love vs. Be”. The song is a mashup of the songs “Be” by Steve Angello and Laidback Luke and “Show Me Love” by Robin S.

Once Hardwell formed his own record label, Revealed Recordings, he began to release compilation albums that caught the attention of fans and critics. In 2011 he released one of his biggest tracks “Zero 76”, which was a collaborative process with one of his biggest musical inspirations, Tiesto. The song went on to top the charts of Beatport and the American iTunes Dance chart. The same year he released “Zero 76” he also made the list as one of the top DJs in DJ Magazine.

2012 was an even bigger year for Hardwell. He released the hit single “Spaceman”, which showed Hardwell’s talents and his abilities to create progressive house music in his own unique style. That same year Hardwell played as a headlining act at the Tomorrowland festival. His performance at the festival has been noted to be one of the best live performances of the year and the YouTube video of the set has over 21 million views.

Hardwell is perhaps best known for his live performances. He has headlined major festivals like Tomorrowland, Ultra, and the Amsterdam Dance Event, as well as sold out numerous shows on world tours. His 2013 set at Ultra Music Festival broke records as the most viewed live broadcast for the Ultra festival, which included over 80,000 people streaming his performance live. In 2013 he was the youngest DJ ever to reach the No. 1 spot on DJ Magazine’s Top 100 list and in 2014 he held down the No. 1 spot again.