BEST OF

TIESTO: ‘It’s Always About Evolving And Trying Different Things’

DANCE MUSIC PR

June 28, 2013

TIESTO, busy as ever has a grueling Summer schedule ahead where he will play most major festivals world wide. Yet, we can say that Vegas will be his home base with the new resident at new super club Hakkasan. Tilllate Magazine USA caught up with Tiesto to talk about his past, his many successes and what the future holds for him.

You’ve been in dance music longer than the average person realizes. Can you tell us about the time you had to fight yourself up the DJ ranks in the early/mid 90’s? Especially in the Netherlands, where you come from, DJs carefully guarded their achieved positions in the dance scene. What was your strategy for a breakthrough?

Well I’ve always been a dance music fan and Holland was always an amazing place for dance music and accepting the culture. At the same time, we had a global wave of popularity for dance music in the 90’s and there was so much amazing music and many inspiring artists. It was never any sort of fight. Just a lot of hard work and doing what I love to do. I just wanted to make as much music and play as many shows as possible. Really, it’s about exposing people to the music that I’m so passionate about.

In 1999 you were one of the headliners for the Innercity Festival organised by ID&T. This festival attracted about 40.000 visitors and can be seen as a prequel to the enormous success of ID&T’s Sensation events that are organized around the world. Your performance was documented on Dutch TV, and we could see how big of an impact this had on you emotionally. Do you see this event as your definitive breakthrough as a DJ?

Well, it was a great gig for a number of reasons. First, it was home. Second, that was an amazing crowd. Something of that size is really quite special and it was emotional. Things were really coming together nicely for me around that time in my career, so to have that gig hit at that moment was quote memorable.