Jeroen: How I got into hardstyle
Did you look forward to the moment you turned 18? Finally old enough for a hardstyle party! Did you discover the music at a later age? Or did you change your mind completely, after your friends dragged you to a festival? In How I got into hardstyle, our Hardstyle Reporters tell about their party career, how they discovered hardstyle and how they fell in love with it.
Hardstyle Reporter Jeroen is our newest team member: he will strengthen Hardstyle Report as a translator. (So from now on, you can read all our articles in English!) He's not only our newest member, also our youngest. This hardstyle lover just started his hardstyle career and has a big bucketlist (like going to Defqon.1) to finish, but he knows one thing for sure: hardstyle is here to stay. How Jeroen got into hardstyle? This is his story.
During my time at primary school, I basically only listened to the radio which only provided me with well known hits by famous singers such as Bruno Mars and DJs such as David Guetta. Luckily this started to change as soon as a classmate of mine introduced me to some of the older tracks of Headhunterz and Brennan Heart. Yet I was not immediately convinced as the kicks were quite a nuisance for me, simply too heavy and distorted. Aside from this I also thought the screeches were too intense especially in ‘Dragonborn’ by Headhunterz and the bpm was a bit too high to really enjoy.
I was wondering by myself whether this could change and luckily it did after several years. I decided to make a journey into sound and managed to find new electronic songs which shaped my taste in diverse music to the point that I even started to appreciate hardstyle.
Back in the days I already listened to jumpstyle but after I decided in 2013 to delve into the album ‘The Sacrifice’ by Headhunterz, a new world of musical treasures opened before my eyes. Tracks such as ‘Hard With Style’ and of course ‘Dragonborn’ along with its famous dragon-like screeches suddenly gained my interest and it even sparked my curiosity to look beyond this album for other amazing tracks. I became curious whether there were other DJs who produced this innovative harsh sound which lead me to Wildstylez and Brennan Heart, followed by Frontliner and many others. It appeared to be that my love for this loud music called ‘hardstyle’ truly started to take shape
My love for hardstyle did not begin just yet, it took several years till it really blossomed. That’s because aside from hardstyle I mainly listened to dubstep and other electronic subgenres. Back then hardstyle was just a side issue, something that I could release my energy to. 2017 was in fact the first year which truly made my love voor hardstyle evolve as I discovered more music, more DJs and more revolutionary sounds. This year I also got the opportunity to witness my heroes for the very first time live playing their music at The Qontinent Weekend Festival which is still something I look back at as one of the milestones of my musical journey. I was already quite familiar with livesets and the various aftermovies that can be found on YouTube from Qlimax and Defqon.1 yet to experience something like this with my own eyes was truly something special. So here I went, with a friend of mine who was totally addicted to hardcore and uptempo, to The Qontinent. Easy guess: my friend was only to be found at the hardcore area while I was trying to find my way at the mainstage where I embraced the euphoric tracks of among others Brennan Heart and Bass Modulators.
I was strayed the crowd and was not able to contact my friend so I decided to just go along with everyone else and was eventually approached during the set of Da Tweekaz by a small group of people who invited me to go with them to witness the set of D-Fence which I had heard of but never given the chance to really appreciate as I thought that hardcore was really too blunt for me. I decided to go along with them and to my surprise I must say that I really liked this harder sound. This was in fact one of the moments that started my chain reaction of appreciating harder and faster music. After The Qontinent I only wanted more!
So that’s what I did. In 2018 it was time for my very first indoor party: Reverze in Belgium. This was definitely a tough night filled with heavy basis and ear shattering kicks made possible by special acts such as the ‘Stealth Mode’ live-set by Frequencerz and Rebelion which was one of the last sets of the night playing at the mainstage. Especially the latter made me feel invincible and gave me that last bit of energy to finish the night properly.
Several months later at Free Festival my desire for raw hardstyle was fulfilled by artists such as D-Sturb and Radical Redemption. I even decided to close this party at the mainstage where Deadly Guns and F.Noize truly teared down the place. To conclude my musical journey and evolution of 2018 I decided to got to Shockerz, on my own (but definitely not lonely). This was probably one of the best parties of the year as it was packed with raw hardstyle fanatics who, along with me, went crazy on the hardest tracks hardstyle has to offer. On such an evening the adrenaline rush is indescribable, certainly something that I will be doing as much as I can!
Do I need to say more? I can proudly say that I’m addicted to the harder styles. While writing this I am 19 years old and I can tell you that I have only just begun. Whether it’s hardstyle, hardcore, frenchcore or even uptempo, I can virtually enjoy everything. My classmates declare me crazy and are impressed that I can go absolutely mental on this kind of music, yet I know that this is where I belong. The music, the people, the atmosphere: everything is perfect. As we say in Dutch: Die bass moet je niet horen, die moet je…. voelen!!
Hardstyle Reporter Jeroen is our newest team member: he will strengthen Hardstyle Report as a translator. (So from now on, you can read all our articles in English!) He's not only our newest member, also our youngest. This hardstyle lover just started his hardstyle career and has a big bucketlist (like going to Defqon.1) to finish, but he knows one thing for sure: hardstyle is here to stay. How Jeroen got into hardstyle? This is his story.
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During my time at primary school, I basically only listened to the radio which only provided me with well known hits by famous singers such as Bruno Mars and DJs such as David Guetta. Luckily this started to change as soon as a classmate of mine introduced me to some of the older tracks of Headhunterz and Brennan Heart. Yet I was not immediately convinced as the kicks were quite a nuisance for me, simply too heavy and distorted. Aside from this I also thought the screeches were too intense especially in ‘Dragonborn’ by Headhunterz and the bpm was a bit too high to really enjoy.
I was wondering by myself whether this could change and luckily it did after several years. I decided to make a journey into sound and managed to find new electronic songs which shaped my taste in diverse music to the point that I even started to appreciate hardstyle.
Back in the days I already listened to jumpstyle but after I decided in 2013 to delve into the album ‘The Sacrifice’ by Headhunterz, a new world of musical treasures opened before my eyes. Tracks such as ‘Hard With Style’ and of course ‘Dragonborn’ along with its famous dragon-like screeches suddenly gained my interest and it even sparked my curiosity to look beyond this album for other amazing tracks. I became curious whether there were other DJs who produced this innovative harsh sound which lead me to Wildstylez and Brennan Heart, followed by Frontliner and many others. It appeared to be that my love for this loud music called ‘hardstyle’ truly started to take shape
My love for hardstyle did not begin just yet, it took several years till it really blossomed. That’s because aside from hardstyle I mainly listened to dubstep and other electronic subgenres. Back then hardstyle was just a side issue, something that I could release my energy to. 2017 was in fact the first year which truly made my love voor hardstyle evolve as I discovered more music, more DJs and more revolutionary sounds. This year I also got the opportunity to witness my heroes for the very first time live playing their music at The Qontinent Weekend Festival which is still something I look back at as one of the milestones of my musical journey. I was already quite familiar with livesets and the various aftermovies that can be found on YouTube from Qlimax and Defqon.1 yet to experience something like this with my own eyes was truly something special. So here I went, with a friend of mine who was totally addicted to hardcore and uptempo, to The Qontinent. Easy guess: my friend was only to be found at the hardcore area while I was trying to find my way at the mainstage where I embraced the euphoric tracks of among others Brennan Heart and Bass Modulators.
I was strayed the crowd and was not able to contact my friend so I decided to just go along with everyone else and was eventually approached during the set of Da Tweekaz by a small group of people who invited me to go with them to witness the set of D-Fence which I had heard of but never given the chance to really appreciate as I thought that hardcore was really too blunt for me. I decided to go along with them and to my surprise I must say that I really liked this harder sound. This was in fact one of the moments that started my chain reaction of appreciating harder and faster music. After The Qontinent I only wanted more!
So that’s what I did. In 2018 it was time for my very first indoor party: Reverze in Belgium. This was definitely a tough night filled with heavy basis and ear shattering kicks made possible by special acts such as the ‘Stealth Mode’ live-set by Frequencerz and Rebelion which was one of the last sets of the night playing at the mainstage. Especially the latter made me feel invincible and gave me that last bit of energy to finish the night properly.
Several months later at Free Festival my desire for raw hardstyle was fulfilled by artists such as D-Sturb and Radical Redemption. I even decided to close this party at the mainstage where Deadly Guns and F.Noize truly teared down the place. To conclude my musical journey and evolution of 2018 I decided to got to Shockerz, on my own (but definitely not lonely). This was probably one of the best parties of the year as it was packed with raw hardstyle fanatics who, along with me, went crazy on the hardest tracks hardstyle has to offer. On such an evening the adrenaline rush is indescribable, certainly something that I will be doing as much as I can!
Do I need to say more? I can proudly say that I’m addicted to the harder styles. While writing this I am 19 years old and I can tell you that I have only just begun. Whether it’s hardstyle, hardcore, frenchcore or even uptempo, I can virtually enjoy everything. My classmates declare me crazy and are impressed that I can go absolutely mental on this kind of music, yet I know that this is where I belong. The music, the people, the atmosphere: everything is perfect. As we say in Dutch: Die bass moet je niet horen, die moet je…. voelen!!
