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Molek FMW&W: Trance Nether Realm
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Dutch duo Willem van Hanegem and Wardt van der Harst, better known as W&W, have quickly risen in the trance world. Enough that when they first graced our shores, despite sharing the stage with a bonafide legend, the Dutchmen still flew higher and landed on their feet as our favourite act that night. Gracing us again with a promise of another stellar performance at Thirst 2013, JUICE caught up with Wardt and spoke to him on their rise to fame and what they think of a certain claim about the ‘true’ nature of DJing.
How did W&W start?
We met in 2007, where we had a mutual friend and he gave William’s email address on Windows Live Messenger to me. I added him and we started talking about music, showing each other stuff that we made and at one point we thought it’d be cool to meet up. We met up, things started to click and after about 6 months, we decided to make a track together, which was called ‘Mustang’. That got us signed to Armada. From then on, everything we did together was better than what we did ourselves, and we just focused on W&W from that moment.
What’s it like working with Armin?
It’s pretty strange to be with him in the studio for the first time because we’ve always looked up to him since we first started and it was really cool to be in the studio with him. He’s really good in the studio, plus it was a great working environment because we had a lot of ideas that threw at each other.
You guys mentioned that you hated making remixes, but W&W remixed one of Armin’s track, tell us a little about that?
(Laughs) We don’t really hate to do it, it’s just we only want to do tracks we feel and have ideas for. The first time he called us up about that track, he said he needed to remix for it in a club. We did it in a few days and we liked it, so if we ever have that kind of feeling for a track, we’d do it again.
What do you think about the statement made by Deadmau5 that DJing is just pressing play and that everyone can do it these days?
Well, it’s very easy to say DJs just pull some strings, add some drums, and press buttons, but in the end it’s about the kind of music you bring to the people and what comes out of the speakers. For us, it doesn’t matter how you do it, it’s just the outcome that matters. Nowadays, it’s so easy to get into it DJing as compared to 20 years ago where you need a lot of equipment. Now, one can just plug into laptops, get a software and start, which makes it easier to find good producers, but you still need to effort to get further.
The lot of you are all of from Netherlands (Armin van Buuren, Hardwell, Tiësto), how is that like when you guys get together?
It’s a good thing because we’re all good friends and we’ll help each other if we have questions on production techniques and equipment we use. We can just call each other up and ask how it’s done and everything. I guess there is a little bit competition among one another, but we help enhance one another too!
How did you feel when ‘Invasion’ became the theme song for A State of Trance (ASOT)?
It’s a funny story really. When Armin announced it on ASOT, we were actually standing in a customs queue in Argentina. We were checking out Twitter and saw that we were chosen and we screamed, everybody in the customs thought we were crazy
What do you expect from the crowd at Thirst 2013?
Well we played in Malaysia in March and what we saw was absolutely crazy. It was definitely one of the best gigs that we ever did, so we expect a crazy night with a lot of energy as we always feel that the Malaysian crowd is always energetic and passionate about music – we definitely expect that.
W&W will play at Thirst 2013 on Saturday 14 December ’13 at Sepang International Circuit.
