Showtek is a Dutch Hard Dance act, consisting of two brothers, Sjoerd and Wouter Janssen, who started producing Techno in 2001. They changed to hardstyle in 2003, and released their first album, Today Is Tomorrow, under their self founded label Dutch Master Works in 2007. SHOWTEK were the first hardstyle act to release an album, and they followed up Today Is Tomorrow with Analogue Players in a Digital World in 2009. Wouter also produces hard trance tracks under the name "Walt", and Sjoerd produces solo hardstyle tracks under the name "Duro". In 2012, the SHOWTEK brothers began a series of collaborations, a project called Crazy Collabs, with other producers spanning some of the other genres in dance music.
The DJ List: For the people who are not familiar with SHOWTEK, can you guys give us a brief introduction and describe the type of music you guys make?
Hey we are SHOWTEK from the Netherlands and people really know us for our hard style of music. But these days we have a really broad sound that works everywhere and basically do not leave any genre untouched. We produce with guys like Tiesto and HARDWELL, we just love music and go from left to right and front to back, but it is always SHOWTEK. We actually present a harder style of party music, but always more about the energy than the hardness.
The DJ List: This has been a really big year for you guys, tell us, what have you been up to?
Well we have been doing a lot of new production. The main thing has been that we expanded our sound a bit, it has become a little less heavier. We started this project called crazy collab and the idea behind that is that we are going to collaborate with any artist from any genre that we really like, admire and have fun with in the studio. The first collaboration was with Tiesto, which actually turned out very well and after that it was with HARDWELL. We have another one coming up with NOISECONTROLLERS and another collaboration with BASSJACKERS, which is going to be on Spinnin Records. We just want to make something new, because there are so many genres out there right now. We just want to evolve and create something different. I think even wise the highlight of this year has been Identity fest. Which was a tour that went all across America. It was definitely a highlight for us, because we had a tour bus for 6 weeks and went all across America.
The DJ List: You guys did a massive collaboration with Tiesto, how this that project come together?
We had been working with Tiesto for 2 years already. We co-produced with tracks like Maximal Crazy, Tornado and some other stuff. So we did a lot of engineering on those tracks and he was like you guys should do some more stuff. Then he was the one who inspired us to grow as producers and because of him we found out that there is this whole new world open. We just wanted to make some more music that goes beyond our regular SHOWTEK sound. He is actually the guy who pushed us to do more. When we were out at EDC Las Vegas last year and so Tiesto drop maximal crazy and the crowd just went nuts. We knew we could do more with this and not just stick to hardstyle, but we felt like the whole scene was not ready for it, especially Europe. But now that EDM is so mainstream and mixed up with genres it is easier to do collaboration like the one we did with Tiesto.
The DJ List: What about the track with HARDWELL?
It has been doing very well, even on the national radio in Holland it is going crazy. It was the most played track on the national Dutch radio station SlamFM last month. We did not expect it to go this well, we just made the first cut and send it to HARDWELL. He called us a minute later and was like guys this melody is just off the roof. Can I come to the studio and make a collaboration with you guys. We actually had been talking about doing a collaboration together for a year, but because we are all so busy it just never happened. So we all had a day off, we got into the studio for a day and finished the track. But the next one will be with NOISECONTROLLERS and it is a bit harder. It is a track full with energy, and it is not hardstyle hard but just a bit under it. We are also having a collaboration with a new guy from Tiestos label called JUSTIN PRIME. He is a really talented guy and we decided to have a collaborate with him on the Musical Freedom label and its going to be released in November.
The DJ List: Anybody you really want to collaborate with in the future
The number one for us right now would be Knife Party at the moment. Knife Party is really good and we love their edginess and how they produce their tracks. We always not just listen to how the track sounds, but how it is produced as well. They have a lot of really unique elements and bring a lot of creativity to their tracks and that is why we would love to work with guys like that. They just have a great style or producing.
The DJ List: Arguably a lot of people have said for better or for worse that you guys changed your sound from hardstyle to a more commercial progressive house. What do you think contributed to this change?
We see it like this, people who complain on the internet is the same as when you are driving a car and someone cuts you off. You honk and might curse at him, but you never really get out of your car and knock on that persons window and say, Hey you fucking suck. The internet is just an easy way of saying something without being directly being in someones face. By some haters, I seriously think it is one out of a thousand and so if we say for example we have 250.000 fans and 250 of those are being negative and hating on the internet you just kind of brush that off. If you follow your heart and follow your passion and do what you really like the rest will follow. We feel like we did not change but rather expanded and we just wanted to do something different. People do not always realize that we have been doing this for almost 10 years and we still like to challenge ourselves. If our new track with NOISECONTROLLERS, it is very hard, it is very party style which we think really represent us. We always like to think, when people stop complaining something must be wrong.
The DJ List: What can we expect in the future?
The next big release will be of course with JUSTIN PRIME which will drop in November and in December we have the track with BASSJACKERS coming out titled, Hey and then in January we are releasing our track with NOISECONTROLLERS called Loose. That is enough for now, we are still working on some collaborations, but nothing really major besides the ones we mention. We might want to do an album, but we are really just going to see how it goes, because it is easy to just throw some tracks together and be like, here is the album. We would want to do something more special than that. As we mentioned we are still expanding our sound and trying to figure out what sound we really want to play and we think that should really be the focus right now. We wanted to leave it with one final thing. There is a really big difference between expanding and changing. We will never lose the hardness to our sound, but we are just expanding on what we play and produce. We are getting more mature as a person as well and we just want to teach people how to party in a different way. Love it or hate it, we will always be fucking SHOWTEK.
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