We sit down with HARDWELL ahead of his new single “Anybody Out There,” out June 30 on Revealed Recordings.
HARDWELL, along with Azteck, featuring Alex Hepburn release their latest single, “Anybody Out There,” available worldwide as of Friday, June 30 through his very-own Revealed Recordings. HARDWELL fills listeners in on his new track “Anybody Out There,” as well as the collaborative process with Azteck and Alex Hepburn. Additionally, HARDWELL chats exclusively with DJ LIFE about “Anybody Out There” and more, below.
“Although my new sound is much harder-edged and techier, I still love the beauty of vocal-based electronic music. Every genre, from house music and trance to electro and techno, has given the dancefloor magical moments through big vocal tracks. That feeling a big vocal song has on a festival crowd is hard to describe, but when that moment comes, it’s intoxicating.
Azteck and I have known each other for a while, having previously worked together on music. As his recent run of form proves, he’s a great producer with a fantastic ear for a topline. So, I knew a big vocal collab with Azteck would be a fire release for the summer. But the track needed a specific type of voice to make it work, and the unique raspy quality of Alex’s voice made her the perfect fit for the distorted topline on ‘Anybody Out There.’”
“This track is special to me because I’d been longing to repurpose my new style into a vocal-driven anthem that blended other elements of my sound to create a sort of hybrid track. It needed the right emotion in the track, the right chords, and perfect balance in arrangement to fit the current sound.” – HARDWELL
Read some of our Q&A sit-down with HARDWELL ahead of our full interview, coming soon.
DJ LIFE MAG: You’ve managed to make a grand return that stuck to your roots, while at the same time, completely reimaging your set style. How did you go about deciding the direction of your new sound and how would you describe it?
HARDWELL: I’ve always believed an artist should not imprison themself to one particular style but instead continue to evolve in whichever direction feels right for them at that time. For myself, I felt I wanted to go back and reconnect with the music that first sparked my love for electronic music, and I wanted to bring in a lot of these passions into my sound and sets. It’s definitely a hard-edged, techier sound, which for some is labelled as “big room techno” and for others it’s called something else. But for me it’s just music I’m passionate about and reflects the Hardwell sound of now. As my new single “Anybody Out There” shows, there’s still a strong wave of other influences in my music.
DJ LIFE MAG: When you first began playing DJ sets again, were you at all surprised by certain songs getting a bigger response than you’d imagined? If so, which?
HARDWELL: Yes, but for me that’s one of the beauties of DJing. That buzz a crowd can give you to a certain track you just weren’t expecting. Seems funny now, but “INTO THE UNKNOWN” was a track I just wasn’t sure how it was going to be received. It was a massive leap in sound and the first official single, so a big question mark was around that track. And I guess “BLACK MAGIC,” just because of how techy it is in sound, and then “F*CKING SOCIETY” because of how long it took me to finally nail that track down in how I wanted it to sound.
DJ LIFE MAG: You’ve produced hundreds of tracks thus far in your career. If you had to choose one (or a maximum of top 3), which would you consider to be your opus and why?
HARDWELL: I think about this from time to time, and I’m really not sure, because I don’t believe I’ve created my best work so far. It’s why even though my current sound is a lot harder and techier, I still want to explore vocal-driven anthems, because I love the timeless quality of those kind of tracks. I’m super proud of my latest track “Anybody Out There,” which is a big collaboration release, because I think it creates its own involuntary musical imagery, which is what a memorable track needs. Of course, I have to put ‘Spaceman’ in the list because of its impact and relationship with the fans. Not an opus track, but “Zero 76,” in many ways was a coming-of-age track for me as an artist in the realm of collaborations. When I can hear it I can still hear the younger me producer in that track.
DJ LIFE MAG: You’ve mentioned you have a new single called ‘ANYBODY OUT THERE’ coming up and that it is a big collaboration release. How is the track with and why is this song is special to you?
HARDWELL: It’s a collaboration with Azteck, who I’ve known for a while because we’ve worked together on music before, and Alex Hepburn who brings her incredible voice to the mix. Alex has this unique raspy quality to her voice which was the dream fit for the final version of this song.
After the album, I wanted to repurpose my new style into a vocal-driven anthem that blended other elements of my sound to create a sort of hybrid track. A song that has the right emotion, the right chords, and perfect balance in arrangement to fit the current sound. A lot of fans perhaps thought that because my new sound is a lot harder-edged, I’ve lost a passion for vocal-based dance music, so this project started out life as a way show them, I still love the magic a big vocal track has.
DJ LIFE MAG: You recently performed at Ultra Music Festival Miami and The Brooklyn Mirage in NYC. How were these shows for you and what’s it like to play these fresh sets for your fans?
HARDWELL: Ultra is like a home to me. I’ve been blessed to have so many incredible experiences on that stage. So, to have the most nerve-wracking performance of my entire career with my comeback show on that stage seemed like the best idea, haha.
What an amazing, crazy run of shows that recent North America tour was. It was a crazy, crazy ride and I really loved every minute of it. The energy was so good at every show and the crowds were also really into the music, singing along and everything. I loved it. After a long album, I was excited to be back with new music and just freeing my set up a little more to include a real mix of everything I love, had just released and had been working on.