The Dutchman started his DJing career in 2005. That very same year, he was personally recommended by trance forefather, Tiësto. It immediately placed him in the DJ Magazine Top 100 DJs pool.
But not for nothing though – Richard Durand has the skillset to prove it. In the past few years, he has produced several remixes including Tiësto’s singles (Lethal Industry, Flight 643, Break My Fall) and reworks of The Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” and Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars”. It made international DJs such as Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk, Ferry Corsten, and Eddie Halliwell sit up and listen, and landed him into their playlists.
In 2008, he was given the opportunity to work on remixing Fragma’s “Toca’s Miracle” and Armin van Buuren’s “In And Out Of Love”:
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Barely a year later, he remixed Art of Trance’s “Madagascar”. and also produced his debut artiste album, “Always The Sun” on Magik Muzik/Black Hole Recordings. Richard Durand’s album spawned three successful singles, “Into Something”, “Always The Sun”, and “No Way Home”.
Since then, he has been playing at gigs all across Europe, America, and Asia, as well as huge festival appearance at two Global Gathering events, Ultra Music Festival, and as part of the “In Search Of Sunrise” tour:
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He also made a stop-0ff in Malaysia in December 2010 where he played at the epic year end Godskitchen Boombox. And this year (more like, in about four days), Richard Durand will return once again to play at Music Conference Asia 2012.
And here comes the surprise; our team at Hype was lucky enough to have had the opportunity to hang out with Richard Durand before he packs up and takes off to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!
In an exclusive interview, we dug deep into the mind of the Dutchman:
When it comes to EDM, “non believers” carry with them a bad perception of the scene (e.g. drugs). Now, how would you, as a thriving international DJ try to change that?
“I think that everyone at the forefront of the scene such as DJs, producers and promoters have a responsibility to act as role models. By the process of positive publicity and educational debate and information, hopefully we can improve people’s outlook towards such negative matters and instead focus on responsible behaviour.”
How has trance changed from the time that you started out until now?
“Producers have evolved and multiplied with production techniques now more complex, but at the same time, the advances in technology have made many of these techniques automatic and computerized, making production in general open to the masses. This probably explains the growth in the global scene – there have been places that I’ve visited to perform that I would never imagined a few years ago having dedicated trance club night or festival.”
Who is the one DJ or producers (or a few DJs or producers) that you would like to share the stage with?
“I’ve been lucky enough to remix the likes of Tiesto and Armin van Buuren already. If I had to pick another name from the trance scene, maybe someone like Ferry Corsten would be cool to work with?”
Who are your inspirations or rather, where do you get your inspirations from?
“I don’t listen to any music in my spare time these days as I prefer to chill out. So my main inspiration comes from my experience and moods; hence I often write a lot of music while travelling to events all over the world – I find that the different cultures and things you feel while in a foreign and faraway country can provide the perfect inspiration to make music.”
Name the top 5 tunes (predicted or current) of 2012. Or top 5 tunes that you love dropping.
“Some favourite tracks of my sets at present include Richard Durand “Trancefusion”, Richard Durand & Bobina “Last Train To Moscow”, Evanescence “My Immortal” (Richard Durand Rework), Shogun “Skyfire”, and Nicky Romero “WTF”.”
Credits go to Global Sound Masters for being wonderful and arranging this for us.
See you this Saturday, Richard Durand!
For more information on Richard Durand, visit his official website, Facebook page, or follow his Twitter account.
