Garrix in the groove
The young Dutch DJ makes his Bangkok debut
Wednesday night promises to be an exciting night for Bangkok partygoers as a new kid on the deck, one that the pundits are predicting could well be clubland’s next superstar DJ, comes to town.
He is Martin Garrix and rather surprisingly, he’s not actually old enough to enter clubs, though rules are being waved for this Dutch shooting star as he gets his first taste of Bangkok nightlife at Levels and takes full advantage of the club’s newly enhanced sound and lighting system.
The Holland-based 17-year-old, whose real name is Martijn Garritsen, doesn’t make a big deal of his age though it seldom goes unnoticed. He recently became the youngest producer to ever top the Beatport 100 chart. Exceptionally talented, he is living the dream of many aspiring DJs, both young and old, and undoubtedly has a long promising career ahead of him.
Garrix began the journey in the music business with “BFAM”, a co-release with Julian Jordan. Last year he won the Nightlife Award at the Slam! FM DJ Talent of the Year Awards. Also in 2012, his remix of “Your Body” appeared as "Your Body (Martin Garrix Remix)" on Christina Aguilera’s deluxe version of the album “Lotus”.
His breakthrough track “Animals” beat Lilly Allen and reached number 1 on BBC Radio 1’s UK Top 40 Singles Chart the went on to top charts all over Europe. “Animals” also went directly to number one on Beatport’s chart, making him the youngest DJ ever to reach that spot.
“Animals” is considered the ‘hit’ track of his summer by blogs and important dance portals all over the world. The track also appears on DJ Hardwell’s album “Hardwell presents: Revealed Volume 4” and has earned 50 million views on Youtube.
“I was a little bit afraid that it went too fast,” he says in an interview with DJ mag. “‘When I made ‘Animals’ and it became big so quickly I was like, ‘Oh s**t, this has happened really fast’, and I didn’t have any other tracks ready to release yet. That was a really bad feeling, thinking I had to come up with something that was on the same level as ‘Animals’. At that point I was like ‘I don’t want to be like a one-hit dude’, but now I’ve got five or six new tracks ready. I have some really big collaborations with some of the biggest in the world.”
This year he co-released “Torrent” with Sidney Samson on Tiesto’s Musical Freedom label. He quickly followed up with a remix of “Project T” by Sander Van Doorn, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, which also soared up the Beatport charts to claim no 1 position. He appeared on DJ mag’s top 100 DJs list 2013 as a new entry at number 40.
Garrix also reveals a little-known fact about his career as a DJ. Before “Animals”, he ghost-produced a “really big” track for an unnamed artist on Dutch Spinnin’ Records. ”I made a ghost production for somebody else – I can’t tell you which track I made – but this track got signed to Spinnin’ Records and became really big,” he says. “They found out that I made it, and so they invited me to their office and I played them my other stuff – and we signed.”
On the level
_ Martin Garrix performs at Levels on Sukhumvit Soi 11 on Wednesday. Entry is Bt500, and the usual vodka promotion is not valid on that night.
_ More at www.Facebook.com/LevelsClub
