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DO OR DYRO!

Dutch stadium conquering DJ/producer Dyro has stepped out of his mentor Hardwell's shadows to become a formidable force of his own.

Having twice placed inside the Top 30 of our annual DJ poll, its fair to say that Dyro is now a globally established star. It was only in 2013 that he made his debut, which makes it all the more impressive, not that the man himself would put it that way. Instead, Jordy Van Egmond, born in 1992, modestly attests that his success has come after a few lucky breaks”, having toiled away in his bedroom for years. 

Speaking in perfect English when DJ Mag calls him up, Dyro goes into some eye-watering detail about the hours he has spent working on music.
After I read the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, who talks about becoming an expert after putting in 10,000 hours practice, I started calculating roughly how many hours I must have spent producing in the past years.

When I'm home, working in the studio, I get into a certain vibe where I can be producing tracks for days on end, but it's what I love to do, so I dont notice the time pass.

Now though, he has well and truly broken out of his bedroom and is more at home playing to thousands alongside Hardwell and Tiësto during Ultra Music Festival in Miami, as well as playing Electric Daisy Carnival in Vegas and Mysteryland in Holland, his home country.

HARDWELL'S INFLUENCE
In fact, that association with Hardwell runs deep, because it is his Revealed Recordings that released a lot of Dyros early work, starting back in 2011. Since then, this intelligent young producer has churned out many big hitters including 'Daftastic', Mango/Metaphor' and 'Black Smoke'.

He admits that working with Hardwell, who has become a close friend, has been a great boost and that he is someone off whom he bounces many musical ideas.

I really cant place enough emphasis on what they [Hardwell and his label] have done for me, and what they have helped me go on to achieve,says Dyro. Revealed Recordings is a really close-knit group of artists, we are all friends and often play the same parties so its a really tight group of guys.

He is such a focused, driven and dedicated individual that having that presence around me in the early years of my career really made me focus and forge ahead in the direction I wanted to take my sound.

Being a Dutchman, Dyro claims he hardly remembers exactly when and how he got into dance music because, its such a key part of our culture that you dont so much realise the first time you hear electronic music. I read that 20% of the Dutch economy is electronic music related — I dont think its like this anywhere else in the world!

Living just outside Amsterdam, he was naturally immersed in radio shows by the likes of Tiësto, Laidback Luke, Fedde Le Grand and Hardwell, but initially was too young to go and experience the parties first hand so, essentially, went straight from his home studio, making beats inspired by what he heard online and down the airwaves, to performing and touring as a DJ without having much opportunity to explore clubbing from the other side of the decks.

I started out back when I was in school,he remembers. Working on little productions in my bedroom studio, chatting about it with other producers on forums and chat rooms. Laidback Lukes was one I often spent time on, and the first few tracks I made, and which I was happy with, I just put up on SoundCloud.

Somehow one of these found its way to Hardwell, who played it out at Electric Zoo in New York, and when he got back to Holland his manager got in touch, and they wanted to sign it!

SUPERGROUP
Since that point it has been a manic, nonstop ride for Dyro, though he recently forced himself to take a month off touring to recharge his batteries. Of course, when you also run a label, host a radio show and are in-demand by all media quarters, there is no real rest.

One thing he has been toying with is some sort of live supergroup featuring him, Dannic and Hardwell, having played some awesome back-to-backsover the years.

For a supergroup,he muses with a bit of honest insight that shows he is still a down-to-earth character that puts his fans and their experiences first, I would like to do something bigger than just a back-to-back set.

We would have to go into the studio together and work on some tracks, do a release or two and make it something really unique, I wouldnt want to mislead the fans and dress it up as something more than it actually is, I hate it when DJs do that.

For now, he remains focused on his new label, Wolv.

It launched last year with EPs from Dyro and Bali Bandits, but also offered up a standout Dyro cut that featured Dynamite MC, 'Against All Odds'. The hook-up came about after Dyro had been getting more and more into drum & bass, and wanted to widen his own stylistic palette.

The result marked something of a maturer side from both the artist and EDM at large. Though still full of big, bad bass and devilish drops, the razor-like synths and finely crafted melodies show Dyro has a dexterous side to his skills. When combined with the raging vocals of Dynamite and some seriously explosive drums, its easy to see why the track became such a big hit on the festival circuit.

The reception to the track has been amazing so far,beams Dyro.

My fans seem to really like the experimentation and its been going down so well in my sets. I want to keep experimenting; I really dont feel like you should be restricted by the idea of genre or a pre-formulated concept of what a track should sound like.

Im going to keep pushing forward with new ideas and concepts, and just see what I can create.Despite that battle cry, the mature-headed Dyro says this track is not a reaction against EDM in any way.

Like anyone, as I get older, I come into contact with new people, new ideas and new sounds. I am still so young and there is still so much music for me to discover... producers, vocalists, MCs... I think my music will always evolve and change, as we all do as people.

CLEAR GOALS
Admitting to still learning every day despite the hours he has already put in, Dyro reckons there is no right way of making musicand that you can always teach yourself a new way of doing something. He uses that mindset when working on his Wolv label, and it is sure to set him in good stead despite the oceans of competition.

I am a bit of a control freak,he says. I really want to be involved in every part of the process of releasing music, from signing artists right the way through to deciding how the record would look aesthetically.

The tracks he puts out on Wolv are a shade harder and more intense than the releases he has done for other labels, and that is a distinction he is keen to foster going forwards. I want to build up a roster of like-minded artists who can all work with each other and build a real community around the label,he says.

If you were to look outside of dance music for inspiration, then guys like the A$AP Mob are really inspirational for me, everything from the music, to the style to the social media presence and how they interact with one another is the kind of environment I want to create with Wolv.

With such clear ideas and goals, and going on the platform he has already laid down for himself, you get the impression that Dyro is going to go on to become an EDM icon in the same mould as heroes like Tiësto and Hardwell. Hed deserve it, too, because by no means has this happened by chance.