Breda, NL · big-room-house

Hardwell

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Dutch big-room veteran who returned from retirement with a harder, techno-leaning sound — main-stage architecture rebuilt at 150 BPM.

Hardwell is the stage name of Robbert van de Corput, born 7 January 1988 in Breda. His father devised the name by translating the family surname into "heart" and "well," then swapped in "hard" for a sharper sound. He started piano lessons at six and was producing his own electro tracks by twelve.

He worked first as a hip-hop DJ around Breda before moving into commercial dance music, following the example of fellow Breda native Tiësto. At fourteen he signed to the Digidance label and put out his first release, the two-disc Bubbling Beats 1, touring Dutch clubs off the back of it.

A 2008 bootleg splicing Steve Angello and Laidback Luke's "Be" with Robin S's "Show Me Love" circulated widely among DJs and drew praise from both producers, who issued it as an official single that December. The attention that followed fed into Revealed Recordings, which Hardwell founded in 2010 to put out big-room tracks built for large rooms.

He was voted the world's number one DJ by DJ Mag in both 2013 and 2014, launched the radio show and podcast Hardwell On Air in 2011, and released his debut studio album, United We Are, in 2015.

He announced an indefinite break from touring in September 2018 to focus on his personal life, then returned in March 2022, closing Ultra Miami's main stage with material from his second album, Rebels Never Die, which pushed the tempo faster and the tone darker while keeping his earlier build-and-drop arrangements intact.

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