The past won’t repeat itself. Trance mastermind Armin Van Buuren dropped his first studio album 76 over a decade ago, but talking to tabloid! earlier this month, he said he doesn’t plan to revisit his old sound any time soon.
“Maybe you can also call it growth as a producer, you know? Just as a person, I can’t do the same thing over and over again. It just bores me,” he said. During our call, he was on the way to the studio to continue working on the ‘ambitious’ follow-up to his 2013 album, Intense.
“I made a track back in 1999, which was a huge success, called Communication, and I still love that track. It’s still very dear to me. But I can’t make another Communication,” he said. “It would just bore me. I really want to do something different every time when I’m producing — I think I owe that to myself, rather than to my fans or anybody. When I’m in the studio, I want to create something that excites me.”
The recording studio is far from his only avenue for excitement. Since 2001, he’s been hosting a weekly radio show titled A State of Trance. In 2003, he co-founded the record label Armada Music to help expose undiscovered talent. And this year, he took his tour Armin Only to 20 destinations around the world, including the Philippines, Taiwan, Australia, Russia and Brazil.
As part of the Formula 1 after-race concerts in Abu Dhabi, which will also host Pharrell and The Who, he will perform for his Middle East fans at du Arena on November 21.
Ahead of the show, the 37-year-old told us why he can’t please everyone and how he’s going to make history with his very own festival next year.
Aside from your song This Is What It Feels Like last year, you tend to steer clear of big producer-vocalist collaborations. Is that deliberate?
Earlier on in my career, I may have tried to really stick to a specific sound. With my last album, Intense, I think I was really able to let that go. I just go into the studio, and I do what feels right. And I don’t think about being commercial, or not commercial, or being trance, or non-trance, or making EDM or non-EDM — or just thinking about how a track should impact my crowd or whatever. I just make music because I want to make it and because it feels right, and I know now for a fact that no matter what you do as an artist, no matter what decisions you make… whether you stick to your safe sound and your safe haven or whatever you’ve been doing throughout the years, or whether you try a new sound, you’ll always win and lose fans. It’s just a fact of the matter. The only responsibility that I have is towards myself to make music that I really like.
As someone who has influence in the industry — with your record label and radio show — where would you like to see it go?
I’ve really learned throughout the years that making music and promoting it is a different thing. Promoting it is just putting it out there, but it doesn’t mean that the fans will instantly like it just because I play it. It just doesn’t work that way. A lot of people always thank me for playing a track on my radio show, which is really, really nice to hear — I like those comments from fans. Some artists really go out of their way to say, ‘You made my career, and you made it possible for me to DJ all around the world.’ And I say, ‘First of all, you did that yourself, because you created those songs, you created those great tracks. All I can do is put them out there and connect you with a bigger audience, simply because I have a big audience on my radio show.’ But the artist always has to do the job himself, I cannot make an artist. I can only help. I think it’s very important to state that.
You’ve accomplished a lot at a young age. But what’s something you still want to do that you haven’t touched on?
One of my big dreams I’m going to turn into reality next year, actually. I think I’m going to be the first DJ to ever have his own festival, like a proper festival, with several arenas. The State of Trance, my radio show, will now be turned into a full-scale festival. So I will have multiple rooms in a big arena. And it makes you very proud, not because of me, but because I really have a vision now where I can help other artists to show their creativity to a bigger crowd. For me, it’s really exciting, because the sound that I really love and really believe in is now really growing. It shows that there’s an underground fan base for it that, it needs to be bigger. And I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t think that trance is the most popular sound right now in electronic dance music, but I keep supporting it simply because I love it so much. It’s really close to my heart, and it’s something that I really, really like.
What show are you bringing to Abu Dhabi for Formula 1?
We were going to do an Armin Only in Abu Dhabi, but that wasn’t possible because of the venue. Armin Only is this big show that I’m touring with around the world, and I think my fans in the Middle East deserve something special. So I’m actually bringing some of the artists of the Armin Only tour to Abu Dhabi. It’s not going to be a full-scale Armin Only show, but I do have some of the show elements that we will bring, so it’s definitely going to be a memorable performance, and it’s the first that I’m doing something like that in the Middle East, so I’m pretty excited about it.
Are you working on anything new at the moment?
Oh yeah. I’m actually on the way to the studio again now. I’m working on my new artist album, I’m pretty happy with what I have so far. Still needs a lot of work, but I think that most of the songs are done, and now I just need to wrap my head around the instrumental tracks. I’ve written some pretty ambitious projects that I think are really, really exciting. We’ll see where it goes. What I have in my head, I’d like to put that into reality.
— Tickets for the Formula 1 Grand Prix are sold at yasmarinacircuit.com as well as Virgin Megastores, and Etihad Airways shops across the UAE.
