It’s no surprise that the Dutch have undoubtedly held a large portion of the EDM fame. Years ago, DJs like Armin van Buuren and Tiësto made a name for the Netherlands worldwide, and since then, we’ve seen tons of talent from there being recognized. With new music cluttering the internet regularly, it’s near impossible to create a name for yourself in the EDM industry and create a unique sound that will spark attention. Meet W&W, or Willem and Ward, who have skyrocketed in the past few years, creating unique big-room tracks that have almost always caught on. W&W was no stranger to the Dutch EDM scene, having worked under Armin van Buuren’s label, Armada. However, W&W’s biggest single to date, “Bigfoot”, truly gave them that extra push to international recognition. Their latest endeavor, a single entitled “The One” out now on Beatport, breaks away from the traditional hard-hitting bangers they’ve previously produced, and samples an old Whitney Houston tune before combining melodic chords with some infamous bass. We had the opportunity to sit down with W&W after their set at Spring Awakening to discuss “The One”, the future and more.
EDM Chicago: Hey, thank you guys for taking the time to interview! Wow, that was AN amazing set. Tell us about your set, and what it was like to play for the Chicago crowd?
Willem: To be honest, we thought because Yellow Claw and DVBBS were playing before us, we felt we were gonna have a hard time, but the crowd was amazing.
Ward: I’m not saying this just because we’re in Chicago right now, but honestly, it was one of the best shows we ever did. If I’m 100% honest.
EDMC: Well, you guys are on FIRE right now. Bowser, the new track with Blasterjaxx, is #13 on the Beatport Top 100 chart, and #2 on the Electro House chart. On top of that, you guys just announced a new single, “The One”, will be dropping soon on your label Mainstage Music. What have these past few months been like in the studio?
Willem: I think the problem for us right now, is that we have too many songs. Everybody’s asking for, “that song, or another song”, and we don’t know what to do. We have to release all of them, but it’s impossible. I think we have, what, 50 new tracks, at least.
Ward: We have so much new music, it’s crazy.
Willem: So we just did “Bowser”, and after that, it’ll be “The One”. And then, we have a new one with Armin, a new one with Hardwell, a new one with MOTi. We have to get them all out, and we have like 5, or 6 new W&W songs, so we’re trying to work it out.
EDMC: So, with all this new music, is there any more upcoming tracks you can tell us about? Is it possible that we can see a W&W EP or album in the near future?
Willem: It’s hard, I think if we did an album right now, I don’t know if it’s the right move to do it. Cause we want to do an album, we want every song to be different.
Ward: We put a lot of effort into just pushing the solo releases, we put a lot of effort into promoting them, so for us, it’s more important to focus on just singles right now, and you know, never say never, but right now, we don’t think an album is the right move for us. Maybe in a year, or two, but yeah.
EDMC: Well, on top of all this new music, you guys have been touring like crazy lately. I think it was just a few days ago, you guys went from The Flying Dutch in the Netherlands, to Colombia, to Hakkasan in Vegas.
Willem: It’s been way worse! We just went from Paraguay, to Brazil, then we went straight to Asia, we played a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then we went back for 1 day at home, and then we went to Guatemala.
Ward: Guatemala, and El Salvador, and then we did a Vegas at Hakkasan. I don’t even remember, dude.
Willem: Every weekend is crazy.
EDMC: What’s that like to be gone from home for weeks at a time, and do you think it ever becomes draining?
Willem: Of course! Sometimes, you want to get away, like “Okay, I want to get out”, and after a while, you want to go back home. It’s hard, because we’re away for weeks sometimes, and it’s hard. You don’t see your family, you don’t see your friends a lot of times, but, let’s be honest, this is what we signed up for. This is our job, like this. You know, if you’re gonna be successful, you’re going to be away from home a lot of times. But it’s still hard.
Ward: But you know, I think the perks are so much better than the negatives. It’s like this little of negative things, and this big of perks.
Willem: He’s totally right.
EDMC: Well, on top of all of this, you guys ALSO have your label Mainstage Music, so what’s it like finding new talent to put on to the label?
Willem: I think it’s one of the best things we can do, because we’ll find a song, and we’ll love that song, and then we feel like everyone needs to hear that song, and we can play it all the sets, and then we can release it. It was one of our dreams when we started out, to be able to find a song we love, and just totally put everything into it, and release it under our own label. To be honest, I would have never thought we’d have our own label.
Ward: And we always remember, us. We remember we sent demos to (Willem: every single label!) maybe 100 labels, with the standard message, “Hey, listen to my demo blah blah blah”, and then we got the same reply from them, “Thank you for sending your demo, unfortunately this is not what we’re looking for”.
Willem: We sent it to everybody. We’d make a new song, send it out to all the big labels, and then we went back a day after, “we have a reaction!”.
Ward: And then, 10 rejections. Next day, another 10 rejections.
Willem: But, if you just try to work hard and keep moving, in the end, it will happen.
EDMC: What are you guys most excited about in 2015?
Willem: I think for now, we just released the preview of our new single, “The One”. I think this one is so different from what we’ve did before, I think it’s one of the things we’re really proud of. Because when we played it at Ultra, we got so many reactions from people, like “I want that song”, and we had to wait because Whitney Houston’s voice is in there so we had to wait months to get it cleared, and now it’s done, and we’re going to release it, and I’m really happy about that one.
Ward: Nothing to add for that, haha.
EDMC: So, last but not least, this is a question I like to ask every artist, what track that you guys have made truly defines “W&W”?
Willem: That’s close to impossible, because we have 4 or 5 styles, and we even do a Hardstyle or Trance, or a Big Room song, and it’s like “Okay, we need one of those”, and then, we make that, we make that, so, it’s not really one style.
Ward: I think it\’s kind of missing the point, because what we stand for is, being very like broad genres, you know? So, you can’t make a track with 7 genres in it, it’d be a mess. So, I don’t think it’s possible for us to make ONE song that really represents us, I think it’s a selection of a few songs, so yeah.
Alright guys, thank you so much. Good luck in the future!
Willem & Ward: Thank you!
As mentioned above, their single, \”The One\”, is available now on Beatport and available for stream below. Be sure to follow W&W on their social networks as well, to be sure to not miss any upcoming music and tour dates.
W&W | Twitter | Facebook | SoundCloud
W&W – The One | Beatport
Image Credit: Unknown
