Armin van Buuren on the UK Trance Era, Sobriety, and Law School

Transcript

Armin: The plan was that I was going to be a lawyer. It was kind of an agreement with my parents, if I can be really honest. They said, "We're fine with you pursuing this as long as you have something to fall back on." I was stuck in a loop. I wasn't doing so well around COVID. I felt depressed. I was drinking too much for my own good. And I decided to change everything. I have to take responsibility for my behavior.

Bobby: I've heard rumors that you're able to DJ for eight hours without using the bathroom.

Armin: That's not healthy. Don't try it at home.

Bobby: What is going on? You are listening to Bobby on BPM, straight from the SiriusXM Miami studio. It is Miami Music Week. Some people call this the Olympics for dance music. I like to call it that myself. Ultra Miami is coming up this weekend, and right now I'm sitting next to one of my favorites, honestly, Armin van Buuren. What's up? What's going on, man? How is everything?

Miami Music Week and John Summit

Armin: Good. Yeah, I'm chilling in Miami. Normally I would fly in on Thursday and quickly get everything done, but I had shows in the US, late Sunday in Dallas that was amazing. So we just flew here and we're just chilling. I actually had some beach time. So that's nice.

Bobby: That's very rare during Music Week. I know you had some beach time, and then you just came here from John Summit's back to back set.

Armin: Yeah, that was wild. It was kind of an unexpected thing. I just showed up, you know, we've known each other for a long time, and I love his music. He's a great dude. And I asked him to play with me in Poland this June. I'm doing an A State of Trance event there in the Warsaw stadium, and I have this concept called Face to Face, which is different than back to back. It's kind of similar, but instead of playing on two decks each on one mixer, you each have your own DJ set. It makes it a little bit more challenging. I've done it before with Funk Tribu, with Lilly Palmer, with Oliver Heldens, with Maddix. And it was my dream to do it with somebody like John, and he said yes. He wanted to do it in Poland. He told me in the booth that he was quite nervous, because it's definitely different than back to back, but I'm excited for it. I just wanted to show the experts what's up. And we played some tracks back to back, quite unexpected. That was nice.

Bobby: Wow, that's awesome. So are you getting John into producing trance music, potentially, or playing it?

Armin: Well, we've had some conversations about that. His music definitely has elements of trance. I wouldn't call it trance per se, a hundred percent, but he definitely has that euphoria feeling, and he's also an amazing producer and songwriter. So yeah, and I'm playing his music in my sets as well. There's definitely common ground there for sure.

A Computer, a Contest, and Early Influences

Bobby: Yeah, absolutely. I want to rewind time a little bit and take you back for a second, because I heard this and I want to know if it's true. Is it true that you started producing because your mom won a computer in some contest?

Armin: Yeah. There was this company called NewBrain. This is, we're talking about 1986, '87, and my mom was a journalist. We lived in a really small village, but that company was based there, and they had a lottery at the reveal of the company. They were giving away a few computers, and my mom won the lottery. She said, "Well, I don't know anything about computers," but she came up to my bedroom, woke me up, and said, "I got a computer." But this was pre pre-Windows, pre-whatever, this is basic. So I taught myself how to program in the BASIC language, computer language.

That was actually, in hindsight, the start of everything, because I've always been a mix of a little bit of nerdy stuff, computers and technology has always been something I've been really fascinated about, and on the other hand, music. So I guess it's no surprise that I ended up here.

Bobby: No, absolutely not. That's an amazing story. And then when you started to get into it, what made you decide to do trance music?

Armin: I guess my dad was very instrumental in that. My dad used to listen to a lot of early synthesizer music. I guess now you would call it trance in hindsight, but in the '70s you had this sound produced mainly by people like Vangelis, Klaus Schulze, Jean-Michel Jarre, I think he's the most well known. They were releasing albums with a lot of synthesizers, and at the time that was revolutionary, because the synthesizer was not considered a serious instrument in the '60s. It wasn't until the Beatles started using the Moog synthesizer on the White Album that the use of electronic instruments was actually more embraced. Before 1966, it was regarded as, you know, a synthesizer is not a real instrument.

And I always find that fascinating. My dad used to listen to this quite obscure instrumental music, and as a kid I grew up and just heard him play those albums, and I guess I was brainwashed by that. And I guess right now you'd call that music trance in the current day and age, but at the time it was just synthesizer music.

Bobby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I've heard you say this in an interview before, and I've actually done a take on it before. Do you think melodic techno is trance?

Armin: I don't want to get caught in the trap of saying what is what. I'm completely cool with every genre you put on it, every name. I guess some people who want to be negative always say a State of Trance or melodic techno is just a way of avoiding saying trance, and I get that, because trance has been a bit of a dirty word. In a way, for a long time it was considered maybe part of EDM or that culture, but that has flipped. Calling yourself trance now is cool again, I guess.

And I guess melodic techno is a sort of mix between techno and slower trance. So I understand there's a new genre for it, but if you look on Beatport, for example, you see a new genre popping up almost every week, and that's great. I don't want to bash on that. I think people can call my music trance, they can call it melodic techno, they can call it techno, whatever they want to call it. It doesn't really matter. To me it's all about what feeling it evokes. In my sets I don't look at, oh, I'm just going to play from the mainstage trance sound or the raw deep trance, whatever. I'm going to play something that fits my sound, my genre. And if you really have to put a label on my head, I'd say put trance on there. And I'm not bashing on people who call it melodic techno.

Bobby: No, for sure, for sure. I just know it's been a discrepancy on the internet, because melodic techno started to really blow up in the last two or three years, and I feel like a lot of big artists started emerging from that. So there's been a debate about that, but I'm happy to hear it from your perspective.

Armin: Oh yeah, but I'm not negative in any sense.

Bobby: No, no, no, I wasn't even coming at it from that standpoint either.

Armin: I understand your question though. It's a little bit confusing sometimes, because sometimes I upload a track and I'm convinced it's trance, and then they put it in the mainstage section. And sometimes I'm convinced it's melodic techno, and then they put it in the trance section. But whatever, as long as people can find it.

Finishing the Law Degree

Bobby: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So did you go back to get your law degree in the early 2000s, as your DJ career was obviously already big?

Armin: Yeah, that's true. Oh, wow, you did your research.

Bobby: Of course. Well done. And how did you pull that off while being an artist?

Armin: That was hard work. I started my law degree in '95, when I finished school, and I took this job as a DJ as a side hustle in a local bar where I was a student. I made tracks, and one of the tracks actually got really big in '99, a track called Communication. I was in my third year of my law degree, because I also did computer science on the side a little bit, didn't finish that.

It was kind of an agreement with my parents, if I can be really honest. I guess my parents weren't the biggest fans of the boom boom music, and they said, you know, we're fine with you pursuing this as long as you have something to fall back on. And in all honesty, I'm very grateful that they did that, because it never gave me the pressure of having to earn my rent from a DJ perspective. So I always knew I had my law degree to fall back on. The plan, in all seriousness, was that I was going to be a lawyer. I actually worked in a law firm for a long time.

Bobby: That would be the career if you weren't an artist.

Armin: Exactly. And at the time you weren't really able to make a proper living out of DJing and producing. That only came later. So I told my parents, look, I'm going to finish my law degree, I know this is what you guys want. It's not my favorite thing, although I specialized in copyright law. I wrote a paper about Buma Stemra, which is our collecting society in the Netherlands, and that was very interesting, because I learned a lot about copyrights, and the internet was just coming up.

Bobby: That's a good thing to know.

Armin: Yeah, actually in hindsight it wasn't a bad move at all, but I really didn't like going to university and studying. That's why it took me seven years to finish the degree. But I ended up finishing my law degree in December of 2002. I remember doing a gig in Denmark, flying back, being picked up by my grandparents from the airport, and getting my law degree that same day. I was completely tired because I hadn't slept from the gig. It was fun. I'm glad I finished it, because in all honesty, maybe I wouldn't have been a trance DJ if I hadn't had the law degree, because trance at the time wasn't the most popular sound. I just felt free to pursue that, because I was like, if I'm going to be a DJ, I want to play my own sound. And then in '99, 2000, that skyrocketed, and I was already DJing in the UK at Cream when I was still studying. It was quite crazy.

The Golden Age of Trance in the UK

Bobby: That's insane, that's insane. What do you think was part of the reason behind trance music getting so big originally back then?

Armin: It was definitely a UK thing. Mr. Ferry Corsten, we all know, had a project called System F, and he did a few tracks that blew up in the UK. That's kind of the Dutch sound. Now, I also want to say the Dutch didn't invent trance, a lot of people think we took credit for it. Tiësto was making trance back then, but I think the Belgians and the Germans invented it, like Jam & Spoon, Bonzai Records, in the UK. We were just the handy guys making it more popular, and Ferry's sound really popped over to the UK, and I got to warm up for Ferry Corsten, and that's how it started.

So I got to play in the UK, and I was part of that, they call it the golden age of trance, '99 to 2001, because a lot of the music produced in that era is still considered classic, and I was there. I was DJing in the UK, every single club, and you have to imagine the dance music world was nothing like it is now. Now you hear it here on SiriusXM, you hear it played everywhere, there's a channel dedicated to it, which I love. But at the time it was very niche. The biggest thing you could sell was a club of 600 people, and then you did well. And you got paid like eight hundred or a thousand pounds. You had to pay your flight, your hotel and everything. So it wasn't a really lucrative thing. But what you did feel was, I remember those days in the UK, the crowds. I played at places like Slinky, and Bournemouth, and Stoke on Trent, and places like Cream, and Gatecrasher, of course, the legendary club in Sheffield, and something was boiling, and we all felt it, but nobody knew it was going to blow up ten years later like it is now.

Bobby: Yeah, it's crazy, that's absolutely crazy. Shout out to you for being a part of that movement as well, man. Been a big fan for a long time.

Armin: Thank you.

Getting Healthy and Getting Sober

Bobby: So you were recently on the cover of Men's Health magazine, right? What made you start taking your health so seriously?

Armin: I had a bit of a bad time. I've shared this before in interviews as well. I wasn't doing so well around COVID. I was depressed, I was drinking too much for my own good, and I didn't feel well. I decided to change everything. I realized that, you know, I'm a father of two, I'm married, and I have to take responsibility for my behavior. I was kind of stuck in a loop. I felt like I was doing too many shows, I was doing it for the money, not for the passion anymore, and I kind of lost myself a little bit. So I quit drinking on Friday the 13th of March, 2020, six years ago.

And it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I never thought I could quit alcohol. It wasn't a massive problem, you've never seen me drunk behind the decks or anything, but I was just fed up with it. Once that year was over and I started to see the benefits of not drinking, not doing drugs, just being clean and sober, I felt so great. I got so much energy. And then I got approached to do the Men's Health cover, and I said, no, that's not me, I don't see myself on the cover of Men's Health magazine. But I was intrigued by the question, because I got this trainer who was going to train me if I said yes. And I said, okay, I'm going to do this, but I'm going to pay for the shoot myself, so I have a get out of jail free card, if I don't like the photos I can say no, I don't want to be on the cover. So I went into that routine, and I learned so much about what is actually healthy food, and that was the whole plan. Of course, I'm a bit vain, for being on the cover, I'm not going to lie.

Bobby: Yeah, man, you got to own it.

Armin: I'm proud of that. But the idea behind it was, you walk into the supermarket, right, and we all know an apple is more healthy than a hamburger, we all know that. But what is actually healthy food? There's so many choices, I don't even know anymore. So my trainer actually made a schedule, he looked at my macros, he put me on six meals a day. It's insane, six. I started eating way more, and I'm like, something's wrong here. And the first month, nothing happened. We think that if we eat less, we lose weight, when that's the wrong way of thinking. He showed me stuff like that. I used to work out with a personal trainer, one hour a week, came home sweaty, took a shower, put the shirt back in the washing machine. When I started training with him, I never sweat anymore, I could put my shirt back in the cupboard.

Bobby: That's crazy.

Armin: Because he said, you're training the wrong way. And he taught me so much about food, about how important sleep is. He made me sleep more. He said, you can't be on the Men's Health cover if you sleep less than eight hours a day. I was like, sleep? I thought you had to be in the gym like five hours a day. I got it all wrong, I got it all wrong.

Bobby: I think a lot of people do with that.

Armin: So he really helped me. The first month was super frustrating, because I had to prepare all these meals, and I'm not a big egg fan, you had to eat a lot of eggs and chicken, and that's not my favorite. But I had to learn, and I went through that, and after a month all of a sudden my weight went, boom. I started seeing my body change, and honestly the real reason for still being on this diet is because I still have the six pack. It's because I get the energy, and I'm so much more creative. I have less dark thoughts, I'm less depressed, I'm a happier person, I embrace life more, and I'm more there for my family. So when I come home from Miami, for example, I want to be there for my kids, and normally I would just be hung over from everything.

Bobby: Yeah, that's beautiful, man.

Armin: Sorry for the long answer, but...

Bobby: No, I love it, I love it, it's super intriguing. Do you maybe credit this to your health too? I've heard rumors that you're able to DJ for eight hours without using the bathroom.

Armin: That's not healthy, don't try it at home. It's definitely not healthy. Actually, my doctor, my GP, said don't do that too often, because you can actually hurt your kidneys. It's a bad idea. So don't, not go to the bathroom.

Bobby: Don't do that.

Armin: Going to the bathroom is probably one of the healthiest things you can do.

Five Favorite Tracks

Bobby: All right, my last question for you right now, what would you say right now are your five favorite songs to play in your set?

Armin: For my own?

Bobby: Yeah.

Armin: Oh my god, I can't wait to play my new track at Ultra this Saturday. I'm going to premiere something that's personally very, I actually touched upon the story we just talked about. I can't wait to play that. I'm so excited about it. I just saw, because we're still working on the visuals and stuff, I just saw the final render of the show. Oh my god, it's so good, I'm so happy with that. So I can't wait to share that.

Got a new track coming, it's called She Freak, that I just played with John Summit. That's crazy. My new single, Lost in Time, has gotten so much love from the fans. And I have to mention Always You, a track that was the anthem for A State of Trance's 25th anniversary celebration at Ahoy. I'm going to throw that on the mainstage as well. It's a pure trance anthem, but the fans absolutely love it. And there's quite a few classic tunes that still work. I'm really proud of my track with Sasha called Set Me Free. She's actually here in Miami with me, and she's amazing. I love Sasha, and she's been on tour with me for almost a year now, and we've become close friends, so that's been amazing.

Bobby: Nice. Well, listen, man, we appreciate you coming on right now. By the way, I'm gonna close this out for a second. Thank you, Armin van Buuren, you're a straight up legend, man. Much love to you. Love what you create and put out there. You are listening to Bobby on BPM, straight from the SiriusXM Miami studio. This is Armin van Buuren. Love you guys. Peace.