Little Hardwell (Credits: DBR.FM)

Hardwell was born in 1988 in Breda and began to orient himself on music in early years. At the age of 4 he took piano lessons for the first time and received a training at a music school. Already at the age of twelve, he produced his first own songs in the field of electro while he originally was active as a hip-hop-DJ. Through his participation in various competitions, he became a big name in Breda’s DJ-scene and had the chance to prove his abilities. One of his idols was the DJ and producer Tiësto, who also came from Breda, and made the jump into the upper EDM-scene in a similar way.

Through the change of hip-hop to an underground scene, Hardwell decided to change his genres to commercial electronic dance music. He started producing remixes and uploaded them on several platforms on the Internet. At the age of 14 Dutch producer duo Klubbheads listened to him and offered him a record deal with "Digidance". Three weeks later he made a first official release with the 2-disc-record "Bubbling Beats 1", whereupon he toured through the Netherlands and increased his performances to appearances in well-known clubs. His first official single "Play It Around" came out in 2006, and became a big hit in German clubs. The single featured a combination of different musical genres, which were popular at that point of time as well as his own style.