Hardwell

Robbert van de Corput, better known as Hardwell, is one of the names that basically built the big room house sound. The Breda, Netherlands native started making noise back in 2009 with a bootleg remix, and by 2011 he’d already cracked DJ Mag’s Top 100 at #24. That was just the warm-up. In 2013 he took the #1 spot on the poll, then came back and did it again in 2014, officially cementing himself as the biggest DJ on the planet for two years straight.

Hardwell didn’t just want to be a headliner, though. In 2010, at only 22 years old, he launched Revealed Recordings, a label built to put young dance music talent on the map instead of just chasing big names for clout. Over a decade later, Revealed has crossed 1,000 releases, and Hardwell still says the whole point is dropping “music we truly believe in.” He’s also been running his Hardwell On Air radio show since 2011, syndicated on stations like SiriusXM, keeping fans plugged into new Revealed talent every week.

The Hits and the Hiatus

If you were anywhere near a festival in the early 2010s, you know “Spaceman.” Dropped in 2012, it sold over 500,000 copies in the US alone and turned into one of the defining big room anthems of the era. He followed it up with “Apollo” and the W&W collab “Jumper” in 2013, both instant mainstage staples at Ultra, Tomorrowland, and pretty much every major EDC stage.

Then, at the top of his game, Hardwell stepped away. In September 2018 he announced an indefinite hiatus from touring to focus on his personal life, playing his last show at Amsterdam Dance Event that October. He said he’d keep producing behind the scenes, and he did, quietly working on new material while staying out of the spotlight.

The comeback hit exactly the way you’d want it to. On March 27, 2022, Hardwell closed out the Ultra Miami mainstage after almost four years away, and dropped his album Rebels Never Die the same day, introducing a heavier “future rave” sound alongside the classic big room he’s known for. His 2015 album United We Are already showed he could do full-length projects, but Rebels Never Die felt like a statement: he was back, and not just playing the hits.

He hasn’t slowed down since. Hardwell has kept Revealed rolling with new signings, stayed a fixture on festival lineups, and is heading back to North America in 2026 for a five-city tour promising unreleased music plus reworked versions of the classics that made him a legend in the first place.