Wolfgang Gartner

Wolfgang Gartner isn’t some mysterious European producer — he’s Joseph Youngman, a guy from California who cooked up one of the most recognizable aliases in dance music before anyone even knew who was behind it. He started as a deep house DJ in the late ’90s, and when he needed a new name for a different sound, he grabbed one from the coach of his college soccer team, the Cal Poly Mustangs. Random? Sure. But it stuck, and he actually kept his identity under wraps until 2008.

Once the mask came off, Gartner blew up fast. “Wolfgang’s 5th Symphony” ended up the best-selling track on Beatport in 2009, and that was just the start — he’d go on to rack up eight #1s on Beatport’s Top 10 Chart. He signed to Ultra Records in 2010 and Ministry of Sound UK in 2011, and that stretch is when he really defined his lane: jagged, funk-laced electro house with basslines that hit like a truck. Tracks like “Illmerica” and “Space Junk,” both off Ultra, became instant staples and helped push electro house into the mainstream at a time when the genre was exploding. He even picked up a Grammy nomination in 2010 for Best Remixed Recording, for his flip of Andy Caldwell’s “Funk Nasty.”

His two studio albums, Weekend in America (2011) and 10 Ways to Steal Home Plate (2016), show he was never content sticking to one lane — his sound has stretched from electro house into progressive house and tech house without ever losing that funk-driven edge. Along the way he’s linked up with names like deadmau5, will.i.am, Skrillex, and Tiesto, proving he’s as comfortable in the studio as he is behind the decks.

He hasn’t slowed down either. Gartner recently signed to Dim Mak Records and dropped “Level Up” with rapper Scrufizzer as his label debut, adding to a run of newer cuts like “How Ya Like Me Now,” “Higher,” and a remix of Knock2’s “REWiND” that’s pulled in millions of streams. More than two decades into his career, he’s still putting out that same signature electro sound — gritty, funky, and unmistakably his.