Leon Bolier was born in 1980 somewhere in the middle of Holland, and always was in love with moody music.
When he heard Energy 52's Cafe Del Mar he fell in love with melodic trance, and quit producing hardcore house.
In 2002 and 2003 he got his first record deals, together with his brother Bart. They released some tracks on Bonzai/Banshee and FTM sublabels. Back then the first contacts with Armada front man Maykel Piron were established via Armin van Buuren, and this resulted in Leon remixing the first ever Armada release.
Nowadays Leon releases stuff on labels like Armada Music, Blackhole Recordings, Spinnin Records and Sweden-based Captured Music (Bart quit music producing due to the fact that he started his own company that provides in garden-architecture).
Hey Leon, how are you? Where are you? And what are you doing right now (except this interview of course)
Hi there, I just came back from Singapore this weekend, and am in the studio right now, finishing a couple of new singles and a collab with Marcus Schossow so I can include those in my set for ASOT 500.
You started out producing at an exceptionally young age, how did you get into it?
Ever since I heard the first eurodance charts hits I have been looking for ways to produce this ‘new kind of music’ (for me the music was totally new in the early 90s and I didn’t know about the house wave earlier on in Chicago and New York as well as I didn’t know about the ’88 summer of love in the UK and the autumn of love in Holland since I was a 12 year old kid). Before that I already had classical piano lessons and when I found the first software capable of ‘producing’ music I started doing so, combining what I learnt from the piano lessons with learning how to work with the software.
Your first project was with your brother Bart and you went under the name Subsphere, do you still work with your brother now or has that taken a back step?
Bart is a teacher and garden architect nowadays, happily married and he got three lovely kids. So yes, he has taken a back step.
What are you working on at the moment? Any new albums or productions we should look out for?
As mentioned before I am working on my next couple of singles, the collab with Marcus Schossow will be the first single to be released, in April. At the moment I am working on a new Streamlined compilation as well, to be released coming summer on my own Streamlined imprint which is a Spinnin’ Records sublabel.
So, at the end of the month you will be making your much anticipated debut for us in Birmingham, what have you heard about Godskitchen?
Godskitchen is a well-known and highly respected brand all over the world, legendary I’d say – hence I am definitely looking forward to debut for Godskitchen in Birmingham!
The ethos of this particular night is to embrace the new breed and give people like yourself their debuts and show everyone what the next generation of Trance DJs can bring to the table so…..what can people expect from you on the night?
Energetic driving music with the Bolier touch – I am pretty much influenced by so many kinds of music that it usually shines through in my music. Melodic music with a techno drive, or progressive music with an uplifting trance touch, everything is possible. My livesets however are way more uptempo and driving compared to my radiosets as I love to see some mayhem on the dancefloors!
The name of the night is ‘FutureGods’ who in your opinion is a ‘Future God’ of the scene?
Everyday new artists emerge and other artists disappear, the hard and most important thing for them is to maintain the pace, the quality and the creativity to actually break into the scene in the right way. Arty is doing that in a great way at the moment, let’s see what he’s up to in the future!
Tell us a bit about the scene in Holland at the moment, in years gone by the country seemed to have a very much Trance dominated scene but it looks like this is changing now?
Actually, ever since the early 00s there has been new styles and genres emerging, every time that happened people tended to say that ‘trance was dead’. 10 years ago it was progressive, later on it was electro, now its house. Only thing I always saw was that trance survived due to a passionate following. Good thing about new styles emerging is that those styles will influence trance one way or another – brings in fresh insights in the scene. Back to Holland: maybe you are referring to Trance Energy being changed into Energy – I’d rather see that as a natural progression in the scene with new influences being brought into the trance scene. Personally I noticed the last – let’s say 5 - years there has been new organisations pulling off great trance events that gained a bigger following by the year, for example the Luminosity, Intuition and Grotesque events, I have seen those events grow big in the last couple of years. Furthermore, only in the early 00s the scene was kinda trance dominated, but even then trance wouldn’t be the right type of music for the people-around-the-corner that just wanted to have a Saturday night out and have a couple of beers.
Your biog says you have a ‘Trance with a twist’ ethos to your work, tell us a bit about that, is this just for productions or does this translate into your DJ sets as well?
As mentioned above I like many kinds of music, not just trance or just electronic music for that matter. Every track I like, no matter what genre, influences me in the productions. When I am doing melodic trance productions you can hear my classical training as well, I guess. I will always be experimenting with other styles and combine them with trance – that’s just because I love melodic dance music so much. At the same time you have to convert this into music that has appeal to a trance dancefloor crowd as well, so it has to be driving and uplifting at the same time. This both shines through in my productions and my DJ sets.
Do you get much time to go to clubs yourself outside of work? If so which would you say are your favourites to go to?
Sometimes I do yes, when I have a weekend off. In that case I don’t really have a favourite club, rather I have favourite organisations that throw events, like the mentioned before Luminosity and Intuition events, or Armada nights for example. In Holland it’s about the brand and organisation, they do their events in different clubs every time.
What would you say is the coolest thing you have bought recently?
That’d be 15 vodka shots at Zouk Singapore. Production wise I just bought the FabFilter VST pack which is totally awesome.
Finally, if you were to have any super power, what would it be?
Teleportation, so I can skip the long boring flights every weekend!
Thanks Leon, see you at the end of the month!
DOWNLOAD LEON'S PROMO MIX HERE:- http://www.godskitchen.com/download/LeonBolierGodsPromo.zip
Following the unprecedented feedback received following our January event which saw no less than 3 debuts made in the main room we return again with some of the brightest young starlets alongside a few previous favourites. Andy Moor and Simon Patterson are names who are requested regularly by the Godskitchen faithful and have been very much leading the way for the new breed for a few years now so it made perfect sense for them to headline proceedings. They will be joined by Ben Gold (back by dope demand) and 4 debutants in the form of First State, Leon Bolier, Ferry Tayle, Estiva as well as new kid on the block Steve Arnold. Trancetastic!
Saturday 26th March
Air Nightclub
Birmingham
Oxygen Room
ANDY MOOR
SIMON PATTERSON
FIRST STATE
BEN GOLD
STEVE ARNOLD
Nitrogen Room
LEON BOLIER
FERRY TAYLE
ESTIVA
Early Birds -
£8
Advanced -
£10
Tickets available from:-
http://www.theticketsellers.co.uk/tickets/futuregods/10015162?ref=let_aft
[Bolier MGMT]
