Tiesto to tease Taipei into a tizzy

When Tijs Verwest, a young man from Holland, decided he wanted to be a DJ he started practicing in his bedroom and dreamed of appearing at the odd party and on local radio, if he was lucky. It was the mid-1980s and playing records for a living wasn't cool or a well-paid job.

"When I was 15 I never expected to become a DJ like this. I mean, at that time no one was even looking at DJs, it's become a whole different game nowadays," Tiesto (aka Verwest) said in a telephone interview earlier in the week from Vietnam, where he was touring.

"At the end of 1996 it was more about the party than the DJ and now it's a lot more focused on the DJ. Now the DJ is a rock star. At that time playing records was just a hobby and no one took it seriously. If I said I was a DJ five nights a week people turned round and said, `Well, what's your day job?' There was not even a living to be made as a DJ."

Fast forward to the beginning of the millennium and the young man had carved a name out for himself as one of the finest live DJs on the planet. This was confirmed when he was voted the world's best turntablist by the influential DJ Magazine in 2002 and again last year. DJ-list and various other publications backed this judgment. He is earning megabucks from his records, his remixes and club dates and is currently sponsored by Heineken to tour the world as the global ambassador of dance music.

"I was, like, a bedroom DJ. At that time, I didn't come from a rich family and my parents were divorced, so what I've done is pretty much become a self-made man and gone on to discover myself. No one taught me how to learn or mix, but I do think that I've made something with my life, with music, because it just gives me so much joy. As a kid I wanted to achieve something, and I think I have."

What he makes are swirling landscapes of sound, his blend of light trance and up-beat house refining the beat of contemporary house music into an electronic symphony. He plays sets that last from three to six hours, that he describes as being musical journeys.

Trance is the most popular dance music genre and this is one of the main reasons why he is the world's most respected DJ. But in addition, he has broadened the appeal of a repetitive and sometimes one-dimensional trance beat by adding the warmer melodies of Ibiza and the breaks of garage and house. His mixing is seamless and at times innovative.

He has an intelligent approach to his set, that builds like a novel, with a definable start, middle and end, with breaks to make it interesting and dictate the mood. He said he tries to tell a story through the music.

"I try to take people on a musical journey through the different sounds there are. It's not just trance but other styles as well. I put it together so it's like a journey, the high points and the low points, a musical trip. That's what I try to achieve. And I always like to end on a high."

Tiesto said he differentiated himself from many other DJs, who have a more vinyl-centered approach to their shows and try to "educate" the crowd and break new records. "Basically," he said "I'm a crowd-pleaser. I watch to see what hits and what misses and I build it up from there."

"Some DJs like to play for themselves, not for the crowd. It's a whole different direction. John Digweed, for instance, has a totally different sound, a different connection with the crowd, he's very in-himself."