Thank you for all the memories so far. BIG plans this next year and I can’t wait to share them with you! ⚡Celebrate with me and sign up in the description 🌐
Still gaming to this day but them days were special! new, exciting and so micro sized and personal compared to todays enormous saturated online gaming community!
Absolute legend and one of the more down to earth artists, remember having a great conversation with him when playing the same show in 2018. Glad to see DJ Mag run this story!
The fact that the guy knows the name of the designer of his album art so many years later just speaks to how good a person they are, recognising other people's contributions. Seems like a really good bloke honestly...
I kept following House music and never got into Trance. But I must admit, this is one of the greatest and biggest dance tracks ever, it's timeless and has brought so much joy to so many people. It easily deserved to be in featured in this series. A track that has shaped history and especially the lives of its fans.
I know sandstorm has been memed into oblivion now but that song is THE definition of a classic. I can even remember the time I first heard it which is no small feat because of all the various chemicals I had taken that night lol. I was amazed at what I had heard that night. That song felt like nothing else that was out at the time back then. Still to this day I smile when I hear it randomly. Superb song! Since I see darude posting in here, I just want to say thanks for the amazing memories sir!
What a decent guy. That synth riff stood out amongst a lot of similar-sounding tracks of the time. I remember hearing it on Radio One, and it was one of those tracks which I couldn’t wait for the release date, so that I could go to buy the CD Single.
I still remember hearing this at the Masterdome in Pomona California in early 1999. It was before it was released commercially, and everyone went nuts for it. Good raver times at that place. RIP Masterdome. Big up Darude for this tune!
This song is one of the songs that I would describe as one of the soundtracks of my youth. When I first hit the clubs this was one of the main tunes that kept coming back. I will always have good memories when I hear this track :)
This series is so important to the culture without this we wouldn’t really know the way Ty this is soooo epic and it really shows the way and the moves to make at the right time
I remember moving from the UK in 2003 (where dance music had been commercial and publically acceptable for more than a decade) to the USA (where it was still looked down upon and basically unheard of in the mid-west, they still called everything 'techno' and avoided it like the plague)...but during 2006 I remember going to a baseball game and suddenly it was 'okay' to play snippits of both Zombie Nation and Sandstorm...and the crowd would be sat clapping and do doo dooing to it, like it was their only exposure to dance music. Then you'd walk back out of the stadium and people would be in their cars listening to country, rap and rock again. I just found it really bizzare.
Was this the last era of music where people consistently played and enjoyed various genres? I vividly remember still listening to the radio a lot during these times.
The first time I heard the song I was listening to MunchMusic, and the first CD I ever owned was the Canadian release of Sandstorm which I guess is the 'Special Edition'. I was 16. It got me through my first summer jobs, led me into producing and DJ'ing. And is still a nice classic I like to throw on when I need to be pumped up. Even later, when it become a bit of a meme, people who hear the song hear a bang'er. Thanks, VV and JS16 for shaping this Canadian kid life just a little.
The legendary Sandstorm! 💎 Much love from here. 💙 Not just sandstorm, Darude has many other golden tunes and remixes also. Great new productions as well.
I was a huge trance head when this tune came out in Finland and thought it was terrible at first. It wasn't until I heard it played out in the club when I realised what a banger of a tune it was.
Same. I thought it was mediocre until it played in the club and every inch of my skin went cold and then I couldn't stop jumping... it was amazing. I'll never forget it.
Late 90s and early 2000s were the best for electronic music, I remember this time very well. I have few of his early CD albums, they are pretty good. Thank you for the interview,
Thank you for the great interview, and the great memories, Sandstorm was an ICON since the first time I heard and played it in a party, and many many years later, it still lights up the dancefloor!
I’ve always heard that “Yamaha RM1x groovebox was used by Darude” and indeed it does show up in the old clips of him here. My first real hardware back in 2003
The Ariel's remix was played very often in our local trance club. They managed to program a fantastic laser show which was in sync with the main lead. It was really mind blowing and a great time to be young.
I remember it being 2000 and as a young child hearing this for the first time really opened me up to the world of electronic music. I had my family find me anything that had sandstorm on it. I didn't know what the song was called I was like 6 and eventually I found it in the Alleys in DTLA when people still made bootleg mixes of the DJs that had just finished playing the clubs the week before. It's because of some fuckin DJ named DJ Echo that I was able to finally get something with Sandstorm on it. Shout out to my grandma who bought me the fucking mix and for putting up with me playing it over and over in my room with that shitty strobe light. Man, I got old fast.
He says it’s really not that hard when you pick the right sounds but it’s also they only song he’s ever made that made him famous 😂 one hit wonders no body would know if it goes viral or not. This song is legendary still hits today played all over the world.
This was my Sunday night Autobahn track when I'd race with my car at 240km/h from my home back to where I was stationed... one play through of the 7:30 min track and whooosh.. 30km passed on the journey.
I still think it's wild that this song took off like it did. I remember hearing it at raves in the 90's when it first dropped, and it was definitely a popular banger there, but there were plenty of other bangers. Same with Kernkraft 400. It was so weird when a couple years later they were being blasted at sports games and school events. Like "do you know how many people have rolled their faces off to these songs?"
Like everyone, Sandstorm turned my ear to Darude, then Feel the Beat made me stand up and listen. But if I was to pick favourite Darude tracks, it would be anything from the Rush album. That and Label This! Showed the depth of emotion that Darude could put into his songs.
Wow lol, didn't expect to hear Darude reference "The White Room" by The KLF (not that it's very strange when you think about it), much less that it was his first ever CD. That's very hip.
It's the early 2000s, and you've just dowloaded Sandstorm off of Morpheus, or Napster, or Kazaa, or LimeWire, and burned it onto a CD amongst a collection of hit singles.
I saw Darude at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
He drew inspiration from many sources - Revil O - Witness (1996), Cyrus & The Joker - Orgasm (1997), etc. … But despite this, it’s a fact that it became a brilliant masterpiece!
Darude Sandstorm the only Classic edm anthem that will stick in your ears and it's really hard to forget its driving energetic motive melody, it's simply a masterpiece 🔥
