Last Friday evening, EDMSauce had the pleasure of speaking with Maarten Hoogstraten better known as Bingo Players in New York City. Known for his heart pumping and eclectic hits such as “Rattle” “Cry (Just A Little)” and “Mode,” Maarten and I sat down to discuss his latest tour, upcoming shows, the 10th year anniversary of Bingo Players and of course new music and much much more before his set later that evening in downtown Manhattan at Marquee Nightclub.
As festivalgoers are still coming down for the festival high of Miami Music Week (MMW), a week that brought fresh new tracks and teasers, I asked Bingo Players about his most recent MMW performance.
We performed at Nikki Beach. We did our own party called Bingo Beach together with No Sugar Needed. It was great – it was sold out, there were a lot of good vibes even though it was raining like crazy. Everyone went under the tent and danced. It was really a successful run.
Last year marked the 10th year anniversary of Bingo Players taking hold of the Electronic Music Industry with Maarten just wrapping up his 10th anniversary tour this past January. I spoke to Maarten about what it means to be in the music business for 10 years and in what ways his most recent tour differed from the others.
It flies by, I can't believe it's been 10 years…it feels a bit surreal to play 10th anniversary tour shows. It was good, we got a lot of good responses and it makes you realize just how fast time flies. It's weird 10 or even 12 years ago, we went to Miami as well as visitors and we went to Ultra and we said ‘one day we're going to be play at that Mainstage' and we did over the last 10 years in 2013. It's weird how you can envision something and build up to that some years later, and when you are there playing at the main stage it's a really great feeling.
Maarten also dedicated the Bingo Players 10th anniversary tour to the second half of Bingo Players, PaulPaul Bäumer and also donated some of the proceeds to the organization, Fuck Cancer
The whole 10 years had ups and downs and of course the biggest down was that Paul passed away and I would love to have celebrated that with him but things turned out the way they are and so it was a bit bittersweet. All the fans who came out to the show and supported so much that was the best feeling. And I thought it was a great idea to collaborate with Fuck Cancer for the 10th anniversary tour because there is just so much money to invest in research and I thought why not, and it feels good to do something to give back.
Maarten also discussed his latest track titled “No. 1 Disco” that has been 10 years in the making and which fans have been requesting for years now.
That song is actually really old. We started that concept about 10 years ago and we played it out on some sets and people really liked it and people would ask ‘what's that song? when are you going to release it?' and we didnt release it for 10 years and a couple years back I was in the studio listening to some old concepts and I wanted to go back to the basics of dance music. Everyone is doing future bass right now and trap and I wanted to make this a club record. And I liked that concept we did back then and I said ‘lets update it' and make it more recent. And it felt right to do it and I just made the record and people are like ‘finally after 10 years it's out!' and the feedback has been really good up to now.
Coming back from tours and club sets, Maarten and I spoke about if he has a process or technique when it comes to selecting tracks for his festival and club sets
Not really, before I go on tour I look at all the promos and demos I get and I pick out the best ones and put them onto my USB and I'll see how the night goes and get the feeling of the crowd and what I think they want to hear. And I also try to educate the audience a bit, play songs they might not know, sometimes it goes really well and sometimes it doesn't. But, it's fun to experiment a little here and there.
A club is different than playing at festivals, it's more intimate and the energy gets trapped in the space so it is a different vibe and different energies. A festival is more open space and it's more of a party vibe and it depends on who is playing on the same line up. Like I'm not going to play deep house if someone was playing deep house before me.
Even though 2017 has barely begun, Bingo Players has already released two tracks for the year, the newly released ‘No. 1 Disco' and ‘Bust This' and Marteen says he's back at it and we can all look forward to many more new tracks for this year!
Yesterday I wrapped up a collaboration, I don't really do collaborations a lot but I just finished a new song with a new act, Umlaut and the song is called ‘Tick Tock' that's coming up sometime in May. And I have another song that is coming out, don't know the title for the song yet but, that song will come out sometime in June. And I'm working on more songs for the end of the year so there are going to a lot of songs this year. In the past couple of years, I only did a few tracks but this year I am going to put some energy behind it and make like 5-8 songs this year.
Now that we can look forward to many new fresh beats from Bingo Players, he also let us in on the upcoming tours and festivals we can catch him at!
I am now in the US doing a set in Las Vegas, never played there before doing Bingo Beach there as well same as in Miami. I have an Asia tour coming up in 2 weeks, really excited about that. And I'll be going to Spring Awakening in Chicago in June and that's a really nice festival and played there a couple times before, really looking forward to that as well!
Since there are many DJs who have collaborated with other artists in different genres, I wanted to know if Maarten could pick anyone to collab with who he would choose?
I always said I would love to collab with Pharrell and Daft Punk but they already collaborated together. They are a little out of my league but that would be my dream team to collab with. I called it like 6-7 years ago before they even collaborated together and I was like they would be amazing! And I just heard Pharrell will be collaborating with Timberland and that's a collaboration I'm really looking forward to, they are both great at making music.
Being in the music business for over 10 years and achieving the level of success that he has, Maarten offered up a little genuine advice to upcoming DJs and producers.
It's really cliche but it's true you to be yourself and unique. No one wants to hear another Hardwell or Martin Garrix. You have to have your own identity, sometimes these upcoming producers are copying songs that are hot right now and trending but that doesn't get you anywhere except maybe to a certain level. If you want to reach a bigger audience or stand out from the rest you have to be unique. It's cliche but it's really true. That's what I can say about our sound, we always do something new even though it's not hot at the moment just do something you feel you are comfortable with and maybe 5-10 times you try you don't achieve anything but the 11th time you can make a big song. You never know, never give up.
Later that night, Bingo Players threw it down at Marquee. Keep your eyes and hears open for his latest collab, ‘Tick Tock' coming out this May! Don't forget to take a listen to Bingo Players' most recent track “No. 1 Disco” here
