At Electric Love Boutique Edition I sat down with Thomas & Nigel from Sub Zero Project and checked in with them about how they are doing these days, how it feels to be back on stage, what new music we can expect from them, how they changed the way Hardstyle sounds and whether they’d rather never DJ again or never produce again. Keep on reading to find out!
So first off, how are you guys doing these days?
Thomas: Good! I just recovered from COVID though. I got it at the beginning of the month, but luckily I was fine and didn’t had any heavy symptoms. All good now and ready to go!
Nigel: In the meantime, I luckily still could do some gigs for the both of us haha. Besides that, we’re very busy with a lot of new music as there’s still a lot of time for that right now.
Nice! You guys already played a few shows this summer, Shutdown, Imagination, Live Again,… How does it feel to be back on stage after such a long time?
Nigel: It feels amazing to be back on stage! The whole year we hoped to play at a real festival like this, so the feeling that it’s happening again is incredible.
Not with the best weather, haha!
Nigel: Haha true, but that doesn’t matter. We can still play our tracks and have a good time with the crowd.
Are you guys going to play any new tracks in your set?
Thomas: Absolutely! We’re going to play our brand new track ‘Fight As One’ together with Dimatik, which will be released soon on Sinphony Records. We’re really craving to play the new stuff and get an actual reaction from the crowd. Those moments are priceless and one of the reasons why we make music.
How are real shows for you guys compared to live streams? What is the difference, how is it to be in front of a camera versus in front of people?
Nigel: Obviously the one big difference between live streams and real shows is that we miss the whole experience of a crowd in front of us. It’s a certain kind of energy that is missing during the set. The live streams were a fun thing to do though and a great way to promote our music in a time without events, but a real festival will always be 20.000 times better than a live stream.
“At the moment we’re very busy preparing something really awesome. We can’t say yet what it is, but it’ll be worth the wait!”
You guys are throwing out banger after banger, only this year you already had 5 releases, how do you do that? Where do you get your inspiration from to only make such top-quality tracks?
Thomas: We always like to work within specific concepts and themes for our tracks. Coming up with new themes automatically gives us the inspiration to create the actual track – this works really well for us!
You guys really kind of changed the way kicks sound, you had such an impact on Hardstyle! How does that feel, how is it to have such a big impact on the way the music sounds today?
Nigel: Of course this is really cool! Back in 2017, we released The Project and the intro kick was something that hadn’t been done in Hardstyle before. It’s amazing to see how Hardstyle has changed since then and we’re very proud that we played a role in that. From that moment you could see that artists started to try new things which made the Hardstyle scene evolve even more and faster, which is a good thing in our opinion.
Nice! How would you describe your own sound? More on the Raw side or just Hardstyle?
Nigel: Just Sub Zero Project sound, haha! Of course, you can label it as Hardstyle but we just like to make whatever we feel like to make and try to come up with new things.
Are there any new releases coming up that we should be aware of? Maybe a Sub Zero Project album or is there anything in the works right now?
Nigel: At the moment we’re very busy preparing something really awesome. We can’t say yet what it is, but it’ll be worth the wait! I guess you just gotta keep an eye out on our socials haha.
Nice, well we are super excited to hear that! You guys played in Austria a lot already, how do you experience the Austrian crowd? How is it compared to the Dutch crowd?
Thomas: It’s definitely different compared to the Dutch crowd. In Austria, the crowd isn’t that used to Hardstyle yet as the Dutch crowd is. The vibe here is always amazing! I think we’ve been visiting Austria since 2017 or so and right now we had over more than 15 shows in Austria I think. Always fun to play here!
Nigel: In my experience, they like all kinds of Hardstyle music. I feel that in The Netherlands the raw side of Hardstyle is more popular at the moment overall. Here in Austria it doesn’t matter if it’s more euphoric, raw or in between, they all love it and they all go crazy when the music starts playing. I love that!
What do you think of the Austrian Hardstyle scene? Do you think it’s still growing, is there still room for more?
Thomas: I think it’s definitely still growing. Like I said, we’re doing shows in Austria for a few years now and you can see the difference between back then and now. Before COVID, there were various club shows with Hardstyle every week, so I feel it’s growing for sure.
I was standing up there and I saw that there were more people at the Hardstyle stage than the main stage so that was really cool!
Thomas: Yeah exactly!
And now to wrap it up, I have a little dilemma for you: Would you rather never DJ again or never produce again?
Nigel: Hmm, I love to play the music live for the fans. But I’d choose never DJ again because for me it started with making music and that’s what I wanna do for as long as I can.
Thomas: For me the same! Making music is just a part of me and I also want to do that for as long as I can.
Thank you guys so much for taking the time!
ALSO READ: PRIMESHOCK AT ELECTRIC LOVE: ONE OF OUR GOALS IS TO PLAY QLIMAX!
ALSO READ: SUB ZERO PROJECT AT ELECTRIC LOVE: WE’RE VERY BUSY PREPARING SOMETHING REALLY AWESOME!
ALSO READ: THIS WAS ELECTRIC LOVE BOUTIQUE EDITION 2021 | FESTIVAL RECAP
