Saturday 1st August we visited Dance Boulevard at Bergen op Zoom. The local Festival attracts about 4500 visitors & consists of 4 areas amongst which a Freestyle stage. Shortly after his set we arranged to meet up with Pat B for an interview. If you say Freestyle you automatically say Pat B so we had a lot to ask! Check it out!
Hi Pat, thanks for joining us just after your set! We’d like to start by giving you the chance to introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi, no problem! Alright my name is Patrick, I’ve been working under the alias Pat B for about 15 years now. First I’ve mainly played in clubs & now I’m doing more and more festivals. Currently I’m 32 years old.
Alright thanks, right now we’re at Dance Boulevard, you’ve said on facebook already that you’ve seen this festival grow. How many times have you played here now & what do you think of the concept?
As a matter of fact I’ve played here every year from the start, so that would be 8 times now! I really like the concept & especially I think the Boulevard of Bergen op Zoom is a great location.
Cool, so you’re a ‘veteran’ here. Where did it actually begin for you as a DJ/Producer?
That would be in 2000. I started out as a local radio DJ with a Dance program and by throwing some parties myself. My older brother used to go to a lot of parties and brought flyers and tokens home. That got me really interested in jump music. In 2000 I started both DJ’ing & producing at the same time.
Ok so you had a dance program on local radio but that’s nothing like your current style. How would you describe your style ‘Freestyle’?
Freestyle means that you can play and produce all-around within the harder styles. As for my own style it could be described as the Belgium sound and somewhat ‘Jump’. As you know I’m officially Dutch but I live in Belgium.
Yea indeed we still can hear your ‘jumpstyle roots’ in your productions. In 15 years you have played at many venues, some of the venues where you played don’t even exist anymore. Could you highlight 1 or 2 venues/events which are really special to you?
That difficult but first of all ‘The Site’ a club that unfortunately is closed is very special to me because there I had my breakthrough. Secondly if you want me to mention an event it just has to be Tomorrowland. That’s such an amazing festival. Eventhough it was cold & rainy there were so many diehards going loose to my music which gives you so much energy!
Understandable! It must feel amazing to have your music being appreciated so much! Let’s make a little jump from events to tracks. Obviously you’ve made loads in 15 years. Are there actually classics that you still regularly play?
Good question! I do still play them but differently. By that I mean that I like to ‘update’ them or use elements of classics into new tracks. That’s great because they get recognized.
Okay! You have obviously made a collab with loads of people already, but with who would you love to make a collab now?
That’s a very difficult question actually.. but I would love to make a collab with Zany! Production-wise that would be very interesting because Zany has proven to be capable of producing everything!
That would probably be a cool track indeed! To stick with this for a bit, Kutski played your most recent track ‘Pressure’ ft. Nowaxx & Potato recentely in his podcast. You have also made a KTRA podcast yourself. Next to that we bet you’ve got more tracks coming up, could you say something about that?
Sure! In fact I’m working on an album that will be out in November and will be only released on USB! On the album will be solo tracks but also collabs with my friends like Miss Puss and Da Rick.
Good that you mention Da Rick, a hype has been the track ‘Banaan’. How on earth did you come up with that?
Well my view is that you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously. That’s exactly what we did with this track. The original is from Je Broer and we liked it. The vocal on our edit is actually my voice so we really gave it a twist.
Cool that you actually used your own voice! Right now we’re at Dance Boulevard but of course you got more scheduled. Which events are you especially looking forward to?
Q-Base & Decibel for sure! Q-Base because I heard it’s an amazing location and great atmosphere!
Okay Pat, thanks very much for this interview & we wish you a great summer season!
No problem, thanks!
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