Clubbing Magazine

Darude – Finnish dance music
Darude (Finnish artist/producer Ville Virtanen) found dance music when he was still in school. He started with a PC and a simple tracker program but soon moved to sound modules and samplers. He made music with the thought that someday his tracks would make it big time. The name Darude developed gradually during a long period of time. Ville played one particular song a lot on DJ gigs: 'Rude Boy' by swedish artist Leila K. Friends started to call him 'Rude Boy' which developed to 'The Rude', 'Da Rude' and finally Darude. Darude's career got started when he met acclaimed Finnish dance producer Jaakko 'JS 16' Salovaara, the man behind successful artists like Bomfunk MC's. Salovaara signed Darude to his dance label 16 Inch Records and produced the track in co-operation with Ville. 'Sandstorm' was suddenly very popular among Finnish DJs. It went directly to number one position on the Finnish Dance Chart and dominated the chart for 17 weeks. The song found its way to England via Internet and respectable club DJs started to play the song. Soon the biggest radio stations followed and the way to British sales charts was wide open. In June 2000 Darude became the first Finnish artist ever to reach top 3 position on UK's single chart. 'Sandstorm' sold platinum in Scandinavia and Ireland and gold in the UK and Germany. The worldwide sales of 'Sandstorm' is about 1,5 - 2 million units. The single was also the world's best selling 12' vinyl in 2000. An amazing result from a song which was totally instrumental and represented trance music. The first single from Darude's second album 'Rush' is simply entitled 'Music'. The track conquered the #1 positions on the Finnish Singles Chart, the Finnish Dance Chart and the Finnish Disco Chart. The second single 'Next To You' followed its success by taking the #1 position on the Finnish Singles Chart on release.
Audio part You can listen to the interview with Darude here, the interview was done in the fall 2003. Length: 10.09 min, mono 32kbps Size: 2.381Kb Format: MP3	Contest You can win Darude's album "Rush" - special signed. You just have to mail us here
Interview by: Christian Almind