More than a decade on from it’s destructive reign in the 90s, where its brash and brutal attitude arguably marked it as that decade’s equivalent of punk rock, the hardcore scene is still keeping on strong. At the forefront remains Holland’s Neophyte (known to his mother as The Beholder), responsible for the record company of the same name and he’s kicking in heads harder than ever with his accelerated BPMs. Just how busy is Neophyte in 2009?

“We are in the middle of starting a new record company dedicated to hardcore music, planning to be “on air” on the 1st of January 2010,” he told ITM. “As you can imagine this takes a lot of my time, when I am also helping out on the new Tha Playah album which is due to be released in November, I am working on a new Neophyte 12”, I just finished a record as Masters of Ceremony with Kelly from Evil Activities and I just finished a 12” with Zany, as The Beholder. I am also a dedicated father of a 1 and a half year-old son, so you can imagine I have not much time left anymore to play the Xbox!”

Good to know. We can’t have our hardcore heathens wasting time playing video games, after all! So screw hardstyle. If you’re really hardcore to the bone, then you’ll be watching Neophyte tear the place apart. ITM gets hardcore with Neophyte.

So how is the hardcore scene travelling worldwide in 2009, do you think?

2009 has been an exciting year so far, as the world gets smaller due to internet. It is possible for anybody to listen to the latest hardcore tracks, that is a big plus point for the scene and us as artists. It takes us to places we have never been before to play our music. Downside of this all is the illegal downloading, but we are lucky the hardcore scene has got the most dedicated followers of the dance industry. People are still buying vinyl, CDs and merchandise. Together with the events this keeps the scene alive.

What were your original intentions when you first started Neophyte Records?

At the time I started Neophyte Records, in 1999, the hardcore scene was in the middle of a big recession worldwide, but especially in Holland. Most of the big hardcore producers of that time stopped producing hardcore, because there was no money to be made anymore. I thought the only way to give the scene a new boost and fresh approach was to start a new label where I concentrated on helping new talent to develop, we just needed new “heroes” you see. Together with a few other labels like Masters of Hardcore, Enzyme and Traxtorm we pushed new talent to the big stages, it is no coincidence that most of the big hardcore DJs of nowadays started at these labels around that period.

There are many well known artists that belong to Neophyte Records, including Hard Creation, DJ Dazzler, Tha Playah, Evil Activities, DJ Panic, Masters of Ceremony and Bodylotion. How has it been for you watching these artists develop and succeed?

Some of these artists are projects I have been producing together with other members of the Neophyte “family”, like Hard Creation and M.O.C. Evil Activities, Tha Playah, Nexes and soon to be signed Kasparov are all guys that have a kind of talent of which I thought it would show itself one day. Evil Activities has been around the longest, and has achieved the most yet, next in line is Tha Playah, he is releasing his new album in few months, I think this will his big break. Nexes originally comes from Enzyme so has a different sound, which is good, and Kasparov comes from Megarave, so his sound gives another approach again. Of course I am very proud to see all of these guys develop from small to huge DJ’s and producers.

Would you say hardcore music culture and its popularity has changed since you first began as a producer 17 years ago?

Of course everything has changed a lot since that time. It all is much more professional and business minded nowadays. At that time nobody really had a clue what they were actually doing, being it producers, DJ’s, record labels or event promoters. Everybody just did what they felt was best and partied on, until they sometimes literary dropped out! This has a sort of melancholic vibe about it, but I much more like the situation we are in now where parties are well organized, records sound better and DJ equipment is superb.

How did your name Neophyte originally come about?

Back in 1993, when we started with our live act, we actually had our first record ready to get released on Rotterdam Records. The only problem was we had no band name yet! We had a lot of silly ideas, but Robin, who studied to be an English teacher, came up with the mysterious “Neophyte” name. He actually looked it up in his English dictionary we found out later!

Over your 17 years of performing you’ve travelled the globe playing and played in many different countries. Is there a certain place that you prefer the most when performing live, and why so?

That is a hard one to answer because every country has its pros and cons. It also depends how the scene is in that particular country at the time it is your live gig. That can really make a big difference. Some countries really dig a live act, where others rather see you DJing. It also has a lot to do if the countries native language is English or Dutch as I don’t speak other languages with makes it kind of hard when you are MCing haha. We had a hard time sometimes in the South of Europe the first years for example as no one spoke a word of English. After all, nowadays it doesn’t really matter where I do my live act anymore, we just want to rock the crowd anywhere. The only thing I really want to do is do the live act in Australia, it has just never happened as yet.

You’ll be in Australia soon to play the massive debut of the Defqon.1 Festival. What are you expecting as far as that goes, and have you played the Holland event before?

Yes, I have played the Holland event of course, it is just an incredible, massive experience. We are all very excited to come over and share the Defqon.1 experience with all the mad Aussie ravers! As far as I know it is the first ever time such a big exodus of DJs, promoters and crew are flying for such an event overseas. I think this day is going to be very, very memorable for everybody who has been there. Mark my words!

Defqon.1 is known widely as party promoting the sounds of hardstyle, but there’s obviously a healthy acceptance of all forms of hard dance there. Do you feel welcome at Q-dance events as a supporter of hardcore?

The people of Q-dance never spoke to me about hardcore in a negative way, they really see hardcore as a cornerstone of the “harder styles” as they like to call it. I am a guy with a very strong intuition; if they saw us as inferior then I would notice it straight away. Instead of that they give us hardcore artists all the support they can, even closing their big events such as Qlimax or Defqon.1 with a hardcore DJ on the main stage. I make hardstyle myself as The Beholder, I know and understand hardstyle is a much more easier style of music to listen to for a lot of people, that’s why it’s that popular. But hardcore gets all the space it needs on the Q-dance events.

Defqon.1 Festival comes to the Sydney International Regatta Centre on Saturday September 19th, tickets on sale from tickets.q-dance.com.au. Check out ITM’s Festival Page, and watch the official ‘Aftermovie’ from the Holland event below…

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