While the glory days of hard trance may have been early in the millennium, it’s DJ/producers like Wragg & Log:one who are ensuring the sound remains vibrant well into the future. The UK duo is among the scene’s most creative musical minds; throwing in plenty of techno, trance and dubstep influences into their hardstyle concoctions. They’ll be representing at the Orange stage at Defqon.1 this year, so here we find out what they’ve got in store.

You’ve had a fairly consistent presence in the hard dance scene over the past few years. What’s stood out for you so far in 2011?
Well I think we’d be fools if we didn’t say Defqon.1 in Holland. It’s been one of the main things on our wish-list since we first started working together, so to make it there this year was awesome. Also, our first trip to Australia of the year back in May was a highlight, getting to play for the legendary Pharmacy brand and rocking dancefloors on both sides of the country.

The defining element of the Wragg & Log:one sound is taking different elements from genres like techno, trance and dubstep, and fusing them into your hard trance sound. Do you still see this as a defining element of your approach?
It’s definitely a big part of how we like to approach our music, because we both listen to a massive and diverse range of styles when we’re not in the studio making beats, and we want that to come across in the music we make. It’s also very important for us that our sound doesn’t become stale, and the only way to avoid that is to be aware of what’s happening in the music world as a whole and develop your sound to incorporate the innovations happening in other genres.

You’ve even been associated with the entertaining and exciting diversion that is ‘dubstyle’, the hard dance scene’s flirtation with. Would you say this is a gimmick, or is there something more to it?
Ahhh, the dubstyle question! Although it will probably make no difference at this point, it’s been a little niggle of ours for some time that we made our first track with a dubstep break in it in September 2009. We even called it a dubstyle remix! Then the rest of the world started doing it, but we were there first! So we think we should get royalties from everyone who’s ever put a dub beat in their track.

For the last few years the international hard trance scene has bubbled away with a consistent presence, though still playing second fiddle largely to the hardstyle scene. What are your observations on what’s happening in the scene in 2011?
Hard trance has definitely been secondary on the world’s hard dance stage to hardstyle for about five or six years now, and that’s just the way it goes; music scenes and tastes change and evolve all the time. There definitely seems to be a renewed interest and enthusiasm for hard trance, certainly in the UK and Australia, and even the US. That can only be a positive thing for us and the scene as a whole.

Can you see the scene powering through to new heights in the future, or do you expect it to remain a more underground thing?
Not to be pessimistic at all, but we definitely think hard trance’s glory days are behind it. The early 2000s were an incredible time for hard trance, it was rocking the world, and still is on a smaller scale, but trends change and it isn’t as popular with the new generation of ravers as it was back then.

We’d love to see it return to those levels of popularity, but with new styles and genres coming out seemingly every day there’s much more choice and just more music in general these days. Add to that the modern obsession with “the next big thing” and everything being more and more disposable and you’ve got a huge mountain to climb for a genre that’s been around for 10-plus years. So it’s very likely that we’ll be staying underground for the foreseeable future – but that’s OK, we like it down here!

Do you feel that working in a scene with a relatively smaller profile works for you, or against you?
That’s a toughie! It’s really a double edged sword – while it definitely works in our favour in some respects to be one of the best known names in a relatively small scene, at the same time we’d love to see a main stage at something like Defqon.1 featuring hard trance artists like it used to!

But at the end of the day the best way to see it is as a challenge, to push and evolve our sound to a level where we can compete with and generate the same demand as hardstyle currently has – something we’re trying to achieve with every track we write.

Finally, what can we expect from your set at Defqon.1 later this year?
You can expect galloping double beat mixes, cartwheels, rubbish dancing and a huge selection of the latest RnB mega hits! But seriously folks, we’re going to be bringing along our latest and greatest new productions, exclusives from our amazing and talented producer friends, as well as more than likely a few cheeky mash-ups and bootlegs made just for Defqon.1.

Oh, and rubbish dancing, we stand by that. Come for the hard trance, stay for the rubbish dancing!