Remember the story late last month of John Candow, the 24-year-old Canadian Tiesto fan who hatched a violent plot to get out of the mental hospital in which he was stranded so he could see his favourite Dutch DJ on tour? Take a read here if you want to refresh your memory… well, in a rather bizarre set of circumstances, this week John reached out to inthemix, sending through a lengthy explanation of his actions.

“He’d assault the psychiatrist, get arrested, plead guilty and be released on probation in time to see his DJ idol,” Canada’s Chronicle Herald said of Candow’s insidious strategy to gain release from the hospital. “His plan worked. He punched the man at least three times, appeared in court and was out in time to see Tiesto.”

“I have no remorse,” John was quoted as having said at the time. “All I did was do what I had to do to see my favourite musician of all time and I’d do it all over again if I had to.”

However, in John’s message to inthemix, posted under his DJ name Red Dragon, he said “I do have a mental illness but I am not a violent person,” and also expressed regret for the disquieting steps he took to see Tiesto perform. The letter also details his long held love of the iconic Dutch DJ, naming his Magick and In Search Of Sunrise albums as some of his favourite, and explaining how his love of Tiesto also introduced him to Ferry Corsten and Armin Van Buuren.

The letter was posted by John as a comment under the original news item. You can also read it in full below, unedited. Make of it what you will, it is indeed heavy stuff.

Hey all. This is John Candow speaking on my own behalf about the incident. I want to let you all know that I’ve been listning to tiesto since I was 14 and I’m 24 now so that’s about half my life. I didn’t enjoy listning to electronica (rave) music very much until I first heard tiesto’s music. His Summerdream album was the first continuous mix I ever heard and at the time I thoroughly enjoyed it. I eventually started listening to his magick series as well as the ISOS series- at the time only 1 and 2 were out and by grade 12 or so #3 came out. Tiesto helped me find other great trance djs such as Ferry Corsten and AVB since some tracks he used on his magick albums included production work with them and some tracks were commonly shared between them in their mixes. He was a big influence on why I became a dj and I know he would be very dissapointed in my actions as to why I did what I did. It was simply out of desperation. I was looking for solutions at the time and one of the guards at the hospital I was staying at said if you want to get out just attack him so the ideas sort of came from there, unfortunately. Anyways he wasn’t hurt and my intention wasn’t to injure this psychiatrist it was just to get out of the hospital because I couldn’t get patient rights to help me because it was 3 weeks away and they take over a month before you actually receive any help from them. I did what I had to do to get there, to me it was an act of passion. I understand alot of ravers or electronic dance music fans might not like tiesto’s music, especially judging from the comments here, but he still holds as my fav musician of all time. His labels, producers and artists hes worked with and help grow, accomplishments, professionalism (more than mine, might I add) and many more attributes make him the one dj that has had the biggest impact on my life. I do have a mental illness but I am not a violent person, the incident with my mother was completely unrelated and she understands that using drugs can affect my illness as well as the fact that I have an illness which means that I may be off on days and the days leading up to the incident she was worried and tried contacting mental health as well as the police and my probation officer and nothing was done. I am EXTREMELY remorseful for what I did to my mother and I’m glad shes okay and we’re getting along now. If you would like to contact me you can find me under facebook with the name “John Candow” I’m more than happy to answer any questions some of you may have, keep your hateful comments to yourself though, remember: PLUR. I try to follow the raver code of PLUR but sometimes situations come up where I lose control. Now I’m trying to stay away from street drugs so I can be in control and succeed in my career.