Mr. Sam

Mr Sam was born during the mid seventies just as punk was emerging from beneath the ruins of stadium-rock, growing up in a small idyllic village near the Belgian border in the north of France. From an early age, Sam had no escape from his parents own musically mixed cocktails of Giorgio Moroder, Klaus Schulz combined with a dash of Elvis Presley. Through this heavy involuntary dose of electronically initiated influence, he developed an early fascination for squelchy synthesizer sounds and after buying his first Depeche Mode single, he was firmly hooked. But it seemed like from there to eternity before he was to pick up his own musical instrument. With the advent of technologically generated Hi-NRG dance music and through his passion for playing computer games, he had by the mid-eighties almost drowned in the tidal wave of New Beat which was flooding over the borders from the flourishing Belgian EBM scene. By the sweet age of sixteen, he'd become so intoxicated by the new techno music evolving from the underground scene, that he chose to embark upon a musical career and made the decision to cross the French frontier and move over to Belgium. By the time he was 18, he was successfully DJing at French and Belgian underground clubs to ever enthusiastic crowds. His club sound was becoming ever more inspired by releases from innovative labels such as MFS, who had released the very first trance records from their pioneering artists such as Cosmic Baby and Paul van Dyk, and in turn this had brought what was to become the techno-trance sound moving towards a more melodic direction. Sam fed on this enthusiastic and attractive new direction, for it appealed to his sensitive side and sense of melody. As his talented fingers swept nimbly over the turntables week after week, it wasn't long before he'd attracted enough attention to accumulate a firm following of steadfast admirers, and he was offered the chance to spin at the renowned club La Rocca , one of Belgium's most famous clubs. This was the moment he'd been waiting for, his feeling for melody just the right ingredient needed to spice up the monotonously industrial techno crowd. Over the years, as trance music rapidly succeeded techno as the popular music genre of the 90´s, Mr. Sam was to play together with some of the dance industry's top DJ's at a variety of colorful locations, from France, Belgium, Portugal, Holland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Corsica, to events like the legendary and immensely popular I Love TECHNO festival in Gent. The many exciting moments behind the decks, such as DJing for 12 hours with Andry Nalin, have left an indelible impression upon this young and talented DJ and the attraction of whipping up the crowd to fever pitch has always created a bond between the DJ and the audience. Within Belgium, his popularity grew quite rapidly and within a short space of time, he'd become one of Belgium's top DJ's, ultimately becoming a resident DJ at Lagoa , La Nova , Tour & Taxi , and Pacha. Sadly, real international success had eluded him thus so far. How can an attractive young DJ move up the ladder of success when the top rungs are occupied by such big names as Sasha, BT, Paul Oakenfold and Paul van Dyk? Towards the end of the 1990´s the Trance sound had become defined, without a doubt becoming the pop music of the 90´s. It was time to move on and try new things. Mr Sam had already played and impressed some of the biggest names in the music business today, such star DJ's as Carl Cox, Jack de Marseille, Andry Nalin, Danny Howells, Robert Miles,Mistress Barbara, Luke Sater, Corvin Dalek, 100 % Isis, and Parks & Wilson. All have fond memories of him. But it wasn't until he started to create his own tracks that he really was able to express himself and show he had songwriting and producing talents as well. Meanwhile, it is for his excellent remix work that Mr Sam is most well known. His first remix was in 1999 for Diki Records (famed for their trance anthem Age of Love), where he briefly worked as artist. This remix was for Circuit Boy´s The Door, a track which was heavily featured by both Danny Tenaglia and Corvin Dalek, both of them going on to remix it. This remix was swiftly followed by remixes for Dillinger & Capone, and Timo Maas´s Mad Dogs, and he cemented his remixing abilities by venturing into the realm of wet&hard with the now legendary wet&hard remix of Corvin Dalek´s Pornoground. In the meantime, Sam has accumulated a long list of remixes ranging from Timo Maas, Sinead O’connor, Y- Traxx, Maria Naylor, Praga Khan, Corvin Dalek, Delerium, Niels Van Gogh, Blank & Jones, Mojado, Todd Terry, and Kay Cee to name a few. Mr. Sam vs Fred Baker “Forever Waiting” was picked up by the N°1 DJ’s label : Magik Musik from Tiësto. The track has received huge critics from magazine as well as a large panel of DJ's worlwide. Soon after that, Mr. Sam together with Dimitri Andreas started a new Techno project called MOJADO. The first single called “Naranja” has been released on Magik Musik and was a success. “Naranja” has featured on TIËSTO IN CONCERT DVD as well as many other compilations. After this, A full album (Lyteo) was signed. This represents the debut album of MOJADO with 13 tracks recorded especially for Tiësto’s Magik Musik label. It is clear that Mr. Sam's determination to retain his longevity through his composing career is quite important to him. Inevitably with time, his sound will continue to evolve ...