https://www.facebook.com/167836583983541/

The HardWay

Classic Hardstyle, Reverse Bass and Frenchcore Neurodiverse DJ,
MKN's favourite of the week�
TeamH
(1)

Address

Edinburgh

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The HardWay posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Learning the HardWay

Hi i’m Mick The HardWay Connor and i first got into hardstyle in 2011. When i started going to Events like GIS in Leeds and Hostile in Newcastle with my new friend at the time DJ YuZik. Who used to let me have a jump about with him while he was performing behind the decks. i couldnt get over the energy of the music and the reaction of the crowd while my friend was playing. From the first moment i got behind the decks with him i knew i had to learn how to do this and this is what i wanted to do with all my heart. It was a life changing experience. In 2012 i went to my first Qlimax and fell in love with the event, the atmosphere was amazing.

After that i bought my first set of decks a pioneer DJ 350 setup for £1450. People laughed at me and told me i would never be able to learn to mix but i carried on anyway. They had no wave form so i learnt to mix without one and in 2013 my friend did a mix with Electro house and gave me his tunes and i remixed his mix with the same songs but in a different order. I was only playing hardstyle up to this point but not very well. He was that impressed he gave me a set headlining the b room of a night in south shields. My dj name at the time was Yourkey. As i am originally from Yorkshire and used to lend him my key to my flat at the time so my mate YuZik came up with it.

I stopped looking for new Hardstyle to play after this as i didn't enjoy the music as much in 2013 as the previous years but carried on going to Qlimax and i couldnt mix hardstyle as well as electro house which i played at 136bpm because i thought it sounded better. Not being a fan of 128bpm as i felt it was to slow. i played at a few more events then i moved to Scotland as my son was born here and i gave up my life in Newcastle to be with him. i carried on mixing but slowly fell out of love with electro as it became boring and people didn't really want to hear it played at 136bpm. i was still listening to hardstyle and going to Qlimax and i started to go to Infexious and Goodgref Xtra hard. One of my best hardstyle experiences was when Titan played at one of my friends events in 2013 where he let me jump about with him for his full set behind the decks (what a guy). in late 2014 i decided to take a break from mixing and setup a studio and spent a year learning music theory and the DAW software and produced my first track without and samples other than a few impacts. I wrote the melody myself and learned a lot from this experience. I ended up moving house and lost my studio.

Then in 2016 i had to sell my decks as i was broke. It was like losing my right hand all i had done nearly every weekend was work on a new mix for the past 4 years. I bought a controller about 6 months after this and started listening to MKN’s reverse bass podcast and it inspired me to go back and try and mix hardstyle to a high standard something i would be happy with. it also gave me the idea to have my own podcast and by this time the hardstyle i loved was classed as classic hardstyle so i set out to make the best possible mix i could and do my fav tracks justice. I put up episode 1 in May 2017 and sent it to MKN and told him that he had inspired me to do my own podcast and go back to mixing hardstyle and i loved his work and he got back to me and shared my mix and said he enjoyed it. I was over moon as i didn't really know if it was any good because i’m my own worst critic. I then sent it to Bass generator records and got no reply so i decided to try and make episode 2 better than the first one and i sent it to MKN again and he loved it and shared it again for me and i sent it to bass generator records and this time i got a reply from ONI and asked if i would like to do a mix for there radio and offered to help me get myself out there so i could start getting gigs. i really missed playing live. The help and support i have had from MKN and ONI has been amazing and i cant thank them enough. Late 2017 was a very ruff time for me personally so i decided to keep the podcast going by having guest mixes on. i managed to get a set on new years eve playing Raw and met Aggressive act and i really enjoyed the energy of the music and it was a challenge as i had never played Raw before but i had a top night and enjoyed being out of my comfort zone. I am now looking at getting back to producing and i am doing a monthly mix for my podcast and working hard to get noticed. I got into the final of the kiddstock Dj contest recently to which i was super proud of. My DJ name comes from the very first song of the first episode of the Podcast. 3 the hard way by showtek and i feel i have learned everything the hard way in life so it fits well. I will keep working till i get there. Thanks for reading my Bio and the support from everyone has been amazing.