HardstyleMag met the furious rawhardstyle duo for an interview. With their latest performance at Rebirth festival with their new show ‘Death or Glory’ they proved once again, why this duo belongs to the Raw-Olymp. Reason enough for us, to meet these two guys.
René
We go back into the year 2011 when two masters of the Hardstyle scene joined forces to bring up the darkest underground sound. The raw-hardstyle pioneers came up with ‘Gunz for Hire‘.
Since their very first appearance, it is not possible to imagine the scene without them. Hits like ‘Sorrow’, ‘Bolivia’ are all time block busters. After a long break, they returned finally with a new show called ‘Death or Glory’. Time for us to talk to them.
Hey Guys, thanks for this interview. Last weekend at Rebirth Festival we witnessed your return with “Death or Glory”. Congratulations, this was an insane show. Can you briefly describe how it felt to be back on stage?
Thanks guys for having us for this interview and for the compliments! Well, it was an amazing feeling. We worked so long on all this new music and to play it live in front of an amazing Rebirth crowd was great. There was a vibe at the mainstage that was really special, all the reactions afterwards were really overwhelming. After the lockdown periods this epic festival was exactly what everybody needed!
The new show looked amazing. Especially the intro with “Firestone”. How long does it usually take to develop a complete new G4H show like this one?
It depends, because creating tracks is a creative process. Sometimes things go the way you want and we can finish a track in a week or sometimes you get stuck and it takes 2 months or longer. Plus besides Gunz For Hire we also have our own solo careers with deadlines and schedules so it can be a pretty stressful period. For this new tour we worked extremely hard during the lockdowns. And the music is never finished, we will constantly drop new music during the tour so that it stays fresh for our fans who visit us multiple times.
Before a new show gets premiered, do you usually do test shows? To see how it works and looks like?
No we don’t have test shows, we will work on our gut feeling in the studio. And we analyze and discuss a lot about the music that the tracks have enough variation between themselves to really tell a story on stage.
At the same time our visual guy Jorge Maas (Zeplab) is working on the show visuals to connect with the music and give the best live experience. And our team in the background is working on planning, strategies and social media work.
Another aspect that is really important with the Gunz shows are videoclips and trailers, we put a lot of effort in this. An example of this is the video-intro we start our Death or Glory show with, where we do a hit on some enemy gangsters and rip their coke :D.
As G4H – do you have certain roles and responsibilities – if yes, who does what? Or do you create and decide everything together?
It’s really a 50/50 project in the studio where we both make use of our strongest personal qualities. We unite these strengths and tracks come out that are unmistakable G4H, and are always different than solo tracks would have been. We work together in studio or separate if there is time pressure. But with the techniques nowadays we can constantly have contact and send over sounds and files. Facetime and Dropbox are our good friends haha.
When go back in time, how was the idea of G4H developed? And especially how was the name found?
After making some tracks together under the name of “Ran-D & Adaro” that did very well we decided we wanted to continue making tracks together in the future. Because of our good click in and outside of the studio and we also wanted to do a special liveact. After a lot of brainstorming sessions the whole concept of Gunz For Hire came to life. The rest is history.
The name was found because of our mutual love for crime movies. The concept is a mixture of the classic mob style and the futuristic hitman style. Guns For Hire is a synonym for a hitman. The Z at the end was added for brand reasons and URL’s that were free.
The track “Firestone” is marvelous. When you start to create a new track, do you have certain customs that you follow, or is it more “lets start and see how the flow goes”
Thanks! Well, the process is always different. It can start with anything, for example a melody on piano, a specific synth sound, or a certain type of kick.
In the case of Firestone it started with the epic vocal by singer Ava Silver. We got sent this vocal and we immediately fell in love with it and got inspired with ideas.
What’s next? After this fantastic show, will we see more G4H in 2022 with music and shows?
We’re just getting started in 2022. We have so much plans and gigs coming up. This will be the year of the Gunz, we will promise you we will strike hard in 2022!
Just a personal question – isn’t it warm under the masks when you are performing on stage??
Yes it can be very hot, it also depends on the country and location where we perform. For example, we performed in the desert in Las Vegas at extremely hot temperatures. But we will never complain, especially not after the lockdown periods. We feel blessed that we can do this.
Is there a message you would like to send to your fanbase now?
Yes we would like to thank the readers of HardstyleMag for always supporting us and our music! We hope to see you on our shows this year and in the future!