This week on PLAFONDDIENST, we’re joined by a man who knows how to switch from a dreamy break to a lung-crushing drop like it’s nothing. Sparkz talks about his signature sound, the rise of his now-legendary gallop kicks, the growth of Unfold, his recently released album, and a festival summer packed with back-to-back madness.
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A sound with feeling
The Sparkz sound doesn’t fit in just one box and that’s no accident. “It’s super diverse. I can go fully euphoric and floaty, but it can also switch to something dark, grimy, dystopian and experimental. It really depends on where my head is at the time.” His music always comes from emotion. “Whether I’m happy, sad, anxious or in love, it shows immediately. There’s no formula or marketing plan behind it. It has to be pure.”
Still, he never forgets the crowd. “People buy a ticket because they want to dance, so that’s where I try to take it. Sometimes there’s a compromise, sometimes not. But the core always has to be real. That’s the most important thing to me.”
“At one point people were literally galloping in the crowd”
A trademark Sparkz weapon by now: the gallop kick, featured in his tracks Bounce and Can’t Stop Us. It started as an experiment while prepping for his live set at Get Wrecked. “I thought, I’m gonna make a fat lung-collapsing kick. I was fully vibing in the studio,” he says. The crowd went wild. “At one point people were literally galloping in the crowd. I didn’t expect that at all. Afterwards I got all these videos like, ‘what the f*ck are those kicks?!’ and ‘I was galloping like a cowboy the whole set.’”
The gallop kick hype reached a new level at Intents Festival 2024, where Thijs from Dual Damage galloped across the indoor mainstage with a toy horse. “I had no idea that was happening,” Sparkz laughs. “Suddenly I’m getting TikToks sent to me like, ‘look what Thijs just did’. That’s when I knew, this kick really stuck.”
Sparkz in the new episode of PLAFONDDIENST – The Hardstyle Podcast
In episode eighteen of PLAFONDDIENST – The Hardstyle Podcast, Sparkz talks in depth about his unique sound, the rise of Unfold, his recent album, a summer full of B2B sets and more. Listen to the full episode now on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform.
