Bingo Players at Time Nightclub – April 14, 2018

Maarten met Paul through his younger brother in Enschede, Holland, a two-hour drive from Amsterdam. One day, he went over to hang out with Paul’s younger brother, and found that Paul was also making music using ProTracker software. “It was only four channels and was really basic, but it was a start and really fun to do.”
“When we discovered we were both making similar sounding music with the same program we started spending all our time together and became friends right away’” said Maarten.

Over the next decade they began recording; and in 2006 they began recording under the moniker, Bingo Players. Their tracks started to resonate with the EDM crowds in America and abroad. Their songs— featuring buzzing, bouncing synthesizers, crunchy, guitar-like riffs reminiscent of the Chemical Brothers, and powerful, driving beats— are shaped by a memorable lyrical hook or a melody. 2009’s “Devotion” utilizes the catchy vocal hook, and sets it against a funky infectious saxophone riff and syncopated backbeat.

“Most of the time we’d just start with a melody. Then a song would just evolve,” said Maarten of their songwriting process. “We can connect with a song if the melody is strong even though it can still be bare bones. We need to sing along or whistle along or to have an earworm, you know what I mean? Something that sticks in your head.”

Their breakout hit “Cry (Just a Little),” featured a re-recording of the hook from a 1988 Brenda Russell song, “Piano in the Dark.” With the memorable lyric looping around an ebullient melody, it became an instant crossover anthem.
“I was watching VH1 and I saw this ‘Back to the 80s’ program where they played this Brenda Russell song and I thought, ‘Hey, this particular part of the song sounds really cool, maybe we could do something with it in our own style?’”

Though they didn’t start out as DJs, once the demand grew for them to play out live, they learned how to mix on CDJs. Soon, they became regulars on the EDM circuit, playing massive festivals, like Electric Daily Carnival, Tomorrowland, and Coachella.

“I think we started to become better producers once we started to DJ,” he said, noting that they would bring new tunes on the road and play for a crowd to gauge their reaction.

In between playing festivals and clubs around the world, the duo found the time to start their own label, Hysteria (a hat tip to Def Leppard, one of their favorite bands), releasing singles from Carl Tricks (“Mad Dash”), MAKJ (“Springen”), and Henry Fong (“Jump”) as well as Bingo Players tunes.

In 2013, they scored one of their biggest coups. An updated version of their 2011 track, “Rattle,” titled, “Get Up” (Rattle),” with LA-based act, Far East Movement, rapping over a bouncy, catchy beat, became a instant hit. When they first played the tune back in 2011, Maarten and Paul didn’t know if audiences liked it, but then, the single started to pick up steam around the world and slowly continued to grow.
It eventually charted in the Top Ten around the world including; Germany, Austria, France, and Australia (where it ended up going double Platinum), Gold in Canada, reaching the coveted #1 spot in the UK charts, and selling over 200,000 records in the U.S., reaching #5 on the dance charts. The success of the single, and the quirky, humorous video featuring ducks squaring off against hoodlums (which now has over 40 million views) helped propel Bingo Players high into the DJ Mag Top 100 list last year.