Don Diablo is the world-conquering future house pioneer

In East Amsterdam, tucked away on what seems like a sleepy street (though that may just be due to the icy weather), lies the home of Don Pepijn Schipper. Freshly renovated — he moved in just the day before our interview — it’s a grand old building of wooden beams and stained glass, but with a slick, modern makeover; think glass walls, minimalistic furniture and the obligatory pool. It’s all very grown up, though a Cribs-esque tour later reveals Don’s inner child is still very much at play, given the pinball machine in his living room and murals of his beloved Star Wars adorning the walls. The house and all its niceties are evidence of Don’s hard-earned success. After more than two decades of professionally producing, and a career that’s swung violently from high to low more times than a fairground High Striker, he’s finally able to treat himself — and maybe, just maybe, relax a little. 

2018 marked Don’s biggest year to date. His sophomore album ‘Future’ landed after a 10-year wait. That was followed by his charity tour, Better Future, which raised money for the Dutch Cancer Trust by asking for donations from fans instead of a standard ticket (with a minimum of just €5 to allow those not so well-off to attend). And he picked up numerous accolades, including the Highest Future House award in DJ Mag’s own Top 100 DJs poll. This trophy (won for the second year in a row) coincided with Don finally breaking into the list’s Top 10, jumping up four places from last year to No.7, just behind iconic names such as Armin van Buuren, David Guetta and Tiësto. In fact, Don is now the highest placed DJ never to have won — a sign of future glory? Only time will tell.

For now, Don sees his climb to the coveted Top 10 as “a present,” and although he’s wary of the criticisms leveled at the poll, he’s grateful for the support from fans.  “Breaking the Top 10, that’s a whole different level,” he says, casually munching on a carrot. “Every single artist in the Top 10 is successful in their own right. I’m not a hard campaigner, I let it flow like my heroes in the DJ scene, and that makes it extra special for me.”

He recalls having a poster of the Top 20 on his wall as a teenager — populated by DJs like Fatboy Slim, Sasha and Carl Cox at the time — and muses on how the poll isn’t just an indicator of relevancy within the industry, but also works on a much more personal level. “For my family, it’s very hard to measure how successful I am,” Don says. “They don’t go to a show in Brazil where you play for 50,000, it doesn’t mean anything for them if I have a gold record — it’s tangible but it’s not tangible, it completely goes over your head,” he says. “But when I entered this Top 100, and they knew I had a poster over my bed, they were like, ‘OK this is becoming something, it’s getting bigger.’” 

“If you want great success you need to offer great sacrifice. Otherwise why would you be so lucky? You can’t just carelessly expect things from the universe”

FAMILY

To say family is important to Don would be a gross understatement. He talks about finding out that his grandfather was one of his biggest fans after he’d passed away, when Don’s mum discovered a cache of newspaper clippings hidden in the bag for his oxygen tank.  “He was always like, ‘So Don, Armin van Buuren and Tiësto, they’re Dutch DJs, why are they in this Top 100 in the Top 10, and you’re not even in the list? But you’re also very good, right?’” Don laughs. “Later on, as I started going to the stores where he used to buy groceries, they’re like, ‘Oh you’re Henk’s grandson... he was constantly showing articles and was the proudest grandfather ever.’”

Don’s mum, too, is a constant feature throughout our conversation; he famously took her up onto the main stage at Tomorrowland in 2017, and when chat turns to his winning the Audi Untaggable award during the Top 100 DJs ceremony that same year, Don adds, “I still don’t know what that means, but hey, I was invited on a stage, somebody took a picture and my mum was proud.” Then there is Don’s father, whose tragic passing six years ago Don has always spoken candidly about. He credits his father’s final words with giving him the drive to get back into music after years of disappointment — a motivation that has led him directly to his current success. 

“I had a conversation with him, it was the last one we had, and he was like, ‘It’s over before you know it, and why are you so hard on yourself? Why do you have the feeling that you have to bleed for everything, every shred of success or every bit of love you get in your life? It’s OK to accept it,’” says Don. “I literally never drank in my life, never had a cigarette, never did drugs, never tried anything, ’cause I always felt like, if you want great success you need to offer great sacrifice. Otherwise why would you be so lucky? You can’t just carelessly expect things from the universe. That’s still my philosophy.”

Don believes it’s his duty to follow his father’s advice; doing so has, “completely changed my mind state,” he says. “I went in a more clear direction, and I made records that started making sense together, I created a sound, but that took me many years of trying and failing, and falling flat on my face — I think that’s still what artistry should be about.” He tries to maintain a positive outlook, and speaks matter-of-factly about the pitfalls of the wider dance music world.  “It’s shocking the amount of assholes that are in this industry, and the amount of people that are circling around the concept of music and art and dance music just for the money and the fame and the partying, it really breaks my heart,” he says. 

THE DARK SIDE

Don knows more about that than most. The story of his career is one littered with the brutal realities often hidden behind the glossy sheen of the superstar DJ. His first taste came when he was just 14 years old; Don had signed a contract with a record label, and was regularly putting out music, often ghost producing for other DJs. “It wasn’t really a thing back then, now it has a name, but back then I was just producing for other DJs, other producers, it was normal, it wasn’t questioned,” he says. The company had given Don a €5,000 pay-off — big bucks to any teen — which he’d eagerly invested in more studio equipment. 

“I worked with a program called FastTracker,” he recalls, “which is probably the most crude, rudimentary DAW production software you can imagine. I was actually ashamed of it!”  But one day, after his mum questioned why he had a stack of releases he’d produced piling up, but wasn’t seeing any more money, he discovered the ugly truth — “I found out that I was in a strangle contract... I signed a contract for life.” Luckily for Don, the label had thought he was an adult, but being a minor — and without his parents co-signing — he had a way out. At this point, Don had gone back to school, disillusioned with the industry, but when another label offered to help with the case he was lured back in. 

“While they helped me, the other company basically declared bankruptcy and they were gone,” he says. “So I then was with that new company, and the funny thing is, they did exactly the same thing they helped me for,” he continues, laughing in incredulity. “So I was like, ‘Wow!’ It’s like Inception. How does this work? I said to my mum, ‘Now I know music is really not gonna be my thing.’” With Don being so young at the time, it was easy for so-called professionals to prey on his passion and inexperience. We wonder if, with it easier than ever to begin a production or DJ career, more could be done to protect youngsters from this kind of manipulation — or whether there is something to be said for learning the hard way?

“I think it’s a bit of both, to be honest,” Don says. “I am the guy that is climbing [the Top 100 DJs list] consistently, because I’ve created the backbone, I’ve created the work ethic, I’ve created the humbleness. Even now, two days ago, I was the No.1 most played producer of the year. I have remixes that have 50/60 million to 100 million streams; but if there was a band that disapproved the remix, I go back in like I’m still that 15-year-old kid in my parents’ attic, just playing around with ideas. I think you should never lose that. And I think it’s important that you get a few hits in the face, it strengthens you. It’s almost like people who have a fear of bacteria — you have to get sick a few times in order to develop your immune system, otherwise you get crushed. I see some of these kids, they go into the Top 100 and they’re in there after three years of existing, after three years of making music, and they think everything is easy. It is for them, right now. But let’s talk in 10 years from now when you actually have to have a life. For me, music is not a sprint, it’s a marathon... you learn that the hard way.

PADAWAN

The young Don was done with music, but, as was to be the case throughout his career, it seemed music wasn’t done with him. When an art is your passion, any opportunity to follow it can be impossible to resist, and after one of his releases garnered support from a certain Judge Jules, Don began flying around the world, warming up for Armin and Tiësto. Over the next few years, Don attempted to release an album on several more labels, but was repeatedly pushed aside in favor of established artists. Eventually he got sick of the rejection, and bored of playing the same DJ circuit in the Netherlands, and came up with an ingenious plan to make his own name.

Recognizing the new-found power of blogs, he decided to simply go back to just producing other people’s music, and hit up a number of bloggers to see if he could get them on side. It worked, and then some. Before he knew it, Don was the No.1 most blogged artist on blog aggregator Hype Machine, ahead of Lady Gaga and Kanye West. “The whole industry was like, ‘Who the fuck is this Don Diablo? And how is he everywhere? He’s remixing everything, this guy... it’s crazy!’” he exclaims. The blogs helped Don link up with other artists, one of whom was British vocalist Example. They spent some time together at Don’s studio and put together a track called ‘Hooligans,’ which they sent out to Ministry Of Sound. 

“They were excited,” Don says, his tone shifting down a notch, “and they were excited about this new rapper Example.”  Ministry signed the Brit, and Don once again got sidelined. “They made an album with him,” he begins. “I worked on like seven of the songs, two of them ended up on the album, and I made all the PA versions, kind of like a studio handyman, I guess. I made two or three remixes, so I really put a lot of time and effort into the Example project.” 

When the time came to sort out contracts, Don says Ministry refused to compensate him, but told him that once Example broke through, the rapper could be a featured artist on one of Don’s unreleased tracks. “So they ended up sending me the platinum record for the album,” he says, “but there were no royalties, they didn’t pay me anything, nothing at all.”  Don felt the time was right for the promised release, but Ministry had stopped answering his emails. “For some reason, I became a ghost — literally the ghost producer, that’s how I felt for a long time.” He contacted the label to inform them he was going to drop one of his Example tracks, in accordance with the deal, but Ministry denied any knowledge of the agreement, despite Don forwarding the email chain.  “Then literally no one answered anymore,” he says. “And at a certain point after five/six emails, someone said, ‘Who are you?’” When Don questioned the legality of the situation, he says Ministry began to throw their weight around. “They said, ‘What are you gonna do? Bring it on. Bring the lawyers, we’re gonna crush you.’ Literally, that was said. And I was like, ‘I don’t have the money to do this.’”

“They started yelling at me like, ‘You’re insane, why would you say no to this kind of money?’ And I’m like, ‘Because you need to stick by your principles.’ This kind of industry crushes you”