Martin Garrix
A star-studded day with the dance prodigy at Future Music Festival Sydney.
TwentyFour
Photos by Mitch Tomlinson March 19, 2015

The Netherlands is famous for cheese, windmills and wooden shoes – but the country also has a commendable strike rate when it comes to spawning world-famous dance producers. One of the most notable is the man himself, Martin Garrix.

After dropping the omnipresent, stadium-sized banger ‘Animals’ which soundtracked every damn festival and club show of 2013/2014, he’s quickly become one of dance music’s hottest prodigies. We are thanking out lucky stars that we got to chill with Martin as Future Music Festival hit Sydney – featuring kangaroos, policemen and Alison Wonderland:

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Work before play: We kickstart out day with Martin inside the hotel, where he rolls out of bed and straight into a pile of emails. In this sense, Martin’s morning routine is a lot like ours – except that he gets to tour the world, make shitloads of money and record tracks with the god himself, Usher. Still kinda similar, though.

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Signs That You’ve Made It, Volume 1: You have your own personalised DJ accessories and permission to wear a short-sleeved hoodie.

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Martin gives a bro-hug to his manager Michael George, both of whom were named in the Top 30 most influential people in the competitive, cut-throat world of #EDM. I wonder if people remind Michael George that his name is the reverse of George Michael. Anyway, he is the one responsible for discovering Martin and bringing him to the management lord Scooter Braun. He also once worked with a hip-hop act named Hoodie Allen, how cool is that? #CARELESSWHISPER

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Hotel lobby lurkin’ with Martin’s European manager, Watse. You know that Watse is a fucking legend because he is wearing one of our LWA caps. Watse has brought along his Mum & Dad to watch the show, which is pretty adorable. I hope that I am still fistpumping and gabbering with youthful vigour when I become a cool Dad.

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We arrive at Future Music Festival, and immediately hit the media circuit. This interview is way better than most because it’s filled with plenty of inflatable goods, giant emojis floating in the background and a guy with a fedora on. Fuck yeah! #DREAMS

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Martin’s rider consists of booze and some fresh threads from our pals at Zanerobe, both of which are absolutely necessary. Martin and his tour manager Aubury (there is a direct correlation between the number of managers you have and importance of your life) get into a quick impromptu towel fight. It was just like Homer and Uter’s towel fight from The Simpsons. Kinda.

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Semi rap-squat and upside-down Roc Nation hand symbol with producer, Channel V host and all-round good dude Generik. Adidas game strong. #ILLUMINATI

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Sydney is bringing out all the big guns for Martin, including this cuddly kangaroo. Yes, there’s a goddamn marsupial at Future Music Festival. This is probably the only kangaroo in history that’s ever laid its furry ears on electronic music, hopefully he can take this production knowledge to the rest of his species and make some kanga bangas. #DOWNUNDERDUBSTEP

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DJ Carnage and his abundance of gold chains have just finished destroying the bass-hungry crowd over at the Futuredome Stage, and now he’s come to hang out before Martin’s set. Two dudes in dance music who are absolutely smashing it right now.

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Martin enters the meditation zone amongst all the madness. This is the only time of the day where we don’t see him smiling ear-to-ear, so we know how seriously he’s taking this performance.

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Showtime! The face of sturdy concentration.

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Confetti makes everything in life 73 times better.

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Martin with the power stance above the crowd on the Supernova stage. This looks like a scene from the Gladiator movie. Raw power and emotion with Martin Garrix aka Russell Crowe on the microphone.

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What happens when you become the youngest person to ever reach #1 on the Beatport charts? You get to experience stuff like this when you’re barely of drinking age. Respect to Martin and his relentless work ethic.

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Off the stage, we just casually bump into the Dutch lord Afrojack. All the bros throw a little post-performance banter.

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Signs That You’ve Made It, Volume. 2: You finish playing at one of Australia’s biggest festivals, and then you jump straight into a helicopter to get a bird’s eye view of all the action. Get to the choppa!

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We are really lucky to call this place home.

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Soaring above Sydney is pretty spectacular. We’re feeling like Vic Lorusso delivering the traffic report on Channel 10 news. All hail the journalist god, Vic.

 

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Constable’s got a strong headwear game, so Martin takes his hat for a quick flick. Pretty sure normal citizens can get arrested/brutalised for doing this, but sometimes you have to take a risk to achieve the maximum level of swag.

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Signs That You’ve Made It, Volume 3: You get transported around a festival in a golf buggy with absolutely no regard for foot traffic or the peasants who have to walk using actual human energy. Shoutout to GG Magree, her cat onesie and appropriate ‘meow’ pose. #YEAHPUSSY #PUSSYPOSSE

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Constable caps are so out of fashion, we’re only wearing traffic cones from now on.

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Martin with the pout, Alison Wonderland sipping Smirnoff. Congratulations to Alison Wonderland for launching her debut album Run at a strip club last night. Extra points: She dropped ‘Ignition (Remix)‘. Also, I’m pretty sure I saw one stripper with a Defqon.1 tattoo, respect. Make sure you purchase Run when it drops tomorrow!

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And that’s all from us! We have no doubts that Martin will continue to smash it across the globe – his future is so bright that we’ve left our speed dealers on after Darude’s set.

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