Lock n Load

Members: Niels Pijpers, Gabriel Vezzola, Frank van Rooijen
:: Niels ::
Born in 1970 in Vlaardingen, a 'suburb' of Rotterdam, and currently living in the centre of Rotterdam, he cannot imagine a time in his life he wasn’t involved in music. At a young age, he started 'mixing' with tapes for various local radio stations and started two drive-inn shows, which entertained school parties, soccer club gatherings, weddings and birthday parties. Not long after that, he discovered hip-hop and Teddy Riley’s new jack swing sound and started as a resident hip hop DJ in a small black club in the vicinity of Rotterdam.
After hearing the legendary Frankie Knuckles track 'Tears' back in 1991 on a radio show, he got totally infected with house, put his scratching skills in the closet and started playing early house music, garage and hip house stuff on various parties and clubs. In 1993, he started working in one of the stores of Mid-Town Records in Utrecht, where he met Frank van Rooijen. Together, they delivered productions under a.k.a.’s as Mass Appeal, Gray Scale, United DJ’s of Utrecht, DC Chant and Lock ‘n Load.
Niels is currently working as head of A&R @ Mid-Town Records, where he’s responsible for the entire Mid-Town label roster such as (among others) Blue Records, Massive Drive Recordings, Very Disco and Selektiv.
:: Gabriel ::
Gabriel works as a (fulltime) producer since 2002. He has been a producer for DancePlanet Recordings (label of Digidance), Media Records Italy and currently he's Mid-town Records in-house producer. Since his taste of music is very diverse, he decided not to limit himself to one particular music style. He chose "Gabriel" for his more housy/elektro-ish tracks and "Vezzola" as his Tech/trance alias. As a producer he always tries to find a way to put his own signature in his productions and let his taste be the judge instead of whatever the current hype may be. Loving and embracing each style of music, you'll never know what Gabriel may, or may not try.
For his side projects, he produces under various alter egos like Mr. Ciufo, Groove 'n Gear and Gabi & Nilson (the last two are a collaboration with Niels) and Lush 7 (a minimal project with Rogier van Toen). As of January 2007 Gabriel is part of the Lock 'n Load project as well.
Besides music, Gabriel also has his own (post)production company where he takes care of commercials, mastering, surround sound, remixes and productions for others.
:: Frank ::
Frank was born in a small Dutch town called Oudewater on the 20th of May 1975 and is currently living in Johannesburg South Africa, where he’s making a decent living as an art director for a South African design agency and where he represents Lock ‘n Load as a DJ / producer playing in all the major clubs and on all big parties in Johannesburg, Cape town, Durban and Pretoria such as ESP, Nexus, Truth and Splash.
12 Years ago, he started spinning records in a small youth shelter where he played a variety of music, from Culture Club to Madonna to Disco classics to pop music, but quickly became infected with the house music virus when he got to know productions of Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May. In 1993, Frank decided to try and produce his own tracks, and that resulted in a successful first release on the small independent label 4th Groove: Mass Appeal – Shoot ‘m up, produced on an Amiga together with Niels. With the money earned, Frank bought his first 'real' studio equipment resulting in many releases under various guises. Besides his collaboration with Niels, he also has teamed up with Pronti & Kalmani (the guys behind DJ Jurgen’s 'Better off alone', Alice Deejay’s 'Back in my life' and the Vengaboys) and E-Craig.
"Blow ya mind"
The white label pressing became a hot item that rarely left any DJ case, and as soon as the record was officially released in September ’99, it could be found in the top regions of club charts, dance charts and DJ’s personal favourite’s charts! Within a period of three weeks, it became the no. 1 club record in The Netherlands, and Europe followed soon after that. The record was signed to different territories in the world, and after a “license war” between a number of UK labels, Zomba Records (nowadays Sony/BMG) signed “Blow ya mind” for the UK to release it on their Pepper imprint. Through no. 1 positions in both the UK Club and UK Dance Chart, it had an amazing entry at 6 in the UK Single Charts!! In the second week, it could still be found on 6 to be still top 10 (at 10) in the third week. After 4 weeks, “Blow ya mind” reached the silver status as the record sold over 250.000 copies in the UK only. It stayed in the Singles Charts for 11 weeks, to have a re-entry in the 13th week after one week of absence! Something that rarely happens, especially with a Dutch dance record without a supporting video…… “Blow ya mind” could be found on almost all the big compilations in Europe and achieved high chart positions in countries such as UK, USA, Australia, South Africa, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, France and Spain. Besides the silver record in the UK, “Blow ya mind” got rewarded with a gold record in Scandinavia!
The follow-up: "House some more"
In the first week of December 2001, the second Lock ‘n Load single using vocals of Kraze – “Let’s play house” which were re-recorded by Dutch rap artist MC Alee, was released in the Netherlands on vinyl again including a slamming Club Caviar remix. Within a month, “House some more” climbed to the 1 position of the official Dutch Dance Charts and sold over 6.000 vinyl copies already!! Two weeks later, “House some more” could be found on the 1 spot in all three Dutch Dance Charts, and even made it to the Dutch Singles Charts with an entry at 80. This follow-up proved again to be a big success in the UK; it entered in the official UK Singles Charts Top 40 on 16 after it already entered the UK Dance & Club Charts on the 1 position. It reached millions of compilations worldwide.
The very long awaited third single is done and we’re in the middle of providing the original with extra mixes. “Who else could it be” has been produced in collaboration with the very talented dutch producer Gabriel Vezzola . Check the new single in the player above! The track were handed to a limited amount of global tastemakers, check the feedback in our blog...
In the meantime, we provided remixes for Jochen Miller ("Alive") and for Ali Wilson ("Solstice"), who are on the verge of being released and already generates plays by many top jocks.
REVIEW DJ MAG - UK - SEPTEMBER 2007
TOPTUNE AT IDJ MAGAZINE - UK - OCTOBER 2007
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