DJ Panic, born as Dennis Copier in 1975, was hardly 16 when he performed at a dance-party for the first time; back in 1991 at the Big Balloon in Barendrecht. Dennis: “It was good, but when they started playing Top 40 music, I left…â€Shortly after that, in 1992, he was asked to play at Pompeï, a small youth-club with a capacity of only 250 people in the south of Rotterdam. “Of course I thought that was cool so I went along. They were already playing early hardcore, but mainly very inaccessible records. I changed that very rapidly by playing known and more accessible tracks. It worked, as the numbers in attendance increased from 4 to 200 within a month!â€.
The following year, Dennis started working at Mid-Town Records as a sales person in one of the stores; a perfect place to keep track of all the new records and meet the big players in the scene.
A little while later the ‘Forze DJ Team’ was founded, consisting of ‘DJ Paul Elstak’, ‘DJ Lars’ and ‘DJ Panic’. Being a part of the Forze DJ Team lead to an appearance at Terrordome in January 1994 for ‘DJ Panic’, who was only 18 years old at that time. “Terrordome was the first big event I played at. I was so nervous before my set because it excited me very much. Imagine yourself standing behind the decks in a monstrous hall for the very first time… the buzz it gave me was incredibleâ€. The following years, he toured all over Europe, United States and Japan together with ‘Paul Elstak’ and ‘Lars’.
In the meantime, Dennis also spent numerous hours in the studio together with ‘Paul’. One of the tracks that came out of the studio during this period was the instant hit “May the Forze be with youâ€. “It was a great and particularly busy period. Our names were plastered all over flyers, leaflets and posters, and there was nobody who did NOT want to book usâ€.
The Forze DJ Team split up in 1998. “We out-grew each other; everyone started doing their own thingâ€. Dennis got closer to DJ Neophyte (Jeroen Streunding), whom he met at the events they both performed at. Since 1996 they have been producing under their guise ‘Hard Creation’, resulting in the classic release and mega floor-filler ‘I will have that Power’, back in 1999. Dennis: “Jeroen and I really hit it off both professionally in the studio as well as personally, we became very close friends over the yearsâ€.
Dennis currently spends a lot of time in the studio with Jeroen and Kelly to take his projects to a higher level with every new release. Besides his productions and remixes for various labels, Dennis is also responsible for compiling and mixing high profile compilations such as A Nightmare in Rotterdam, Hardcore to the Bone, Decibel, Hard Bass, Project Hardcore, the History of Rotterdam Hardcore series and his brand new album “15 years of Panic! In collaboration with Jeroen “Neophyte†Streunding, he is also managing respected record labels such as Rotterdam Records, Neophyte Records, Forze Records, Terror Traxx, Seismic Records and Tremble Tracks. All this together makes him a very busy every man, especially sine he’s also showing his excellent dj skills all over the world every weekend. He’s performing in countries like Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Australia and the USA. Having performed at events like Decibel, A Nightmare in Rotterdam, Mystery Land, Impulz, Global Hardcore Nation, Megarave, Shadowlands, Speedrazor, Digital Overdose, Masters of Hardcore, Project Hardcore and many more, there simply isn’t a playground this sympathetic DJ is not familiar with! This man is:
“BIGGER THAN EVER†and will "NEVER FALL ASLEEP".
