Dutch DJ and producer from The Netherlands with prominent hits under his belt like “Ocean Drive Boulevard” and “Medellin.”, featured on renowned trance compilations In Search of Sunrise and A State of Trance to name a few. A producer under various aliases including BLR, Inner Stories, and WSTLNDR showcasing deeper, darker, yet melodically-focused club sounds.

Team EDMLI got chance to meet him in person at A State of Trance in Rotterdam for quick chat and to know more about him.

How’s playing at A State of Trance different from other festivals?

It’s fun, like, in the backstage or the artist area you see everyone, it’s always just fun to see people and they stay around to chill. So that’s what I like, just good happy vibes. 

Your take on Arnej’s Dust In The Wind was really something different, can we expect any follow-up with Arnej? 

I still talk to Arnej from time to time, but he also does tour management, so he’s a bit more in the background. But you never know 😉 

Let’s go back in time, your track “Ocean Drive Boulevard”, which was played by Armin during his Amin Only shows. How exactly did it originated? 

I actually went to a music equipment store and bought a synth there, XS Virus TI.  Plugged it in and I played a bunch of chords and that became like the stabby thing that was in the intro of Ocean Drive Boulevard. I loved that chord progression and then the rest just came naturally. Also the lead sound is XS Virus Ti, so that’s the first track I did with that synth.

What plans for 2025 are in store for BLR?

A lot of releases, I try to release an original every month and then around that plan remixes. I’m in the studio every day finishing a lot of tracks. Assign them to different labels like Armada, Drumcode which is a Techno label and other house labels. I did track on Experts Only which is John Summit’s label so just kinda balanced it out. 

Since you spoke about techno, these days Trance artists are coming up with Techno melodies, what’s your take on it?

Yes thats true but for myself I’ve always loved techno like, even Ocean Drive Boulevard, if you listen to it the beats are inspired by minimal techno because all the tracks you just would have like those long claps and hi hats and then minimal techno emerged, which you can still hear in the production.

We live in the era of Instagram reels and TikTok where everyone has a 30 second memory. How has this 30 second culture impacted Leon Bolier? 

I try to keep my melodies or themes or hooks shorter, I’ve actually done a couple of BLR versions of the old Leon Bolier tracks and then people ask me, could you do something like this for like Ocean Drive Boulevard? And I’m like, no, because the melody is too long for me to work on a BLR record. It’s also because the attention span of people is shorter nowadays and with a melody like that, you kinda limit yourself to a smaller crowd.

How do you resolve any kind of disagreements while collaborating? 

When I work with someone, I respect that producer and the direct result of that is there is no disagreement because we both know what’s better. If it’s like you’re working on something and then the other guy or I say like hey maybe let’s do this, then we know oh yeah this is a better idea so let’s do it. So there are no arguments really.

Any tips or advice for the upcoming producers?

I always say that I wish when I started out, I wish I had YouTube because everything is out there. So keep watching and keep learning and also at the same time try to find out stuff yourself so that’s how you develop your own signature sound. It’s why people when they listen to you, they just know it’s you and not like your neighbor.

Share This