Wessel Van Diepen

Dutch producer & DJ, owner of Violent Music BV. Wessel Dietrich van Diepen was born on 12 November 1966 in Delft, Holland. He was the youngest in a family of four children. His parents had a small shop in Delft. At the age of 15, he started his own illegal radio station called "Radio Stad Delft", his first step towards a blossoming radio career. When Wessel was 17 years old, he made a radio road trip visiting several stations in the Wichita Kansas area. During that trip he met a DJ at 107 KKRD who gave Wessel the opportunity to fill in for him on air for a period of three months. Back in The Netherlands in 1986, he got noticed by 3FM DJ Rob Stenders and through him got his demo sent to several radio-stations in Dutch broadcasting capital Hilversum. After receiving several offerings, he decided to accept a job as a DJ at the VARA. He proved to be a fresh breeze throug Dutch radio, and soon he was contacted by popular broadcasting organization Veronica. They recruited him for several radio and TV programs including the Europe-wide broadcast pop music TV-show Countdown, which shot Wessel to international fame. In the early 1990s Veronica moguls Erik de Zwart and Lex Harding deserted Veronica and started Radio538. Wessel joined them. Besides hitting big ratings with a daily drive-time show, he took the opportunity to exploit his dance music minded side and created the internationally awarded radio show "Van Diepen's Dance Department", where every notable DJ played vinyl, ranging from Oakenfold to Digweed and from Paul van Dyk to DJ Tiësto. When Dutch music video channel TMF (The Music Factory) was launched in 1995 and Wessel got on board, he gained TV fame as a VJ with a popular show titled Wessels Woelige Wereld (~ 'Wessels Turblent World') which he hosted until 1999. During the 1990's he also started producing music together with Peran van Dijk and later with Dennis van den Driesschen ('Danski'), leading to successful acts such as L.A. Style - James Brown Is Dead (with Van Diepen doing the trademark megaphone catchphrase), Nakatomi, and eventually worldwide phenomenons Alice Deejay and Vengaboys. Vengaboys alone sold over 15 million singles and 4.5 million albums. The album achieved platinum status in 73 countries. They performed in more than 130 different countries. Vengaboys split in 2000, but announced their comeback in 2010 with the space age disco bliss single "Rocket To Uranus", featuring Perez Hilton and Pete Burns in the accompanying music video.