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Ben Liebrand (born September 27, 1960 in Nijmegen, The Netherlands) is a dance music DJ who is also highly respected for his production skills. As a prolific record producer and remixer, he has entered many international Dance and Singles Charts over the years, producing for artists such as Forrest and MC Miker G & DJ Sven and remixing tracks by artists such as Bill Withers, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons and Jeff Wayne. He has also charted on a number of occasions under his own name.
The first DJ to produce an 'End Of Year' megamix and one of the more popular DJs to produce best-selling records, a number of international artists credit him as one of their biggest influences. World-famous DJs and producers, such as Armin Van Buuren and Olav Basoski have cited him as their main reason for entering the music business.
Liebrand began his DJ-ing career in 1976 at the age of sixteen with his mobile set-up, "The B. Liebrand Audio Studio", playing parties around his hometown of Nijmegen. Two years later, when he became old enough to frequent nightclubs, he moved from mobile discos to a nightclub residency, playing in "Juicy Lucy" nightclub (1978-1979). At this point, he was still letting one record play into another without beatmixing; however in 1979, he began a recidency at "The Kwien" nightclub (1979-1980). During this time, Liebrand learned the art of mixing from Kwien resident Huib Luiten.
Ben honed his skills at what was his longest residency to date at "The Keizer Karel" (1980-1988) after which, he felt it was time to take his skills to a larger audience, DJ-ing with his sister Rita Liebrand, at "The Hippodrome" Hennef, Germany (1988-1995).
On April 1st, 1983, Liebrand was hired by Netherlands station Radio Veronica, producing a weekly individual mix-show ("In The Mix") on Radio Veronica, playing at 2am weekly, lasting an hour, running from early 1983 to November 1985. From that radio show, regular features such as the "Grandmix", a yearly mix of all important dance tracks of the year, was developed. Taking a full month to organise, mix and record, the first Grandmix was broadcasted at the end of 1983, but technical complications almost ended this event before it started. Arriving at the Veronica Studio, Liebrand discovered that he had forgotten the second of the two tapes on which the Grandmix '83 was recorded. Thankfully, he happened to have a tape of a just finished "High Fashion Dance Mix" with him, and it was with that tape that the second part of the Grandmix '83 began! In January 1984, the 'Grandmix '83' was broadcasted in its entirety, the way it was supposed to be. From such ignoble beginnings, the "Grandmix" flourished into a trademark event for both Radio Veronica and Liebrand, running until 1992.
Later, in 1984, Ben also started making shorter remixes for the Friday evening 'Curry & van Inkel show', later the 'Stenders & van Inkel show' (both on that station). These minimixes were either three/four track mixes (never exceeding fifteen minutes in total) or remixes of popular chart records at the time. It was during this period that Liebrand honed his production skills, selecting the tracks that would feature and producing the mixes during the day prior to them being broadcast that evening!
Many of Liebrand's remixes, released as singles, including Bill Withers "Lovely Day" and Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" were premiered as 'minimixes' on this radio show. In the case of Phil Collins "In The Air Tonight," however, the mix was completed and then taken by Ben to be part of a mix showcase at the DMC Mixing Championship Finals in London. Ben himself takes up the story... "Then I put on my remix of Phil Collins, in front of those two and a half thousand DJ’s. And I told them: "If you want to see this released? Call Virgin first thing tomorrow!" That resulted in Virgin being called by two and a half thousand DJ’s, and this got the track signed and released by 1pm the day after!" [1]. Ben Liebrand, the record-selling producer, had arrived.
After producing the final "Grandmix" in 1992, Ben felt frustrated with lack of feedback that his mixes were gaining. "You didn’t know what people thought of it. 30 days fulltime working on the Grandmix in December, ten to twelve hours a day mixing. On the 31st December it was finished, and the last years when I entered the broadcast studios, everybody was busy doing something else, not really interested, and only the technician who was on duty, sat with me in the broadcast room. I plugged in my gear, pressed play around six o’clock, and after an hour I disconnected it again, and took off. Having sat there for one hour, solely with the technician, it was the biggest anti-climax ever. This could be compared to making a piece of art, walking up to a bridge and throwing it in the river, without knowing the people’s opinions about it."
So, disheartened but not detered, Liebrand struck onto a radically different path of creativity, taking a complete break from DJ-ing and production, pouring all of his energy into computer-based 3D renderings and animation. He focused completely on learning all he could about the skills required. With the singlemindedness and drive he had employed early in his DJing and production, in a relatively short space of time, he had taught himself to produce quality work of sufficient quality. The output was of such professional nature that he began his own visual company, Liebrand Images, and undertook work such as commercials (for clients including Arcade Compilations CDs), promotional music videos (for acts including Atlantic Ocean and The Alan Parsons Project) and visuals (station idents for Music TV station TMF). This company still runs today and continues to produce high-quality computer created images for a variety of clients.
As Liebrand Images continued to grow, Ben found himself drawn to producing a music based production for which he would combine an original music production with uniquely produced visuals, and in 1997 released "Funky Town". It was when he discovered the enormous popularity of this release from a new fanbase that continued to discuss his past work on the internet, including the 'Mixfreaks' mailing list that had begun a booming trade in swapping bootleg copies of his Radio Veronica "Grandmixes", that he now felt he was getting the feedback and appreciation he was due for the work he did in the eighties and nineties. He begins returning to DJ to sold-out crowds, determined to welcome back their hero to decks around the world.
Thanks to this enthusiastic support on the Internet, in 1998 Ben began negotiations with Dutch radio-station Radio 538 (an offspring of Radio Veronica), the result of which was the re-broadcasting of all the Radio Veronica "Grandmixes" every last Saturday of the month throughout 1999. The final intention was to broadcast a brand-new "Grandmix" in December 1999, the "Grandest" mix of all, a "MillenniuM-Mix", containing the greatest dance tracks of the century. The success of this mix was so huge that Liebrand was invited to produce a mid-year summer Grandmix and an end-of-year Grandmix for Radio 538. And so it was that, on 31st December 2001, a three-part "Grandmix" was broadcast from 6pm to 9pm, signalling the regular return of Ben Liebrand to the airwaves, followed by a "Grandmix Disco Edition" on the 23rd August of that year. "Grandmixes" were broadcast in the summer and end-of-year of 2002 and 2003.
In 2004, Ben Liebrand returned to Radio Veronica for a two-hour weekly mix. Nowadays Ben is again fully involved in music, making Grandmixes available in a new format on 3CD's on his website and he again has his 'In The Mix' show on Radio Veronica.
Liebrand is currently married to Brenda (Van Raam). His first son, Fabian, was born on October 20, 1993 and his second son, Sascha, on December 8, 1994. His daughter, Linde, was born on July 1, 1999.
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