Headhunterz

Headhunterz
Headhunterz in 2014
Background information
Birth name	Willem Rebergen
Also known as	Nasty D-Tuners, Antifact, Shilo, Project One (with Wildstylez)
Born	(1985-09-12) 12 September 1985 (age 31)
Origin	Veenendaal, Netherlands
Genres	Hardstyle, electro house, progressive house, future bass, future house
Years active	2003-present
Labels	Scantraxx, Q-Dance, Ultra Records, HARD with STYLE, Mainstage Music, Revealed Recordings, Spinnin' Records
Associated acts	Wildstylez, Noisecontrollers, Brennan Heart, Gostosa, Project One, Hardwell, Steve Aoki, R3hab, W&W, MOTi, Calvin Harris, Skytech, Crystal Lake, KSHMR
Website	http://www.headhunterz.com/
Members	Willem Rebergen
Past members	Bobby van Putten

Willem Rebergen, better known by his stage name Headhunterz, is a Dutch DJ and music producer. He has also done voice-acting for several movies and TV series.

He began his career in 2005, working in hardstyle music. He has performed at Qlimax, Defqon.1, Q-Base, inQontrol, Decibel and Hard Bass and has performed at electronic music festivals including Electric Daisy Carnival and Tomorrowland. Headhunterz released his work on Scantraxx through his own sub-label, Scantraxx Reloaded, but in 2013 he started his own record label, HARD with STYLE. He signed with North American electronic dance music label Ultra Music in 2013 and left his own label in 2015.

Willem Rebergen was born on 12 September 1985 in Veenendaal, Netherlands. From an early age Rebergen had an interest in music. Having struggled with bullying at school, Rebergen looked for a distraction to make himself happy and so joined a local kid's choir. Here he had his first exposure to a professional studio, recording Christmas albums with the choir. This experience left Rebergen interested and inspired by the process of creating music from the other side of the studio. In 2003, while working at a clothing store he was offered tickets to Qlimax from friends who could not attend. This was his first exposure to hardstyle music. This experience gave him the impetus to forge a music career and in his own words from then on he was "devoted to hardstyle and from that point interested in how to make the music. I wanted to make that kind of music."

He purchased some turntables and connected them to his mixer practicing his DJing, while simultaneously making music in FL Studio, a digital audio workstation. Rebergen began sending demos out to labels under the alias Nasty D-Tuners, a duo project he formed with close friend Bobby van Putten. In 2004 Nasty D-Tuners entered and won the 2004 Defqon.1 DJ contest, winning a spot on the lineup.

Rebergen and van Putten heard of a new hard dance music label "Hardcontrol", that was opening in Veenendaal. In 2005, a year and a half after their performance at Defqon 2004, Nasty D-Tuners were signed to Hardcontrol Records having two successful releases, with their work being played by then major Hardstyle producers/DJ's. Also in 2005, Rebergen and van Putten began attending a DJ class at the Rock Academy in the Netherlands. Rebergen found his time at the academy frustrating, due to a lack of encouragement towards producing Hardstyle and negative responses to the genre as a whole. Alienated by his experience at the Academy, Rebergen continued to send out Nasty D-Tuners demos to respective labels, one eventually reaching Scantraxx founder, Dov Elkabas (The Prophet). Seeing promise in the young duo, having heard of their performance at Defqon.1, 'Nasty D-Tuners' were signed to Scantraxx in late 2005. Unable to keep the alias 'Nasty D-Tuners' due to disagreements with the former label, the name Headhunterz was chosen. By the end of 2005, Rebergen and van Putten had performed at major hardstyle events including Defqon.1, Q-Base and The Prophet's X-Qlusive, all of which increased their profile within the Hardstyle scene.