Nick Hoppezak (NL)

Born at the height of gabber and DJing since the age of 11, hardcore runs through Nick Hoppezak’s veins. Before he could even mix two records together he was playing at Studio 80 in Amsterdam for Thunderdome Radio to an audience of 30,000 listeners locked in worldwide. Hoppezak has been promoting hardcore from the DJ booth and behind the scenes ever since. Between 2006 and 2013 Hoppezak was the squeaky prepubescent voice of Thunderdome’s weekly online radio show, helping hosts MC Justice and Da Mouth of Madness prank unsuspecting DJs live on air. Thunderdome Radio was also the launchpad for Hoppezak to start DJing early hardcore under the alias Radical Madness, later playing mainstream hardcore and industrial hardcore as N!CK and performing at the likes of Nature One, Defqon 1 and Mysteryland. When ID&T retired Thunderdome in 2012, and Thunderdome Radio ended in 2013, Hoppezak took a step back from DJing and the music he had devoted his entire youth to. Opening the industrial stage at The Final Exam in Amsterdam RAI and Thunderdome Radio's last ever broadcast, a six hour takeover at BEAT Club, were pinnacles in a DJ career that happened all before the age of 20. From 2013 until Thunderdome’s return in 2017, Hoppezak worked closely with Francois Maas at ID&T to keep the brand going "in secret”. Around the same time he discovered techno and a new kind of hardcore crowd forming around Warehouse Elementenstraat in Amsterdam at nights like Unpolished and Katharsis. Hoppezak's new alias, Nick Moody, is the expression of a steeped hardcore past meeting a hard and noisy techno present, and DJing at the intersection. As Nick Moody, Hoppezak joins contemporary artists like Stranger and Bleaching Agent and veteran acts like Manu Le Malin and DJ Promo - his musical mentor who he shares a studio with - who all frequently challenge the hardcore-techno divide with their DJ sets and productions.