A lot can happen in six years. 

Just ask Sander Ketelaars who abandoned his university studies and a promising position alongside his brother in a company with fantastic growing potential in favour of pursuing a career in the music industry under the alias Sander Van Doorn.

The Van Doorn name is garnering attention from producers, DJs and punters from a range of stylistic backgrounds and musical persuasions as he continues to build a reputation as one of the world’s most promising dance music talents.

From his home-town of Eindhoven, Holland, Van Doorn’s unique melting pot of trance and techno has taken him to the United Kingdom, Spain and Russia and come October 10 it will be Perth’s turn to see what all the fuss is about at the 10th instalment of Godskitchen.

Van Doorn’s obsession with dance music started at a cousin’s birthday party where he found himself behind a set of beat up turntables and a mixer for the first time, this chance encounter with DJing technology is what Van Doorn blames for his addiction to dance music.

“I went to a cousins birthday party and he had two very old turntables and a mixer and I tried my first mix for the first time and it went really well. I think then I was instantly hooked on DJing so I bought my own crappy turntables and a lot of records and tried to teach myself and I think that is when my passion was really born as well.”

Van Doorn’s passion has been somewhat of a trademark of his short, but busy, career and it wasn’t long before a couple of tough decisions had to be made that would put an end to his ‘normal’ lifestyle.

“I used to have a normal job with my brother’s company and besides that I was a student as well. I noticed I was always thinking about music so I decided this couldn’t work any other way than just entering the music industry and trying it out for a while, so that is where I really decided to take my music career seriously.”

After deciding to pursue his musical aspirations as much, much more than a hobby Van Doorn set about procuring the necessary tools he would need to sculpt, mix and mould the sounds that would catapult him into the upper echelons of the dance music industry. 

“I took a loan from my brother to build it [the studio] up from scratch and it became what I needed. Before that I was already producing as a hobby so I knew which programs I wanted to work on. Six years ago I made a big investment when I started producing full time and that is how it all started.”

With his career in its very early stages support was hard to find, especially at home. His family struggled to come to terms with Van Doorn’s decision to drop out of college and pursue a career in the music industry.

“They didn’t really understand why I would take such a risk and leave all that behind. At first they were like ‘what are you doing?’ ‘Are you crazy?’ The first year I started working they were very sceptical about what I was doing, but the funny thing is that my brother and my dad are two of my biggest fans right now, so it all turned out to be just fine.”

Whether those close to him understood his decision or not, it didn’t take long before his investment began to pay dividends. 

With several releases pressed and packaged for Oxygen Recordings, a sister label of Spinnin’ Records, and several of his tracks finding their way onto some notable compilations in the same year Van Doorn was definitely doing something right.

This early success did wonders to ease the concern of family members who weren’t convinced Van Doorn’s decision to enter the music industry was the right one, but other members of Van Doorn’s family were a little harder to win over.

“My dad came round pretty quickly when he collected pieces about me from the internet and things started to take off when I got booked more and more so he was quite confident at a pretty early stage. My brother was still a bit sceptical until about two months ago when I took him to a party for the first time and he ended up on stage with me while I was playing in front of 20, 000 people and that made him realise ‘Jesus, this is serious!’”

Obviously Van Doorn didn’t start his career performing in front of thousands of people, but it was during one of his very first performances as a 19 year old at a local café in his home-town in front of 30 people that Van Doorn learned a DJ needs much more than technical skills.

“The very first time I played in front of a crowd, which was no more than 30 people, was also the first time that I really learned you can play the tracks you want, but you also have to play in front of the crowd. The entertainment element really started to kick in as did my understanding of DJing. It is more than just mixing two tracks over each other.”

Since his first release in 2004 there have been a lot of notable moments during his relatively short career. 

He entered DJ Magazine’s Top 100 poll at number 32 in 2006 and then climbed 17 places in the 2007 poll, he has hosted one of Eddie Halliwell’s shows on BBC Radio one and has been chosen to compile an essential mix for the same station.

Van Doorn has also played on the main stage at some of the world’s biggest festivals and more recently beat off the likes of Deadmou5, Calvin Harris and Axwell to take out the award for ‘Best Breakthrough DJ’ at this year’s Miami Winter Conference, but for Van Doorn one of his favourite moments was the life changing decision he made years ago.

 “There have been a lot of critical moments in my career, but decision wise I think when I really made the decision to enter the music industry full time was one of the best moments of my career so far.”

As Van Doorn’s reputation grew so did his talents in the studio. 

A number of successful singles in 2007 including ‘grasshopper,’ ‘king of my castle’ and a remix of Sia’s ‘the girl you lost to cocaine’ sent the dance music industry into a frenzy and Van Doorn’s debut artist album did nothing but enhance this mans sterling reputation.

Van Doorn’s debut artist album, Supernaturalistic, has been described as ‘a perfectly executed artist album,’ and even though the name may have been inspired by a classic Disney number, performed by everyone’s favourite umbrella totting nanny, there is nothing funny about Supernaturalistic.

Many artists use albums to display their diversity and showcase their abilities as producers and musicians, but after listening to a lot of his peers’ albums Van Doorn had a clear idea of what he wanted to achieve with his own.

“I have listened to a lot of other artist albums and what I noticed with a lot of these artist albums was that a lot of tracks weren’t really usable in a club and more for listening. My ideas behind the album where I wanted to produce a piece of work that had an album feel to it and every single track on the album, except for one or two interludes, has to be a potential single. So that is how I produced my album.”

For so much to be achieved in such a short space of time really testifies to the talent, dedication and passion Van Doorn possesses as a DJ, producer and performer.

A man with this much talent doesn’t come down under without being seriously prepared, so what can fans expect from Van Doorn while touring in Australia?

“Last time I played in Australia it was absolutely brilliant and I’m really looking forward to coming back. I’ve got a lot of new productions lined up and a few new mixes of some of the album tracks as well as new remixes and projects combined with what I have been doing in the studio lately. So I reckon it’s going to be a really interesting trip.”

With his debut album receiving praise from all circles of the dance music industry and his productions finding their way into the crates of the world’s biggest and best DJs from a very wide range of genres, on top of some very high profile residencies at clubs in London and Ibiza only time will tell what dizzying heights this superstar in the making will reach in the future.

If you aren’t familiar with the name Sander Van Doorn now, you will be soon.

You can catch Sander Van Doorn doing his thing live at Godskitchen 10 Year Anniversary ‘Angel in White’ Party at Metro City on Friday October 10.