LAMMER | NL 2025 #05

The sound of Rotterdam moves through him: the rawness, the speed, the directness. What started in small, dark rooms has now taken shape across Europe. Lammer steps into a new chapter with clarity, instinct, and a sense of direction that feels entirely his own.

Rotterdam did not simply influence Lammer. It gave him structure. It showed him how energy behaves and what a crowd looks like when it gives itself to the moment without hesitation. The city entered his life before he understood what it meant to be an artist. Before he imagined touring. Before, he imagined people paying attention to his music. Rotterdam was the first place that told him that sound can shape identity.

“Rotterdam was where it all really began for me. Those first nights discovering house and techno in the city showed me how a DJ can flip the whole room, especially when the crowd is fully locked in.”

Toffler defined his earliest club experiences. Inside that narrow, iconic tunnel, he began to understand how tension and release play with each other. The room is small but electric, and every shift in the mix sends a reaction through the crowd.

“Toffler was the moment where I realised that every shift from the DJ has an instant effect on the crowd.”

Maassilo expanded that education. Its industrial weight and massive scale taught him how intensity behaves when it fills a cavernous space. In Maassilo, even silence becomes loud. Even small moments feel important. Standing in the middle of that room, he understood that techno is not just about power. It is about control, timing, and the invisible line between chaos and precision.

Before he stepped onto any center stage, he was behind them. During his internship at Rotterdam Rave, he learned the mechanics of a night from the inside, fixing cables, hanging smoke machines, and solving problems quietly while the room waited outside.

“During my internship at Rotterdam Rave I got to see every part of a rave from the inside. It gave me a real understanding of what it takes to build a good night, and what a proper rave really needs. I learned more from working on those nights than from anything else in my early career.”

The city shaped something else in him, too. A sense of responsibility. A belief that the people behind the scenes are as important as the ones onstage. Being part of a team changed how he sees nightlife. It taught him humility, discipline, and respect for everyone who contributes to a night.

Today, his studio sits in the same building as Speedy J, Benny Rodrigues, and David Vunk. Names that helped define the sound. For Lammer, this is not an aesthetic detail. It is a daily reminder of the legacy he stands next to.

“Being around those names every day keeps me focused because they shaped the city I come from.”

He travels more now. Plays in new cities and new countries. But he carries Rotterdam with him into every booth. The pace of the city is in his hands. The rawness is in his instinct. The clarity is in his choices.

In every artist’s life, there is a moment that changes direction. For Lammer, it happened at Modular inside Maassilo. He was not there as a raver. He was working. Focused on logistics and timing. But something unexpected caught him.

It was the first time he saw Job Jobse play. Near the end of his set, Jobse dropped a few old Tiesto classics. Not as a gimmick or a joke. With intention.

“Hearing those 90/00’s trance classics in the middle of a serious underground night changed me. It showed me that emotion, fun and real rave energy can live together without breaking the moment.”

That moment stayed with him. It opened a door in his mind about what emotion can do inside a set.

After the pandemic, he started returning to club nights. He noticed a similar feeling in the sets of newer names like Benwal and Tjade. They played fast and bright, with sincerity and fun, without losing edge. It reconnected him with something he had felt years earlier. He spent nearly all his time in the studio trying to translate that energy into his own sound.

“I just wanted to create my own version of that feeling.”

It was a return. A quiet but powerful shift that aligned him with the sound he wanted to push.

Before releasing his own music, Lammer spent seven years working behind the scenes for other artists and labels. He learned to design visuals, build artwork, develop branding and create stories. When it came time to release his own music, doing everything himself felt natural.

“I never wanted to wait for someone else to approve my ideas. Releasing music on my own feels natural because it keeps everything honest and connected to who I am.”

Independence is not an aesthetic choice. It is a workflow. It keeps the world consistent. The music looks like the visuals. The visuals feel like the story. The story sounds like the tracks.

Short sets, especially in the Netherlands, come with expectations. People know his tracks. They know his energy. He embraces that pressure but never lets it define him.

Long sets are different. They stretch time and space. They let him show sides of himself that shorter slots cannot hold.

“Long sets let me show the parts of myself that never fit into short slots. That is where I can really build something, shift directions and take people into places they do not expect.”

He senses when the crowd trusts him. When people stop waiting for a big moment and follow the journey, the room becomes his space to explore.

Highly Rogue began as something personal. It was the first time he grouped tracks that came from the same emotional source. Fast, playful, nostalgic and modern.

“All four tracks carry the same idea, the mix of energy, fun and a bit of nostalgia, but in a way that feels like me today.”

He created the artwork, visuals and story. The universe grew around the music. It was not a release. It was a world.

He does not see Highly Rogue becoming a traditional label. He wants it to remain a creative ecosystem that expands with him.

“I want it to become a world around my sound, not just a label.”

It is early, but the direction is clear. It is not about scale. It is about identity.

This chapter carries weight. Paradiso all-nighters. Soenda extended sessions. Awakenings on New Year´s Day. Rooms that grow every month. Crowds that expand across Europe.

He holds all of this with calm pride. But he does not see these moments as arrivals.

"This moment in my career feels special, but it does not feel like an arrival. It feels like a beginning, and that makes me want to push harder than ever.”

Pressure motivates him. Growth challenges him. Evolution feels natural.

He is not reinventing himself. He is refining what was always there.

As the venues grow and the nights stretch longer, he remains connected to what began everything for him.

“This feels special, but I know it is just the beginning.”

Rotterdam built the foundation. Europe opened the path. Highly Rogue is the world he is shaping. And this new era feels sharper, more precise and more intentional than anything before.