What’s the story behind this collaboration with Ferry Corsten, and how did ‘Rise Up’ come about?

‘Rise Up’ is the third track Ferry and myself have produced, besides ‘Destination’. It all started when Ferry took over from Armin at A State of Trance, and we talked every single week about music, amongst many other things. ‘Bloodstream’ and ‘New Inner Way’ were totally different tracks in concept, and it also shows the times we live in, music wise. ‘Rise Up’ wasn’t really a planned collab. Ferry and myself did a back-to-back opening set on the mainstage of A State of Trance this year, and we just met in the studio to discuss our tracklist and the plans for the DJ Set. We were actually done so fast that we thought: let’s see if we can make something before the show? The first initial idea came to us so fast that we decided to finish it for Rotterdam.

What inspired you to launch the NRG2000 alias in the first place, and what do you want it to represent musically?

I am a massive vinyl collector. Going through all the tracks of the past few years during my Twitch streams made me realize how much I loved the old-school vibes in music. Especially after an open-to-close vinyl set I did with my buddy Fisherman last year, just containing these sounds. It is not weird that the current generation of clubbers are actually longing for this nostalgia, even though they have never experienced it. For the past few months, I felt that I had so much fun actually creating this genre in the studio as well, and even though it doesn’t really fit my ‘normal Ruben de Ronde’ style, I wanted to have an outlet for these songs. I wanted to come up with a name that fits the sound, and thus NRG2000 came to life.

After ‘Rise Up’, what can we expect next for NRG2000? Are more big collaborations or releases already in the works?

The first NRG2000 songs actually date back two or three years already, when I remixed Lufthaus with Robbie Williams and Sophie Ellis Bextor, and a massive song b...