Sun City Music Festival act and brotherly duo Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike are easily one of the most recognizable names in the dance music game right now. Known for their killer remixes and festival-ready house, they have gained a tremendous amount of support from some the industry’s main heavyweights and proved they are a force to be reckoned with.
Dimitri and Michael Thivaios did not begin their dreams together. Dimitri Vegas started DJing at the age of 14 early in his career, making ​​several appearances in smaller clubs and was also the resident DJ at BeatFM radio. He left Belgium in 1999 and began touring Europe. He lived in Mallorca and Halkidiki, Greece before moving to Ibiza in 2003, where he became the resident at major clubs like Privilege and Space. It was here, where the boys stumbled onto something great. Dimitri recants, “Well we were actually born in Greece but moved to Belgium when we were kids. Mike’s always been more into hip-hop than me and been MCing for a while, then when I was out in Ibiza I was playing house in a club, Mike walked in and started flowing some beats on top of my mix just for fun, and the whole place went nuts. We tried it a couple more times and every time the same reaction so we knew we were on to something special. It’s just blown up from there.”
With a steady formula, the boys began to hone in on their art. But it wasn’t until much later that they would feel they could commit to it fully as a career. Mike recalls in an interview, “I think the pinpoint for us was in 2005 when we decided to move back to Belgium after living years in places like Ibiza etc with non stop parties, build our studio and focus on producing music. We decided to get serious and it paid off.” We first caught wind of the boys in 2007 with their remix of DJ Yoeri’s “Cocaine.” Though the track received relative underground success, it would be their edit of Swedish House Mafia’s “Leave the World Behind” in 2009 that would catapult the duo to their international success.
The year of 2010 also proved to be vital for the boys’ career. Not only did Dimitri and Mike become Tommorrowland residents, a role that they still hold to this day, but they also launched their own label Smash The House, a sub-division of the revered Spinnin’ Records.
Currently, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike are preparing for the 2013 edition of Tomorrowland going down this week, but you can catch the duo when they make their way to El Paso for Sun city Music Festival. Have you bought your tickets yet?
