Last weekend marked a landmark return for NWYR(W&W's Alter Ego) at A State Of Trance debuting a new live set featuring only exclusive new music and edits! Almost five years since their last ASOT appearance, we joined the guys to celebrate their homecoming. Read on to learn more about the return of NWYR, their relationship with ASOT, and exciting plans for the future!
Hey guys, we’re so excited to be celebrating the return of NWYR at live shows! Can you explain to us the decision to stop the NWYR live sets over the past several years?
We’re very excited to do a NWYR live set again as well! We didn’t really make the conscious decision to not do any NWYR shows, but obviously nothing happened during the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. After that, we were busy doing W&W shows. We worked on a LOT of new music for NWYR though, so we felt the time was right to perform under NWYR again!
What made now the right time for the return of NWYR live sets?
There is so much new NWYR music that we’ve been working on, we have at least a full hour of new material, and then a couple tracks that are not gonna make the cut. We’ve been playing some of it in our W&W sets, but we feel now that it’s time for all those other songs we’ve been working on to be shared with the world.
It will be five years since you played on an A State Of Trance Stage (last at Tomorrowland 2019 if we remember correctly), how does it feel to return to ASOT?
Being at ASOT to us really feels like coming home. Some of the very first shows we played back in 2009 were already at ASOT (the celebrations for 400 episodes back then), so for us it definitely feels natural.
Music wise, where did you guys find inspiration for the NWYR live set sound? Production wise, how long have you been working on the tracks and edits?
There has always been a certain affection with melodic music and trance for us, we have always tried to implement different sounds in that trance sound and lately we’ve felt really inspired by all the possibilities, so that motivated us to work on new NWYR music! Usually we put the ideas together pretty quickly but then it takes forever to finish it.
Can you highlight two tracks included in your ASOT set and why they stand out to you?
Well of course we don’t know for sure what is going to make the cut and what will not, and almost none of the tracks have titles yet so it’s hard to describe them. We do have some new tracks that we’re very excited about, it’s exactly the trance sound that we like right now and we can’t wait to play them live!
Visually, the dragon has always been the centerpiece of the NWYR branding, will we see that continue moving forward? How have you continued to build on that concept for the live shows and beyond?
Since we’re both from 1988, the Year of the Dragon in Chinese Zodiac signs, the concept of dragons has always really resonated with us. We have some stunning visuals made especially for this show with lots of surprises!
Reflecting all time on your experiences with A State Of Trance over your career, do you have any other favorite shows, memories, or friendships that come to mind?
The entire ASOT 600 tour we did with Armin van Buuren and the full crew was very very special! But the moment that comes to mind first was probably when we blew up the sound system at ASOT 600 in Madison Square Garden in New York, not the best moment of our career, but definitely memorable.
And as we look ahead, what can we expect from NWYR both on the release and touring front in 2024?
We have some more shows planned for 2024, we can’t announce yet when and where but they’re some very exciting shows! We recently asked people if we should do a NWYR album and the reactions were mind blowing, so let’s see…
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