Panic

Biography

Panic, born in 1975 as Dennis Copier, was hardly 16 when he stood for the first time behind two turntables at a dance-party, back in 1991 at the Big Balloon in Barendrecht. Dennis: “It was good, but when they started playing Top 40 music, I took off…” Shortly afterwards in 1992, he was asked to play at Pompeï, a small youth-club in the south of Rotterdam with a capacity of only 250 people. “Of course, I thought that was cool so I went along for a laugh. They were already playing early hardcore tunes but it was all that vague shit. I quickly changed that by playing known and more accessible tracks. It worked, as the numbers in attendance increased from 4 to 200 within a month!”.
The following year, Dennis started working at Mid-Town Records as a sales person in one of the stores; a perfect place to keep track of all the new records and for meeting the big players in the scene.
One day, Dennis decided to get in touch with his role model and soon-to-be mentor, Paul Elstak, about doing a set at Pompeï. Paul came and immediately noticed the skills of this young DJ. Dennis: “He thought I had talent and a few weeks later, he asked me if I was interested in being part of a DJ-team together with himself and DJ Lars”. The Forze DJ Team was born. “I was totally surprised and thought it was fantastic as well as a great opportunity, as I really admired him.” Being a part of the Forze DJ Team resulted in the fact that Dennis appeared at Terrordome in January 1994 as an 18-year old DJ-rookie. “Terrordome was the first big event I played at. I was so nervous before my set because it excited me very much. Imagine yourself standing behind the decks in a monstrous hall for the very first time… the buzz that it gave me was incredible”. During the following years, he toured all over Europe, United States and Japan together with Paul Elstak and Lars.
In the meantime, Dennis also spent numerous hours in the studio with Paul. One of the biggest tracks that came out of the studio during this period was the instant hit “May the Forze be with you”, next to numerous happy hardcore tracks. “It was a great and particularly busy period”, Dennis says. “Our names were plastered all over flyers, leaflets and posters, and there wasn’t anybody who didn’t want to book us”.
The Forze DJ Team split up in 1998. “We out-grew each other, everyone went off to do his own thing”. Dennis was becoming increasingly close to DJ Neophyte (Jeroen Streunding), who he met at the events they both played. Since 1996 they have been producing under their guise ‘Hard Creation’, resulting in the classic release and mega floor-filler ‘I will have that Power’, back in 1999. Dennis: “Jeroen and I really hit it off both professionally in the studio as well as personally, we became very close friends over the years”.
Dennis currently spends a lot of time in the studio with Jeroen and Kelly to take his projects to a higher level with every new release. Besides his productions and remixes for various labels, Dennis is also responsible for compiling and mixing high profile compilations such as A Nightmare in Rotterdam, Hardcore to tha Bone, Decibel, Hard Bass, Project Hardcore, the History of Rotterdam Hardcore series and his brand new album “15 years of Panic! In collaboration with Jeroen “Neophyte” Streunding, he manages respected record labels such as Rotterdam Records, Neophyte Records, Forze Records, Terror Traxx, Seismic Records and Tremble Tracks. His DJ schedule is nicely tight ‘n full every single weekend with performances in The Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Australia and the USA. Having performed at events like Decibel, A Nightmare in Rotterdam, Mystery Land, Impulz, Global Hardcore Nation, Megarave, Shadowlands, Speedrazor, Digital Overdose, Masters of Hardcore, Project Hardcore and many many more and after visiting so many countries all over the globe, there simply isn’t a playground this sympathetic DJ is not familiar with!