Peter-Paul Pigmans (31 January 1961 – 27 August 2003) was a Dutch

gabber Gabber ( ; ) is a style of electronic dance music and a subgenre of Hardcore (electronic dance music genre), hardcore, as well as the surrounding subculture. The music is more commonly referred to as hardcore, and is characterised by fast beats ...

music producer, best known for his production under the

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3 Steps Ahead. Born in

Berkel en Rodenrijs image:Berkel bord.jpg, 270px, Town sign Berkel en Rodenrijs () is a town and former municipality in the Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of Lansingerland, in the province of South Holland, The Netherlands. The town is very close to ...

and based out of

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

, Pigmans' music is widely considered one of the most innovative specimens of the

genre; while many gabber producers favor raw force and little virtuosity when creating a song, Pigmans' music always had a strong technical side, and his songs often featured atmospherical elements, an unusual thing in the genre at the time. He was also known for his extremely wild live shows. His first full-length album ''Most Wanted & Mad'' (1997) reached #35 on the

Dutch Album Top 100 The Dutch Album Top 100 or Album Top 100 is a weekly hit list of music albums, compiled by Dutch Charts. It shows the 100 best-selling music albums of the moment in the Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, i ...

. Pigmans was known for his eccentric live performances, with bizarre suits, strange sound effects and rousing live sets. For instance, he wore a football shirt that was half a Feyenoord shirt and half an Ajax shirt, aiming to promote fraternisation within the hardcore scene. Pigmans was diagnosed with

brain cancer A brain tumor (sometimes referred to as brain cancer) occurs when a group of cells within the brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. There are two main types of tumors: malignant (cancerous) tumors and benign (non-cance ...

in 1999. On 18 July 2003 in

Zaandam Zaandam () is a city in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is the main city of the municipality of Zaanstad and received City rights in the Netherlands, city rights in 1811. It is located on the river Zaan ...

at th
Hemkade Stadium
fellow Dutch producers organized a fundraising event for him called "3 Steps Ahead 4 Life" where the cream of the Dutch gabber scene performed (for free - all income was spent on his treatment in hope of curing him) and paid respect to him. A couple of weeks later, he died. Two months later the annual Thunderdome started with a one-minute silence in his memory. He's been elected into the Thunderdome

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Discography

Albums

* ''Most Wanted & Mad'' (1997) * ''Junkie'' (2000)

EPs

* ''Step 1'' (1994) * ''Step 2'' (1994) * ''Step 3'' (1994) * ''Drop It'' (1996) * ''Hakkûh'' (1996) * ''Gangster'' (1996) * ''It's Delicious'' (1997) * ''Paint It Black'' (1998)

Singles

* ''In the Name of Love'' (2010)

Film soundtracks

Two of his songs were used in the soundtrack for ''

Brüno ''Brüno'' is a 2009 mockumentary comedy film directed by Larry Charles and starring Sacha Baron Cohen, who produced, co-wrote, and played the gay Austrian fashion journalist Brüno. It is the third film based on one of Cohen's characters f ...

'' (2009): "Thunderdome Till We Die" and "Stravinsky's Bass".Brüno (2009) soundtrack listing
at the

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References

External links

Official site and obituary3 Steps Ahead
at

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

3 Steps Ahead 4 Life
- Announcement of the fundraising party with artist roster {{DEFAULTSORT:3 Steps Ahead 1961 births 2003 deaths Dutch musicians Hardcore techno musicians Musicians from Tilburg Deaths from brain cancer in the Netherlands