Darude

Ville Virtanen , better known by his stage name Darude d r u d , is a Finnish electronic music producer and DJ from Eura, Finland. He started making music in 1995 and released the platinum selling hit single Sandstorm in late 1999. His debut studio album Before the Storm came out on September 5, 2000 and sold 800,000 copies worldwide, earning Darude three Finnish Grammy awards. It peaked at No.on Finlands Official List and No.on the Billboard DanceElectronic Albums chart in the United States. Darudes second album, Rush, reached No.on the Billboard dance chart in 2003 and No.on weekly album chart in Finland.

Ville Virtanen was born on July 17, 1975 in the Finnish town of Hinnerjoki in the municipality of Eura. Virtanen started his career as a musician while studying at Turku Polytechnic, making music using his PCs tracker software. As his interest in music production rapidly grew, he moved on to more serious production techniques. While at a classmates party, Virtanen played the song Rude Boy several times in a row. This earned him the nickname Rude Boy, which gradually morphed into Da Rude and then Darude. Active in the Finnish music trance and house scene since 1995, Virtanen continued producing music into the 1990s. He began occasionally releasing demos to radio stations beginning in 1997, and offering his music for download on MP3.com, making him an early adopter of online file sharing for music promotion.

Source: Wikipedia