Tijs Michiel Verwest, alias DJ Tiësto, was born on the 17th of January 1969 in Breda (Holland). He started spinning records when he was 14 years old. At the age of 15, he made mixtapes with the best tunes of the month, and gave them to friends and clothing stores. A year later he had bought his own mobile and played at small student parties. The next step was a Dutch club called 'De Lente'. There, Tiësto entertained the crowd with disco, hip hop and early housemusic.

When he was 21 years old, he started playing in 'The Spock', where only housemusic was played every thursday-, friday- and saturdaynight, and at the age of 22 he also mixed for 'Channel X', an illegal radio station that broadcasted house music 24 hours a day and that was very popular especially in Holland and Belgium. Tiësto also played in a famous afterclub in Amsterdam that year, called the 'Voodoo Club'.

Before his 24th birthday, he had only played club music, but the years following to it, Tijs Verwest also played and produced hardcore-music which was very popular in Club X, Belgium. In his free time he went to famous Belgium clubs to listen what the sound was over there. It was in these clubs that he first discovered the great magik of trance music. He started to experiment with these new sounds in 'The Spock', and soon he was discovered by Arny Bink, the labelmanager of Basic Beat Recordings, Rotterdam. Together they compiled the cd "Forbidden Paradise 3 - The Quest For Atlantis". This was the first Basic Beat compilation to hit the 8.000 sales point, and it's still selling as you read.

In that same period Tiësto started to assemble his own studio and began to make his own tunes and records. What started out as a small project has now awarded him with several massive club hits, which are played all over the world.

Now he's 34 years old and he has sold hundred thousands of copies of his mixed albums all over the world. He has also played in almost every big club in Holland, big parties like Lunapark, Digital Overdose, Megarave, Innercity, Sensation and Dance Valley, and also abroad, in the U.K. (The End, Gatecrasher, Godskitchen, Passion), Hungary (Flørt), Belgium (La Rocca, Illusion), Luxemburg, Germany, Malasia, US, Canada, Australia and even Japan.

In 1997 Tijs Verwest started his own record label, Black Hole Recordings, which will provide the sound Tiësto plays nowadays. The first mix compilation Magik has hit the streets November 1997, and is expected to set new standards. Also a Magik EP was released early 1998. Nowadays 2003, Black Hole Recordings is one of the most upcoming progressive labels, with artists such as DJ Tiësto himself, DJ Dazzle, DJ Montana, DJ Cor Fijneman, Fred Numf, DJ Debra and Jaimy & Kenny D. The compilations of the Magik, In Search Of Sunrise, Freedom, In Trance We Trust, ArtistProfileSeries and WildLife-series are famous around the globe. With more then ten sublabels, Black Hole expands more and more. New cd and vinyl releases are scheduled for the future...

In 2001, DJ Tiësto released his first solo-album called 'In My Memory' with only his own productions. Later that year DJ Tiësto climbed from place 24 to place 6 in the World DJ Top 100 of U.K.'s 'DJ Magazine'. Months later, he got the famous Dutch 'Silver Harp Award'. With this award, Tiësto becomes the most famous Dutch DJ ever.

At 02-02-2002 Tiësto played a 9-hours set in Amsterdam called 'Dutch Dimension TiëstoSolo'. In 2002 he has been nominated for the DanceStar USA Award, but didn't succeed. In April 2002 he won the Dutch TMF Award for "Best DJ". One month later he won the famous Dutch Lucky Strike Dance Award 2002, for best trance/progressive DJ. In July he won the Dancestar UK award in London. On September the 17th Tiësto won the Ibiza DJ Award category progressive/trance. During the summer of 2002, Tiësto also did a concert-tour together with Moby.

The year 2002 Was already a good year for Tiësto, but things went even better on the last day of Oktober. That night DJ Tiësto was made the number one DJ of the world, according to the DJ Top 100 of the UK-based DJ Magazine. He's the first Dutch DJ to win this worldwide famous award. DJ Tiësto himself was very happy with this: 'My biggest dream came true!'. 2002 ended with another big dream: playing at New Years Eve on Times Square in New York!

For 2003, Tiësto has declared that he has totally free in January and February. He will concentrate on producing music and have a little holiday in Greece and South-Africa. The 11th of January, Tiësto won the famous Dutch award "Popprice 2002". This award is for artists from Holland who became famous over the whole world. In March 2003 he won two awards: the 'Radio 538 Artist Of The Year 2002'-award on the 6th, and the famous 'DanceStar USA Award' for Best International DJ on the 19th of March.
On April 19th he won two TMF-Awards: for best national dance-act and best national dj.
After that Tiësto in 2002 decided he won't release any Magik-cd's anymore, in May 2003 there will be the expected release of his new project: a new double-mix-cd and a new track, both called Nyana.

The best day of his life came on the 10th of May 2003: TIËSTO IN CONCERT! For the first time in the history of dance-music, one DJ gave a concert in a football-stadium. 25.000 Fans joined his amazing concert that took the people on an 8-hours Magikal Journey around the world. This concert, that was co-organised by ID&T, will be a new concept in the dance-scene. A double-DVD of this event will be released september 2003. Another DVD called 'Another Day At The Office' has been released in June 2003.
His single for 2003, Traffic, has gained the number one position in Dutch singlecharts.
Tiësto has also won several awards in 2003: the Mixmag Award for best Ibiza resident DJ; the Belgium TMF-award for best International dance artist; and the first ever Dutch DJ Award. The climax of it all came at the end of October 2003: Tiësto is voted again the number one DJ of the world!!. After his number 1 position in 2002, Tiësto is the first DJ that has won this 'DJ Mag Top 100 Award' twice. One week later he also won the MTV Europe award for best Dutch Act.
At last years NYE, Tiësto played at Times Square New York. This year he will play into the new year in Sydney, as a part of his Australian tour in December/January.

In 2004 again Tiësto was awarded with two TMF-awards for best DJ and best dance-act. At the end of the year there are plans for a second edition of the Tiësto In Concert concept. He also plays around the world with the Thirst-tour for Heineken.
The follow-up single after 'Traffic', is a track together with Brian 'BT' Transeau called 'Love Comes Again'.
This year Tiësto also gonna release his second artist album 'Just Be', the releaseparty took place May 20th in Amsterdam. Before this party Tiësto did a real Tiësto Train Tour through Holland and doing free gigs in Eindhoven, Utrecht and Amsterdam.
On the same day as the releaseparty, Tiësto was highly awarded with a royal title, called 'officer of Oranje-Nassau' (NL: 'officier in de orde van Oranje-Nassau'). He earned this title for all his work for the national and international dance-scene.
On May 30th Tiësto played at Pinkpop (Landgraaf), the biggest pop/rock-festival in Europe. After this gig, he went to the USA and Canada to play there the whole month June.
Tiësto also had the special honour to play at the Opening of the Olympic Games 2004 in Athens. Tiësto also composed the music for this special event. Two days later he also played in the Holland House in Athens. The new music he played in Athens was the reason to release a new artist-album in october, called 'Parade Of The Athletes'.
After the success of TIC in 2003, now the second edition of Tiësto In Concert will take place on two days: the 29th and 30th of October 2004 at the same place as last year: the Gelredome-stadium in Arnhem (NL). This double-concert was already sold out within an hour! The first Belgium edition of this concert will take place one week later on the 6th of November in Hasselt.
One of the awards he won in 2004 were the Belgium TMF Award for 'Best DJ'; the Dutch DJ Award and MTV Europe Music Award for best Dutch act. The best one was again the Number One position of the DJ Mag Top 100. Tiësto is now the world's number one DJ for 3 years in a row from 2002-2004.

In 2005 the first gig in Holland for Tiësto was a benefit-concert in Amsterdam on January 6th. On this evening a lot of Dutch pop-artists playaed at this free event, to collect money as much as possible for the victims of the Tsunami-disaster in Asia.
At the end of January, 4 limited Picture Discs were released: Flight 643, Lethal Industry, Suburban Train and the new single Adagio For Strings. In 2005 Tiësto also will get his duplication in the 'Madame Tussaud'-museum in Amsterdam.
In April several nice things happened: playing in Disneyland Resort Paris at the opening party of Space Mountain 2; the release of his new single 'Adagio For Strings' and the release of his new double mix-album 'In Search Of Sunrise 4'.
The remix-album of Just Be had been released, but only available through iTunes.
In october he won the Belgian TMF Award 'Best International DJ' and the Dutch "Release" Dance Award.
Since 2002, Tiësto has won the DJ Mag Top 100 for three years in a row. But from the year 2005 on, he will no longer be the number one DJ of the world. The 2005 results show Paul van Dyk as the new number one and Tiësto the number two.

The year 2006 started with an extensive Asia-tour, followed by an USA-tour in May. In April the new mix-album 'In Search Of Sunrise 5' came out. After two years without Love Parade, in 2006 the festival is back; Tiësto also played in Berlin on July 15th. In 2006 his big single was the anthem for the Dance4Life organisation, a single made together with Maxi Jazz (Faithless).

In 2007, he released his new album 'Elements of Life', which is followed by a massive worldwide 'Elements of Life'-tour. The hits this year are 'In The Dark' (Feat. Christian Burns) and the remix of the "Pirates of the Carribean" track "He's A Pirate". It was also the year of the new 'In Search Of Sunrise 6' mix-album. He produced some tracks for it under different aliases (Allure, Clear View, Jedidja and Taxigirl). Also he remixed some well-known artists like Justin Timberlake.

Early 2008, Tijs Verwest announced that he will getting married at the end of this year with his new flame. As the artist Tiësto he will release his awaited Elements of Life World Tour DVD. New pop-meets-dance remixes are made for Seal and even Britney Spears.