Darude is none other than Finnish wonder boy Ville Virtanen, which doesn't sound half so hard. His career in music started back in school when he used his PC to wile away his hours making happy hardcore tunes, however the limits of the PC [and happy hardcore] soon started to frustrate Ville and he moved onto creating sounds in the studio.

All this time he was DJ-ing at school parties, and it was here that he got his artist name, simply by playing one track rather a lot. 'Rude Boy', by Leila K, was a big track in Sweden at the time and it became an early signature tune in Ville's crowd-pleasing sets. After repeated playings, friends started calling him 'Rude Boy', then 'The Rude' and finally 'Da Rude' - which of course became Darude.

Although Darude might well have been in demand at the school disco, his musical career really took off when he sent Finnish producer Jaakko Salovaara (JS16) a demo tape with Sandstorm on it. Jaakko liked what he heard and signed Darude up to 16 Inch Records. The single Sandstorm was the first release on the label and was a massive hit in Finland - going directly to number one in the dance chart and staying in the charts for 16 weeks. 'Sandstorm' has now sold platinum.