Menno De Jong bio:
Falling in love with music at a very young age laid a firm foundation for Menno's future in the music business. He bought his first trance oriented albums around the age of 8, and at the time was already well on his way in playing musical instruments, as he often hammered away on his father's synthesizer and guitar. A few years after, at the age of 10, he began training in classical piano... but changed to modern music with various influences not much later.

Playing music to other people is something that ment a lot to Menno in his younger days already. This eventuelly led to him appearing behind the dj desk at his own, and other people's parties. After spinning at a school party at club Downunder in Eindhoven, where he lived at the time, he was asked by the manager to become resident Dj on Thursdays and Sundays, where he spun on and off the following 2 years.

In the meantime he discovered that making music was not limited by what he could play on a keyboard. The legendary fasttracker program opened up a whole new perspective to his musical ambitions, his rather diverse taste in music (ranging from classical to dance) was now proving essential in the sounds he was experimenting with. After several years of on and off experimenting with the sample based programme, he found a more challening medium called Propellerheads Rebirth. After toying with that for a while he discovered a production tool offered by the same company called Reason. This programme took his creative inspiration to the limit, and after about a year of practice, the track Millionfold was produced, which received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from all who heard it.

DJing also took more serious turns. After organizing some underground trance parties in the area, Menno finally started to play at some bigger events, captivating audiences with his beautiful progressive, trance and tech'trance sounds... leaving no one unimpressed by his awesome dj performances. This resulted in bookings alongside some of the biggest names (Don Diablo, Ton TB, Erick E, Six4Eight, Jav D and others), in some of the most incredible venues all over the world (Dream Nightclub, Washington DC (USA); Home Nightclub, Washington DC (USA), Club O>> in Arnhem (NL), Club 1223, Washington DC (USA), etc. etc.)

Producing wise he certainly did not sit still in the time passing, intensively expanding his studio setup and learning to master the new gear and tools acquired. Eventually he produced the track called Guanxi, which was signed to Anjunabeats several months later, to be remixed by top trance producer Super8. Not long after the signing of that track, Millionfold was signed to Gesture Music, with a remix in the making by Markus Schulz.

Rank 1 bio:
In 1997 Piet meets Benno de Goeij at a party. They discuss their passion for music all night long. Benno has no experience at all in producing, but he has a perfect ear for good melodies, due to his classical musical background by playing the piano and the keyboard. They decide to cooperate and the first releases as Pedro & Benno soon follow. Their records are put on the decks by numerous DJ's and they are asked for remixes by Jean, Ferry Corsten and Cygnus X.

But it is their own 'Airwave', the theme of Innercity Hollands biggest indoor danceparty, that puts RANK 1 really in the spotlights. Their remix of Cygnus X's 'Superstring' was last years Sensation theme. The images of the videoclip, recorded at the event in the magnificent Amsterdam ArenA stadium, nowadays find their way through whole Europe and are to be seen in countries such as The United States of America, Japan and South-Africa as well.

As for 2001, RANK 1 has a tight schedule. First of all there is the soon to be expected album. One of the tracks, 'Such Is Life' the Sensation 2001 anthem, was released in july and climbed the charts with the speed of light. This track already differs from the style RANK 1 got famous with. And this will be continued on the forthcoming album on which Piet and Benno will demonstrate their variety, making it not just an album for the dancefloor but one to listen to at home as well.