Armin van Buuren Reveals How ‘Breathe’ Transformed his Creativity and Wellbeing

For over two decades, Armin van Buuren has stood as one of the towering figures in electronic music, a Trance titan, global festival headliner and relentless creator.

With a Grammy nomination and as 5-time No. 1 DJ on DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs list, behind the scenes, Armin has undergone a personal transformation that goes far beyond his music.

Roughly five years ago, Armin was forced to confront the weight of it all, the nonstop pace, the creeping isolation and the silence that too often surrounds mental health in the dance music world. Rather than ignore it, he made a bold decision, to reset, to go sober and to do the inner work required to find joy, focus and clarity again.

That personal reckoning became more than just a private turning point, it sparked a quiet revolution. Through mindfulness, daily meditation, breathwork, therapy and a commitment to his own wellbeing, Armin shifted from functioning on autopilot to living with intention. He redefined what success looks like, not just in terms of chart positions or sold-out shows, but in how he shows up as a father, a husband, a friend and an artist.

A natural follow-up to Breathe In in both sound and meaning, Breathe Out sees a new, healthier and reconnected Armin van Buuren deliver the second and final part of his ninth studio album, Breathe.

This transformation is deeply etched into every beat of Breathe, Armin’s most expansive and fearless body of work to date. A staggering 51-track journey that spans Trance, Techno, Drum & Bass, Rock and experimental textures, Breathe is the sound of an artist no longer confined by expectation, collaborating freely with the likes of David Guetta, Bon Jovi, Moby, Pendulum, and more.

With a clearer mind and renewed purpose, Armin isn’t just pushing the boundaries of electronic music, he’s also pushing for honest conversations around mental health in the industry, leading peer support groups for fellow DJs and sharing his journey openly.

In this candid conversation from earlier this summer, we caught up with Armin to talk about the process behind Breathe, how reclaiming his wellbeing unlocked new depths in his creativity and why now more than ever, it’s time to prioritise the human behind the decks.

Breathe feels like your most fearless and genre-blurring release yet. What unlocked that level of creative freedom for you on this album?

Well, first of all it's a bundle of two albums Breathe In and Breathe Out. I still think it's super important to have albums now and again even though the concept of albums has changed of course with streaming, you know people listening more to playlists rather than albums. But I do think an album is still worth it. A, because I want to please my fans. And B, I think it's cool to have a snapshot of everything that I've been doing, in this case, in the past two and a half years. So, we released part one, Breathe In, last year.

Breath In had I think it was 12 tracks; then the other 39 were dropped when we released Breathe Out, which is which makes it the complete product. Yeah, it's amazing. I really was blown away when I put everything together. I was like, wow. It's a lot, but I think albums are playlists anyway. We waterfalled a lot of the releases already and of course there were still some exclusives when I dropped the album. So, a lot of the tracks I've been teasing in my sets and fans were keen for me to release it. It was on my hard drive and I'm like alright then I haven't released everything. I felt it was kind of a good mix between the more commercial releases and the radio and the more underground releases that were big in my set over the past two and a half years.

Did testing the tracks in your DJ sets lead you down the path to the final product?

Well, DJing is a big inspiration because I see what’s happening in front of me. And that instantly sparks creativity and ideas. I mean, just as we speak on this laptop, I was creating mashups and edits for a set I'm playing here tonight in Croatia. And it's fun. You know, if anything, I'm having more fun than ever. You know, it's so easy to make music. It's very accessible. I'm always working on tracks. And, you know, there's a ton of things on my hard drive.

After all these years you obviously have a very keen ear for the sonics. If you're doing something on the laptop and you think that it has got legs, will you just decide then and there to play it out in your sets confident that that's going to work sonically on a big sound system?

Well, I've been doing the same thing for 25 years, so I know how to make something sound decent. I work mostly on the same laptop in my studio because I'm so mobile, you know. Sometimes I do the mixdown before I finish the track. I make sure the kick and bass are all right and it sounds proper, and then the arrangement I do when I'm flying to my shows or driving to my shows.

You don't even have to fully finish a track or master it to play it out. If I have a short snippet, I can already tease it in my sets. I don't have to finish the tracks immediately, but I can sculpt them, which is different from the vinyl days where you had to cut and acetate.

When you're collaborating with artists like David Guetta or Pendulum, do you approach things differently?

There's never been a standard way of working, but that's what makes this fun. But I do like to start with an eight-bar loop or with a piano melody, but you know it's different every single time and that's also what makes it fun.

You've spoken openly about going sober and embracing mindfulness recently. How did that decision sort of shift things for you creatively?

I'm more productive than ever thanks to the sobriety, thanks to looking after my diet, thanks to my sleeping pattern, thanks to finally being able to say no to big shows and big offers. You know things have changed in my life since 2020, since COVID. It's a little secret that right before COVID hit I had a press release already ready to go out that I was going to take a sabbatical because I was just burned out a little bit I guess from touring. COVID was the perfect opportunity to really quit drinking and start to look at myself, and I found out that I wasn't really happy doing 150 shows a year anymore. I needed a change and I even seriously considered quitting DJing altogether, selling everything. But then the love for music came back. And if anything, I'm more productive now than ever, thanks to the sobriety, thanks to the diet, thanks to the focus on music.

So, you can attribute that directly to a healthier lifestyle and mindset?

Well, that's why it's called breathing yeah. Breathing exercise is something I do every single morning; it's part of my new routine. I never thought I'd say this but it's true, I started meditating. Meditation wasn't for me at all. I was the biggest anti-meditation person on the planet. But finally, it got me. If so many smart people really take something from meditating, box breathing and creating gratitude lists, they can't all be wrong. If they really take so much from it then why should I not give it a go as I’ve got nothing to lose? It's great because I’m looking less for external things to kind of get rid of an internal unrest if that makes sense

After decades working hard and enjoying a hugely successful career, what does success look like now for the future?

I'm less focused on the success factor in the sense of money or plaques, awards, accolades or DJ Mag Top 100 positions. But it's still important, I'm not going to lie. If you were to call me up and ask if I want another DJ Mag Top 100 No 1 spot, I'm not going to refuse it! I imagine Steven Spielberg wants to win another Oscar, doesn't he? So, I mean I still value that stuff a lot but I guess my focus has shifted a bit and I think that's due to having kids. Focus is less on my ego. Focus is more on you know, just having fun. Just going with the flow.

What advice would you give up-and-coming DJs that are really hustling? It's a tough industry. What would you say to those young artists that aren’t necessarily prioritizing their mental health?

Well, it's a fairly young profession being a DJ. We've only got to see the downsides recently, you know, particularly since the passing of Tim (Avicii). There was a dramatic shift in the electronic music world. So, my advice to any aspiring DJ would be to make sure you have that healthy balance. Once you've had a little bit of success and the train starts rolling and you get gigs, you get more success, it's very tempting to say yes to every offer.

For me now, if there was a choice to go to my son's football game or play in front of 40,000 people for a huge amount of money and a private jet and all that? I’m going to go to my son's football game. For me now, it's better to say yes to my son's soccer practice because I missed out on so many opportunities. I really had to take a little bit of a break because in all honesty, there where were some shows, particularly in Las Vegas, for example, where I was just doing it for the money.

There’s nothing wrong with making money though, right? We all want to make money and you're still doing that for your son as well as yourself.

Yes, you know if you still have a mortgage and you still have to pay it off, it's completely understandable, there’s nothing wrong with it. But I felt like I was floating away from myself a little bit. The answer for me was just do less shows and try to find a good balance and it's super hard, I'm not going to lie. I get terrible FOMO watching my Instagram on a Saturday night sitting next to my wife on the couch watching Netflix. I'm like, these are the shows I had offers for and when I’ve said, no to them, it's still tough! But I know that it's not healthy for me to DJ every single weekend.

How does the modern era of Trance compare to the fabled golden era of the late 90s? You know, all that amazing music still resonates so much.

All the tracks we played in 1999, 2000, 2001, they're all coming back in different shapes or form. I mean, obviously, the sound quality is a lot better. You know, the kick hits harder, the drop hits harder, but the melodies are still the same. It was funny because I remember at the time, we didn't have a clue what we were doing. I guess the groundwork was done by people in 1999, 2000, 2001. And there was something golden in that time, but then after that, for a while Trance became a bit of a dirty word. It definitely feels to me now that Trance is not a dirty word anymore.

10 years ago people would say it's commercial. For a long time, it wasn't the coolest sound but now, particularly in the UK it's making a huge comeback. If you listen to a Trance set now, it totally brings you back to like the golden age of Gatecrasher, God's Kitchen and Slinky. You know, when I was doing my rounds back at the day, DJing four times in a night. The line ups back then were always with people like Scott Bond, Tall Paul and Judge Jules.

I played back-to-back with KI/KI the other day, she's like this new rising talent from Amsterdam and we played at the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) two years ago and she played the original versions of many tracks that I used to play at Gatecrasher in Sheffield back in 2000 and 2001. Crazy. Not edits, not remixes, the original versions. It blew my mind.

I want to talk about Ibiza. Is the true spirit of Ibiza still alive? What's your view?

Well, proper Ibiza is the hippie era, summer of '88, Oakenfold, Sasha and Diggers and all those guys. Ibiza still has its magic, the Balearic sound. There's magic surrounding that island. I don't know why it is so special. I guess because you won't find a different spot in the world where seven or eight of the world's biggest superclubs are all on a small piece of land. And just everybody comes there. There's something in the air there since ‘88 and it's never gone away.

I want to just mention as well, your State of Trance Festival this weekend (Sunday 13th July 2025). What can fans expect from the festival and your face-to-face set with HI-LO aka Oliver Heldens?

It's the second time we're doing the State of Trance Festival in London. It’s on Silverworks Island and it looks like it will sell out. So, I'm really excited. It shows you that Trance is still alive, especially in the UK.

We've revamped the festival in the Netherlands. I've been doing the festival since 2006, but we moved in the Netherlands from Utrecht to Rotterdam because they tore down the old location. And that gave us a perfect opportunity to rebrand as State of Trance and bring in new elements like the face-to-face set. So, we're going more underground now with the sound, I guess.

I think there's a big gap between the world of Techno and the world of Trance. There's a lot of going on there. On the line you'll find a lot of Trance names, but also Techno DJs playing. In Rotterdam we had people like Adam Beyer and Eli Brown playing and that was amazing. People were really, really up for it. Adam played a pretty Trancey set for his Techno sound.

The face-to-face is a new concept. Obviously, it reminds a little bit of back-to-back. The only difference is with back-to-back, you're using one mixer and two CDJs or four CDJs, whatever. So, you're playing a track andvice versa. But in face-to-face, we have two DJ sets, two full DJ sets. And the big difference is I can't control his mixer. He can't control mine. So, we have to use hand signals, which makes it quite challenging. I did it with Maddox in Rotterdam. It was a huge success, but it's scary because you use hand signals to say, 'no', wait, don't mix in. Yes, mix in. So, we use hand signals and that makes it for the crowd. It feels more like a boxing match. You stand face to face with each other, and you have to interact. And I can't control his DJ set, I can't see what he's doing, we have to anticipate with each other. We have had a little bit of a rehearsal. You can't do it without rehearsing. I can go back-to-back with you right now no problem but face-to-face is really something you need to practice as there's a lot of room for error.

But people love it because what we're going to do is we're going to change the stage and we're going to have people all around us, so rather than facing the facing the people in Rotterdam, we had people all around us which makes it feel more like a boxing match than a than a DJ set.

Sounds exciting and provides a new challenge for you after so many years DJing. I mean, it must be quite exciting to sort of feel a little bit scared for the first time in many years?

Absolutely, yeah, I'm nervous to be honest but Oliver is a smart guy; he's a very, very clever guy and we've been texting each other the whole week with some mashups and Dropbox links and all that, yeah, he's a great producer.

What’s next Armin? You are playing in Croatia tonight?

Yeah, I'm playing Ultra Europe in Croatia. There's a big international crowd coming, a lot of people from the Baltic region. And yeah, it's a tradition! I don't think I've missed a single Ultra Europe in the last 10 years except during COVID of course, but yeah, it's always great to be here and I love the area. This is my peak season you know. The whole month of August I'm taking off, which is kind of unheard of in a DJ scene. Like, DJs really look at me like, 'You take August off in Ibiza?' I'm like, 'Yep, taking August off.' You're not in Ibiza in August? Nope. I’m touring hard right now and then for most of August, I'll be somewhere in Europe, just sitting in a house, chilling probably like everybody else.

Sounds lovely. Well, make sure you put your phone down!

Absolutely, phone goes off-don't worry.