Wessel Van Diepen

Who is Wessel Van Diepen?

Wessel van Diepen was a Dutch radio host for Radio 538 and is the most successful dance-pop music producer in Dutch history.

At 15 he started his own illegal radiostation called "Radio Stad Delft", his first step towards a blossoming radio career. Later, when Wessel was 17 years old, during a holiday in Wichita, Kansas, United States, he made a radio roadtrip visiting several stations in that area and there he met a DJ at KKRD who gave Wessel the opportunity to fill in for him on air for a period of three months. Back in The Netherlands, in 1986, he got noticed by 3FM DJ Rob Stenders and through him he got his demo to several Dutch radio-stations in broadcasting capital Hilversum. After numerous offerings Wessel decided to accept a job as a DJ at the VARA, which also broadcasts via 3FM.

As he was a fresh breeze throughout Dutch radio, soon he was contacted by popular broadcasting organisation Veronica. They wanted to recruit him for some radio and TV programms which included the Europe-wide broadcast popmusic TV-show Countdown, which shot Wessel to international fame.

In the early 90s Veronica moguls Erik de Zwart and Lex Harding deserted Veronica and started Radio 538 and Van Diepen ended up going with them. Besides hitting big ratings with a daily drive-time show, he took the opportunity to exploit his dance minded side and created the internationally awarded radioshow "Van Diepen's Dance Department", where major commercial trance DJs would spin vinyl, ranging from Oakenfold to Digweed and from Paul van Dyk to Tiesto. When Dutch musicvideo channel TMF was launched in 1995 and Wessel got on board, he once again gained TV fame as a VJ with a popular show called "Wessels Woelige Wereld", which he hosted until 1999. He resigned as a radio presenter in 2006, but continued to produce music using the pseudonym DJ Delmundo.