To listen to Billy Gillies is to capture true joy, because every song he produces and DJ set he performs radiates pure passion and vibrant spirit.

 

The Northern Irishman’s blend of quirky Eurodance synths, uplifting trance grandeur and hard-hitting bass rhythms goes beyond catchy melodies and expert timing, as breakout hits “Lagoon” and “Youth” tap into the very essence of what makes a night spent on the dancefloor with your best mates such a special experience.

 

That’s why he’s earned more than 145 million views on TikTok, filled a Creamfields tent with thousands of ravers at 1 p.m. on a Sunday, and why he’s managed to get an official remix of Madison Avenue’s 1999 hit “Don’t Call Me Baby” after ripping the iconic vocal off the internet.

 

Crowds chant his name from Taiwan to Texas because Billy Gillies dares to do something different; something unique to himself. Now, Billy Gillies is the next superstar-DJ-in-the-making, poised to take over the world.

 

Billy’s musical obsession started in the 2000s when his older sister started buying Clubland compilation CDs and dating a local DJ. One night, the boyfriend came over and brought his decks, but when the couple left to go dancing, 11-year-old Billy snuck into his sister’s room and started playing with the turntables.

 

“I was like, ‘what is this music? I love this,’” he laughs. “On the Christmas list for that year was a set of decks.”

 

His mom delivered with his first set of Kam belt drives, and Billy’s been mad for mixing ever since. Each Saturday, he’d head out of the house with a five Pound note and spend it on a new record (Tiesto’s Traffic being particularly influential). In turn, he’d spend the next week learning to mix that record in and out of his steadily growing collection.

 

When he was 17, he got his first taste of true Clubland. A year underaged, he caught an hour-long bus from Belfast to Banbridge and talked his way into a club called Coach. Japanese DJ Yoji Biomehanika and the UK’s own Lisa Lashes dropped heavy hard-house records all night, and Billy started dreaming of his own chance to rock a crowd, proper.

 

He knew that if he wanted to be an in-demand DJ, he’d have to come up with some original songs. In 2011, he locked himself in his bedroom with a copy of Ableton Live and didn’t come out until he’d mastered the basic trance sound.

 

He fell in love with music production and started sending his tracks to BBC Radio 1 DJ Judge Jules, who played them on his show every Friday night. For 19-year-old Billy, there was nothing better.

 

After spending much of his 20s as a self-described “party animal,” 28-year-old Billy once again locked himself inside his bedroom and churned out a ton of original tunes. The result? A spot on the lineup of Luminosity 2019 alongside major trance legends Paul Van Dyk, Ferry Corsten, Gareth Emery and more. He played a set of all-original material, and when a recording was posted to Soundcloud, it earned more plays than any of the headliners.

 

“I’d brung a fresh sound into the trance scene,” Gillies says. “Everyone was making the same type of thing, where I just look back at my influences growing up and crammed it into the main trance style.”

 

International booking requests flooded in, sending him to Argentina to Australia—and then COVID struck. Many of his peers saw no point releasing music to a locked-down crowd, but Billy saw a chance to experiment.

 

“People need music in hard times, not just for clubs,” he says. “The music I was making around that time was proper emotional melodies, and it was resonating with everyone.”

 

He’d share each tune in a rough clip to Facebook or TikTok, and every post brought shares in the thousands. His fan base wasn’t just growing, it was ballooning, due in part not only to his masterful skills in the studio but also his effervescent personality that spills into each tune.

For over a decade, MaRLo has been one of the most commanding forces in dance music — a producer, performer, and visionary whose sound has ignited the world’s biggest festivals and arenas.
Voted into the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs five times, MaRLo has built a dedicated global following through monumental releases such as “Lighter Than Air” (ASOT Tune of the Year) and collaborations with artists as diverse as Armin van Buuren and Will Sparks, alongside countless main-stage anthems that define his explosive style.
Beyond his studio output, MaRLo has created his own phenomenon — ALTITUDE, a hard-ticket MaRLo concert series that has evolved into a global brand and rite of passage for fans. In 2024, ALTITUDE Malaysia drew a massive 16,000 fans, while ALTITUDE Melbourne 2025 packed in 14,000 attendees. In total more than 50,000 people experience ALTITUDE every year.
Internationally, MaRLo’s vision continues to expand. In 2024 he hosted the ALTITUDE Stage at Djakarta Warehouse Project (DWP), one of Asia’s largest festivals — a landmark moment that solidified ALTITUDE’s global presence. And in December 2025, the journey ascends again as MaRLo brings the ALTITUDE Stage to Creamfields Thailand, marking the brand’s official debut under the Creamfields banner.
Not content to stay in one lane, MaRLo also launched his hardstyle alias – V3NOM, showcasing a darker, more aggressive side. The debut single dropped on Timmy Trumpet’s SINPHONY label (Spinnin’ Records), followed by a collaboration with Se3k on Dutch Master Works (Showtek’s label) — both earning widespread support across the harder scene and festival stages alike.
With past performances spanning Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival, EDC, Creamfields, Parookaville, Airbeat One, Transmission, and A State of Trance, MaRLo continues to headline the world’s most prestigious stages. Through his label REACHING ALTITUDE and ALTITUDE RADIO, he remains a driving force in shaping the next generation of electronic music.
Always armed with fresh ideas, boundary-breaking music, and a vision that fuses art and energy, MaRLo isn’t just playing the main stage — he’s building his own. The ascent continues.

-Alex Tsonis
- Fashion Fridays Resident DJ
-Enquires: https://www.facebook.com/alexander.tsonis

Worldwide DJ who mainly plays Trance, Techno and Hard Dance.

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