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Lucas & Steve are a Dutch DJ and music production duo formed in Maastricht by Lucas de Wert (born October 31, 1990) and Steven Jansen (born October 14, 1992). The musicians work primarily with house, combining club rhythms with piano parts, strong melodies and song-oriented structures designed to work both on festival stages and on radio. They gained international recognition with Summer On You, Up Till Dawn (On The Move), Where Have You Gone (Anywhere), Perfect and Letters.
The duo began their joint career in 2010, signed with Spinnin' Records in 2014 and, following their commercial breakthrough in the middle of the decade, established themselves among the most recognisable representatives of Dutch melodic house. Their debut album Letters to Remember won an Edison award in the Dance category.
Maastricht and the beginning of their collaboration
Lucas de Wert and Steven Jansen grew up in Maastricht in the south of the Netherlands. They met long before their major professional careers began and started making music together while still at school. Their first performances took place in small clubs and at local parties, where both gradually developed their DJing skills. In 2010, their collaboration became the permanent project Lucas & Steve.
Music interested the members of the duo not only from a DJing perspective. Lucas studied piano and drums, and keyboards later became one of the characteristic elements of many Lucas & Steve recordings. Steven was also involved in studio work and arranging, so from the beginning the project was built as a full production partnership rather than simply a live DJ duo.
The early years of Lucas & Steve were noticeably different from the period when the musicians began regularly appearing in national charts. In the early 2010s, they released club-oriented material through smaller electronic labels. Their early catalogue included Mind Control EP, Remote EP, The Revolution EP and Rock It Now EP. These releases were aimed primarily at the house scene and gradually formed the studio foundation for the duo's later sound.
Early notable remixes and the Spinnin' Records deal
2014 became an important year for Lucas & Steve. During this period, they created their own version of Red Carpet's Alright 2014 together with Nothing But Funk and reworked Ruffneck's Everybody Be Somebody featuring Yavahn. The latter was released through Real Time Records and became one of the tracks that attracted attention to the duo among club audiences.
That same year, Lucas & Steve joined Spinnin' Records, one of the largest Dutch electronic music labels. A significant part of their subsequent output was released through its Spinnin' Deep division. The partnership coincided with the period in which the duo began moving from predominantly club-focused tracks toward more melodic productions with a stronger song-oriented component.
During the middle of the decade, they released Blinded, Fearless, You and I Know, Calinda 2K15 and the collaboration with Dr. Kucho! and Gregor Salto, Love Is My Game. Piano chords, memorable melodies and vocal parts became increasingly important in the music of Lucas & Steve.
The musicians themselves have noted that their listening habits extend far beyond house: they have cited pop, R&B, techno, jazz and classical music among their influences. This broad range of interests gradually became evident in their own productions, particularly in their approach to harmony and melodic construction.
Make It Right and Summer On You
One of the first tracks to significantly expand the audience of Lucas & Steve was Make It Right, released in 2016. It already clearly demonstrated the transition toward a formula that later became one of the foundations of their work: a distinctive vocal part, a simple melodic theme and a house arrangement capable of working both inside and outside the club environment.
The musicians themselves regarded Make It Right as a reflection of the evolution of their sound. While piano had often played the central role in earlier tracks, they now wanted to expand the range of leading sounds and avoid limiting themselves to a single recognisable formula.
Their major commercial breakthrough came that same summer. Together with Sam Feldt and singer Wulf, the duo recorded Summer On You. The track became Lucas & Steve's first major radio hit and climbed to number four on the Nederlandse Top 40. The success of Summer On You definitively took the musicians beyond the professional club scene and made their name familiar to a broad Dutch audience.
Summer On You clearly represented the direction Lucas & Steve would continue developing: a light vocal melody, acoustic touches, soft keyboards and a dance rhythm without an overloaded arrangement. As a result, the duo found themselves at the intersection of house and contemporary dance-pop.
Up Till Dawn (On The Move) and expansion onto international festival stages
The next major success came in 2017 with Up Till Dawn (On The Move). Its foundation was the melody of the famous instrumental track On The Move by Dutch producer Barthezz, originally released in the early 2000s. Lucas & Steve transformed the recognisable theme into a full vocal song with a contemporary house arrangement.
The result was even more successful than Summer On You: Up Till Dawn climbed to number two on the Nederlandse Top 40 and became one of the duo's biggest national hits.
At the same time, Lucas & Steve rapidly expanded their festival activity. Their schedule began to include Tomorrowland, Creamfields and other major events, and in 2017 they performed on Tomorrowland's main stage. That same year, the duo entered the annual DJ Mag Top 100 DJs ranking for the first time, debuting at number 64.
During this period, their catalogue grew quickly through collaborations. Lucas & Steve worked with Pep & Rash, Bassjackers, Mike Williams, Curbi, Firebeatz, Madison Mars and Ummet Ozcan. Unlike Summer On You and Up Till Dawn, many of these tracks were more strongly oriented toward large dance floors and festival stages.
Since 2017, the duo has also been associated with Radio 538, where Lucas & Steve received their own radio programme. Radio became another branch of their activity alongside music production and touring.
From I Could Be Wrong to Perfect
After their first major hits, Lucas & Steve did not move entirely into pop music. Their catalogue continued developing in two parallel directions: vocal songs with a stronger radio structure existed alongside instrumental and festival-oriented tracks.
In 2018, they released I Could Be Wrong featuring Brandy, as well as Where Have You Gone (Anywhere), which was later included on their debut album. At the same time, the duo continued producing official reworks of music by other artists. Performers whose songs received Lucas & Steve versions included Robin Schulz, David Guetta, Armin van Buuren and later ILLENIUM.
In 2019, they released Perfect featuring Dutch singer Haris. Its melodic foundation uses elements of the famous Take On Me by A-HA. This treatment of a familiar motif reflected one of Lucas & Steve's recurring techniques: the duo has repeatedly reinterpreted recognisable themes from previous decades, placing them within modern dance arrangements.
That same year, Inception was selected as the musical theme for Ultra Music Festival 2019. For a duo already performing regularly at major venues, this served as another confirmation of their position on the international festival scene.
Letters to Remember
By the tenth anniversary of their collaboration, Lucas & Steve had built a substantial catalogue of singles but had yet to release a full-length studio album. Their first such record arrived on October 16, 2020.
Letters to Remember contains 16 tracks. The album includes the already familiar Letters and Perfect, as well as Another Life with Alida, I Want It All, When You're Alone with Kiesza and other recordings.
The material was created over an extended period, including while the duo were touring. Individual studio and songwriting sessions took place in the United States, London, Sweden and the Netherlands. Lucas & Steve deliberately did not want to limit the album to a standard sequence of festival tracks: it includes dance-pop, more intimate songs and productions designed for large stages.
Compared with their earlier releases, Letters to Remember places a much stronger emphasis on the song as an independent form. Vocals, choruses and harmony are at the centre of many tracks, while the electronic arrangement supports them rather than replacing them. At the same time, piano and bright major-key progressions, long associated with the music of Lucas & Steve, remain central elements.
The album received recognition in the Netherlands and earned the duo an Edison award in the Dance category. The jury specifically noted Lucas & Steve's ability to combine dance music with strong pop melodies.
After the debut album
Following Letters to Remember, the duo once again increased the number of collaborations and more energetic club-oriented releases.
In 2021, Lucas & Steve teamed up with American R&B group Blackstreet for a new version of No Diggity. Rather than being an unofficial rework of the original recording, the project was created with Blackstreet's direct involvement and featured newly recorded vocals.
They then released the large-scale collaboration Anywhere With You with Afrojack and DubVision. The production roles on the track reflected a characteristic Lucas & Steve approach: their contribution included guitar elements and a more organic treatment of the original melody, while the final version developed into a powerful festival arrangement.
Later in the same period, the duo worked with Tiësto on Oohla Oohla, while together with Galantis and singer ILIRA they released Alien.
The Lucas & Steve catalogue continued to evolve between song-oriented and club-focused directions. Releases included Set You Free, Feel My Love with DubVision and Joe Taylor, If It Ain't Love with 4 Strings and Lagique, After Midnight with Yves V and Xoro, Careful What You Wish For with Alida, as well as later tracks such as ZENLESS, Can't Forget You, Something Like Magic, Believe It and All I Know.
The collaboration Something Like Magic with Dutch singer Nick Schilder developed after the musicians met during events connected with TeamNL's appearances at the Paris Olympic Games. The track continued the more melodic side of Lucas & Steve's work, built around a vocal song and touches of live instrumentation.
The musical style of Lucas & Steve
The foundation of the Lucas & Steve sound is house with a strong melodic component. At different stages, their music has included elements of future house, progressive house, festival electronic music and dance-pop, although the duo has rarely followed a single fixed genre formula.
One of the most consistent elements of their work is the use of keyboards. Piano, synthesizer chords and short melodic phrases often serve not as decoration but as structural components: choruses or main instrumental themes are frequently built around them. DJ Mag has also highlighted the duo's characteristic use of rich keyboard and piano parts across different forms of house music.
A second important element is their approach to song melody. Even in tracks designed for festivals, Lucas & Steve generally give the listener an easily recognisable musical theme. For this reason, their songs often exist in several versions at once: a more compact song version may sit alongside a club mix with longer instrumental passages and a stronger rhythmic emphasis.
The duo also frequently works with material from previous decades. Up Till Dawn (On The Move), Perfect and No Diggity demonstrate three different approaches: using a recognisable instrumental theme, incorporating elements of a classic pop melody and directly collaborating with performers from the original song.
Live activity and their place on the electronic music scene
Lucas & Steve have progressed from small clubs in Maastricht to regular appearances at international festivals. Over the years, they have performed at Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival, Creamfields and numerous venues across Europe, North America and Asia.
After first appearing at number 64 in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs in 2017, the duo returned to the ranking several times. Lucas & Steve placed 84th in 2022 and rose to number 66 in the 2025 ranking.
The longevity of the project is connected with the fact that Lucas & Steve never tied their identity to a single fashionable branch of electronic music from the mid-2010s. Future house played a major role in their early international growth, but the duo later shifted toward a broader model: melodic house, vocal songs, festival tracks and collaborations with artists from different generations.
Discography
Studio albums
Letters to Remember — 2020
The debut and first full-length studio album by Lucas & Steve. It contains 16 tracks, including Letters, Perfect, Another Life, I Want It All and When You're Alone. The album won an Edison award in the Dance category.
Major early EPs
- Mind Control EP — 2011
- Remote EP — 2011
- The Revolution EP — 2013
- Rock It Now EP — 2013
Key tracks
Among the most notable Lucas & Steve releases are Make It Right, Summer On You, Up Till Dawn (On The Move), Calling On You, I Could Be Wrong, Where Have You Gone (Anywhere), Perfect, Inception, Letters, Another Life, I Want It All, No Diggity, Anywhere With You, Alien, Feel My Love, Careful What You Wish For, Something Like Magic and other recordings.
Lucas & Steve hold a stable position in Dutch electronic music thanks to a balance that is relatively unusual for a long-running DJ career: the ability to move between club material and fully developed pop songs. Their most recognisable works are not built around a single production technique, but around melody — a piano theme, a vocal chorus or a motif capable of sounding equally natural on radio and in front of a festival audience of tens of thousands. This principle remains at the core of the project as their catalogue continues to expand.
