Peter Slaghuis

Peter Slaghuis (; 21 August 1961 – 5 September 1991) As a child, he was unlucky, as he was always ill and would be in hospital. Fortunately, he got better when he turned 10, and grew into a healthy boy. Charles gave him and his sister Dana (born in 1961) their first cassette recorder. This led to Peter's love for music, while Dana was not interested.

Career Remixer After graduating from school, Slaghuis began working as a DJ in a local club in The Hague in his teens in 1979. One day, he heard an illegal bootleg American megamix, which inspired him to try and copy the style. He was already mixing in the club while at home he was experimenting with the cassette recorder's pause button's editing technique. Using this he created his first remix, a 3/4-hour long remix of "Dancing Queen" by ABBA.

Slaghuis made a name for himself as a remixer in the 1980s, producing popular remixes of various hits. In his home studio at his parents' house, he made music by taking samples from obscure records and pieces of music, mixing them together into his own self-produced tracks. He secured connections with the "Disco Breaks" bootleg label and started creating megamixes and remixes for them. Some of the earlier mixes were actually created on cassette, including the rare "Dutch Mix" of "Lay All Your Love on Me" by ABBA. As more equipment piled into his studio at his parents' home, he became more certain of his future. He was always playing his mixes in clubs with great reactions from the crowds, being one of the first DJs to do so, along with Ben Liebrand. With his fame, Slaghuis managed to get a place as a DJ at the BlueTiek-in in Rotterdam in 1985. He bought his own Akai S900 sampler, being one of the first people to have one.

His big break as a remixer came in 1986 with the Vocal/Long "Dutch Mix" of "I Can't Wait" by Nu Shooz. Injection Disco Dance Label asked him to produce the remix of the song. Slaghuis hated the song and initially did not want to remix it, but eventually decided to produce the remix, making it in an hour. He added a synthesizer melody over the top, Slaghuis had previously done remixes for Cat Music's other projects, such as the "Special European Edit" of "After The Rainbow" by Joanne Daniëls (along with Emile Noorhoek) and "Steppin' Out" by Digital Emotion, and would later use "Woodpeckers from Space" in the seventh instalment in "Disco Breaks". A cover version of "Woodpeckers from Space" was made by the South African group Café Society in 1985. Even though Video Kids provided him with a lot of experience in the entertainment industry, Slaghuis expressed disapproval of the project, considering it a sidestep in his career.

Hip hop In 1987, Slaghuis met then-unknown rapper Extince, who told him that he had released the single "Rap Around The Clock" the previous year. Slaghuis did not like the single, but decided to work with the rapper. He produced the beat behind Extince's single "The Milkshake Rap", using the pseudonym "Mr. Donald". The single's sound was heavily influenced by Mantronix and used McDonald's' advertising music. This, however, led to legal trouble with the fast food chain, who did not appreciate their music being used without permission. The single had to be withdrawn from the market and was replaced by a "clean" version named "The Milkshake Rapremix". Slaghuis produced a few more singles for Extince, "The Girlie Girlie Prince" and "Black Betty", although they were not very successful. In 1989, he produced "I Can Handle It" by Mister Mixi & Skinny Scotty. The rappers had success abroad and they also released the album Tea House, on which Slaghuis produced eight songs. In 1990, he produced the single "Somebody In The House Say Yeah!" with DJ Paul Elstak by rap crew The Timedrillers. He also produced the single "Unarmed and Dangerous" by M.C. Hughie Babe.

House pioneer As a DJ at the BlueTiek-in, Slaghuis was one of the first to market the genre of house music in the Netherlands. The first house music that was played was the Chicago house sound, but it was not well-received by the people at the club, who did not understand that kind of music. Because of this, it was played at the end of the night so that everyone would leave early, so that when the club was empty, the crew could go home on time as well. People later began to appreciate the sound, and the club was packed until closing time. There he met DJ Paul Elstak, who worked with him and became his student as a younger DJ. Elstak previously did not know Slaghuis due to his dislike of "Woodpeckers from Space". In December 1986, Slaghuis produced and released his first house track for the Disco Mix Club, "Samplification". In 1988, he composed, arranged and produced the single "House Control", going under the pseudonym "El Farid" and working with Eric van Vliet. With the arrival of house music in Europe, he took up the pseudonym "Hithouse" (a literal translation of his last name) and began using his sampling techniques in this field. He produced and released a remix of "The Second Time Around" by Shalamar and a new version of "Samplification" named "Samplification (Part 2)" under the pseudonym "Wise Guys", both of which sold in their millions. At this point he decided that it was time to move into an apartment of his own, to house his rapidly-building studio. It entered the UK Singles Chart on 5 November 1988 and reached No. 14 on 3 December 1988 and number 57 in Australia, and became a hit in almost every country in Europe, except in Slaghuis' own country, the Netherlands, where it only reached the No. 22 position of the charts. The song's music video was directed and edited by Slaghuis himself at Creators International, with art direction by Cello Hoekstra, and also featured Paul Elstak, Marianne from The Hague (the person lip-syncing to the Kelly Charles sample), Slaghuis' girlfriend Helen Willemse, and other BlueTiek-in employees. It was shot in a gas factory in the Netherlands. Slaghuis released "Move Your Feet to the Rhythm of the Beat", which was very successful as well in April that year. The song shared the same musical formula as its predecessor: catchy Hi-NRG loops mixed with a collection of samples, though it lacked the catchy hook lines present in the first release. It only reached No. 69 on the UK Singles Chart on 19 August 1989. In the Netherlands, it reached the No. 28 position of the charts. Slaghuis also released the album Hithouse, which contained every style of music including acid, Latin, Hi-NRG, house and hip hop. One of the tracks, called "Everybody (Got To Get Some)", was a Todd Terry-type acid track, with vocals by Crystal P. Slaghuis would later produce "Luv' Hitpack" by Luv'.

In 1990, Slaghuis founded his own label, Hithouse Records. As the manager of Hithouse Records, he discovered young talented producers such as Ferry Corsten, Paul Elstak, Michel de Hey and Speedy J, who released some of their first records on the label. He also worked with some of them under the name "Problem House", released the singles "A Bright Day" (featuring Dave D.M.D.) and "I've Been Waiting for Your Love" (made with Réjane Magloire from Indeep), and was part of electronic dance music group Holy Noise, consisting of Elidio Gomes, Elstak, Richard van Naamen and Rob Fabrie, with vocals by MC Alee. In 1991, they released the album Organoised Crime and the single "James Brown Is Still Alive!!" (in response to "James Brown Is Dead" by L.A. Style), which reached the top 10 in the Dutch Top 40. Slaghuis also worked on an album called "Acute Sense Of Hearing".

Death On 5 September 1991, Slaghuis died in a head-on car accident involving an oncoming truck on the A2 motorway, while he was driving home from a DJ gig in Amsterdam. He was 30. A funeral service was held for him by his closest family members and friends shortly afterwards, and his ashes were spread around a local river. Paul Elstak continued the Holy Noise project after Slaghuis' death. He and the other members went back into his studio to finish and release some tracks, such as "Get Down Everybody" and "James Brown Is Still Alive!!". Holy Noise was temporarily continued by Rotterdam Records, and later by ARS Productions to fulfill the obligations entered into.

In an episode of Het Zesde Zintuig in 2007, his mother Helen Slaghuis believed that it was possible that her son's death occurred because someone had drugged him over a money issue. However, no evidence of this has been found. The episode also revealed that Peter was homosexual and that his nickname was "Patsie".

Legacy Slaghuis left a significant legacy to the world of electronic dance music and sampling. His work as a mixer, producer and DJ continues to be an inspiration to many DJs in the Netherlands and around the world. The Kelly Charles sample used in "Jack to the Sound of the Underground" resurfaced in 1994, as the vocal sample in the Prodigy's major international hit, "No Good (Start the Dance)".

In February 2001, after contacting Slaghuis' parents and his sister Dana, Jerry Beke, who is a fan of the producer's work, came into possession of his sample library and recording equipment, which is still used today by other Dutch DJs and producers. Ben Liebrand described Slaghuis as "so very creative, and such a very kind guy". Three years later on 27 February 2019, XXL Radio Rotterdam produced a music video for Slaghuis' 1987 Yearmix for Soulshow. On 23 March 2020, Radio Stad Den Haag ran a Special Tribute Show on air to recognize the producer's genius. On 28 November 2025, Uitgeverij Aspekt published the book Voor altijd een belofte: Een muzikale biografie van Peter Slaghuis ("Forever a Promise: A Musical Biography of Peter Slaghuis"), which described Slaghuis' life.