You’ve made the trip of a lifetime to attend one of the biggest dance music festivals in the world, the Electric Daisy Carnival, Las Vegas.

You’re there to work — the Electronic Dance Music conference is coinciding — but to also take in some of the globe’s biggest DJs in their element.

Names like Avicii, Hardwell, Deadmau5, Benny Benassi and Wolfgang Gartner, dance music royalty, are rocking the clubs of Sin City almost around the clock.

After working on some remixes — you’re doing one for Nervo, the Aussie sisters who are becoming the biggest female act in EDM — you hit the carnival and check out US wunderkind Porter Robinson on the Kinetic-Field stage along with 50,000 other punters.

As you fist-pump your way through an energetic set, which in turn gets labelled one of the top-five big room sets from the entire carnival, your ears suddenly deceive you. 

That’s YOUR song! A song you created in a Sydney bedroom.

The song was Achtung! The story is Dave Winnel’s.

And Winnel, the Albury boy doing big things in the world of dance music, is on a roll.

The next night, Russian DJ Arty also played Achtung! Since then global hit-makers Calvin Harris, Sebastian Ingrosso (Swedish House Mafia) dropped it into their sets. Ingrosso’s former bandmate, Axwell, has been on the Acthung! train for a while.

“It’s mental! For them to be playing my music is reassurance that I’m on the right track. It just goes to show you don’t need a fancy studio to make ‘ok’ music”, says Winnel.

He adds with a laugh: “I mean I made Achtung! on a crappy PC and DJ headphones and for all the geeks I even ran out of RAM during the process.” 

It gets bigger: Tiesto — the Dutch dance megastar — decided Achtung! was for him too.

“Tiesto is the reason that I got into this music over 12 years ago,” enthuses a very chuffed Winnel.

“I remember recording my cousin’s Tiesto Magik 6 CD to cassette and listening to it over and over again ‘til the tape stretched and was unlistenable.

“I owe a lot of my influences to him and his music early on, so for him to be playing my music a decade on is crazy.”

Winnel says a future collaboration with the great man is more than just a pipe dream.

“I’ve witnessed this happen before with Tiesto — picking up artists like (Aussies) Tommy Trash and Dirty South,” he says of two of our most successful EDM exports.

“I never thought I could go that big but I guess as (author) Paul Brandt said, ‘Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon’.

“If you want something bad enough, no matter what, you can go out there and get it.

“I’ve always stuck to my guns and sometimes it has been tough, I’ve slept on my brother’s couch for 1.5 years, I’ve been on the dole for a year, but I’ve always found ways to make things work.”

On Saturday, Winnel returns to where it all began – Groove Saint (formerly known as Roi).

He says club-goers can expect to hear Achtung! as well as other recent releases like the Top 20 ARIA Club hit Draw Your Guns and a new tune with Mobin Master called Revolution. 

There will be some old favourites as well.

“I’m really looking forward to it. I hope everyone else is too,” Winnel says.

“I must say, though, playing back home I always feel the most pressure — the expectations are so high.”