ABOUT

Darko Juranovic D’Knock is a record producer, songwriter, artist and owner of the D’Knock Production record label. He is also a member of the music duo D’Knock & Jay, one of the founding members of the group PlayOne, a former member of the ultra-popular Croatian band ET, as well as a Chief Brand Officer (CBO) of Jürgen Höller Academy and co-founder of the video production company JMJ Factory.

As a producer and author, D’Knock has collaborated with some of the most renowned names in the international music scene, such as the legendary British bands Simply Red and Simple Minds, the queen of house music Barbara Tucker, UK Grammy Award-winning music producer Andy Wright, Mick Hucknall (Simply Red), DJ Spen (Quantize Recordings), Eddie Amador, Dany Cohiba, Peter Grant, Amrick Channa, among others.

He has achieved great success with the group PlayOne (D’Knock & DJ Fresh Jay), which included many singles, releases, remixes, music compilations, concerts, tours and collaborations with world famous artists and clubs. D’Knock and DJ Fresh Jay have joined forces on most of these projects with their longtime collaborator and an associate member of the PlayOne’s production team, Zvonimir Dusper Dus.

In recent years, along with DJ Fresh Jay and Dus, D`Knock has been working under the mentorship of renowned British producer Andy Wright, known for his collaboration with world famous performers, such as Simple Minds, Eurythmics, Annie Lennox, Natalie Imbruglia, Luciano Pavarotti, Simply Red, Jeff Beck and many others. Andy is responsible for the entrance of D’Knock and PlayOne into the highest league of the world music production. They started in 2011 with the remix of the single “Take It to the Roof”, from the British performer Peter Grant, and continued with remixing the solo single of the Simply Red frontman Mick Hucknall “Happy This Christmas”, as well as a number of other projects. Andy Wright is also responsible for the fact that D’Knock, together with the production team of PlayOne in 2015, achieved the most praiseworthy cooperation in his career by remixing the new single for the reunited British band Simply Red, “The Ghost Of Love” from their last album “Big Love”. After that, in 2016, PlayOne and Andy started working on new versions of Simple Minds’ 12 greatest hits, marking the 40th anniversary of their career.

D’Knock and DJ Fresh Jay also have a fruitful cooperation with house diva Barbara Tucker, which started in 2008 with the single “I Found a Place”, the theme song of the Papaya Club (Zrće) which was ranked the 11th best club in the world in 2017 by the renowned British magazine DJ MAG. D’Knock & DJ Fresh Jay are also co-founders of the Papaya Day & Night Festival and producers of music compilations Papaya Day & Night Vol. 1 – Vol. 5.

They produced a number of singles with Barbara, and in 2013, together with Dus, they cooperated on the global humanitarian project for the homeless “We Can Heal”, which was launched by Barbara Tucker, who gathered a large number of the world's top vocalists and remixers, including PlayOne, to produce the single “We Can Heal”. Its first edition includes versions by PlayOne, and world established producers and DJs, including: Frankie Knuckles (The Godfather of House Music) & Eric Kupper, DJ Spen & Gary Hudgins and Rhemi. Playone’s remix of the song reached No. 1 on the Traxsource’s Electro House Top 100 sales chart!

In addition to these achievements, D’Knock joined T. Preradović (Slow Mo’T) and Kosta Radman, to produce a remix of Olivia Newton John’s “Physical”. This new version, performed by the Croatian singer Iness, was subsequently included in Sony Music’s “Club Sounds Vol. 52“ (CD 1, track 15) along with artists such as Shakira, Leona Lewis, Britney Spears, Fatboy Slim and Fragma.

In the Croatian music industry, D’Knock started his career in the early 90s, under his former stage name Da’Real, as one of the original members of the band Electro Team (ET), one of the most popular bands of all time in this area, which he left in 1998 aiming to focus on his solo career as a music producer and artist, under the current pseudonym D’Knock. Afterwards, D’Knock collaborated with Croatia’s top music artists such as Nina Badric, Tony Cetinski, Dino Dvornik, Ilan Kabiljo, Divas, Cubismo, Bolesna Braca etc. and has won a number of awards and acknowledgements. In 2004 he won the “Porin” music award as master producer for the album “Love” by Nina Badric which won 5 Porin awards in total, and he also produced the album “Divas“ for the group of the same name that was nominated for Porin in 5 categories in 2000. He also joined forces with Tihomir Preradović to produce the album “Poruka” for the famous Macedonian singer Kaliopi. They also produced two songs for Tose Proeski, the greatest Macedonian singer of all time, which featured on Proeski’s compilation “Još uvijek sanjam da smo zajedno”. In 2016, the production team PlayOne remixed a version of Dino Dvornik’s great hit “Hipnotiziran”, paying tribute to the Croatian king of funk.

In 2017, D'Knock and his wife Jelena Juranović Jay founded their music duo D'Knock & Jay, and so far they have released 4 hit singles: Jedan dan, Ljubav najbolje zna, Samo ti and Stvorena za ljubav. 

D’Knock also cooperated on various projects with many renowned marketing agencies, and, together with Tihomir Preradović & DJ Fresh Jay, even coined a wide range of jingles for well-known Croatian and international brands, such as Coca-Cola, Hugo Boss, Motorola, Ledo, Jamnica, Jana, Vegeta, Pliva, Ledo, Juicy, Diners, Franck, Chernigivske etc.

In 2019, he started to work for Jürgen Höller Academy (JHA) as a Chief Brand Officer (CBO) & Producer. JHA is a company that does the biggest educational seminars in Europe and which has been announced as one of the fastest growing on the continent by Financial Times, Focus and Statista.

D’Knock is a versatile person and a visionary whose scope of work stretches over a wide area of creativity. He is also one of the founders and promoters of the Croatian club and hip hop scene, and an influential person in the music business and management. Together with his wife Jelena Juranovic Jay, he owns D’Knock Production record label & video production company JMJ Factory, which runs one video and two professional music studios.

www.dknock.com 
www.playone.eu  
www.jmjfactory.com  
D'Knock - Wikipedia