Hughes is a UK hardcore musician from Brisbane who performs as "S3RL". The stage name "S3RL" was based on a nickname his cousins gave him when he was little, which derived from his cousins calling him "arsehole". To avoid profanity, they began saying "arserl", and according to Hughes, the word stuck and became his stage name. One of Hughes's most popular tracks is "Pretty Rave Girl", which uses the melody from "Daddy DJ" by the Frenchdance actof the same name. S3RL has contributed tracks for several UK hardcorecompilation series, including the Bonkers series. Some of his other works are "Fantasy Land", "Raver Dimension", "Rainbow Girl", "Friendzoned", "Sek C Raver", "Little Kandi Raver", "Pika Girl", "Keep on Raving Baby", "Bass Slut", "Feel the Melody" and "MTC". In October 2010, he appeared as a DJ at the inaugural Bam! Festival at Ivory's Rock in southeast Queensland. Many of his songs reference different aspects of Japanese pop culture, such as anime, manga, hentai, and video games. In 2011, he founded his own record label, EMFA Music, through which all of his works are released. In May 2012, the label released "Press Play Walk Away" as a single by S3RL and SynthWulf, a fellow hardcore DJ. As of February 2015, S3RL was ranked 1658 on the "Official Global DJ Rankings" page dj-rankings.com, which bases its rankings on a number of factors include chart rankings, DJ fees and radio airplay. During mid-2015, his single "Genre Police", which had been issued in Australia in November the previous year, peaked at #10 on the Norwegian singles chart. In early 2018, Hughes announced that his 2018 tour would be his last, citing a desire to spend more time with his family. Though he advertised it as being his final shows, he clarified that he might be willing to return to the stage after at least two years: "After 2018 I will not do any shows for at least a couple of years, then re-assess the situation to do the occasional show here and there.... For example, if I was booked for a show in 2020 that I could bring my family along to I would consider it, but during the two years off I will not be doing any shows at home or away." He also stated that his music production would be unaffected.
