Armand Van Helden was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1970 to an Indo (Dutch/Indonesian) father and a French-Lebanese mother, and as a child lived in the Netherlands, Latvia, Turkey and Italy. At 13 he bought a drum machine, and at 15 started DJing.
An 18 year old Van Helden returned to Boston in 1988, moonlighted as a DJ in Boston clubs and attended college, however his legal review job was packed in during 1991 and he begun work as a remixer. A DJ residency at The Loft (a top Boston nightclub) followed, and, via Nervous Records, he released his first official single, a mix of Deep Creed's "Stay On My Mind".

His first track to make the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart was "Witch Doktor" which made the Top 5 in 1994, and this success created opportunities to remix acts such as New Order, Deep Forest, Jimmy Somerville, Deee-Lite and Faithless. However, it was the "Professional Widow" remix that established him and became a dance hit around the world as well as a number 1 hit in the UK, helping cement his reputation as one of the world's top house musicians.

"Cha Cha" was another Top 10 dance hit from his first album "Old School Junkies" (released in 1996), and the massive "U Don't Know Me" was a number 2 hit on the Billboard dance chart and a number 1 in the UK. The song was the breakout track from his 2Future4U album, which was released stateside on Armand's own label Armed Records, a label that was also used to release the "Killing Puritans" album in 2000 (which contained the dance hit, "Koochy").

A gap of a few years followed but 2004's "New York: A Mix Odyssey" garnered 2 hits, "Hear My Name" (a collaboration with Spalding Rockwell which reached number 7 on the Billboard dance chart) and the funky "My My My", which reached number 4 on the world internet charts and the Top 30 on the world dance charts. Reinvigorated, "Nympho" followed in 2005, also containing "My My My", in addition to "Into Your Eyes", "Hear My Name" and "When the Lights Go Down". The album reached the Top 30 in Australia, and number 48 in the UK.

"Ghettoblaster" was 2007's offering, on which the singles "NYC Beat" and "I Want Your Soul" can be found. 2008 saw Van Helden gain outstanding commercial success by remixing "INSPIRE", a number 1 hit song by Japanese popstar Ayumi Hamasaki.