Exclusive Interview with Cosmic Gate

Siam2nite had the opportunity to have an exclusive interview with Cosmic Gate, shortly before their performance at Onyx RCA on 6th September.

You are a DJ and production duo since 15 years. How did you get in touch with electronic dance music – especially Trance – in the first place, how did you guys meet and what made you team up to produce music together?

We were growing up with the early stages of electronic music starting, Kraftwerk from our home town for example we heard as young teenagers already. Later chicago house sound, acid and then techno followed, some of it then developing intro first trance tracks, we were blessed growing up and be part of this whole young revolutionary scene in Germany from day one. Before we met, we were both djing solo, also producing solo or with other people too. Then some mutual friends introduced us, we released music on the same label, but did not work together. Then actually totally chance for the first time hanging out we just produced a fun track in a short few hours. This track we sent out and record companies wanted to sign it, we needed to come up with a name for that new project, which we thought would be just another project by that time…The song we produced that btw later was called The Drums and was our first single, had spacy kind of sequences, thats why we decided to go for the name Cosmic Gate. We totally had no clue that this song and this new project should change our lives so much as it simply blew off so fast, and even more did the follow up songs, since then we are producing together and playing as a dj duo under Cosmic Gate, thats indeed 15 years ago now, wow, time flies...

You play and produce a mix of Trance and Progressive. How would you describe your own music in just a few words?

Hm, we think this can not really be described in a few words, music or art in general leaves total different impressions or feelings with different people, so everyone that does not know what we really do, maybe listen to our album start to feel, listen to our radio show wake your mind, or to one of our dj sets online. Some ppl will say its trance, some will say house and progressive with trance feel, at the end it does not matter to us, you like it and it touches you, or it does not, we hope it touches the listener this is all that matters, not how it gets labeled...

You are currently on World Tour in occasion of the release of your latest album “Start To Feel”, which is your sixth studio album. What can your tell us about the album and its creation process and how was your tour experience so far?

When we started the album we were pretty much annoyed by this so called EDM sound that was played all over, all sounding the same to us basically. we knew right away that we would not follow this road, that our album should be different, more touching, have more heart, be more emotional than most of these tracks that just have a drop, and thats it. we invited a bunch of singers and djs/producers that we like to work with us, the whole process took close to a year, we produced 17 tracks at the end which is pretty much, and the result is Start to Feel. This name to us pretty much sums up what you find on the album, music that makes you feel, sing, dance, dream, scream, simply makes you feel emotions, we hope you guys agree in this! About the tour, we just came off a two weeks tour by bus in the US, which was a new experience to us, and a lot of fun! We will basically jet back and force between the US, Europe and Asia, have a stop in December in Australia for Stereosonic. Basically all the shows so far been fantastic and the crowd is following us with the new songs and our classics as well, no stop to be seen yet...

Out of all tracks you have made, which would you recommend to someone that is not yet familiar with your music?

Well, our biggest hits are all so total different, fire wire to exploration of space, or now the more current falling back or fair game are all our songs, but every single one of them is so different to the other, that one of them alone not necessarily can give a hint how our overall sound is, simply as we cover a wide spectrum of styles and sounds. we do have a certain hand writing for sure, but still not one track alone can wrap this up. As an example, only the album start to feel already holds a wide range of songs from Club bangers to even downtempo music, and its only our current album, so to understand us it maybe takes time, follow our development from album to album, see how things slowly changed, from the more harder side of trance to a more maybe progressive touch of today.

You are some of the most successful and respected Trance artists in the world, you have played at some of the biggest clubs and festivals – with a total amount of gigs exceeding 1000 nights – and you are ranked in DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs for 6 consecutive years already. What were your personal highlights of your career so far? What was the best and the worst gig you ever played and what was the funniest thing ever occurred during any of your performances?

To be honest, this is a older number already, only in the last three years close to 500 gigs came on top of this, so you can imagine that a lot of funny things while on the road happen over and over, but too bad, most of the time you simply have to be part of the travel group to really be involved and feel the funny aspects the way that we would. Gig wise there is so many good ones it would not be fair put one over others, just lets maybe mention trance energy, edc in las vegas, tomorrow land, cream fields, all fantastic festivals we had the honor to play. we are so blessed with what we do, we can travel the world and play our music to different crowds from different cultural backgrounds, as said before, we would have never thought this happens when we started write music together.

Your most recent performance here in Bangkok was in 2012 at a sold-out LED Club RCA. This 6th September you return to Bangkok for an exclusive performance at ONYX RCA as part of your world tour. Did you keep the previous Bangkok shows in good memory? What can Bangkok expect of your upcoming performance?

We indeed had a great time on our first show in Bangkok in 2012 and definitely are looking forward to the return in September already! We will of course bring music from our new album Start to Feel, the newest club bangers from all around and some classics on top, we will build a nice package for everyone, take the crowd on a journey, come by and party with us, do not miss it!