I recently had the opportunity to have an Email interview with Cosmic Gate. If you aren\’t familiar with the duo, who have been tearing up the Trance scene for many years, let me fill you in. Cosmic Gate is a German trance duo made up of Claus Terhoeven and Stefan Bossems. Both hail from Krefeld in Germany. Recently their new album \’Start To Feel\’ came out, and have embarked on an North American Tour with a stop in Chicago tonight.
We\’re looking forward to tonight\’s concert and hope to see some of you people there! Check out the interview below, and if you haven\’t already bought ticket, get them here!
1. For starters, how did you two meet and where did the name “Cosmic Gate” come from?
Cosmic Gate: We were both in the German Techno scene for a while already, and met through mutual friends that introduced us. On a chance studio meeting like half a year later we proceeded this track, later on called the drums and our first single, and we simply just needed a name for this new project. As the drums had some kind of spacy sounding sequences we though a name in this direction would be cool, and we came up with cosmic gate, not totally knowing at all that we would be known under this name still 15 years later, for us it was simply just another project at the beginning…
2. How do you guys think your individual production styles would have changed if you both had gone solo? Where do you think you’d be if you weren’t a team right now?
CG: Our cosmic gate style has developed somehow during the years we have worked together, so at the end its highly hypothetical what we would do without having teamed up as cosmic gate, but sure would be in the business still somehow, know or now, who knows…
3. You two have been in the scene for more than a decade. From your perspective, how has dance music changed and where do you think it’s headed?
CG: Dance music has extremely changed since back when we started. To keep it short, it started mainly underground and now the genres go from still total underground to million selling chart pop tracks that are mainly dance. Dance is one of the most successful genres overall, so we do see the whole development absolutely positive, even with some of the music sure not be really in our liking. Where it is heading to, that’s a tough one. We think dance music is established and will never disappear again, let’s see how it sounds in 5 years. We hope a bit more melodic aspects sure would not be bad…
4. Where is your music headed? It could be in regards to ‘Start to Feel’, which just dropped, or what the future holds for you guys.
CG: If you listen to ‘Start to Feel’, we aren’t heading down the mainstream EDM path. We as always did our own thing, and so it will be in the future. We will just sit together and write music that we like, not disrespecting things that go on in the scene in general, but always have our style and taste as first priority. Surely we will not follow what is big in the clubs in the moment blindly…
5. How has the overall process changed from your first studio album, ‘Rhythm & Drums’, to ‘Start to Feel’, as far as the journey itself, production, etc.?
CG: Our first albums were fully recorded analog, we were sitting in a room filled with synths, drums, computers, mixers etc. Now basically everything is digital. Today we have our whole studio on one laptop, so the differences from the recording side could actually not be bigger. The writing process though is still the same, we have not changed a lot
To this regard, writing music is writing music in the end and people make the music, not machines…
6. Being from Germany, what difference do you guys see between the crowds in your hometowns and places in the US like Chicago?
CG: In the times of the internet, international radio shows and DJ’s that play one night in Europe and the next in the states, actually the crowds are pretty much the same. Fashion and looks are alike even, it’s not taking years like in the 90s that one fashion trend makes it from one continent to the other, and the same it is with music and shows, globalization is def. not a mystery, lol.
7. To date, what is your most memorable show?
CG: Trance Energy 2002, ASOT 550 in Kiev, EDC Las Vegas 2013, E Zoo 2010, there are so many great memories we have, and hope for more to come!!!
8. Whether individually or as a team, what has been your favorite song that Cosmic Gate has done? Why?
CG: As a mother would not put one kid over her others, we do not favor one of our songs over the others. People can tell us this is our favorite CG song, we would never pick one though. They’re all our babies somehow and even valuable to us.
9. Have you guys ever heard a song and thought, “Why didn’t we think of that?” What song was that?
CG: Not for a full song, but sure there are parts or elements that we are wow, awesome, but this is more geek studio production talk then that we can point out in a certain song now, but sure, there are songs or ideas we wish we would have had, sure very musician has that…
10. When you guys come to Chicago, do you have any favorite restaurants you guys always visit? With plenty of stops here over the years I hope you guys have tried the famous Deep Dish Pizza.
CG: Sure we had Chicago pizza style lots of times.:)Our favorite restaurant in Chicago maybe is the Avec, good food and cool place, check it out!
11. Do you guys have any tips for upcoming producers? Something you guys wish you would have known when you first started Cosmic Gate?
CG: We think it’s important to always follow your heart, not to run behind trends and actually produce music that is not really yours. Do what you really feel, write music that is you, and on top work hard, musicians have to do that. A song most of the time does not just happen out of nothing, good luck!
12. To close this off, what does your music mean to you? What message are you trying to send, or rather, what mark do you want your music to make when all is said and done?
CG: Our music is simply the center of our lives, basically everything we do has to do with our music somehow. We always hope that our music touches people, makes them happy, dance, sing along, maybe gives them a good feel for the day, this is what we hope our music does and where we put all our heart and soul in.
