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Cosmic Gate – Beatsmedia Interview.

4 artist albums, 28 singles and 46 remixes, 4 Back 2 Back mix-compilations, a 1000+ international gigs played and clubbers, numbered in their millions, thrilled … all from one chance meeting in a record label office. Nic and Bossi’s Cosmic Gate’s partnership has proved to be one of electronic dance music’s most successful, and one of its most enduring. Creating a perfect in-studio/behind-the-decks storm, 10 years into their career they became the highest-climbers on DJ Mag’s 2009 Top 100 chart and landed back amongst the 25 biggest DJs in the world the following year. Powered by their hugely received albums, club-rocking singles (inc. ‘Not Enough Time’, ‘Body of Conflict’, ‘Analog Feel’ and ‘F.A.V.’) and scene-defining classics ‘Fire Wire’ and ‘Exploration of Space’ their space in EDM’s hall of fame has been secured.

At the start of 2011, with the release of ‘Back 2 The Future’, the Cosmics blurred the line between the compilation and artist album. Collaborating with some of their own favourite producers, they remix-revisited still-much-in-demand tracks from their first two albums. With producers like Markus Schulz, Arty, Robbie Rivera, Wippenberg, Jochen Miller, Arnej and Rank 1 remixing tracks including ‘The Drums’, Fire Wire’, ‘Exploration of Space’ and ‘Back 2 Earth’, it produced a single release run that saw Cosmic Gate take up residence on Beatport’s top 10 chart for an unbroken, unprecedented 3 months. The final months of 2011 will see the highly anticipated release of Cosmic Gate’s fifth studio album, ‘Wake Your Mind’.

As DJs Nic and Bossi continue to whip floors into frenzies in all four corners. In North America of late they’ve smashed the Electric Daisy Carnival, Electric Zoo, Nocturnal festivals and road-blocked clubs and events that include Bal En Blanc & Guvernment (Canada), ASOT500 at the Ultra Music Festival, Miami, Pacha, NYC and their Marquee, Las Vegas residency. Throughout the 2011 season they’ve achieved yet broader span Isla Blanca appeal with forum-praised performances at Space, Eden, Privilege and Sankeys on Ibiza. Likewise floors have been shaken in other European hotspots (ASOT500, Holland, Tomorrowland, Belgium, Global Gathering, UK among them) and further afield at Future Music Festival, Australia and Zouk, Singapore. Most notably perhaps they sold out their 2000 capacity event on Honolulu, Hawaii – making Cosmic Gate one of the just a handful of EDM acts ever to have done so. They’ve appeared in DJ Magazine’s list of Top 100 spinners for 7 consecutive years now and in February 2011, off the back of their increasingly high-profile gig diary, they were asked by BBC Radio 1 to perform their first Essential Mix for the station.

Back2Back, Cosmic Gate’s on-going compilation series was devised as an at-home audio-expo of the pair’s club-wowing sound. 2010 saw the release of the 4th volume (through Holland’s highly respected Black Hole Recordings label). Bringing Nic & Bossi tight, tense, future-proofed trance/prog/electro hybrid to the forefront, it once again included many of their own track edits.

Over their production lifetime, the Cosmic Gate remix has become almost as illustrious as their productions. In essence a blow-by-blow of trance music’s A-list, Nic and Bossi have lent their studio know-how to productions from Armin van Buuren, Tiësto, Paul van Dyk, Above & Beyond’s OceanLab project, Markus Schulz, Deadmau5, Robbie Rivera & Rank 1. They rewired John O’Callaghan’s mega-seller ‘Find Yourself’ to devastating effect and produced remixes of veteran trance producer Vincent De Moor’s ‘Fly Away’ and ‘Carte Blanche’ (Veracocha). In early 2010 Atlantic Records US approached them to remix James Horner’s ‘I See You’ – the main theme from the film Avatar. This run culminated in them being nominated for Best Remixer at the 2010 IDMAs. Most recently they have reworked Ferry Corsten’s classic ‘Punk’.

William Daniel Catches up with Nic & Bossi about their recent studio projects, productions and more.

WD - Hi guys, for those very few people who may not have heard of you can you tell us how Cosmic Gate started and what made you get involved in Electronic music?

CG – We were lucky to be part of the very early start of electronic music in Europe and specially in Germany, so since the beginning we were totally into this new thing, back then called Techno! We both were djing and found it is time to get our own music out in the early mid 90′s, and after doing this solo for a few years we met in 1998, and from a chance studio meeting we had, a track we released under the new project name Cosmic Gate should change our lives. Since then we have released 6 Albums, countless singles and remixes, and played maybe a 1500 DJ shows together.

WD - Cosmic Gate have been around for many years and your musical style although always very melodic based has changed many times over the years. Why has this happened and how would you describe your current sound?

CG - we think the change of our sound is just a natural progression, it’s not like that we say, now its time for a change, it simply happens as we get bored pretty fast hearing or producing the same kind of sounds over and over again. That’s why we always try to put in something extra and new to a production before, we are very open to other music genres as well, all this together brings a constant change of sound, but at the end you always here it is Cosmic Gate.

WD - You have recently released the brilliant ‘Wake Your Mind’ which is your latest Artist Album. Tell us a bit about the Concept of the album, how did you approach it and what is your favourite tracks on the album?

CG - When we produce music, it’s not about to follow a certain concept, we just want to write and produce music that we like, that touches us and hopefully people listening to it get touched as well. For the first time the plan was to work this time with more dj colleagues and not only with singers and songwriters, which is the biggest difference to the albums before. Favorite track is hard to say, all tracks are like our babies to us that we treat in the same way.

WD – The way music is purchased has changed from Vinyl to CD’s and now is mainly bought over the internet via MP3. What is your opinion on how music is sourced and purchased today?

CG - The biggest problem with the mp3, is that music lost kind of its value. A mp3 its nothing you hold in your hand, its anonymous in your iPod or phone and that’s why a lot of ppl are not willing to pay for it anymore. Musicians do not make money with their compositions anymore, music is just a tool to promote concerts or dj gigs. In our eyes it would be fair to get back to people to pay for what they listen to as it was, lets see what the future holds.

WD - What do you prefer to DJ with Vinyl, CD’s or USB?

CG - we play with USB sticks since a while now, and do not want to miss it! of course to hold a vinyl is more sexy, but USB simply gives the chance to play a track 1 minute after it is finished in the studio, while 99 % of tracks do not even get released on vinyl these days.

WD - Where is your favourite place to play in the world and why?

CG – there is many fantastic and beautiful cities around the world on top offering great locations and parties, so it is hard to actually mention just one. One of our best clubs for sure is Zouk in Singapore, it always goes off when we play there, and Singapore is a great spot too, check it out if you can.

WD - You have a great relationship with Black Hole Recordings in Holland. How did this relationship come about and do you have any plans to start-up your own label?

CG - we know the Black Hole crew for many years, and they simply have the same kind of understanding for music, we have our total freedom to do what we want, so we are a perfect combination to release our tracks, maybe in the future on our own label again, who knows.

WD - What do you use in your studio and do you still use any Hardware or is it all soft-synths? (VST’s)

CG - the studio is 100 % only soft-synths, we sold most of our old hardware over the years.

WD – Tell us something not a lot of people know about Cosmic Gate?

CG - since 9 years we are only living 100 meters from each other

WD – What do you guys do to relax when you are not writing music.

CG – same like million other ppl do too, enjoy time with family, friends, just hang out, watch a good movie, do some sports, or just catch up on sleep, always appreciated! :-)