Exclusive Interview: Ben Gold talks about his new album at Electronic Family

Ben Gold, called “The Future of Trance Music” by Armada Music in 2016,  has grown to be one of the most innovative, accomplished and prolific producers in the trance scene today.

Wasting no time in cementing himself as one of the most forward-thinking and unique trance producers in the world, he has accumulated an outstanding list of achievements. His single ‘All Or Nothing’ with Christina Novelli, dominated the #1 position on the Beatport sales charts. The creation of the Official ASOT 750 Anthem ‘I’m in a State of Trance‘, voted for by millions of Armin van Buuren‘s radio show listeners, became a game-changer, consolidating his relationship with the Armada family. May 2018 saw Ben Gold lay down the most significant marker in his career to date with the release of his eagerly-anticipated debut artist album ‘Sound Advice Chapter 1’ on Armada Music. Featuring standout tracks including ‘There Will Be Angels’ with timeless trance vocalist Audrey Gallagher, ‘Stay’ feat. Sivan, and future anthems such as ‘New Republic’ and ‘The Conquest’  with Omnia, combined Spotify plays for ‘Sound Advice’ are about to hit one million streams just weeks after release.

His high energy sets have granted him the opportunity to perform at many of the biggest festivals around the world such as Tomorrowland, Ultra Miami, A State Of Trance, Creamfields, Dreamstate, Untold, Electronic Family and many more. Ben Gold unveiled an exciting new project together with Omnia at the start of 2019 – FUTURECODE. With a series of singles signed to Armada Music, the duo made their live debut as FUTURECODE on the biggest trance stage in the annual clubbing calendar, the 17,000 main stage at ASOT 900.

Following the success of his 2018 ‘Sound Advice’ artist album, Ben has been busy in the studio making new music for the follow-up, ‘Sound Advice Chapter 2’. The first single to be teased from the album is his collaboration with Richard Durand ‘A Thousand Times’ ahead of the full album release on Armada Music in September 2019. With his new artist album and FUTURECODE project, Ben Gold looks set to map the future of the trance scene in 2019 and beyond.

We sat with Ben Gold moments before his mind-blowing performance during Electronic Family to talk about his future plans, and you can find here an exclusive opportunity to listen to his full set at the Who’s Afraid Of 138?! stage!

So we’re here with Ben Gold interviewing for We Rave You at Electronic family 2019 in Autotron, The Netherlands. How are you Ben?

“Yes, I’m doing very well. Thank you. How are you?”

Great thank you, really excited about today here at the Autotron. You are definitely a veteran in this festival and have been performing at almost every edition. What do you like the most about Electronic Family?

“It’s a fantastic one-day festival. I always have fun here, it’s a beautiful environment and a really nice location. I’m playing the ‘Who’s Afraid of 138?!’ stage this year. It’s good to come back and play a different stage because I played the main stage the last few years, and wrote two anthems ‘Era Festivus’ in 2015, ‘BombSquadKittens’ in 2017. I’m super pleased to be part of the festival again.”

What do you think about this year’s lineup?

“I must say it’s really nice to see Jorn van Deynhoven behind the decks today, I know he’s had a really rough year and health is something which no one can take for granted, so I’m really pleased to see that he’s playing again.”

 

So your next album ‘Sound Advice: Chapter Two’ is coming out on September 20th on Armada Music. What can you tell us about it?

“I can tell you that it’s not finished hahahaha! But it’s very close. It’s more dance floor driven than Chapter One and I have collaborated with some brand new talent that you have never heard of before.”

That makes the album that much more interesting! We are really curious about it. So Why ‘Sound Advice: Chapter Two’, do you consider it a continuation of Chapter One?

‘Sound Advice: Chapter One’ had a theme that was live instruments. Every record had a live instrument in there. ‘Sound Advice: Chapter Two’ is aimed at the dance floor, so it continues on in the sense that it has a theme, but with more new talent. I was always excited about the idea of writing an album, but the idea of sitting down and writing 15 records over 18 months to two years, that didn’t excite me that much. I felt more excited with the idea of writing six to seven records that had a theme, that were connected. So yes it is a continuation, and it’s not necessarily the last chapter, there could be three, there could be four… We’ll see!”

Can you give us any of the names appearing on the new album?

“There is a fantastic song writer called HVNNAH, a Dutch girl, who wrote a beautiful record called ‘Come home’. I have released a single, also included in the album, with Richard Durand. We were talking at ‘A State of Trance: Top 50 Tune of the Year’ and we realized that we both have this old school trance vision and we were like, “you know what, we live 10 minutes apart, let’s just get in in the studio and see what happens”. So that’s what I can tell you about the collaborations in the album, the rest can be a surprise.”

So your next single, ‘The City Sleeps Tonight’ is coming out on September 6th on Armada. We are used to huge vocal tracks coming from you, ‘All or Nothing‘, ‘Hide Your Heart’, ‘Stay‘, ‘There Will Be Angels‘ . Who is the vocalist in this time?

“I can tell you that she hasn’t released any music before, so you will not find her on Spotify. ‘The City Sleeps Tonight’ is the only record you can hear her on, for now at least.”

Oh wow, that’s really exciting! Are you going to play the track today?

“Yes, I am. You know what? I’m actually going to premiere it for the very first time today in its final mastered version. I’ve been playing it for the last few months, different versions but now I have the master. I actually got it this morning, so right in time to open my set with it today.”

You are working on a music alias together with Omnia called FUTURECODE. Lately, there are more and more solo DJs that are teaming up to create new projects together, under another name. Why do you think that the phenomenon is becoming so popular?

“In all honesty, I think the scene needs it, we need something fresh. I mean, that was never the reason why Omnia and I teamed up for FUTURECODE. In fact, it was this weekend last year, at Electronic Family, that we played for the very first time together in a back to back set. Then the week after we went to Untold music festival in Romania and we also played as Omnia and Ben Gold back to back. We decided we were only going to play our own music, to make our sets original and unique. We were then booked to close the main stage at ASOT 900 and we decided that maybe it was a good time to create a new name, new branding, new logo and almost turn it into a show.”

What does FUTURECODE bring to the scene, and what makes you different?

“I don’t know how other artists are approaching their sets, but in our case, what’s key for us is that we only play our own music. At ASOT 900 we premiered seven world exclusives. We played last weekend at AIM music festival in Montreal and dropped another three new tunes…”

It makes sense, you are less limited and more free to create, than under Ben Gold or Omnia, when your fans sometimes expect to listen to a specific kind of sound coming from you.

“Yeah, absolutely. The good thing with FUTURECODE is that we don’t have any rules and I guess that’s what’s fun about it. Right now we’re working on developing our set. We have 100,000 views already on YouTube for our ASOT 900 show, and we don’t want people to come to our shows and hear the same set. So we are making new music, new demos, mashups… we’re really trying to push it as far as we can, and we’re really enjoying it.”

You are going to travel quite a bit this summer with appearances at major festivals like today at EF, but also ASOT Mexico, AIM Music Festival, Mysteryland, UNTOLD… What can your fans expect from your sets?

“Loads of new music from ‘Sound Advice: Chapter Two’, lots of FUTURECODE… I am also working on new music and collaborations to release in early 2020. I’m really looking forward to ASOT Mexico, my album is released on that weekend too. It would be awesome to premier new music alongside my album.”

You have been part of the Armada family for some years already, but now you are also based in Amsterdam. How does it feel to live here and how’s your experience been so far?

“I’ve been signed to Armada now for five years. Producing the ASOT 750 Anthem was definitely a highlight and turning point in my Armada career. We had a long meeting when I was planning Sound Advice: Chapter One and said I wanted to write more song-based records, like “There Will Be Angels”. We’ve been working on the new album since this time last year. Everything has been great so far.

I feel really settled in Amsterdam. I’ve been here just over one year, I have a car and no longer need GPS to get to Schiphol, I’m starting to know my way around the city. I don’t have a bike yet because I don’t really need it since everything is so close… I’m 10 minutes on one tram and I’m at Centraal Station! I can’t see myself going back to London in the near foreseeable future. Maybe it’s the air, maybe it’s the water, maybe it’s just the Dutch way, but things are really working and I’m very much enjoying my time here!”