Cosmic Gate Talks Trance and New Music in iEDM Exclusive Interview

EDC had a heavily stacked lineup, filled with genres from the entire EDM spectrum. Many producers on the lineup have played at the flagship festival many times, and among the established EDC veterans was the renown trance duo Cosmic Gate.

Claus Terhoeven and Stefan Bossems have both been deeply involved in the EDM scene for many years, and we recently had a chance to chat with them about the trance scene and their experience at EDC. 

iEDM: Hey, guys, you've played EDC a number of times. Do you still get nervous in any way before performing? 

Cosmic Gate: Nervous is maybe the wrong word, but sure it's a positive kind of excitement we feel before every gig, the contemplation to get out and be with our fans and play our new music, share our passion, this sure didn’t change after all these years, this little kick we feel before every show, just great!

iEDM: What was one of your favorite moments of EDC this year? 

Cosmic Gate: Honestly, we took some time to wander around and it was less about a single moment maybe, but the overall beauty and experience of EDC. the amount of work and love that is in it, all these big stages, the light and sound systems, but also so many little things, little details, the overall impact of visual and audio impressions all around with these multiple stages, all these very artistic extras all around is nearly too much to handle, a total positive brain overload! Insomniac truly deserves a huge respect and thank you for what they have grown it in overall these years, for us EDC is a worldwide stand out festival without any doubt.

iEDM: Your newest album 'Materia" features a ton of great music with different energies. From 'Edge of Life's emotive pull to the nightclub appeal of 'Halo,' 'Materia' features a wide range of sounds. What did you enjoy the most about producing this new album? 

Cosmic Gate: Exactly what you are mentioning here, makes us write and produce albums! We want to create music offering a wide range of styles and sounds, of energies as you say, just producing singles simply won’t do the trick for us. An album like material simply gives us more artistic freedom to express ourselves, same counts for the albums before and also Materia.ChapterTwo which we give last finishing touches too as we speak and that will be released on September 1st now holds that wide range of styles and different energy, only do one certain kind of sound would not be us simply, and this counts for our DJ sets as well. 

iEDM: Your collaboration with Gareth Emery and Emma Hewitt on “Going Home” is one of my all-time favorite tracks. Do you have a dream collaboration?

Cosmic Gate: Yes our collaboration Going Home with Emma went so great, and Gareth indeed added a super Remix for it, that was fun! A dream collaboration, it would be working with Depeche Mode, we are just huge fans of their work so long now, so if we dream, we dream big! :)

iEDM: You’ve been in the music scene for a while. How have you seen EDM change?

Cosmic Gate: The change of EDM is maybe something to have a discussion over that might take hours and hours and which is hard to answer in this interview here. We have been part of the scene for 20 years now with Cosmic Gate and been in it before as solo artists already, so we sure have seen things come and go, music and styles change, but we think it's important for art to develop, standing still is the first step back, so there sure is positive and negative aspects to the change of EDM during the years...what overall counts the most for us though, EDM, or let's maybe say dance music is as big as it was never before, the variety of styles is just phenomenal, and everyone can make its pick from commercial pop/dance to deepest underground techno, so much good music for every taste, and this is just the way it should be!

iEDM: What inspired you to start producing trance music?

Cosmic Gate: Trance vibes are just what happens mainly when we write music, what can we say...Trance is the music that simply touches us the most, but in all honesty, we do see Trance a bit differently to most people, that would maybe see or describe it more like a certain kind of genre, which today is mainly the 138 sound...For us Trance is more of a feeling though, it's less genre-bound, Trance is something a track does to us, a feeling it creates in us...some of Eric Prydz's music for example, sure no Trance in a common way, we feel it and play it though, really dig it, it tickles our spine, and that's how we produce our music, we want the music to touch us and hopefully our listener, our goal is not to satisfy certain genres, it's to write hopefully good music that touches us first, and our fans and every new listener hopefully as well. 

iEDM: Anything you’d like to say to your fans?

Cosmic Gate: Thanks for always being there for us, and as said, Materia II is ready, the journey continues! 

Thanks, Cosmic Gate, we appreciate your time and detailed answers to all our questions. Your set at EDC was incredible (if you haven't had a chance yet, check the set out HERE) and we look forward to hearing Materia II when it comes out! In the meantime, keep an eye on Cosmic Gate's SoundCloud for all their newest music and releases!