If Nic Chagall and Bossi hadn’t chanced upon each other at a label office in Cologne in 1998, then they would never take pride in a production partnership that has now come to define not just the club scene in Germany but across the international DJ circuit. A keen ear for music brought the two independent DJs together as they melted their trance beats through a band they christened, Cosmic Gate.
As they perform at Smirnoff Experience 2010, they will bring to Bangalore the sounds that lead the music charts across the world including Mental Atmosphere, Firewire and Somewhere over the Rainbow remix from The Wizard of Oz.
As a DJ duo, you’ve been together for 10 years. How has the journey been so far? Exciting! We have seen the change in trance music for over a decade and changed ourselves a lot too. Our music became much more popular and our agendas are getting busier every year.
With becoming No 19 in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs List last year, life is getting even busier and we are touring every weekend all around the globe. Our hard work and our passion for the music have paid out and now we are even more eager to work a little harder just to see what else might be in store for us.
As artistes how do you manage to solve conflicts, if at all it arises? We are working together as a team for more than 10 years now. It sometimes almost feels like being a married couple with all those little quarrels. But we know how to deal with it and put it aside without hard feelings. And there is always our management, who helps us from outside the team.
With piracy on the rise, are you looking at live shows or are you still focused on production? Well, we are not ‘only’ DJs, but also producers. Making music is what we love and we will not cease to do it, because it doesn’t sell as well as in the past. It is hard to see that our music is not appreciated by everybody as what it is — our work, the thing we pay our rents with. But we are what we are now because of the music we produce and we will not stop that because of some fools trying to ruin it for everybody. But touring is also a lot of fun and we like to see the direct reaction of the crowd to our music. So we will just continue to do both! When you remix tracks, what are the basic things that you bear in mind so that the track not only sounds better, but also does not take away the spirit of the original? We take the parts that we like the most, and build the ‘Cosmic’ ingredients around to make it our own special sound. There is no master plan behind it. Sometimes even goofing around just sparks a great idea.
What did you grow up listening to? We have a very wide range of influences, starting in the late 70s with disco, 80's new romantic and wave. Also end 80 and 90's house/acid/techno house, 90's techno and trance, but also classic music or even EARLY hip hop.
We are quiet open for what we see as good music! In a place consumed by hip hop, do you think there is room for trance in India? We are not so familiar with the Indian music scene but we are sure that there is room for trance everywhere. In Germany, Trance is not so mainstream or popular at the moment, but there are always people listening to our music and loving it. But music trends change and like in fashion, it kind of moves in circles. Surely there will be trance on the rise again soon.
(Nikhil Chinapa and DJ Pearl will also perform at Smirnoff Experience 2010. The show will take place on May 9 at E Zone, 4.30 pm onwards. Visit, www.bookmyshow.com/concerts/ smirnoffexperience.)