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THOMAS GOLD is currently smashing it up on dancefloors with his peak-time floor fillers. He has remixed the likes of Lady Gaga, Adele and Miike Snow, as well as releasing his first artist compilation on ex-Swedish House Mafia member Axwell’s Axtone label. Taking inspiration from his hometown Berlin, we find out why everything Thomas touches turns to Gold…
How did you first get into DJing and producing? “I have always been in love with house music and always wanted to DJ in those kinds of clubs. I had my first DJ experience when I played music at my friends’ parties, before I got a residency in a small local club. I started producing at around the same time, and I had quite a simple set-up. Nothing flash — a slow computer, bad speakers and some basic software. But I worked a lot on developing my DJ skills and building up my little production ‘studio’.”
How would you describe your sound? “I’d say it’s house/progressive house, with a lot of influences, from tech house to tribal and electro stuff. Also I am a fan of percussion, so I often use those big drum sounds in my tracks! Generally speaking, I would describe my sound as uplifting, emotional and energetic. I also get a lot of inspiration from Berlin where I live, it has a strong electronic music scene and it’s one of the most influential cities worldwide. The Berlin music scene is very techno/minimal/ underground-orientated, but it’s a great source of inspiration to me.”
You’ve been remixing some pretty major artists… “Yes, I remember when I got the remix request for Lady Gaga, I was like ‘Oh, this is a hard track to remix’. I was not too sure about it, but actually I loved the idea of remixing Lady Gaga, and it was quite a challenge to create a cool club mix out of a very commercial pop song. In the end, I was very happy with the result! I was super excited when I got the remix request for Adele, as I loved the original track ‘Set Fire To The Rain’ so much. I was not sure how to do a proper remix on this track without ‘destroying’ the whole thing. So when I did my mix, I tried to keep a lot of the original vibe of the song. It was not easy, but I’m glad I did it and it’s amazing how much positive feedback I’m still getting for this remix.”
What did you want to achieve when putting together your new compilation? “As this was my very first compilation, I wanted to tell a bit of the Thomas Gold ‘story’. The great thing was that the Axtone guys gave me total freedom in my choice of tracks. I wanted to create something special, rather than a bog-standard DJ compilation. So besides a lot of my personal favourite tunes, many of my remixes and single releases, I also produced some exclusive original tracks, re- edits, mash-ups and special remixes, just for the comp.”
What is your studio set-up like? “My studio is actually my laptop, with a lot of production software. This is cool, as I can bring my stuff and my work with me wherever I go. This makes it easy for me to produce on the road, which is often necessary. Sometimes I book a proper studio and I just connect my laptop to the mixing desk there. Thus I can use the big monitoring speaker system and the other hardware gear for mixing my tracks. It’s good to have both things — the mobile laptop and the proper ‘real’ recording studio.”
When you DJ, what do you use to play your sets? “When I DJ, I use USB hard drives. In the club I connect them to the CDJ players, which I use to play and control the tracks. I have been thinking about jumping to digital DJing software like Traktor/ Ableton, but for me, the CDJs work perfectly for what I do at the moment. I feel very comfortable using the CDJs, so I can focus on the music rather than on any technical stuff in the booth. But maybe I will change my mind one day...”
What have you got planned for the future? “I just had a group of live drummers play with me during my EDC set. I brought a drum line ensemble with me on stage and they performed some of my tracks together with me. This was an amazing experience, the feedback from the crowd was overwhelming! We are actually working on the next show and I think this will be exciting.”
www.djmag.com 077
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