- GAIA is mother earth.
It's a reference to the sound
where we both come from.
We actually met through trance music.
And yeah, it's the common ground.
It's the music why we met each other,
and it's very important, I think,
to never forget your roots,
where you're coming from.
Well personally,
I've always been a massive
fan of bands like The Orb,
Klaus Schulze, Tomita,
Tangerine Dream, Vangelis,
Future Sound of London.
And I really miss that music nowadays.
It seems like it's been
something from the past,
where I think it's so powerful.
Trance music comes from these
early synthesizer sounds.
Kraftwerk is very important.
808 State.
Yeah, a couple of those bands.
And I grew up listening to that music,
and I think I found
something in Benno that,
we clicked on a musical level,
because he was also really
a big fan of that sound.
- And it's just funny to see
how trance has been evolving
over the past 20 years.
I mean, when we started,
it was totally different compared to now,
and there was a story before that as well.
And it was just interesting to see
if we could combine all the
sounds that we already did,
that we're doing right now.
But you know, to do something
where we grew up with.
- The "Moons of Jupiter",
for me, is a monument,
for the artists that I admire the most.
Particularly Kraftwerk, The Orb, Speedy J,
Future Sound of London, Klaus Schulze,
Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis.
But also, we're pretty big techno-heads.
You know, Chris Liebing, Sven Väth,
you know, we even go to
techno festivals together.
So I think we both have a techno heart
with a melodic background.
And we just felt that
there is a void right now
for that kind of music.
It's something that we love,
but you don't hear it a lot anymore.
I mean, there's the odd album
that really striked me.
Recently I've really be
loving Carbon Based Lifeforms,
and Bicep, and that kind of sound.
But there's never really been an homage
to the early '90s,
when the sound we now
call trance was born.
Jam and Spoon, Oliver
Lieb, yeah, you name it;
those guys spring to mind.
And for me,
"Moons of Jupiter" is the
next step in the GAIA project.
I mean, GAIA comes from trance,
but I think I wanna show
my diversity as a musician.
And I think it's almost,
I mean, the GAIA stuff, for me,
fuels all the other Armin van Buuren stuff
that we're producing.
- But the funny thing, for me,
is that as much as we like
the techno beats as well,
I have never managed to
make a proper techno record,
or whatever you would call it.
Just to have the beats like that,
and to have a simple melody.
Up 'til now it didn't really fit,
so from my perspective,
it took like, 20 years,
to get to this point,
that we finally can combine
those things as well.
- I think the GAIA project
is quite bold, to be honest.
Because we don't want
to answer to anybody.
We don't do collaborations.
We have no vocal tracks,
or featured vocal singers.
We don't wanna do remixes as GAIA,
at least for now.
In fact, we completely
destroyed the concept
of making an album.
We did it in exactly the opposite way.
So normally you would go into the studio,
you would write an album,
and then you would mix it and master it,
and then you would decide
which singles you're gonna promote,
and then you would go on tour.
With GAIA, we did it completely
the other way around.
We went on tour before
we finished the album.
- Actually, there was no album at all.
- There was no album.
- We could not even, our production team,
we couldn't even have them,
give them a proper listen,
as to what they could expect.
- There was no music,
there was just loops.
- Yeah, we had to write it down.
And the first time that
we did it was in Paradiso.
And that was pretty much fun,
because then, for the first time,
we heard what we did.
We even didn't know what it was gonna be.
And then afterwards, we had the time
to make it a proper album.
- So based on the reaction
of that first show
that we did in Paradiso,
we made the album.
'Cause we felt the music,
and there was some sort
of a natural sequence
of the loops that we created.
So what we did was 100% live.
There was no arranged music
like you would do as a DJ.
So it was very exciting.
It was probably one of
the most exciting things
I've done in my career,
because it was very scary,
but very pure (chuckling)--
- To say the least, yeah.
Yeah when we started,
the first thing that
we really wanted to do
was create loops, just
loops, just like that.
And then we thought:
Let's do it, make it
as simple as possible,
put it in hardware,
and just pick the essence of it,
just pick a couple of loops,
a couple of layers.
And that's what we did.
And then we could control those.
Say, okay, we want to filter them,
we want to have the beats away,
and we want to have more melody,
we want to have more verve,
we want to rise, we wanna clap right now.
And that was the exciting part.
- Benno bought joysticks
from a Chinese manufacturer,
like a computer game joystick.
And he removed the--
- The springs, the springs.
- The spring from the inside.
So you had A, B, C, and D,
which you could manipulate.
- Yeah, in that sense it was,
I always had a dream,
because I did some live
things in the past,
but it always felt a little bit,
you were stuck in just
what you were having.
Now what I would find really interesting
is have a knob that
does two things at once.
So you can do two things at once.
Not just one knob, but two.
And then when we made this device,
and we first tried it,
we felt, "Hey, this is
really going to work."
And then the creativity
that we have in our mind,
it could come out.
- So we completely started from scratch
also with the set-up,
because we wanted to limit ourselves
to not overuse the CPU-load
of the laptops that we use.
'Cause obviously the laptops
triggered the MIDI files.
So we decided to only use one substance.
So all the sounds you
hear on "Moons of Jupiter"
are created by one substance.
Because if you have more than
100 plugins in a project,
the project will be very slow,
and it will drain the CPU,
and especially if you're
standing in a club,
or at a festival,
the laptops get warm really fast.
So we wanted to have
the CPU-load very low,
and that's when Benno
came up with the idea,
why don't we limit ourselves,
rather than buying every
plugin on the planet.
And I think that was really powerful,
because we had to only use one substance.
I mean, six instances of,
but it's one substance,
it's the Native Instruments MASSIVE.
- I think the thing that's most difficult
is to see what clip is
actually doing what,
what kind of layer is behind it,
how are we gonna bring
this to the audience,
and bring it to ourselves.
And then we have the
play that we are playing.
I mean, he is doing
things that I don't know.
We didn't study anything.
We didn't prepare.
Obviously we know what we're doing--
- We don't have a backup.
- We don't have a backup,
and we kind of know what we want.
I mean, I can see that when
he's doing certain things
on a certain knob,
I know, okay, in like, eight beats,
he's coming back with a kick.
And then I know, okay,
then if he's going to do that,
then I'm going to give it
a little bit more space,
give it a little bit more
filter open, more melodies.
- And if we feel the
crowd's really digging
a certain vibe in a track,
we can extend it and play with the crowd.
Yeah, and that's so much more exciting,
creating music on the spot,
live, for the audience.
And yeah,
I really wanna stress that
this is such an inspiration,
also, for all the other
projects that we're doing.
But GAIA is the opposite
of what you would do
as Armin van Buuren I think.
But it's still also me, you know,
'cause we produced it together,
and there's a lot of my DNA into it.
When I listen to "Moons of Jupiter,"
it really brings me back to
when I started as a producer.
And it felt such a relief
when we were in the studio
creating the live set,
not to be limited by an arrangement, or.
We were just creating loops.
And loops sounds very, I mean,
when you hear the word loop
you think of four kicks,
or 16 claps,
but a loop can also be a very
long sequence of strings,
or a big melody that is evolving.
But by having loops,
already the big classical composers,
like Ravel and Mozart,
already knew that the power of repetition,
and that this is what we want to express
and experiment with with GAIA.
It's a melodic album, but it's a journey.
GAIA is mother earth,
and we're taking you to
the "Moons of Jupiter".
It's another planet in the
Milky Way of Armin van Buuren.
- Yeah, well one of the reasons
that it's natural for us to do it this way
is because we know each other for so long.
I think for, well?
- Well, we've been making
music since 2006 together.
- Yeah, so we go a long way back.
And during this time,
when you're in studio,
you know each other at a
certain point that, you know,
okay, he's going to say,
"I want you to have this."
And them I'm, "Yeah, but
I cannot move faster."
I mean, this is what it is.
So we know each other that well.
And then it's just a matter
of performing it live.
That's the really fun part,
because if it's works, it's like, yeah,
I knew you were gonna do this,
and I could anticipate it on that one.
And he has the same with me.
- Maybe, yeah.
I've always been a big
fan of space, you know.
I was a nerd growing up,
watching "Close Encounters
of the Third Kind,"
"2001: A Space Odyssey," "Star Wars."
I've always been a massive fan of space.
And I think trance
music and space, for me,
has always been, it's been
a big role in my life.
And I've always dreamed
of doing a concept album.
I had the idea
for doing a "Moons of
Jupiter" kind of project
for a long time.
And then I discovered that Jupiter
has 67 satellites.
And I thought, "That's amazing."
Why not make a journey
that stop at some of these satellites?
- The fun part is also
that these all have different diameters,
some are rough, some are round in this,
so we were more free
to actually experiment sound-wise as well.
We could say, "This is a real rough moon,
"so there you go."
And we could do it.
- Absolutely.
For me, if you listen
to "Moons of Jupiter,"
it is really like GAIA takes
you on a trip to Jupiter,
and you fly on a spaceship to the moons.
This is what you would hear.
It's a soundtrack for that journey.
- I think it's almost essential,
just you listen to the
album from the very start
to the very end,
to get to that concept.
Because the tracks on itself,
we like 'em as well, of course.
But it's the journey that
makes it so interesting.
- Specifically for this.
And it's more than a mixed album.
I want to stress how we made this.
We first did the live show.
Then we did the sequence,
'cause we knew there needs to be an album,
'cause people, they wanna have
a reference for some sort.
But when you go to see
a live show of GAIA,
we may take a different
route next to the moons,
depending on the crowd's reaction.
So it's not a fixed,
this sequence is not a fixed thing for us.
You could fly, and passing
different moons all the time.
And that's what makes it very interesting.
So having the separate tracks
doesn't really do the album justice.
It's even more than a mixed CD.
It's not like we had individual
tracks and made a mix album.
All the sounds that you hear
are sort of intertwined.
So I strongly recommend everybody
to listen to the entire sequence,
rather than the individual tracks.
Which is difficult now with
Spotify and everything,
'cause everybody's used to
checking individual tracks.
But if you can, please
listen to "Moons of Jupiter"
and see it as a journey.
- This is also something
that, speaking for myself,
I love to do for so long.
Because normally you will make a track,
and it's just a track
for a certain setting,
and then that's it.
But it's just so interesting
if you take the concept,
and you can fill it in from the very start
to the very end,
so different tempos, do different sounds,
different stories if you like.
Then it makes it more
interesting for us as artists
to express what we think is,
well, I could not even call it trance,
or techno, or ambient.
I don't know what it is.
It's all of that, actually,
that makes it so interesting.
- I felt an enormous amount of freedom
creating "Moons of Jupiter,"
because we didn't want to make trance,
we didn't want to make non-trance,
we didn't want to make techno,
we didn't try to stay away from techno,
we didn't want to make down tempo,
nor did we want to stay
away from down tempo.
We didn't want to limit ourselves,
we just wanted to go into the studio
without any prejudice,
and create music that
we felt came from us.
Like, without any expectations,
certain tempo, nothing.
The only agreement that
we had was the limitation,
in the sense of the six synthesizers,
the two live synthesizers,
and the sequencer.
Trance is a very important
part of both our lives.
I mean, Benno started
his career as Rank 1.
You know, he's had a
massive amount of success
with a couple of the
tracks that he's done,
and he's worked with a lot
of different people as well.
We're not exclusively
working with each other.
But we just have,
I don't know--
- Common ground.
- Common ground.
We don't need two words,
we think the same,
usually when we hear a track.
Having said that though,
we really compliment each other,
because, I don't know,
it just feels like when
he's thinking this,
I'm thinking that.
And sometimes I'm stuck with a track,
and he continues it, and I'm like, "Oh!"
And it's just like
he's the second part
of my brain sometimes.
- Actually, some of those tracks
are actually certain parts that he did
while being on the road,
and that I did somewhere else.
And then we came together,
and some of those things,
they didn't, were interesting
enough on its own,
but then we combined with
all that we'd done together,
and then it worked out.
It's just, it was really
interesting to see how that worked.
- Yeah, yeah sometimes I just
was working on GAIA stuff,
and we had the agreement
not to arrange anything,
we were just making loops.
And sometimes I just had a kick,
or I just had a loop that I loved,
that was the only thing that remained
from one hour on my laptop
looking though different libraries,
or manipulating sounds,
or fiddling with Native
Instruments MASSIVE,
or tweaking the Arturia or Virus synths.
And you just find a sound,
like, "Oh, this is an amazing."
And I played it to Ben, and I was like,
"Oh, I have an idea for it."
And I just feel like the whole
"Moons of Jupiter" project
didn't cost me energy in a sense of,
when you're creating a track at home
and you stare at your sequence,
there's always this moment like,
"Oh, I have to arrange it,
"oh, I have to build this snare fill."
And I have news for you.
I think this is the first electronic album
that doesn't include a single
snare fill, or a crash,
or a reverb kick, or a reverse noise.
None, on the entire
"Moons of Jupiter" album,
there's not a single snare fill.
That's quite bold.
(both laughing)
- Well, it's true though.
- It's true.
- Yeah, how would you describe that?
- We started in Miami
a couple of years ago
with the concept of GAIA Live,
and then we weared hoodies,
because we feel, I don't
know if you agree Mr. Benno,
but you have to help me.
We agree it shouldn't be about the face,
or the happy, smiling guy,
or the guy jumping in the air.
It should be, really, about the music,
and the feeling that it evokes.
So we started with that concept.
And we just felt like we
have to move on with this.
That's why we came with
the completely live setup.
And to also, I think first and foremost,
we did this for ourselves,
rather than for a crowd.
Of course, we hope that
people will like the album,
but we did it for us.
- We enjoy it that much,
that when we were doing this
and we were building this setup,
you have to imagine that
we were actually kids
in the candy store--
- Kids in the candy store, yeah.
- We were doing things (roaring)--
- Love this!
- [Benno] We should record it.
- And normally we have all these sounds,
like sometimes we're creating a pop track,
for example, in the studio.
And then you're just,
you're putting a loop, and
then he puts a reverb on it,
it's like, "Whoa!"
And then we're just grooving.
And then, oh no, we can't do that groove,
'cause we're working on the pop tracks,
that won't work on the
radio, so forget it.
But now we were like,
"One day we're gonna do an album
"that we are gonna do
exactly what we wanna do,
"and there's nobody that's
gonna tell us what to do."
So nobody here at Armada, not our wives,
not our best friends.
The only person I had to answer
to for this album is Benno.
- And vice versa.
- So that's it.
There was no compromise.
This is who we are, and
if you don't like it,
tough luck.
(both laughing)
- Yeah, we thought it
would be interesting,
because it was really
hard to tell the guys,
"Oh we're gonna do this track
and it sounds like this."
"Okay, well what we're gonna do then?"
So then we came up with the idea,
since we have MIDI loops,
since we have MIDI triggers,
why not use 'em.
I mean, if you go to a big stage,
a lot of the things are
actually triggered by MIDI.
So we thought, "Okay, just send
out the things that we have.
"See if they can do something with it."
And at first it was one
big ball of MIDI data.
But then we decide okay, we're
gonna use this, and that,
and that's actually what
triggers the visuals,
what triggers the lighting.
So wow, we are sound guys,
and visual guys right now,
in a way.
- I also noticed that my team,
my team that I normally tour
with when I do my big shows,
they're also involved in the GAIA project,
and I just felt a whole
new energy with my team
when we started doing the GAIA project.
Because honestly,
it felt like I was going
to a new university,
or to a first date.
'Cause everything I knew before was gone.
We just started from scratch.
And my team got so excited that
they actually wrote software
to use the MIDI triggers that we sent out.
And we didn't even know it was possible.
So Benno was in his
studio most of the time,
not even making music,
he was soldering (chuckling),
he was soldering equipment together.
- Yeah, it's another hobby.
I mean, you have to have hobbies.
I mean, we make music, it's a hobby.
But it's also what we do allow--
- Part of the setup that we
have is custom made for GAIA,
so it's equipment that no one has--
- But this is also because
if we're in studio most of the times,
we feel limited in a way.
We have dozens of controls,
we have dozens of hardware things.
But we felt it would be nice
to have just certain things
that we can touch on,
and that actually does what
we feel is very important
to bring a track;
and that's those joysticks.
But it's also, for example,
we have a device that you can say,
"Okay, I want the kicks there."
You can mute 'em, you can add them,
and it's just the touch of a button.
And normally you would
have to go to the mouse,
click to a certain clip or whatever,
and add those bass drums to get the sound.
Now we can just, we have
it on our fingertips.
- So we add, for example,
if you see us, we program the drums live.
So, for example, there may be a kick,
but then the closed hat
or the claps or whatever,
we trigger them, we put
them live in the sequence,
or on the spot.
And we can't save that (chuckling).
Every show we do we need to do it again,
and then we won't do it the same.
So you are sure that ever
GAIA show you're coming to,
"Moons of Jupiter" show,
will be different.
It has to be,
because we didn't record
or preprogram anything;
it's just the loops that we have.
- Well, one side of the story
is that we fell for this project,
it's all about the music.
It's not so much about
the faces and who we are,
it's about what we want to express:
the music.
So we thought it will be cool
to have a sort of that kind of thing,
that hides our faces.
But also, it reminds me a bit
of like "Star Wars" kind
of atmosphere, you know?
It's, yeah.
- Well, you know how they say
that the dance floor is
a new church, in a way.
I don't know if I agree with that,
but I think it's a little provocative
to stand on stage with those hoodies on.
Trust me, it's not easy, 'cause
it's very warm (chuckling),
and they're leather.
And especially him, he's very sweaty.
It's worth it though.
Also I wanna say that, you know,
in 2010 I had a little bit of backlash
when I was number one voted by "DJ Mag,"
'cause I felt restricted
very much in the studio,
because I was trying to
please my fans too much,
and I was not being myself anymore.
So all I wanted to do was make a follow up
to the single that I had before
that had a little bit of success.
So I forgot
that I was supposed to be
having fun in the studio,
and that's what I'm doing right now.
I think if you see Armin
van Buuren in 2019,
you see a guy that does
trance, does pop things,
does down tempo stuff,
but also does a radio show,
and that's because I now accept
more who I am as an artist.
This is who I want to be
and this is what I want to represent.
And I know that for some of the people
who have certain expectations about GAIA,
it might be a little bit
of a something they have to get used to.
But this is probably the most
personal album I've ever done;
probably the album I'm most proud of,
because it's one story.
It feels like it's whole, for me,
and it is really like
you look into my soul.
Like, if people don't like this album,
and they say something bad about it,
they will crush me (laughing).
No, it's true, because it's so personal.
It is so, it comes from the heart.
And I, when I listen to it today,
I don't get bored of it.
I can listen to it over, and
over, and over, and over again,
and every time still be
surprised about the tracks,
or still love listening to it.
- I think it's also because
it's somehow in our DNA.
I think the people that
really love the things
that we let them listen to,
they understand what we mean,
they understand it as well.
That's just, it's just so
powerful to see that those sounds,
it's either hitting hard or it's not.
I don't know, if I may say it is.
And of course I hope that a
lot of people will love this,
because I personally feel,
I mean, as Rank 1,
I did a lot of trance things in the past,
but still, this touches
that same essence for me.
I mean, I like to go to
techno festivals and,
I like Chris Liebing for example,
I love those beats and I
love that type of sound.
And it was just so interesting to see
if we could just touch it a little bit.
I mean, it's not that.
But because it's way too melodic, I guess.
But those melodies,
I think that's the big part.
Those melodies, they touch our souls.
I mean, they're very simple.
- Very simple.
- Very simple.
But it's the way they evolve,
well, it brings us in a
sort of a trance, basically.
Yeah, well that's the main
reason for doing this.
Yeah, well one of the things
that we really wanted to do
is in this story that we're telling
to start really minimal;
to start basically with nothing.
I mean, you're in space,
there is not so much in space,
I mean, there is just void.
And then, the further you go,
the more you can see, and
the more will come to you.
So, and this is what we wanted
to get the audience
triggered by this as well,
and it is gradual.
But for us, it's essential, I think.
I mean, if I listen to it again,
and over and over again,
we had to check those masters.
And every time, we had to
go over this album again,
and it didn't bore us.
And that was, how many
times did we listen to it?
- Unbelievable, unbelievable.
- But it's the journey from
minimal to the very end is,
well, not so minimal anymore.
(interviewing calling out)
- Well, it's also a reaction
to these times, you know,
where everything goes fast,
and everything's Spotify,
and everything's quick, quick,
and playlists and everything.
It's an anti-reaction.
We wanna take people to a
different place in the universe
and show them how beautiful it is.
Come with us to the "Moons of Jupiter",
and we'll show you how
beautiful it can be,
if you open your mind to it.
And of course I understand
that the people who listen
to the older GAIA tracks
will be somewhat surprised,
hopefully in a positive way.
It takes a little bit of
an effort to, I think,
to get adjusted to the new GAIA sound.
Of course, you'll still hear
the older GAIA sound in there,
because we're both trance fans by heart.
But we don't wanna be
stuck in the trance thing.
We wanna be moving on, and tell people,
"Hey, there's more
planets in this universe."
Not saying that the current
trance sound is bad at all,
you know, that's not what we're saying.
We're just saying like,
"If you open your mind to this journey,
"and you come with us
to the Moons of Jupiter,
"to this dark world
where it's minimalistic,
"where it's exciting,
where it's beautiful.
"If you let us take you,
"I'm sure that you'll be amazed."
- Well I think we made a big picture
of all of these things.
I mean, you could see it like,
if you're watching a very big painting.
At first you're zooming into one,
you can zoom into one person,
which can be interesting.
But it's more interesting
to see what's happening
for the rest of the painting.
And that's actually what we
felt is missing these days,
at least for us.
And this is,
how many times did we
not tell each other like,
"Why are we not gonna do this?"
- Exactly, yeah.
- And every time
there was a reason not to.
And at a certain point we said,
"Well, we have to do this before we die."
I mean, this is something
we really need to be done.
- The biggest compliment
that I got was from you when,
I remember,
'cause normally Benno and I
sit in the studio together,
all the time, almost every day.
And we still do.
But for this particular album,
when we were arranging it,
we worked remotely.
So I had the loops, and
we had to be arranged,
so I was arranging, and he was arranging,
and we were sending each
other back and forth.
And then during one of those conversation,
'cause I was on tour and I
did the arranging, mostly,
on my hotel room,
and he was in his studio.
And he was fixing,
and then I got the project
back and I sent it to him,
and it was 50/50.
And at one point he was so
into it that he told me,
he said,
"I have to release this album
before I die (laughing)."
And it sounded pretty dramatic,
but I had exactly the same feeling.
I was like, "This is so personal.
"No matter what this album
will do as a success,
"or whether we will be successful or not,
"or whether we will upset the
whole trance family or not,
"I don't know.
"This is who we are.
"If you don't like it,
at least we are happy."
- But that proves to us, I think,
that proves to us that it's
a genuine thing, right?
- It's a very genuine thing.
- And that's, I think,
really important these days as well.
I mean, as an artist you
can do projects and tracks,
but doing something this personal,
and we like it this much,
it needs to be done, I'm sorry.
- Yeah, we need to share this with you.
And I'm really happy
that I'm in a position
that I can, of course, release this,
and Benno put his trust in me.
But also, as a human being,
music is so important to me, personally.
And when I listen to Carbon
Based Lifeforms, for example,
I'm a massive fan of those guys;
big props to you.
That was a big inspiration for the album,
as was The Orb, as was
Future Sound of London.
I always dreamed of making an album
that had that power to me,
and that's what we've done.
So we've created something
that we always wanted to make.
That's a lot, to put a long story short.
And the good news is,
Jupiter has 67 satellites,
and we've only taken you,
on this album, to 21.
So who knows.
- Well, one of the things
that we really needed to do
is to have a big rehearsal somewhere.
We couldn't take the risk
just to be on stage somewhere
and that our production guys don't know
what they could expect.
I mean, we had to connect our stuff.
So that's why we rented a venue,
and there we could just try out things
and see if it works.
Because we had an idea,
"Okay, this must work."
But it must work on stage as well,
and that's why we--
- 'Cause we're not the only artist.
I mean, of course, we are
the two guys on stage,
but the visual artist
there in front of house,
are equally adding to the show,
because they interact with us,
and they get the MIDI triggers.
And so the show is not
only based around us,
or the equipment that we use
and the stuff we create live,
but the sound guy, and the
visual artist, the light guy;
they're extremely important.
They could be on stage with us.
But of course, they
have to be in the back,
'cause they have to
see what they're doing.
So it's a special stage setup
that we hope to bring
all around the world.
When we decided to do the
"Moons of Jupiter" project,
actually, I was also motivated, of course,
by Benno's enthusiasm and excitement.
And he had some ideas
about equipment that he wanted to create,
and wanted to use.
So we started testing with
this equipment already
at his house,
in his studio.
And I said, "Well, learning
from Armin Only shows,
"I know you can never do
an important show like that
"without having a proper rehearsal."
So we booked a big concert
venue in my home city of Liden,
and we were there for a couple of days
just to do the actual show.
We recorded those sets,
and those sets are not identical,
they're completely different.
So one set was an hour and half,
the second set was two
hours and 20 minutes.
And then it was really
motivational also, for my crew,
'cause they're the visual guys,
they get different triggers.
But they were so happy
because now they could
look into our session
and see what we were actually doing,
and interact with that.
So what you see happening
is an integral part.
So yeah, it made a lot of sense for us
to do it this way.
We're doing something new,
we're doing not something that
someone else has done before,
and that just feels exciting.
- Yeah, but there was,
the most exciting part
was the very first time
that we pressed play.
I mean, you have to imagine
that we only had loops, right?
We only had some equipment
that we just soldered,
and we connected it,
and the very first time
that we even tried to make something,
we were like, "Oh man,
this is hard work"--
- Yeah, it's hard work.
- Is this ever gonna happen?
And this was just four days
before this big rehearsal.
So we were like, "Oh no."
But then we felt like
the pressure of doing it,
and being on the spot,
then you get into the zone.
I mean, if the setup would be here,
and then just turning the
knobs isn't gonna work.
You have to be in that zone.
And that's what's the real fun part.
And that's why we also did this rehearsal.
You know, we invited friends
to have the experience,
and then it worked.
- Yeah, we did a show
just for our friends and the management,
and a couple of people that we knew.
I think 30 people?
My parents.
And we did it at like, full volume,
in Leiden, my home city--
- Which was pretty scary for 30 people.
- It was very scary,
and then we were done and it
was kind of round of applause,
and then we looked at each other,
"Did you like it?"
(Benno laughing)
And then our managers said,
"Yeah, we liked it,
"but what is it?
"What is it?
"What is it?"
They tried to wrap their heads around it.
And we looked at each other like,
"What do you mean what is it?
"It's GAIA."
- The thing is, and I
want to stress this out,
what we actually did
there was doing the album.
And an album is something different
than you might do on stage.
This is why we did the album.
Because most of the times
when you are on a stage,
you're limited.
I mean, there is a DJ might
be playing before you,
and then it doesn't make sense
to go from ambient to
hard techno, for example.
But then we felt the opportunity to do it.
And this is something that, for me,
was really, how do you say it?
It was something that
I really wanted to do--
- It's producing, it's producing on stage.
Like for example, if
you have a groove going,
we have some amazing
kick drums and basslines
and loops and whatever not.
And sometimes if you feel
like the crowd is really
digging that groove,
you don't really want
to change the groove,
but maybe you want a
different melody on top,
'cause otherwise it gets boring.
So the idea behind GAIA
is also to manipulate what we're doing
based on what we feel that
the crowd is responding to.
So we may have a loop that we really like,
and we just keep that loop running,
and go into the next track.
We may up the tempo
and we may go down with the tempo.
Everything that you think of is possible.
We just made a setup,
which, for some people may be
very difficult to understand,
but for us is a very logical setup.
- But the fun part for me as well,
is that we can bypass each other.
So for example,
I would have a knob that
filters all things out
that he wants to put in,
and vice versa.
And this, we actually had
some unexpected things
that really worked because of that.
Because you never know
what's gonna happen.
- Yeah, it's a little
garden of experimentation,
and I think the only way
that you can keep music
exciting for yourself
is if you stayed a
little kid in the studio.
And right now there's so much more,
so much possible, you know,
with modern-day equipment,
and with the DAWs,
and I think it's just a
matter of limiting yourself
rather than expanding.
So we consciously chose our favorite DAW,
our favorite softsynth,
and our favorite analog
synths and equipment.
Benno said to me, when we
were producing in the studio,
"I wanna have one knob, right
here next to my coffee cup,
"where I can control the
filter and the reverb.
"Why doesn't it exist?"
He said that, I think maybe 100 times.
So I always told him, "Build it."
And at one point he was like,
"You know what?
"I am gonna build it."
So he created equipment that didn't exist,
and that we're using right
now for the GAIA show.
And it makes total sense.
I mean, probably some
manufacturer watching
will probably try to copy it,
but it doesn't matter.
As long as we can use it on stage
and manipulate what we're feeling.
And it's so great to have that possibility
to really steer the journey,
'cause you come in our spaceship,
and we're taking the journey.
We're passing Io, we're passing Europa,
we're passing Themisto.
We're going on the journey, just join us,
and just let us take the wheel
and we'll steer you to
the right direction.
- And it's also, I think,
20 years of studio experience,
that we put into this project.
- No man, it's two little kids
with a garden of toys (laughing).
- That's what we all want, right?
- Exactly.
Well Benno doesn't wanna tour that much,
otherwise he would've been a DJ--
- True that.
- Which is fine.
You know, we both have kids,
and he just decided to be more at home,
which I can totally understand.
But for GAIA show, we need
to be on the road together.
So we're gonna do a
limited amount of shows.
We don't do 100 shows a year, we can't.
It's also a very different way of touring,
'cause when I tour as Armin
van Buuren I have my crew,
I have my stage setup,
you know, the CDJs and whatnot.
There's not a CDJ in sight
when I do the GAIA show.
Everything is loop-based,
and everything that we do is live.
So we have keyboards on stage,
we have live equipment.
We have everything to make a live show,
but it's not a DJ setup.
So we have to bring all
this equipment with us
around the world,
which is very costly,
'cause it's pretty big equipment;
you know, the boxes are pretty big.
- And having said that,
I cannot wait to perform
those tracks again on stage.
Because the fun part is, for me at least,
to see how will it be if
we do it the next time,
and the next time.
Because every time it will
be different in a way.
- And we have the freedom now
to go to other moons that are
not on the album, as well.
So we will keep generating loops.
And you know, if there's a
day that we're in the studio,
trying to create a new
Armin van Buuren track,
then we might just say,
"Not this day, we're
going to make some loops."
And then we'll just go in nerd mode
and create a couple of new loops.
So it may be that if
you come to a GAIA show,
you'll hear a completely new track.
But please remember
that that track is being
arranged for you on the spot,
it's not something that
we've prepared beforehand.
- Well one of the things
that makes it interesting,
this project for me as well,
is that finally I can put
my technical, nerdish me,
into these projects as well.
I felt that we needed some
more control than was possible.
And you can buy almost any controller.
There were just not the
controllers that we wanted to use,
with 20 years of experience studio time.
So we thought, "Let's build it."
And I have a background of, well,
I'm a amateur electronics guy.
I mean, it's just so much fun
to see what you can buy these days.
Just little things, 30 Euros,
and they're computers.
And actually, it is a bit scary,
because we go on stage,
for thousands of people--
- With self-built equipment.
- Yeah.
It could be stuck, I don't know.
I mean, we wrote software for it,
and perhaps it doesn't work,
and then we're, all of
a sudden it does work.
But we took the risk,
and it pays off,
because now we finally can have our ideas
that are in our head for so long.
- Yeah, shared.
(both laughing)
Thank you for buying this controller.
- What's the warranty life?
You don't get any warranty at all.
- Hey guys, I'm Armin van Buuren.
- Hi, I'm Benno de Goeij.
- Let us take you on a journey
to the "Moons of Jupiter,"
as GAIA.
- This is something
that we wanted to create
for a very long time.
- Our most personal album yet.
