Cosmic Gate – Perspectives, Patience, and the Art of Musical Storytelling on the Virtual Sessions 2/9/26

In this wide-ranging Virtual Sessions conversation, Cosmic Gate’s Bossi reflects on nearly two decades of evolution in electronic music, from early club residencies to global touring and long-form artistic storytelling. The discussion opens with a look back at one of the duo’s earliest appearances, highlighting how underground club culture, extended DJ sets, and patience in musical development helped shape their identity long before short-form content dominated the landscape.

A major focus centers on the Perspectives project, an ambitious multi-part release strategy designed to give music time to breathe. Rather than rushing tracks into an overcrowded release cycle, Cosmic Gate chose to unfold their work in chapters, allowing fans to connect more deeply with each phase while the duo continued touring worldwide. This approach also gave them space to observe how their sound naturally evolved over time.

The conversation expands into the changing role of DJs and producers, touching on the shift from hidden DJ booths to main-stage spectacles, the pressure of social media visibility, and the challenge of staying authentic in a fast-moving industry. Bossi emphasizes that storytelling, musical integrity, and long-form experiences still matter, even as algorithms and trends push toward speed and brevity.

The episode closes with reflections on technology, AI, and the importance of continuous learning. From early production limitations to today’s limitless tools, Cosmic Gate’s perspective underscores adaptability without losing artistic purpose. The dialogue ultimately reinforces a timeless message: meaningful music, given time and care, will always find its audience.

Topics

0:00 Early memories and the origins of a long-running connection
2:10 The idea behind the Perspectives multi-part releases
4:00 Letting music breathe in a fast-paced industry
6:00 Long-form tracks versus short-form content culture
7:50 Building a DJ set that tells a story
9:10 Unexpected places where Cosmic Gate tracks have appeared
11:00 Onstage persona versus offstage reality
13:00 DJs moving from the booth to the spotlight
15:20 Technology, AI, and the future of music creation
21:20 Advice for new producers finding their own sound

Connect with Cosmic Gate

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realcosmicgate
Official Website: https://www.cosmic-gate.de
Music and Releases: Spotify

[Darran]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DJ Sessions Presents the Virtual Sessions. I’m your host Darran and right now I’m sitting in the virtual studios in Seattle, Washington and coming in all the way, I’m gonna try this one out, Mönchengladbach, Germany.

[Bossi]
Pretty good Darran, pretty good.

[Darran]
Thank you very much for being on the show today. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to sit down and talk with you and you’ve been up to a lot of stuff, almost 20 years in the making. You were one of the first guests.

[Bossi]
Yeah, I could not believe it when you told me before, like 20 years, is it?

[Darran]
You know, I think you can still find that episode on our website. If you go back and look at our broadcast show called ITV, type in ITV Nightlife and it was Cosmic Gate at Medusa Nightclub in Seattle, our first pilot episode doing a nightlife episode, which kind of eventually became the DJ Sessions over the years.

[Bossi]
That’s crazy. Dig deep, dig deep guys, dig deep.

[Darran]
Well, now we have 2700 episodes and we’re gearing up to do more and you’re kind of one of our first new guests of 2026 and got a lot of stuff going on there, but we want to talk about you, enough about the history of me. People can always go to our website and find out everything about what I want to talk about, but you’ve been busy out there and you just dropped part three of the Perspectives EP. I mean, part one EP, part two EP, part three on January 30th.

I mean, what an endeavor to just keep producing and tracks and I was looking at all your stuff. Tell us about the Perspectives EP and how that all came about.

[Bossi]
Yeah, how did it all come about? But, you know, looking at you and doing this, like we had this moment, like some years ago when, so first of all, we like albums, but it’s not easy to write 12, roughly, new tracks, release them and as happened to us, it was a while ago, but someone two weeks later than asking, so guys, I love this. When do we hear new stuff?

We were like, we worked on this for a year, one and a half, including all the touring and stuff. It’s a lot of work and we decided actually to go in chapters and we worked two chapters and still touring a lot and now we thought, hey, we do these, let’s call it extended EPs, right? So now we’re on three.

I don’t think we go to four, but yeah, so we like to stretch the release, give the music more time to sit in with our fans, to develop, because it’s the fast, the times we’re living in are so fast paced, right? So we, you know, you can just throw a track every week, but just it’s, I don’t want to say gone and forgotten, good music will always find its audience, but yeah, so we like to stretch things out. We also do have time for touring, you know, different continents, different parts and also after doing it now for the first time to hear the development in the music production itself, we find it interesting.

It’s always two, three, four months in one EP and how the music slowly developed from the one to the other. That’s awesome. Nice experiment for ourselves.

[Darran]
Well, a friend of mine, a long-term friend of mine used to be one of my resident DJs on the show. I posted that I was interviewing you today on, I put it out to TikTok, I think he saw it and he hits me back and goes, I just ordered, I pre-ordered Perspectives 3. I can’t wait to get it.

This is awesome. I can’t believe you’re having it all on the show. So, you know, it’s definitely…

Good guy.

[Bossi]
So he was the one, the one order today.

[Darran]
Well, it’s Sergi Andre Kuhl. He’s a good personal friend of mine that have been with me for years on my brand and my show and is a phenomenal DJ. Got to get those decks out and dust them off, Sergi.

But that being said, you know, you mentioned something about telling, you know, the long form of a song or telling a story or making an album of 12 songs in a day, time where now it’s short content. I mean, you and I go back in the days where songs used to be six minutes, seven minutes long, eight minutes long or longer, or you might have an album and it could tell the whole story. I recently had an article that I read about the reporting in the, like I’m in the media side and doing interviews and how everything’s a short form content interview nowadays.

And you get these two minute soundbites and here I am doing one hour long in-person interviews. I submitted some articles to, we were just in Magnetic Mag and music, something for life. Oh, please don’t murder me guys on that one.

But music in life. We had a couple of articles and I was submitting 5,000, 8,000 word articles and they come back and they’re like, this is too long. I go, but I’m trying to tell a story of 16 years almost.

[Bossi]
That’s what we’re hearing. Even our short mixes, the original mixes, well, it used to be called radio edit, right? Hey, this is too long, but yeah.

Hey, a good story needs a certain time to be told and our tracks, we can’t press them into two minutes 50. It just doesn’t work. And then one example I always like to give, there’s the famous movie with Queen and already 40, 50 years ago, they’ve been told, Oh, this single is too long.

Right. What’s it? What do you mean?

Rhapsody maybe? Was it five minutes and then everything was two and a half and they were like, yeah, but it’s good. And well, they won.

And I don’t know if we win, but you know, if a, if a track just works in four minutes and not on two 50, um, maybe you get in a three 30, but if, if the story, you know, doesn’t have a meaning anymore, to follow all these, um, you know, whatever ideas about how music has to, has to be framed, doesn’t really make sense.

[Darran]
Exactly. You know, and, and again, I, I remember back in the day when I started doing the show and, uh, I would have DJs play one hour sets because you’re supposed to get a taste of what they did. And then if we did a show for four hours, I could have four DJs come by.

I did away with that a few years ago. And I give DJs now two hours to play so they can tell that story. Watch this.

I used to break them up into part a part B. Now I just like the whole two hour.

[Bossi]
Yeah. After an hour, real DJs just warmed up, right? It’s, it’s not, it’s, it’s not easy.

That’s why also a festival. It’s always like, okay, like there is a new album. There are certain, uh, of our current favorites.

There is like some of our classics and like, sometimes it’s like, oh my God, we have like, we have pop music, which we actually like to play. And we also in an hour, we at least like to have a bit of a, a way just, just in the rats and boom, boom. Even in the now we think you can, you know, you can build up a little down again.

It’s gotta make it work.

[Darran]
And you’re in the middle of your tour right now. That’s still continuing right now. Correct?

[Bossi]
Yeah. We’re, we’re still, we, we still have some dates to come. We’re in Europe for another few weeks.

I’m here actually in my, in my birth town, in my hometown. That and, uh, so yeah, we, we have, um, several shows in Germany, Poland, Holland, they said trance coming stuff like this. So yes, right, right in it.

[Darran]
Well, it’s definitely on our radar to be over there in Berlin. Uh, we have a wonderful partnership as I was mentioning pre-show with Riverside studios, and that’s going to kind of be our home base when we come to Berlin and then go up to ADE and IMS and Italy with our partner with origami. Uh, we work with MN2S out of the UK now as well.

So we’ll probably be doing some, doing a lot more European travel this year and getting on the ground. I missed Lea and ADE last year. Um, but you know, the year before that I was at Rave the Planet and I definitely want to get back to Rave the Planet again.

That was a mindblowing, awesome experience. I think they’re anticipating a million people being there and wow, it was just amazing. But yeah, being on tour, you know, speaking of songs, speaking of tracks, where’s the weirdest moment that you’ve ever heard one of your own tunes play?

[Bossi]
That’s a, that’s a superb question. I got to say. Thank you.

That’s a question because, because normally we hear them, we hear them play just, you know, when, when you get somewhere on Rave, you know, or club or so like, Hey, awesome. One of our tunes. Um, yeah, like, like, like, like, once, uh, maybe in England, it was played on daytime, daytime radio.

They were like, Hey guys, like, it’s like, not really like one of those we play so often, but Hey, that’s because big, big radio station forgot actually who it was, but yeah, moments like, like this are always just fantastic. Right. When, when something made for a club, something’s getting played on radio and then people are like, Hey, I’m just, I’m dancing here in the studio.

Everyone’s like jumping. It’s cool.

[Darran]
You know, I can relate to that last night as I think I was telling you pre-show that we just had our home team, the CL Seahawks won the super bowl. And we have our mobile, we had our mobile studio parked out. They were playing in San Francisco, but I’m, we’re in Seattle and we had parked it out in center for my friend’s restaurant, which is right across from our football stadium.

And we had thousands of people coming out last night. And I actually put the news crews from our local news stations on top of our mobile truck. And they use it as a platform to film the thousands of people and everything going on.

And I went down and I put the TV stations on the side of my truck and you could actually see like almost like 30 second delay, thousands of people around it and everything. And so I kind of know, like, is that a weird, like people would look at the screens on the TV and go, that’s happening right now. They’re on the rooftop of your child, like those moments.

And then my phone’s blowing up. Cause everyone’s saying, they’re seeing me on the evening news.

[Bossi]
Yeah. That’s one of those weird, surreal moments of everything comes together. That’s the, that’s the beauty of the game now.

[Darran]
And you’ve been doing this for a while now. And I know sometimes people, when they get on stage, do you have a different persona when you get on stage? Is it Stefan offstage bossy on stage, or is it Stefan bossy all the time?

[Bossi]
Um, I think definitely I can more speak for, for Nick. He is definitely, he’s more outgoing on stage than he would be in the green room. But myself, I, I gotta be very honest.

I never really thought about it. Um, uh, maybe I’m, I’m, I’m even more going in the green room than I am on stage there. I’m just, I’m just maybe, maybe dancing.

Uh, and 26 years from now, not 21 years when we have the next interview, I promise I’ll come up with a maybe sense making answer. I, I, I don’t know. You, you, you got me there.

[Darran]
You know, it’s funny because I just thought of something here. It wasn’t in my list of questions. Um, but I thought of something when we did do that interview back in the day at Medusa, the DJ booth was up off the dance floor.

Like, like when I grew up with the DJ booth was up in the corner, it was up.

[Bossi]
It was not, we were, we were somewhere in the corner or something.

[Darran]
Yeah. You were hidden almost in the DJ booth. And I remember that.

And, and the shift of watching the DJs come from the booth down to the main stage. And now you see the big festivals and it’s, you know, fireworks and everything that wasn’t going on. Yeah.

[Bossi]
And people are all around you and the DJs in the, in the center. Yeah. It came, it came, it came a long way.

Like my first, my first time DJ, I was somewhere in the side room and I, and, and I couldn’t even see the, the other room, which was the dance floor. So I was like, nice, this, this, this doesn’t work. I don’t want to be standing right in the middle, but I have to see if what I play is getting a reaction.

[Darran]
Right.

[Bossi]
Yeah.

[Darran]
You’re speaking of getting that reaction. That was one of the interesting things that back when we started the show in 2009, a lot of DJs would come by the studio, which was my bedroom at the time, funny enough. And the DJs, they weren’t used to being on camera.

They were used to being up in the DJ booth, being off or being off camera. So when I put them on lights, camera action, and they’re sitting there and they’re nervous on the show.

[Bossi]
Like, yeah, yeah.

[Darran]
And I’m over here dancing and bouncing around, trying to keep the action. Cause we’re live streaming this to people and they’d never done live streaming from 2009 to 2020 when everybody in the world jumped online and all the different creative ways. And finally people got live streaming DJs as a medium.

You’ve been doing your radio show. How long have you been doing the radio show for? That is a wake your mind radio.

[Bossi]
I’m recording 619. When we finish here, I gotta still, you know, scout for some new music. I’m not happy yet with what we have, but we have a Perspectives special part two today.

So yeah, you know, always bring another one or two from EP one and two. So yeah, it’s 19.

[Darran]
It’s in the day and age of where technology is now, you know, being a DJ, I mean, there’s, there’s a kid that I saw last year. He headlined at ADE. He started playing when he was two years old.

And now I think he’s like nine years old. He’s producing tracks. I mean, it’s like, Whoa, this technology shift has happened to allow a lot of people, the barrier to entry now to get into it is there, but also the barrier to entry to producing music is there.

If there was something that you could think that deserves to be on the market, or if you could create it out of your head and said, I wish this piece of technology existed, what do you think that would be? And, and like, how would that integrate into the overall music landscape?

[Bossi]
That’s another good one. Well, it’s just, well, you were saying the DJ scene, like, you know, maybe it’d be in the seventies, eighties, when, when, when did really, you know, discotheque, so 74 studio 54. It’s like when, how long are the DJs?

So it’s like roughly 50, 50 years, right? And that’s for like, it’s like putting on a song and speak. And then, you know, you don’t necessarily use the microphone.

I think these days, there is the DJs that speak more, you know, their music, the others, maybe more DJ entertainers, they’re really away from the dark corner into, into the spotlight. Then there is the producer. I could come up with something, or I could make a suggestion that, you know, we, in five years, we’ll be just thinking of what we like, and then some AI’s picking it up.

Whatever I say now, it might be already there or meaningless in a few years. It’s definitely interesting with AI. I hope there is just enough filters in the way to find out what’s still, what’s still meaningful and real.

So I think what you were saying, starting with that one question, I’m starting to spin off my thoughts in different directions. I’m not giving a clear answer, but yeah, there is not just one path ahead of us, and DJs. I think it’s going to be interesting, even more interesting.

And all the knowledge, all we’ve seen, maybe in those last years, that mean a lot. Maybe it doesn’t mean a lot, because every new day we got to learn something new on top, right? And it’s going to, it’s going to keep that way.

It’s going to be that way all the time. The first day you stop learning is the first, first day you stand still and actually step back.

[Darran]
You know, that’s been something that constantly having to evolve over time. I mean, if I look back at when we first were doing our shows and I had two megabits of upload, maybe about one megabit of upload and a computer. And we looked at that and thought, these shows are awesome.

And I remember asking people, do we look great? Do we sound great? We were probably streaming at 96K through the audio.

So it wasn’t even 128K audio. We’re probably going out at maybe half a megabyte with video quality. And people are like, this looks awesome.

This sounds awesome. Yeah. But over time, you know, keeping in touch with technology and moving forward.

I mean, I’m ordering two Macs right now. It’s just so I can upgrade for 2026, Mac mini and a MacBook pro. So.

[Bossi]
Well, it’s the same here. You sit there with this dope, dope microphone and then you’re, you’re awesome. You’re awesome studio.

And I sit here with my friends. Thank you guys. And my friends pretty much, they call it the media lounge.

So they’ll take me and look, look at the lovely dog of theirs. So yeah. So we’ve been, we had a two seconds sampling, maybe like when we started producing in the early nineties.

Right. And now it’s like, no, whatever, whatever you, whatever you like. Right.

And in a few years, what we’re doing now, like we look like, like crap when it’s 2030, most likely. So yeah, that’s just how, how things go. And I said, you know, standing still first step back.

I think the music industry in general is the fastest pace. There is the art of music like these days, like 10,000 releases every day. AI is, it’s, it’s coming and there’s more and more.

It’s not coming. It’s there. And it’s hard to get your music heard.

There’s algorithms and stuff like this, but yeah, maybe it’s just the reason to, to work better and find something to be different, sound different, make you interesting for people besides just being stupid on Instagram.

[Darran]
Do you ever get fed up with making and playing music and how do you deal with that? If you’re on tour, do you have a mantra, a go-to?

[Bossi]
The playing we would certainly never get fed up with, but yeah, I think it was, I was hinting out at certain attributes about just, you know, social media presence and, and, and entertaining people is more important than the music DJ writes or plays. And that’s just something we, if you say be fed up, that’s something which we wouldn’t necessarily sign for. We think DJ is as good as the music he or she is doing.

Um, yeah, um, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a wide field of things an artist these days has to be good at.

[Darran]
If there’s something you could say to new and up and coming producers to watch out for when it comes to making their career successful, what would that word of wisdom or best piece of advice you could give them in today’s world?

[Bossi]
Thinking about the technological changes, the fast turning things out, turning, burning, and what would be something you’d like to say to, to We always like to say, find something that in your music that you’re unique and do not copy others. Just try to be the one that others are chasing. So, you know, be the trend, don’t chase the trend, but that’s, that’s really hard.

And, but I feel saying that, once again, coming to Instagram and stuff, every, every DJ is just maybe known for something as football players, soccer players, whatever you want to call it. They’re just known for their, you know, they’re more known for, for how they celebrate that goal than who even knows if he’s left or right footed. A lot of fans, Oh, I got to think, but isn’t that that guy that’s doing that thing after he’s starring, right?

It’s like, but that’s just, that’s just the world we’re living in.

[Darran]
Definitely. Now here’s a, here’s a couple of few last questions here. If somebody were to write a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?

[Bossi]
Wow. These good questions I do not really have an answer for. Then you’ll love my next one.

Yeah, I don’t know. Like in football, there’s a trainer, they call him the special one. Then the German trainer said the normal one.

And for Klaus and Nimo, Oh, you guys are nice guys. And just like we’re saying, maybe the normal ones, like, like, right. You know, we’re, we’re not the typical, the typical guys searching for, for every, every camera and stuff like that.

So we’re actually like back in, back in the corner, we didn’t, we didn’t mind it. We weren’t the ones that would have placed this on, on the main stage, but no, we, we, we, we stepped up step by step and get, get used to it. But yeah, not really sure.

We have so many stories that everyone’s you guys.

[Darran]
Well, you make them into a part one, a part two, a part three.

[Bossi]
Maybe we work so slow that it’s better in part one, two, and three. Now we always say we have so many stories, but damn long, these little insider things just between Nick and myself. We just look at the other guys.

I know exactly what he’s thinking. And it’s not even funny for the people, but the two of us, it’s like hilarious, right? And, and that, that brotherhood is brotherhood.

[Darran]
Yeah.

[Bossi]
Something that’s, you know, going, going for 27 years.

[Darran]
And here’s, here’s a, here’s a second, the last couple of last questions. If some, if Hollywood were to make a movie about your life, who would you pick as the main actor?

[Bossi]
Well, people, people come to me either recognizing me or they think I’m, now comes the big love. I’m John Cena. And I’m like, okay, he’s 10 years younger, something.

Now, well, is he considered an actor now? I don’t, I don’t, he is, right? John, sorry.

So I, I, I know him as a fighter. I had to Google him though. No, I don’t, I don’t really know.

I’m not that big with movie star names and I have to pick the star, right? Yeah.

[Darran]
Actually, you know, you know, it doesn’t have to be a star. Who would you suggest?

[Bossi]
I don’t know.

[Darran]
Be somebody in a totally independent movie that nobody knows about, but said, I would like that person to play me. Yeah. That’d be hard for me to ask and answer as well.

Um, Oh, go ahead.

[Bossi]
For you. I don’t know. He’s, he’s a, he’s an Israeli guy.

He played in that series. I, I liked so much. Oh, nice.

I’m going to write it to you later. Okay. Right.

It’s going to be later, but is there anything else you want to play you?

[Darran]
Yeah. I would love to see who I would love to see that. I would love to see you.

Oh, okay.

[Bossi]
Yeah. I want that guy or something like interesting series. Nice.

[Darran]
Is there anything else you want to let our DJ sessions fans know about before we let you get going today?

[Bossi]
Um, well, we are, we’re just a few days ahead of, you know, three chapters merging into one. So, so the official album release is on Friday, February 13th. We put that one on purpose.

We love it. So yeah. Uh, perspective is coming.

If you like it, just hit us up. I guess we’re, uh, Instagram at real custom gags. Uh, I was lucky you guys call on what we did, what we’ve been working on over the last more than a year.

Um, awesome.

[Darran]
Check them out at real cosmic gate. R E A L C O S M I C G A T E. What’s that?

Can we sample that? Please do please. I’ll give you the rights to it all day long.

That would be fun. I’m like, I’m in a cosmic gate song. Yeah.

Maybe we can auto tune it. Do something with my voice, but it’s always me.

[Bossi]
I don’t know. Firewire listen, like, like fire. You know, you can do something even with my voice.

So it’s doable. And I was 25 years ago.

[Darran]
That’s awesome. Thank you again for being on the show today. We’re going to do our outro now and say goodbye, but we will stay in contact with you.

Want to give a shout out to the urban rebel PR team, Leah Vass over there for setting this up. And we’re going to be in touch with you. I know we’re going to talk with you further than a line.

Congratulations on the album, the tour and your success over the years has been one of the pioneers in the trance world. Thank you so much for having us there.

[Bossi]
And it was a pleasure. Absolutely.

[Darran]
Talk to you later.

[Bossi]
Talk to you later.

[Darran]
On that note, don’t forget to go to our website, the DJ sessions.com. Check us out there. We have over 2700 episodes, over 700 news stories published every month.

We have our new music section, VR nightclub, mobile app, and more at the DJ sessions.com. Oh, we have an internet radio station and new music section. I believe I did.

I mentioned that. But anyways, if I didn’t, it’s all there at the DJ sessions.com. I’m Darran and that’s Bossy from Cosmic Gate coming in from Mönchengladbach, Germany for the DJ sessions.

And remember on the DJ sessions, the music never stops.

[Bossi]
It never does. Cheers, guys.