Ethan Gold is a prolific songwriter, producer, composer and performer. Pitbull’s tagline is “Don’t stop the party.” Ethan Gold’s tagline is “Making sensitivity cool again.” His dad is the Beat-adjunct writer and novelist Herbert Gold. his mother Melissa was killed in a helicopter crash along with legendary rock promoter Bill Graham. As he tells it, he grew up in San Francisco during the harsh period that followed the summer of love and his experience growing up during those dystopian times informs much of his work.

I met Ethan in the early 2000’s through mutual friends. I was working as a journalist in LA and he was living in an apartment across the street from my girlfriend at the time and working on music. Turns out he was working on what would later become the critically-acclaimed art-rock album Songs From a Toxic Apartment. He played everything on the album and produced it himself. Since those days, I’ve mainly stayed in touch with Ethan through his awesome newsletter, which you can sign up for here

He has kept woodshedding and putting out music and soundtracks for films that I love. I’ve always admired his persistence, his dedication to his craft and his steadfast commitment to pursuing his creative vision. What I didn’t know was that a few years ago, Ethan had a very serious head injury that took away almost everything that was normal about his life. He had to relearn how to do things we all take for granted and that experience ultimately taught him a new way of being. 

Catch Ethan everywhere @ethangold and at www.ethangold.com. Like Tool, he has recently released his digital catalogue on Spotify, so be sure to go give his work a listen and hit subscribe. It’s awesome. And if you’re lucky, catch him playing somewhere in person. 

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