Ben Goldwasser

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Ben Goldwasser is an American songwriter and musician, born in 1982 in Mishawaka, Indiana, and raised in Westport, New York. He is a keyboardist, backing vocalist and co-founder of the rock band MGMT. At the age of eleven he saw Adrian Belew live and met the guitarist Rob Fetters. He received piano lessons from his grandmother and mother, played in his high school jazz band and attended a rock 'n' roll camp in Vermont.

Music and breakthrough

At Wesleyan University, where he studied music, he met Andrew VanWyngarden, the other half of MGMT, in his first year. Together they took experimental music classes with the composer Ron Kuivila. After graduating in 2005 they moved to New York and searched for a sound. They went straight out on tour as the support act for Of Montreal, but no record deal came and in 2006 the band lay dormant. Goldwasser was working on a farm and planning to move to California when the duo was signed after all by Columbia Records. Their 2008 album is called Oracular Spectacular. In 2009 Electric Feel, written with VanWyngarden and remixed by Justice, won a Grammy for Best Remixed Recording. In 2010 the band itself was nominated for a Grammy.

Influence

MGMT combines synthesizer pop with psychedelic rock and an idiosyncratic, ironic tone. Goldwasser supplies the keyboards and the electronics that carry that sound. In this way he belongs to the bands that in the 2000s brought indie rock and danceable pop closer together.

Listening

Mentioned in other articles

• Oracular Spectacular AlbumMGMT became a duo of Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, who in March and April 2007 were in the studio with producer Dave Fridmann for their major-label debut.