Marian Gold doesn’t walk into a conversation—he drifts in like a satellite signal. One moment he’s talking about orchestration; the next, you’re in a philosophical tailspin about sonic soulmates, alternate timelines, and the majesty of William Shakespeare. This is just what happens when you interview the voice behind Forever Young. You ask about a symphonic album and walk out questioning reality.
Alphaville’s new record Eternally Yours isn’t just a rehash of their greatest hits dressed up in strings. It's a full-scale reimagining, the kind that lifts their synthpop classics out of the digital ether and crash-lands them into a candlelit concert hall. “We didn’t want it to be the band playing in front of an orchestra,” Gold explains. “We wanted the orchestra to be the band.”
What followed was a two-year odyssey involving 100 musicians, endless notations, and enough classical instrumentation to resurrect Chopin. Gold compares the process to directing a film: “We were like film directors, not musicians. It was so complex, but in the most wonderful way.”
This wasn’t just a sonic vanity project either. According to Gold, this transformation revealed the songs’ “true nature.” And he means that in a very literal sense. “Many Alphaville songs—like ‘Forever Young,’ ‘Come Home,’ or ‘Apollo’—already have symphonic DNA,” he says. “They just didn’t know it yet.”
The album opens with Dream Machine, an ethereal cut from Alphaville’s catalog that’s now drenched in cinematic ambiance. It was selected specifically to act like a cosmic overture. “The orchestra used their bows to strike the instruments—so what you hear isn’t synthesized sound. It’s human touch imitating machinery,” Gold says, delighted by the contradiction.
The symphonic format also gave him an excuse to revisit the deeply personal Around the Universe, a tribute to his father, a WWII fighter pilot who rarely spoke of the war. “After he died, I wondered if now he was off on another voyage,” Gold shares. “It’s a song sung from two versions of myself: the boy holding the photograph and the man left behind.”
Despite the retrospective nature of the project, Eternally Yours also includes one brand-new composition—its title track, assembled from Shakespeare’s sonnets and meant as an answer of sorts to Forever Young. “This is the artist speaking to the muse,” he explains. “Saying, yes, I’m old, but I’m not done yet.”
And yes, Forever Young still mystifies him. “It’s a riddle,” he admits. “People use it for weddings, funerals, birthdays… It seems to adapt itself to every human emotion. I don’t know how we did it. We didn’t know what we were doing.”
With the orchestral world behind him (for now), Gold is eyeing the next Alphaville adventure—Thunderbaby, an electronic record originally conceived before the symphonic detour but now being reshaped. “It’s full of drum machines and sequencers,” he says. “But we’re different people now. We’re in another territory mentally.”
Still, you get the sense that whether it’s a Baroque arrangement or a blippy synth freakout, Gold’s just chasing the next dream machine. “Music is endless,” he says. “You could do it for a hundred years and still be surprised.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
