Ben Goldwasser

Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser of MGMT dive into their 20-year journey, celebrating the absurdity that fuels their creativity. They share their early experiences in dorm rooms, where makeshift gear sparked innovative sounds. Their latest album, 'Loss of Life,' reflects on personal growth, parenthood, and the balance between humor and deeper meanings in songwriting. With a love for the strange and a knack for playful experimentation, they reveal how embracing the weird has shaped their iconic psychedelic pop-rock identity.

MGMT was formed by Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden in 2001. The song Time to Pretend was one they wrote early in their career. It first came out on their debut: the Time to Pretend EP in 2005. And three years after that, they put out a new version of the song, on their first full-length album, Oracular Spectactular, which was named album of the year by NME and was one of Rolling Stone's top 20 albums of the decade. It went on to sell over a million copies worldwide. In this episode, Ben and Andrew trace how the song Time to Pretend was made, from its dorm room origins, to its first recording, to re-envisioning it with Grammy-winning producer Dave Fridmann. They also uncover the hidden sounds and easter eggs within the recording.