Marinus Bernardus "Benno" de Goeij (born on 19 March 1975) is a Dutch trance music producer. He is best known for his participation in Rank 1 with Piet Bervoets, Kamaya Painters with Tiësto and Gaia with Armin van Buuren. Since 2008, de Goeij has been the co-producer behind the Dutch trance artists Armin van Buuren and Jochen Miller.

History

Early years (1997–1998)

Benno de Goeij began working as a producer in 1997 alongside Piet Bervoets whom he met at a party. They decided to create music of their own and created the duo Pedro & Benno with singles "Scream for Love", "Talkin' to You", and "Speechless" released under Karma Records. They also created tracks under various aliases like Precious People, Gualagara, A.I.D.A., Simplistic Mind, Two Disciples, R.O.O.S.

The Rank 1 project (1998–2003)

In 1998, Rank 1 was born as they thought it would be a perfect joke to see a group named Rank 1 at a number 1 position. This joke became real when "Airwave" hit numerous charts at that position. They also remixed Cygnus X's "Superstring" song and released an anthem for Sensation in 2001 known as "Such Is Life" from the album Symsonic. In 2003, they re-released "Breathing" which was another charting track since it was a more break beat version of "Airwave". In 1998, Tiësto and de Goeij created Kamaya Painters, with three successful singles.

Work outside of Rank 1 (2004–present)

In 2007, his first work with Armin van Buuren was created, it featured Kush and was entitled "This World Is Watching Me"; The song was written by de Goeij along with van Buuren, Sacha Collisson, Zoe Durrant and Pete Kirtley. As of then de Goeij began helping Armin on his next studio album. In early 2008 Rank 1 collaborated with Jochen Miller on the song "And Then..." which was written, composed, and arranged by de Goeij. In 2008, Armin van Buuren released his third studio album, Imagine, which included de Goeij's writing and production abilities in all songs except for "Imagine", "Fine Without You", and "Intricacy". In 2010, he co-wrote and co-produced all tracks on Mirage except for "Minack", and in 2013 he did it again on Intense (all tracks) and Embrace (except "Looking for Your Name"). He and Armin have also co-produced songs under the alias Gaia; at the 2014 Ultra Music Festival, the two producers performed for the first time as a group as part of the A State of Trance 650: New Horizons show on the final day of the festival.

Discography

Singles

As Rank 1

Co-productions

Various projects With Jochen Miller With Armin van Buuren