JOHANNES GOLLER: DEFINITELY YOU NEED TO HAVE A STRONG CHARACTER TO BE ABLE TO BE IN THIS INDUSTRY.
Born in Heringen, a small town in Germany, Johannes Goller tells that he had a great childhood while recalling some important turning points during his 20 years as Cocoon’s manager. We sat down with the promoter and entrepreneur in his new home in Ibiza to talk about his roots, his two decades at the helm of one of the island’s most successful parties and his new business projects.
«Definitely you need to have a strong character to be able to be in this industry»
After sharing a friendly greeting, we decided to move our meeting at the backyard of Johannes’s new house in the centre of the island of Ibiza. We started chatting about his German roots, his early inclusion in electronic music and his current base of operations, Ibiza, where he has lived permanently for nine years.
To describe Johannes Goller, we could start by pointing out that he was on the verge of taking over the family business but one call changed the course of his life and he ended up running the legendary Cocoon parties for over twenty years.
Since 2019 he has also has worked with the Swiss artist and businessman Dieter Meier in a wine project in the north of the island “OJO de Ibiza” and its pop ups events “Cuts & Wine” are diversifying the gastronomic and wine scene in the island. While he recalls some important turning points, Johannes also shares that he never made a conscious decision about working in the music industry, it simply happened naturally.
Born in Heringen, 1975, in a small town in Germany in the district of Hessen, about 180km north of Frankfurt, Johannes tells us that he had a wonderfulchildhood. “I’m an only child and my parents are deaf. I learned sign language at a very early age. We also had a butcher shop for four generations. I was always around a lot of people and I had a very fun and sheltered childhood in the countryside.”
“My dream was always to become a butcher. I mean, of course I wanted to become a professional football player, but that didn’t work (He laughs). For me it was like a game. My grandfather taught me everything from the beginning. It was never a question what to do with my life. I wanted to be like my grandfather, my greatgrandfather and like my father.”
Once he finished his school degree he became a butcher and made his master degree and one year later at the age of 24 he made the decision not to continue in the family business and to become a teacher of young students of butchery.
But before taking that step he wanted to make his dream come true. He went for a summer to Ibiza, to work and enjoy the island. He was familiar with it since 1988 because his parents brought him for the first time when he was 13 years old. “I swore to myself that one day I would come back.”
After his first year in Ibiza he returned to Frankfurt and a phone call from Sven asking him to be part of the Cocoon team “Sven planned to take charge of Mondays at Amnesia, the moment was perfect” changed everything. Johannes accepted immediately without knowing what his position was going to be. He went from making posters, picking-up Dj’s, searching for secluded beaches to do the parties afterwards, to taking control of the lineup, production, marketing and the promotion so that everything would work perfectly every Monday.
His first contact with electronic music and with Sven Väth came through the radio. “There was a channel called HR Three and every Saturday there was a session from nine to twelve. Club night was called, and once a month Sven Vath, Mark Spoon and Dj Dag, among others, used to play».
«Thanks to these DJ’s my friends and I got into electronic music. Then we said, where are those DJs? We follow them and that’s how we found the clubs. I was 14 years old at that time and this was my access to the nightlife”.
Cocoon was a very German party from 2000 to 2003 and the only techno night in Ibiza with Dj’s like Jeff Mills, Carl Cox, Ritchie Hawtin and of course Sven Väth. This music was new for the island because there wasn’t any techno in those years. “That is also the reason why Sven said, hey, if I don’t change anything, I won’t be able to DJ here anymore in the future. The music was very commercial at that time. That’s how the idea to start Cocoon came about.”
The first three years the party was only in the main room of Amnesia and the terrace was more a place of reunion than a thing. This started to change and in the year 2004 there was a turning point where people started to understand the musical style. The island was all about trance and house, there was no
techno scene at the time. Dj’s were hired from time to time but never before had a promoter tried to establish a techno concept for a whole season.
The mix of Sven Väth playing solid techno and Ricardo Villalobos with his hypnotic deep house was a hit. Suddenly, the Dj’s on the island who were playing for Manu Mission or Circoloco you could find them on the dancefloor.
“They smelled that something was happening, something was going to change. I think 2004 was the year that Cocoon really took off to success.”
“I remember the first after party in July 1999 in Cala Jondal. We had Sven and Mark Spoon playing. We were maybe 50 friends. Afterwards we went to S’estanyol. We started with 200 people and at the last after party we were like 5000. The whole beach was full. The police came with a boat and said, this is crazy but please don’t stop the music because if all these people want to leave at the same time it will be a problem. So please go on and let the people go slowly. It was amazing!.”
Most of Johannes’s friends live in Berlin and he is happy to go and see them but he feels happier when he goes back home. “Berlin is so vibrant, every week there are new clubs or new places opened. When the wall came down, techno was the soundtrack of the time and with Love Parade, a million and a half people (that was crazyhe laughs). Berlin was the capital of electronic music and I think it is now. If you didn’t want to go to the army, you moved to Berlin because people there didn’t have to go to the army. Those who were against the system used to go to there to settle down. It’s not so cheap anymore. but still cheaper than London or Barcelona. It’s a fun city although I have a very ambivalent feeling towards it because I don’t like big cities.»
Johannes feels so fortunate that has always been able to combine work and pleasure and he never had the feeling of going to work.
«It has been a gift to be able to work with friends, with like-minded people with big visions, on fun projects. It’s something I’ve always appreciated a lot»
In 2020 Sven felt it was time to stop. He decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Cocoon and have a great season but the decision was made and Cocoon would not return to Ibiza. With the clubs open again, his friend Luciano called him asking if he could help him to produce his night in Ibiza. “Luciano is going to organize his own night at Club Chinois (old Heart) every Saturday in July and August. It has new owners and the reform is going to be technically at the highest level. I am also going to help him build a solid structure in his team because we want to continue working in the future”.
Since 2019 Johannes has also been working with Swiss artist and entrepreneur Dieter Meier on a wine project in the north of the island. Dieter has a vineyard here and has been producing wine since 2010. “He asked me if I could help him distribute the wine he produces in Ibiza. We had our first lunch together and I told him a bit of my story, that I am a butcher and that I was working for Sven, and he said, very interesting. So, do you know Argentinian wines? We also produce wine in Argentina. Why don’t you also distribute our Argentinian wines in Ibiza? And I said, well, I would love to do it, but I don’t have much time because I’m working for Cocoon. I started without knowing that it would be the last year of Cocoon. I had a summer where I did both, but wine was just a side project. And then, all of a sudden, the pandemic came and all the clubs were closed”.
He had the know-how to make barbecues, exclusive wines of Ibiza and Argentina and a great friendship with top level Dj’s.
“I only had to think of a good name. Suddenly I had a business plan called ‘Cuts and Wines’. This is how everything started.”
The concept has grown during the last two years and this season Cuts and Wines will also be in Underground. “Underground would be every Wednesday at night. Located in Eivissa, Spain, Johannes Goller serves a selection of the finest meats from around the world, locally sourced and paired with selected organic wines from Argentina & Ibiza. Along side a modern electronic soundtrack.»
Johannes has always had the idea of having his own restaurant but thinks that in Ibiza there are already too many at the moment. “You have to find the right location. I have the concept ready and I got the people to invest but you have to be sure because if you dedicate yourself to the restaurant business in Ibiza, at least during six months you can’t do anything else. Then, I don’t know how much I really want it”.
He discovered India and the energy of the Himalayan Mountains, Nepal, Bhutan and its spirituality very early. Here he was able to find his personal balance in those crazy years. Thailand is also a place he loves to go with his wife Sarah. Although they could not imagine living anywhere else at the moment, if they had to choose, Johannes and his wife would go far away. “It would definitely be somewhere exotic outside Europe».
«My favourite moment at Amnesia I think was the closing party of 2006. The government changed the law for all the clubs because school started again. So the clubs had to close at 6:00. Amnesia called us two days before and told us the bad news. We had to close at 6:00. We talked to our lawyers and they told us that we could re-open from 8:00am till 6:00 the next day. We only had to ensure that everybody came out of the club and came back two hours later. We talked to the owners of amnesia and with the radio station about playing from 06:00to 8:00 a Sven and Ritchie session that was recorded, we had free water and fruit for everyone who waited outside at the parking of amnesia. At 6:00 when we had to close there was around 6000 people in amnesia, the car park became a party.
All the cars had the radio on and everyone was dancing and having a goog time. At 07:55 we started to open the door again and at 08:10 we had 6000 people in amnesia. Sven played in the main room and Luciano, Ricardo and Ritchie had their first back to back on the amnesia terrace. That was a moment i will never forget in my life»
