The thing that makes Benny Benassi fascinating today is the public perception of him. To older ravers, he remains one of the pioneering architects of electro-house. To younger listeners discovering him through TikTok edits, festival clips, techno crossovers, he feels strangely current again.
In an exclusive conversation with EDMNOMAD, Benny Benassi discusses the enduring legacy of his hit track ‘Satisfaction,’ his newly released album ‘Feel The Bass,’ and why dance music still excites him more than ever.
The man born Marco Benassi in Milan in 1967 has spent the better part of three decades building a body of work so foundational that the genre it helped create still carries its fingerprints. He does not talk about this with the self-satisfaction as one might expect. He talks about it the way someone talks about a lucky break they never stopped being grateful for.
The Hook That Changed Everything
The legend goes that the hook to “Satisfaction” was formed in a hotel room. That the vocals — the now-iconic “push me and then just touch me” are literally Mac computer text-to-speech voices, Fred and Victoria from MacinTalk, repurposed as instruments at a time when nobody was doing that intentionally in a pop context.
“When I heard it for the first time, and later when we worked on it in the studio, I realized there was something special about it,” he says of Satisfaction, the 2002 track that changed everything. “Especially in the sound and in this hypnotic, repetitive hook. But honestly, I thought it was just a really strong track for the clubs. I never could have imagined what was going to happen.”
The track spiralled Benassi from local hero to international success overnight, charting across Europe and establishing a template for electronic music production that producers are still referencing today. Number one in France. Number two in the UK and Germany. A Grammy for his remix of Public Enemy’s ‘Bring The Noise’ shortly after. Then ‘Cinema,’ and its Skrillex remix — which won Benny Benassi a second Grammy, went gold in the US, platinum in Australia and Canada, and held firm in the iTunes top ten dance chart for over six months.
The run was extraordinary. And Benassi navigated it with one quality: perspective. He never confused the scale of what was happening with the reason he started.
The AI Artist Who Got There First
Benny Benassi used computer-generated text-to-speech voices as a creative instrument in 2002, what people today would call AI-generated vocals, at a time when the concept barely existed in public consciousness. Twenty-four years later, the entire music industry is locked in a debate about AI and creativity that Benassi has already lived through and moved past.
“I really like the idea of being able to use artificial intelligence to give us a hand, especially in the creative field,” he says. “Maybe you’re thinking about a track, you have some ideas, and you can throw them into an AI system to see how they are processed or reinterpreted. Technology, in this sense, can be a very interesting tool. I’ve never seen it as a problem, and honestly, it doesn’t worry me.”
He pauses, then adds something that cuts straight to the heart of the debate. “I’m aware that technology never goes backward. It will always move forward, always further. So I think it makes more sense to try to understand how to work with it, rather than fight it. Ultimately, even increasingly complex computer systems can become part of the creative process, if used with human intelligence and sensitivity. And anyway, I’m not scared of AI, because what really counts is that every artist has their own defining sound.”
It is a characteristically calm position from an artist who has been here before. He used robot voices in 2002. He is not about to panic about AI in 2026.
What People Do Not See Behind the Decks
The debate about whether DJing constitutes a “real” performance has followed electronic music for decades. Benassi, who has headlined Coachella, Tomorrowland, Ultra, and EDC, is not particularly interested in it.
“I’m not really interested in those kinds of controversies,” he says directly. “I think many DJs have always been very creative, and every DJ has their own way of performing. I’ve always had fun doing it, and I absolutely believe it’s a form of performance.”
What interests him more is what the debate consistently misses: the invisible architecture of taste and decision-making that separates one DJ’s set from another’s. “What people on the outside maybe don’t see is all the musical taste behind those very choices. Every DJ has a different sensibility, a different background, a different way of building a musical journey. If I hand my USB drives to another DJ, or back in the day, my record crates, that person will still play a completely different set than mine. And that alone, in my opinion, proves just how much artistry and personal touch goes into this job.”
On Collaborating Across Genres
Benassi’s collaborator list reads like a document of a particular era in music. Madonna, John Legend, Kelis, T-Pain, Ne-Yo, Lil Yachty, Serj Tankian from System of a Down. Across all of it, he says, his decisions around collaboration were never driven by commercial calculation. It has been about whether a meeting point exists. Between his audience and another artist’s, between his sound and theirs.
“Perhaps the collaboration where we took the biggest risk was with Serj Tankian from System of a Down,” he says. “But I absolutely loved his voice, his approach, and his mindset. So we decided to go for it.” The collaborations that defined that era came from instinct and timing as much as strategy. “When I did a lot of pop collaborations, it was a time when pop and dance music were crossing paths much more. Today, however, I’m more focused on club music. I have a lot more fun preparing club tracks with my team in the studio, experimenting with all the possibilities that technology provides us.”
Feel The Bass: Coming Full Circle
The new album which came out this month carries a weight that feels more than a comeback. Feel The Bass, out now on Ultra Records, is Benassi’s first full-length since 2016 — a ten-year gap filled with singles, a David Guetta rework of “Satisfaction,” and the ARTBAT collaboration “Love Is Gonna Save Us,”.
“This album represents a bit of coming full circle for me,” he says. “After almost thirty years spent across clubs, festivals, and producing dance music, it was quite a magical moment because that electro sound I’ve loved for so many years has come back. In a way, the very sound I started with has returned. So I wanted to revisit that world, but with the experience I have today.”
The collaborations on the album reflect both his heritage and his current headspace. ARTBAT approached him directly, “Being Ukrainian, they probably grew up listening to my music when they were kids just starting out” On the other hand Felix Da Housecat pairing on “Chicago Baby” carries its own symbolism. “Felix da Housecat was one of my main influences when I started out in the early 2000s. He’s from Chicago, and in that track, I wanted to convey a bit of the vibe of Chicago house music and the clubbing culture of those years.”
On whether his sound has fundamentally shifted, he is disarmingly clear. “In my opinion, my 2026 sound is still very close to my 2002 sound. There are new elements, obviously, because music changes and production changes, but the attitude has remained the same: quite rough, very direct, maybe a bit less raw today and more in line with what’s happening in clubs now.”
The Track the World Missed
Every artist carries a quiet frustration about the record that deserved more. For Benny Benassi, it is Beautiful People the crossover record with Chris Brown that had the sound right but the timing wrong. “I think Beautiful People had a really strong sound and riff. So much so that even today, when I play it in clubs, the original version works really well. But perhaps at that time, it wasn’t the right moment for Chris Brown on the radio, and so the track was penalized a bit and didn’t get all the exposure it could have had.”
On the other side of that ledger — the hits he might feel privately ambivalent about — he offers no such complexity. “As for the tracks that became massive hits, like Satisfaction and Cinema, I’m just very happy they became part of my history. They are tracks that gave me so much and that still have a strong connection with the audience today.”
Alle, the Mountains, and What Comes Next
An important part of the Benny Benassi story is Alle Benassi — Benny’s cousin and longtime collaborator, who co-produced “Satisfaction” and helped shape the signature electro sound. The question of whether he and Alle Benassi will ever properly reunite? He answers it warmly but without false promise. “Alle and I talk often, even just to listen to new music together or bounce ideas around about what could be an interesting direction to take. That chemistry is still there, because ultimately we’ve shared so much both musically and personally. But I think today he has chosen a different path. At the moment, we haven’t really talked about getting back in the studio together for a new project. But in music, you never know what can happen.”
For this summer, his plans are deliberately uncomplicated. Performances in Europe. Holiday destinations. Good energy. The kind of rooms where the music can do what it was always made to do. And then, back to the mountains.
“I really value a healthy, quiet life, my family, and my life in the Apennines, in the mountains, which is something that truly makes me feel good.” he says.
Twenty-four years after ‘Satisfaction’. Two Grammys. Five albums. A collaborator list that spans rock, hip-hop, R&B, pop, and the deepest corners of the club. Benny Benassi still lives in the mountains, still makes music because he wants.
Feel The Bass is out now on Ultra Records.
