Ethan Gold is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and composer known for his cinematic soundscapes and soul-stirring lyrics. Blending haunting melodies with raw emotion, his music moves effortlessly between indie rock, ethereal folk, and evocative textures.
Gold was raised in San Francisco by his mother Melissa Dilworth, an East Coast WASP who moved to California to partake in the arts counterculture and was killed in a helicopter crash with her boyfriend the famed concert promoter Bill Graham. Gold’s father Herbert Gold was one of the last surviving Beatniks, a writer who chronicled life in Paris, Haiti, and San Francisco.
After producing and arranging Elvis Perkins’ ground-breaking debut album Ash Wednesday and moonlighting as a bass player in New York indie folk band The Honey Brothers along with his brother Ari and Entourage star Adrian Grenier, Ethan Gold released his own debut Songs From a Toxic Apartment. This deeply personal album was praised by Pitchfork, The Sunday Times (London), and writers across the blogosphere. While preparing a follow-up album, Gold suffered a head injury that sidelined him for several years unable to perform, and with difficulty speaking.
He returned gradually, releasing a lo-fi synth record Expanses (Teenage Synthstrumentals) which made some 2018 best-of lists, a new wave covers album, and a film score for his brother’s drama film The Song of Sway Lake featuring Ethan’s songs sung by John Grant and The Staves. Gold continued doing occasional film scoring (Don’t Let Go) and began performing as a poet in Los Angeles, while writing Earth City, a trilogy of albums about the strange disconnection and the wonder of the modern world. Gold writes much of his music while sleeping, and adds the lyricism of a born writer to what he jokingly calls ‘hermit’s anthems.’ But this is a hermit who is engaged with the world, and returning to the stage. After a year living in Berlin, he has just begun releasing advance singles from Earth City 2: Nightfolk, due for a September 2025 release.
Gold will be starring alongside his brother Ari in the upcoming film Brother Verses Brother, premiering at SXSW in March 2025.
