Gold was born on May 22, 1920 in Vienna, Austria to Max Gold, a wealthy Jewish industrialist (pre-war) who ran one of Austria's largest mining and metal fabrication companies, and German former actress Josefine Martin. Following the economic downfall of the European mining industry in the late 1920s, Max Gold moved his family to Berlin, where he had taken a job as director of a metal trading company. Following the start of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's anti-Jewish campaigns in 1933, Gold and his family left Germany because of his father's heritage. The family traveled through Europe for the next few years. Gold attended boarding school at the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz in Zuoz, Switzerland, where he quickly proved to be a clever, competitive and physically and mentally aggressive individual. Gold finished his schooling at Zuoz in 1938, and fled with his family to England after the German invasion of Austria in early 1938. Gold entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1939 and began studying mechanical sciences. In May 1940, just as Hitler was commencing his advance in Belgium and France, Gold was sent into internment as an enemy alien by the British government. It was on the first night of internment, at an army barracks in Bury St Edmunds, that he met his future collaborator and close friend, Hermann Bondi.
"We Are the People" was the first and only top 40 single from Feeder's sixth studio album, Silent Cry. The single was released on 9 June 2008, receiving its first radio play on Kerrang! Radio, two months before on 14 April. It charted at #25 in the UK becoming Feeder's landmark 20th top 40 single, but also their last to date after follow-up "Tracing Lines / Silent Cry" missed the top 200 alongside being their least successful lead single from any of their albums since 1999. "We Are the People" is also the first Feeder single since 1997's "Crash", to miss the BBC Radio 1 playlist and also the first of their singles since that one to only spend one week on the UK top 75. It was included on XFM's top 100 tracks of 2008 list.
London-based radio station XFM, ran a competition for an extra to appear in the video. The winner had to be available at a London West End address, with the details disclosed to them. In a blog posted by the bands then drummer Mark Richardson on their official website, it was revealed the director used the traditional blue screenchroma key technique (also used for the "Feeling a Moment" video).