Explain to me what you do.
Basically, anything we like,
under the name of Soulwax.
Come on.
First of all, can you tell
the audience what's the difference
between 2ManyDJs
Soulwax
and Radio Soulwax?
That's how simple it is.
Soulwax? It's like
French Canadian or something.
It's like a hemp store or like
a place that sells dragon sticks.
OK, so 2ManyDJs
are Dave, my brother,
and me, DJing
and playing other people's music.
Soulwax is a rock band
which includes
my brother Dave, again,
me
Steve on drums
and Stefaan, our bass player.
We're a rock band.
And then Nite Versions
is Soulwax remixing itself
and playing the remixes live.
Then we thought,
"What if we do everything together
and we do one night
called Radio Soulwax?
"We can do it all together."
It's confusing.
It's almost Goa. It's like
a trance name. A bad trance name.
You couldn't just go to Nite Versions.
It would have been lunacy.
2ManyDJs had gone off
DJing around the world,
but the rock band was
in a time capsule.
Every time I see Dave or Steph,
the first thing I say,
before 'hello', is,
"Any minute now is a great record."
And then they went and decided
to ditch Any minute now
and do a different version
of the album. And I was utterly...
...disappointed.
Oh, fuck. Fuck.
Nite Versions, to me,
rocked as hard as the rock band did.
Soulwax, because it's
a live band but it sounds like...
...punk
electronic
possibly the best thing I've ever seen
in my whole entire life.
- It was diabolical.
- Beyond diabolical.
It's like cocaine
without the big ideas.
One of them dared me to go onstage
naked, so I thought, "Fuck it."
He thought nothing of it.
To make the dance record
out of the gate would have felt
like capitulating to the pressure
of the new success as a DJ duo
in a world in which dance
and rock are no longer separate
like they were when
the Soulwax records were made.
And then when the massive pressure
of making the Soulwax album proper
was released, and the album came out,
to be like, "Want to make
some remixes? Nite versions?"
In our studio, without much pressure;
that was how to bridge the gap.
I remember that.
It was, "Want to DJ in August?"
"No, the record's
gonna be done in one week."
OK, December.
"Hey, you want to come?"
"Can't, man, the record.
One more week."
March. "What are you doing?"
"One more week.
It's just the final touches."
"We hate half the songs, it's crap.
We have to redo them."
God, I hated watching that.
Soulwax started because we're big fans
of Monster Magnet and Kyuss
and all that. Masters of Reality.
That's why we started playing music.
And we were already interested
in a lot of other things
and it came out of it.
That's where we come from.
We toured, against everyone's advice.
We would do support for Muse
and all these bands for months,
and we'd get really bored because
at 11 o' clock the show was over.
"OK, cool, what do we do now?"
Most times we'd go to clubs
and ask the DJs if we could take over
because we didn't like their stuff.
That's how we started doing 2ManyDJs.
We really started from being
on tour and being bored.
...changed the world
with his impossible puzzles.
2ManyDJs, live
and, introducing the album
Nite Versions by Soulwax
on November 22nd at Salon 21.
Special guests: No Somos Machos
pero Somos Muchos.
Soulwax and 2ManyDJs:
Nite Versions Live.
A presentation to the rhythm of...
Bits of the album are sounds
they gave us when we did a remix
of NYExcuse.
And we stole them. Other people steal
them from us now, which is funny.
The drum sounds from NYExcuse
which we used maybe
ten times, I think, so...
Soulwax's beats, at the very least,
are on the Justice album.
You're supposed to do something
you can look at, I think, as a DJ.
It's not really exciting.
They're just...
Godfathers.
I mean they're...
Pioneers.
Yeah, I mean it's...
If there was a word that could combine
'pioneer' and 'godfather'...
With 2ManyDJs, sometimes,
I think we did it so much
that we wanted to be in a band again.
And we started being Soulwax again.
Then we made Nite Versions
and everything fell into place.
We can do everything!
DJ, play with the band, invite
our friends and do the whole night.
That is what I'm talking about.
Tiger-striped ice cream cones.
- Are you filming?
- Yeah.
- Can I dance?
- Yeah.
Say something about Soulwax.
I love you Soulwax,
you make all my dreams come true.
Radio Soulwax, when did you
decide to start doing that?
The blueprint for it is super-simple.
It's Nite Versions as a band live,
and 2ManyDJs as whatever,
headliner DJ spot,
and everything in between is filled up
with whatever band we love...
One live band and then two other DJs
who play in-between all these things.
And how did you find
being the promoters?
It was hard on Dave and me, 'cause
we're there from the first band or DJ.
You invite the people, so you try
and make the effort to be there.
You're there for the sound check,
then you play with Nite Versions,
then you come off, and 2ManyDJs
is always the end of the night.
So we'd have to DJ again, and then
everybody on the tour would go crazy
so we would be the soundtrack
for their decadent lifestyle.
It's kind of fun but it's tiring,
'cause you would stop at 4am,
like, "Wow, I've been here from 6.
It's been... Wow. This is..."
Then off to the next city
and you do it again.
O-U-L...
- W.
A-X.
- The drummer is amazing.
- Man, drums live...
I was right up there.
Where were you?
So many fucking people out there.
Literally the best night ever.
I don't do this many drugs, but...
And this bloke was there...
Good career move? Probably not.
Probably lose my job on Monday.
He was going to kiss me.
I had to strangle him,
like, "Get the fuck off!"
She's really nice.
- I was terrified!
- Then he grabbed my arse, like, "Ow!"
Couldn't stop dancing.
I've never taken drugs
in my whole life.
Ever.
Who gives a fuck?
That is so cool! That guy is so cool,
because he likes music.
Sorry to interrupt. I'd like to say
I've been in the business
and in electro
for more than 15 years now.
Sorry.
This is Steph when he DJs.
And this is Dave.
So it's like sine and cosine.
I think Steph's taste...
...drives a lot of it.
Which ultimately...
Which I've kind of come to realise
is pretty much a producer's role.
You know, very much so.
And Dave,
Dave's ability with
the machines, and also this taste,
is... fantastic.
They'll be the first
to criticise each other.
But if there's somebody else
threatening them
or having conflict with them,
then they'll be the first
to defend their brother.
Neither could survive
without the other.
He put the bottle on the table and
it popped out and went into his eye.
If you're the boyfriend of one,
you have to deal with the others too
so it doesn't make much difference.
This guy's like sausage, right?
Meat in the big grinder,
music. It's sausage.
"Oh, cool, yeah, let's try this!
Let's mic these drums."
We can do this...
And left to his own devices,
it can... I mean it's
kind of a never-ending flow.
And Steph comes in and...
It slices the sausage
and ties it in a knot.
And there you have a sausage. Before
that it was just a long tube of meat.
Goodnight, you've been great.
- We have a little present for you.
- Oh, sorry.
You're going to see on the monitor
what we have for you.
They want your autograph after
the show. Let me push the button.
OK, this is the present for you.
A little kiss for the camera.
This way, girls. That's it.
Do you like that kind of girls?
- Can they cook?
- Yeah, she can cook.
Probably peanut butter sandwich,
but she can do something else
that's so much better...
I'm a little bit afraid
of them, though.
Thank you very much for being here.
It's a pleasure to have you.
They're on live tomorrow
at Salon 21:
Soulwax and 2ManyDJs.
You've been watching Calibre 45.
See you there.
In duos there's always
one manic one and one calm one.
I think Dave is the calm one
and Steph is the manic one.
They're brothers,
so they have exactly the same...
There's one taste, and then
they just fight endlessly about it.
That's a good T-shirt.
It's true! It took me a while
to figure you guys out.
On the surface
you're wildly different,
but you're different because
you fill the gap the other one leaves.
So if one of you's upset, the other
one's like, "What's the big deal?"
And if one of you thinks
that something's really good,
the other one thinks it's overrated.
I figured that out in Ghent,
which is where it all gets magnified.
You were really stressed out about
something with the record.
Something was just not good enough.
Steph was like,
"Dave's getting so upset about this.
We need to finish it."
There was this long thing like,
"Dude, just don't worry about it.
"I don't care! It's fine."
And then we were
walking from the B&B...
...and I'm walking with Dave
and we're talking about things,
Steph is slightly behind us,
and Dave and I are walking ahead.
We're taking a slight turn and Steph
goes, "Why would you go this way?
"What's wrong with you?"
Dave was like...
"This is where I naturally went,
I didn't know there was a right way."
"You know there's a..."
You were so mad!
It went on for the whole walk.
And it suddenly clocked:
You guys just flipped positions.
You walked out of the studio
and you took over the upset guy and
you took over the unflappable guy.
And... something else
with something else.
It's not real taste, it's not like
you differ that much, it's just...
Otherwise you'd
just sit there, like, "Yeah."
If this ends up in the movie
then it's a really boring movie.
We might be struggling for material,
Steph. I'm sorry it's come to this.
If we are using this,
I'm sorry that it came to this.
I don't like going on tour.
On average we've been home
one out of six weeks.
I think a lot of our friends have
given up trying to keep up with us.
A really massive strength of the tour
is that everybody knows each other
and everyone's a fan of each other.
At least, I like to think so.
But it wasn't a scene,
it was just sort of...
It was just coincidental that all of
us were emerging at the same time.
And it just so happened
we had similar tastes in music.
And we met each other
and we all became friends.
And I think that was because we made
effort to actually do things together.
What's wrong with saying "scene"?
It is a scene.
It wasn't a scene
like everyone lived in the same city,
but we lived in this other city,
the city of seeing the same people
no matter what or continent you're on.
It's a bit like a family.
Which grows and grows, and
travels and travels all over the world
and I think Radio Soulwax
has become like a culture now.
Honestly I don't know how it happens,
how physically a human being
can withstand so much
touring and performing.
Every night,
night after night, for years on end.
It's pretty remarkable.
To do five live shows,
and then put a different hat on
and go out and be a DJ afterwards...
I can't imagine
what that would be like.
I kind of... It must have knocked
seven shades of shit out of them
doing it every night
for how long they did it for.
Tell us about your father.
It was, I think,
'67 when he started DJing.
We grew up amongst
thousands of records, which is good.
I got to spend a lot of time
in my dad's collection.
All the valuable things
are all stolen by me now.
Will you say something about Stefaan?
I don't know...
He's so quiet, Stefaan.
He's like... In a way he's like
the third Dewaele brother.
But the silent one.
And he does a lot of work
in the studio with them,
on the computer,
programming and stuff,
but he never speaks.
Which would be your favourite band?
Maybe the song, or...
Just to name one band, it's torture.
Say it.
ELO.
No, that's a band I'm not really into.
- You're not really into ELO?
- I like a few songs...
- Come on, Don't bring me down.
- No, thank you.
Evil woman?
Good drum break?
My friend from New York sent me
a text: "Hey, I'm in bed with Baker."
This girl that we both like.
Morning!
Was it like there was an ad?
"We need a drummer."
They were like, "Can you drink?"
Taste that.
That's sunshine in a glass.
"Can you do drugs?"
- OK, good point...
- "Do you like to dance?"
"How about girls?"
"What would you do in a bathroom
with a female presenter from Mexico?"
Ghent's such a weird place.
On the one hand you guys are like...
You're in a city, so you can
go see art and designers go there,
record stores from all over the world,
but on the other hand,
it's like a tiny town you grew up in
where you guys are football stars.
You're kind of half-time heroes there.
You're kind of like, "Remember me?
I got that big pass in 1988?
"Won the whole state championships.
That's right, baby."
So it a weird place to be from,
for an American.
- You want to go to a hotel?
- Yeah.
Those kids said nothing to that guy.
He just started telling them things.
If you're underage
and you're homeless,
you're arrested for...
Just right there.
Hanging on the streets,
that's against the law.
- They call this a free country.
- What's free about it?
Go outside your car without your ID
and see how free you are.
Not looking...
Check this out.
Four people can play.
Deluxe version.
I mean it!
We were into complex worlds.
I'm just following
Soulwax around. I have to.
I will hunt you down and kill you
when I get out of jail.
- What's your name?
- John. Or the naked guy,
I know you're jaded because
you've been here a thousand times,
but I haven't.
Now I'm coming to kick everybody out.
C alert.
You've got twelve
band members on there?
Who are the rest
of the people on there?
We're going to keep all
the passports here and look around.
You're going to play your remix album
where you remixed all the big stars,
big electro acts,
Kylie Minogue, Justice, Daft Punk...
How do you choose your artists?
No, no, I don't want to talk
about that. I'm really pissed off.
They're not finished
with the fucking remix for us
and they did a remix for Justice.
Soulwax remixes,
the drums always go...
Always.
It's that noise...
You know? That horrible noise
that makes your head hurt.
But at the same time it's the...
What's that thing for making
holes in teeth? It hurts.
Horrible.
I love the Justice one.
I play it every night.
I finally figured out
that you have to play it at the end
so that that long annoying pause,
which for me is so obnoxious
and I would never do that...
Just the other night
I finally nailed it.
Every set, I was playing it
and everyone looks at you like...
"Did you screw up?" And you're like,
"No. Just calm down, Mr Promoter,
I got this under control,
this is Soulwax. Just cool your jets."
But now I learnt. In Munich,
I just played it late enough
so that when the break comes
it's believable that the night's over.
So then it gives time for them to
chant your name, throw things at you,
cheer, lights gone,
and you just totally relax, man.
You just sit back and like...
Start putting away my records,
shake a few hands...
I think every DJ should be forced
to be in a punk band for a year.
'Cause DJing,
next to video game tester,
may be the most ridiculous, simplest,
most overpaid job on the planet.
Excuse me.
- We have an artist pass...
- Straight on.
It's an artist pass.
I think before 2ManyDJs existed
I didn't really care about dance music
or DJing or that whole culture.
And I think what they did
is kind of helped people
who are used to playing in bands
and stuff to get into dance music
and realise that dance music
can be interesting
and just as exciting as pop,
prog, rock or any other genre.
Or nu rave.
Absolutely insane. Upside down.
People going... Just having to scrape
people from the walls or the ceilings
or the floors.
- OK.
- OK, I'll do it.
Let me get out for a sec.
They kind of destroy it.
A lot of the time they really...
For years I didn't want
to play after them, it was annoying.
I didn't want to... It's true. I don't
know exactly how to build a groove
after Blur mixed with Ace of Spades
with like Aretha Franklin on top.
But yeah, they made the job
for all the boring guys harder.
That was like a deeply bizarre...
...like stadium rock concert DJ set.
People went... It was like
there's 8,000 people here,
I don't know
how you would DJ to 8,000 people.
Who've just watched a band.
Everybody went crazy
and I was really psyched about it
and I was really like,
"I get this! This is fucking nuts."
Someone took a picture of me
in the crowd, screaming and jumping,
and I think it's really an image
of the power Dave and Steph can throw
at the audience when they are DJing.
I've actually seen
a lot of 2ManyDJs shows,
like just as a fan.
And people are just mad,
they're just like...
It's amazing.
- Are they on drugs?
- Totally on drugs.
- Is it like this?
- Yes.
You can edit all this, can't you?
You fucker! Fuck off!
It's always a good start when somehow,
inevitably, something goes wrong;
the power goes out or the promoter
gets angry and turns the sound off.
You know,
there's always some incident.
And the music just stops
for a couple of minutes.
And there's this pregnant pause,
there's tension.
Are they going to go on or not?
Is this it? Are they going to finish?
Then the music starts
and the crowd goes crazy,
tearing out their eyeballs and their
hair, punching each other in the face,
and, you know, it's a good trick.
...naked. But once you're naked,
"What do I do now?"
There was a cocktail bar with
chocolate sauce and strawberry sauce.
Covered in this crap
and I just jumped
into the crowd and just...
I remember...
I feel so sorry for this girl.
She must have been no older than 14,
and I just remember losing my balance
and then I got up and my cock
was just banging against her face.
And she was so traumatised.
She was about... She was so small.
Thank you very much.
Love!
Thank you for your nice act!
2ManyDJs are cool!
Soulwax!
This is my night to myself.
I was like, "I want to go to the gym,
make some dinner and just hang out."
And he was like, "You have
to come to the show with me."
And I said, "OK, I'll go,
if you promise and swear to Christ
that you'll go to
The Favourite Sons on Saturday."
I always play the same song,
over and over again.
He's getting better and better.
...like out of his arse,
and then calls you.
- I heard about that.
- Awesome.
And then he realised,
in the middle of the conversation,
that he would be so fucked
if he tried to do it.
And he was just like,
"Hold on five minutes."
And then Sean called you
while he was on hold...
Blah, blah, blah, Soulwax...
Everybody gets it,
because don't have to get it.
You have to fucking dance.
We were in Mexico a few years ago
and they were playing remixes of a hip
hop song that nobody would dare do.
Everybody started to dance.
Yes, but...
We should rephrase the question.
"Which guy in the band
have you fucked?"
This one, this one, this one...
And Soulwax were still touring.
And still touring.
And they're still touring.
It's never-ending.
So, NYExcuse... I hate that song.
I hate the sound of that song.
And every time I'm some place
and I can hear the beginning,
my skin starts to crawl and I can't...
I have to get away.
But the story behind it
is very sweet and clever.
They had a song
that was just instrumental
and Steph had this idea
of having a female vocal on it.
I was living in New York, and he was
living in Belgium, recording in London
so we just didn't get
to see each other very much.
So the song was an excuse
for him to fly to New York,
paid for by the label,
so that we could see each other.
And then we did the song, we recorded
at Plantain with James Murphy...
Steph's there, I'm there,
got some time, got the studio,
Nancy's there,
got a mic set up, checked it,
got the compressor, pre-amp...
Hm...
What do we do?
And then we came with the lyrics:
"This excuse that we're making,
is it good enough
for what you're paying?"
That's where it comes from.
You're fantastic.
We're Soulwax, the Nite Versions.
Thanks to everyone who played tonight
and all the other nights.
And don't forget. You pay!!!