Soulwax sind immer noch mit ihren Nite Versions auf Tour. Letztes Jahr haben die beiden Dewaele Brüder das Soulwax Album Any Minute Now eigenhändig geremixt und jenes Remixalbum präsentieren Soulwax nun live. Die Tour wurde wegen des grossen Erfolges mehrere Male verlängert (sogar ein Auftritt in Dubai ist geplant). Die Klangschau hat Soulwax an ihrem ersten Gig in Zürich, im Mascotte, interviewt. Weil gewisse Themen des Interviews etwas heikler sind hat die Klangschau korrekterweise zuerst bei Soulwax um Erlaubnis zur Veröffentlichung gefragt. Nachdem wir sie endlich erhalten haben, kommt ihr nun in den Genuss der ungekürzten Fassung.

Noch eine letze Vorbemerkung: Weil Soulwax in so guter Laune waren und David Dewaele von der letzten Nacht noch so erschöpft war, wurde das Interview kurzerhand von Stephen Dewaele und Staf geführt. Staf ist eigentlich „nur“ Stagehand für Soulwax, aber während des Klangschau Exklusiv-Interviews wurde er für kurze Zeit zu Stephens älterem Bruder.

We should probably continue with the discussion you had before…

Stephen: That wasn’t a discussion. I was trying to tell my big brother Stephen that we need to be more constructive in interviews. We don’t come up with the right answers. So we were kind of rehearsing.

What questions?

Stephen: We always get the same questions.

Staf: The typical questions you guys always ask. The ones you have already written down on your paper.

But you had a discussion about drugs and the dance music scene.

Stephen: I was asking my big brother, because I’ve never been to raves, I’m too young. My older brother Staf used to go to raves and so I was asking him: In those days when you went to a rave did you do drugs?

Staf: Yes. I was a professional raver.

Stephen: So was the music better, because you took drugs?

Staf: Yes. I think so.

Stephen: That’s weird. I didn’t take drugs, but I still liked some of the music.

You never had drugs?

Stephen: I did when I was young, but I never used drugs to listen to music. Never Ever. Most of my friends did that. They smoked some weed or did some weird thing and then the music was amazing.

Staf: Of course. I would do that too.

And why didn’t you do that?

Staf: Because I wouldn’t let him. See there has to be a Ying and a Yang element. I can be fucked up, but he has to be sober to take care of me. Otherwise…

Stephen: Exactly. He has tattoos, I have no tattoos. He has the piercings, I have no piercings.

Staf: Well actually I took my piercings out.

Stephen: Shh don’t tell them. See you shouldn’t get too personal. Now they know you take drugs and you don’t have the piercings anymore.

We have some questions prepared.

Staf: But they all seem so insignificant now, don’t they?

Stephen: You already know he does drugs, so you have all the answers.

Staf: Sorry. Can I ask you a question?

Yes.

Staf: What’s your favorite drug?

How do you define drugs? Just illegal drugs?

Staf: No could be coffee, could be cigarettes, could be...       

I’m not such a big fan of alcohol. I like coffee, tea as well. The only real drug

(from the back: come on man, yawn)

What’s your favorite drug? Honestly.

Staf: (starts singing Honesty by ) Speed.

Stephen: It’s the working men’s drug.

Don’t you think that cocaine is better?

Staf: No.

Stephen: I agree with you.

(from the back: Shall we do the test? Laughter)

Staf: No, No, No. Cocaine is good sure, but Speed…it works.

Stephen: I thought this interview is gonna be about music.

Staf: Yeah why do you talk about drugs all the time?

You were having that discussion when we walked in.

Stephen: Yeah, that was about dance music and drugs, because they are…

Staf: Very related.

What’s the idea behind your new album?

Stephen: The Nite Versions? We did the rock record. And already while doing Any Minute now we had the idea of doing the remix album of the record. Same like the Human League did with Love and Dancing or B-52s. And that seemed like kind of fun, do go back to the studio and redo your album and do more kind of a dancy thing. And we had some rules. We wanted to have some version we could use as 2 many. DJ’s so we could use them in clubs. And then we came up with the idea to play the remixes live on stage, which I think nobody had done before.

Staf: It’s a challenge.

Stephen: It’s a challenge. I don’t think any rock band has remixed itself and then played those remixes of itself live. I actually think we’re the first to do that. So that seemed like an exercise, seemed interesting. The first two gigs were at Fabric and Sonar and it was very instant. The aim is to have people dance and it seems to work and people seem to like it. On a night like tonight, Radio Soulwax is more the idea of inviting all these other people who we really like. Like Jackson (And His Computerband) who’s coming tonight. Every week we have a new guest. We had Headman who’s from Zurich, who did the whole tour in England with us. WhoMadeWho was with us. Vitalic, Tiga, Cat Wax who’s coming to Lausanne tomorrow. So there’s all these different people on tour with us. So it’s exciting for us.

Staf: Like a traveling circus sideshow freaks on drugs.

Is Nite Versions a fusion between 2manyDjs and Soulwax?

Stephen: I can see people think that, but I don’t think it is. I think 2manyDjs is just two guys fucking up other people’s music and Nite Versions is fucking up our own music and we play it live.

Staf: Did you think about it?

Stephen: No. We never think about it, we just do these things. I’ve never sat down and thought 2manyDJs is this. It was just another thing.

Wasn’t it like a progression? With every Soulwax record you became more and more electronic.

Stephen: I have to say that that was the case. But I also think that if we had to make a new Soulwax record right now, it be a very, very rock album. There would be no electronics on it, because with Nite Versions we kind of captured everything we wanted to do with electronics. And I think it’s really hard for bands, to be a rock band and integrate electronics. And sometimes you lose yourself a little bit in these electronics. Electronic music isn’t crafted in the same way rock music is made. And by doing this, we would be very hungry to pick up our guitars again and do other drugs and be a rock band. No?

Staf: You know that the classic rock bands refer to it as medicine, not drugs.

Stephen: Therefore Medicine. But it could be anything. It could be coffee…

Staf: Tea.

Stephen: The champagne you want. The M&Ms, the blue ones that you actually don’t want.

Staf: Tea is actually the most dangerous one, because you got all these different flavors.

Stephen: We actually have someone in our crew, who has very expensive taste in tea. He only wants tea from Fauchon, which is a “Delikatessenhaus” in Paris, which has only the best chocolate or the best strawberry or whatever. They will have that one strawberry from a mountain in Peru and will sell it for a lot of money. This guy in our crew likes his Fauchon tea, which comes in bags made out of silk. It looks like lingerie with tea in it. It’s really nice. I’m not saying who it is Dave.

Back to the subject. With 2manyDjs you came up with Bastard Pop. Is that still the main subject?

Stephen: It’s never been. But I do understand that people think we were the founders of mash-ups or bastard pop or whatever. I think the minute MTV asked us to do this mash-up hour, and mash-up became a word or a trend or a word we were like no more. And we also started doing other things. I can see why people think that. But I also think there’s a style how we DJ. We go very fast from one record to the other one and there’s a definite style in the way we mix things. A lot of people are discovering now that there was more to this than just mash-ups. But if there’s a good one I’ll play it. Something that makes me go: How that’s so over the top it’s horrible, but I like it,  I’ll play it or something I really, really like I play. There’s this whole scene of people who are now into bastard pop and all these kids doing all these bootlegs and everything and I’m really happy for them. I actually help them out, if they ask me how do you do this. I have to tell them that actually there’s no real secret. You just take two things you like out of a record and try to mix them. If it works and you get something new, it’s amazing.

I haven’t really made any in some time, but on the Nite Versions one there’s NY Excuse and Funky Town. So that could be seen as a bootleg. But we never did it like that. It was just, when we played NY Excuse, my brother would always play the beginning of Funky Town on the keyboard. So when we were in the studio we thought, why not mix Funky Town. I mean that was a brilliant idea of his. If Staf wouldn’t have come up with the idea of putting Funky Town there we would have never…You never know what’s gonna happen. But we never sit down and say: Bastard Pop. Yeah. Let’s go for it.
I hate that name by the way. And I also think that Grandmaster Flash did it before us. You take your two favorite pieces out of a record, you mix them together and it becomes something new. I think the technique and that we did a whole song out of it that might be a style element, but for the rest, I don’t think it was that much of a new culture.
But it’s fun to play with. I think everybody I like plays with it. I think Bowie used to do that also.

Was that too serious?

No. It seemed like it became a trend.

Stephen: It is a trend. Everybody’s doing it. The minute MTV asked us to do this, I knew it would be bad. These publicity firms were like: Oh could you do a mash-up of this and this and this. We’ll give you lots of money. And we would be like: No.

(High voice) Hello, hello? Can Yo Hear me?

Is this for the radio? Then we will talk into the microphone. Hello, Hello. Hello Switzerland.

Staf: Do you say “Grüss Gott” in Switzerland? Or is that only if you see each other in the mountains?

Stephen: “Grüss Gott”? What doest that mean? It’s Austrian oooh.

What is more important to you, Soulwax or 2manyDJs?

Staf: laughing

Stephen: We get asked this question all the time. And see, for us there’s no difference. 2manyDJs is half Soulwax and Soulwax is 2manyDJs with two other guys. For us it’s always been like that. We’ve always been in a band and DJing. So it’s all of this together. I don’t prefer one more than the other one. I think one needs the other one. You always need Soulwax. Out of Soulwax comes 2manyDJs and out of Soulwax comes Nite Versions and out of Soulwax come remixes we do for other people and out Soulwax comes producing Tiga’s first solo record and out of Solwax comes whatever. But you always have to come back to that Soulwax thing. The collective. It’s a bit schizophrenic, but we seem to really like it. That would be our drug. The Schizo.

Staf: We used to be schizophrenic, but we’re OK now. I used to be schizophrenic…

Stephen: There you have a quote.