You should take one year off because sometimes you do the thing where the you know, when people wear headphones and yeah.
Exactly, that's how this podcast start.
Hello and welcome to Midnight Chats, a podcast of casual interviews with leading musicians, published weekly at midnight to suit these informal and often under researched conversations. This week's episode is hosted by me Stuart Stubbs, editor of Loud and Quiet magazine. Apologies for the delay in episode one hundred
and eight of the podcast. We've had a busy couple of weeks here at Loud and Quiet, launching a whole new membership plan for what we do to try and get some more support for the magazine, the podcast and the other things we do. That's now all done and dusted. You can check it out at loudon quiet dot com,
forward slash subscribe. If you do want to sign up and become a supporting member of Loud and Quiet, you will receive our magazines, playlists, some more podcasts, and there is even a tier where you can come bowling with us. It's all allowed on Quiet dot com, forward slash subscribe.
That's my plugout the way, because the podcast is back from today and my guests this evening on episode one hundred and eight are Stephan and David Devali, the two brothers also known as Solwax, Too Many DJs and Dewe. These guys have created a lot of work over the last twenty five years under a few different names, so let's just quickly set that out now. Sol Wax is the name of the four piece rock band that the
brothers play in. Too Many DJs is the name of the DJ duo that they go by, who released a mix album in two thousand and three called as Heard on Radio Solwax Part Two. That was an album that mixed together punk and rock and pop with dance music and techno in a way that up until that point hadn't really been done, and it really did break down a lot of boundaries in music between genres for the first time.
Really.
I remember that album very fondly. I was at university and I was very excited to talk to the brothers about that time in their lives and about that record as well as that. They also run their own record label and studio in the middle of the hometown of Ghent, Belgium.
It's called Dwee.
It's an incredible looking place, and I have put some links to some photos of it in the show notes of this podcast. That's where we pick up the conversation talking about the dwee building on what they've got going on there. There's also a link down there to the film that we talk about. That's a documentary about soul Wax and too many DJs being on the road. It's very fun, it's very silly. It's called Part of the Weekend Never Dies, and you can watch the whole thing
on YouTube for free. Other than that, we talk about Ibitha, and we also talk a bit about dwe TV, which at the time of recording this a few months ago, they were making their new TV show, which is also available on YouTube. There's a link for that also. It hadn't launched at that point. They were still putting some finishing touches to it. But since then the first episode, or maybe the first couple of episodes, are already up, so you can also check that out. Thank you for listening.
As I say, we're now back. This is episode one hundred and eight with Soulax. Thank you to David and Stephan for talking with me, and if you would like to support Loud and Quiet this podcast. The place to now do that is at loudon Quiet dot com forward slash Subscribe, where you can see what we've been up to for the past two weeks and why this podcast
has come a little later. This episode of Midnight Chat is supported by some very good friends of ours at Visions Festival, which will return this year on the seventh of August twenty twenty one. The festival will go ahead here in London, based around the Oval Venue across free venues nearby. One ticket will get you into the whole thing. It costs thirty pounds twenty five pence at visions Festival dot com and there you'll see just how good the
lineup is. It's always a great festival, there's a good community spirit to it is very diy proper independently run. There's always great bands on and this year they have chosen to concentrate on up and coming new British artists, many of which have been featured in Loud and quite recently, from Porridge Radio and Wolu to Yard Act, Geicer, Flow, Hio, Billy, No Mates, Caroline, I could go on. All the information is at visions Festival dot com. So we'll hopefully see
you there. The seventh August is also my birthday, so there's really no excuse for you to not come. Thanks to Visions for supporting this episode. At midnight chats.
The main control room.
This is where everything that we've released on Dewie has gone through. This desk, the one that you're I'm gonna show to you. This is our desk.
Okay, that's a serious that's a serious set up. I'll show you. I'll show you what I'm recording on.
Wow.
Great, this is great.
I can't do this, but I mean your Your microphone's fancier than our.
That's true. Yeah, I'm winning. I went on the microphone.
This is a great radio. By the way, every the listeners are going to love this.
Yea, they're gonna love love all this visual stuff. Well, I did actually want to ask you about a certain visual aspect of that building, of the building that you're in, because it's incredible to look at. Anyone listening to this should do a Google image search of the DWI building. It looked when I first saw a picture of it, I thought it was a render, you know, I didn't think because it looks it looks like an architect render.
But also don't forget that those pictures were taken when the building was like fresh and new, fresh, brand new, and it doesn't look at state now, but there's like makes like you know, it's a it's a lived in building right now, so if you if you were to come now, it would look more realistic.
I think it's like a beautiful the outside is like a beautiful, sleek black like a monochrome block. Really is design and architecture and that side of things something that you to have always been influenced by and into since you were like super young.
Yeah, And I guess it's it's not just architecture. I think it's uh, things that I don't know, like that make you, that move you in a way. It could be it could be paintings, it could be graphical, it could be instruments, it could be like, really, I don't know, it's a very wide and random thing. Deeve didn't go to art school, but I went to art school, and I think some of the other people in the band.
So I guess it's always been in your subconscious. Where we were building this place, I feel like we were using a lot of the stuff that we like A lot of the references that came up were things that throughout the years, I think they've been very interested in a little bit of super studio guys, the Italian collective.
It was also this idea of having a smaller building in the middle of a town, a medieval town, because Kent is very it's a bit like, I don't know what the comparison could be, but it's like we have the oldest castle we have, like the Lamb of God is here. I mean, it's it's it's pretty old school to have an hyper modern building in there.
It took some persuading.
I was gonna say, what did the what did what did the local community think? As this thing was being built and and it's there because it you know, as you say, it's completely it's a monoloch almost like a yeah, it's like a space ship that's landed.
In the middle of this That was actually the one. The one's concern was the fact that we don't have any windows, Like if you're standing in front of the building, you don't see any windows. And that was the maybe the biggest objection that we had to defend. But other than that, I think, I mean, I think it helps that that. You know, we and the architect that we did it with, a friend of ours called Glenn Saystick.
You know, they they they knew us and they knew him, and I think they were quite you know, there's a lot worse architectural buildings to have to deal with it than this one.
But in the first design, in the first design, we had the facade the front, the front of the building was really a block, and they wouldn't allow us to do it in one line because they felt like people would think it was a factory or like a power station or something else, and so they asked us to
make an ornamental change to the front. And I think now, I think for a lot of people starting to know that it's a studio and it becomes like it's like this weird building that people look at, you know, like they're.
Like, huh.
It feels I imagine, quite sacretive and cool. Like if I was walking past that burn and I'll be thinking, what's it like in there, what's like going, what's going on in there? What magic's happening in there?
Have you have you ever been to in l A on the Sunset Strip? I guess there's the there's a Devo building and it's it's been there since the seventies, I guess, yeah, And and it's just insane.
It's an amazing lips Well it's like I think it's a circular like a building. It's it's luescent green, fluorescent green.
Yeah.
Yeah, and like we've no it was yellow ones as well, I think, And I think from the first time we went to La we've always been like, what is that building because it's there's no advertise, it's not a shop, it's not a and then people would be like, Oh, that's the Devo studio and you're like, wow, I see that that's always been and maybe the aesthetics are very different, but this idea that there was a studio and you always were like like like you would say, like.
What are they doing in there?
Yeah, almost like hiding in plain sight, like you're in the middle of this major city. Yeah, And it's just this mysterious thing.
And I guess we needed that, Dave and me because as Slovaks or too many DJs or everything else that we're doing, we I think for us having a place where we could disappear in or like even if it's in Ghent or it could have been anywhere else. It's just it's a place where we can lock ourselves away from the outside world a little bit.
And so far we I think we've we've achieved to do that.
What else is in there other than what I can say now and what I can imagine. I know I've seen some pictures where there's some bedrooms in there.
Right, there's one bedroom.
There's one bedroom, so people could come and stay on the top floor.
We have.
Sort of a lounge. I think you could call it, but I guess maybe we should preference to people that in the building. There's four floors, but everywhere in the building we put a patch be so we could record. So let's say in the elevator hall or in the stairs, or I don't know, anywhere, we could plug in and go to this board and we could record. So it had to be multifunctional for us.
So you all sat there.
But essentially, if somebody says, I want to record this synth, but I want to record it in the lobby, yeah, but that they can go and they can go and do that. And I suppose is that just an acoustics thing, just to think like.
Yeah, in the with the you'll give an example of a synth, it wouldn't necessarily make much different.
Drums or that a singing or something like that. I guess we want because because this is like the main control room and it's acoustically treated, and then next to it is our recording room, which is like huge, a huge, it's like the biggest the room in the building. Those are all acoustically treated, but everything else is like concrete or like metal or or our records or whatever we have,
and so it makes it different acoustics. And so when you put a drum kit there, or like a microphone or a namp, it will have a very different thing. And we just wanted that building to be multifunctionals so we could do that.
So the whole thing is the studio.
I have to point out that everything except for the toilets. I mean that is to.
Draw the line somewhere, draw the line what is Ghent like as as you guys grow up there right? Yes, yes, grown and bread the whole time, born and bred gent Ghent boys did obviously you you like, obviously you love the experience as you would have moved away our presume, but like, what is it? What is it like as a place to move, to grow up in and also to live in now.
It's a it's a strange question because for us, you're asking us this question right now at a point where we have been here for like a year NonStop, so oh, of course, yeah, and for the first time in maybe more than twenty years, where we would have been traveling more than ever and for a long time, for maybe thirteen years, we would move between here and London and sort of the rest of the world, like you know, Singapore one day and Australia next.
Yeah, and.
So we've been here now for the first time for so long, and we've sort of had to rediscover our own home town again after yes, just a little bit more of twenty years of being abroad more than home, and and each time we were home it's sort of like you're just catching up on on like just catch like you know, male that you haven't seen or like the things that you and we've been in this constant state of we were actually just talking about prior to
this interview, we've been in this constant state of escapeism from reality because every everything that you don't really want to do, you have a perfect excuse because you are away you're busy, you're gone, so you know, like yeah, but but equally you miss you know, you missed your best friend's weddings and birthdays and all this stuff because people don't even check anymore. People don't expect you to be there anymore. So you don't even count as a as a as a as an even like as a
social opportunity. So so being here right now, it's it's very strange for us.
Are those friends that you that that kind of would just be like, well, those guys are doing that thing, so we might might not invite them to the birthday part because that's probably on tour. Yeah, those types of people you've been now that you've been back for a year of they are you're all still friends.
Yeah's birthday because it's called puts it a bit weird, Like I don't think we were still in contact. But they would all like, hey, I'm getting married, but you're going to be No, they were good like this. They were like I'm getting married and I see you're in America. Are You're like yeah, damn oh man. And it's been pretty much like that for twenty five years. But you're still friends. And then I mean because of the pandemic, it wasn't. Also it was we weren't allowed to all
hang out all the time and stuff like that. So but we would go for walks now and you do different things. Another other thing is that so many people from a from a think from UK now and other places are moving to Ghent and we're rediscovering our city through them. Like one of our friends is living from London, is living here now for three years, and during the pandemic he was like, oh, you know where you can get really good this or second hand books? There's a place there a guy.
And and like I'm like, I've.
Walked past this for like my whole half of my life and I didn't know. So it also has benefits.
And it's a fun thing to do because we've been in that like our friend's situation. We've been in his situation when we had girlfriends in London or New York where where they sort of rediscover their city through our eyes.
Because for us it's all new. We're like, hey, what's that building, Hey what's this?
That's so that is fun, but but being being the person who was who has grown up in Ghent and and then sort of being here for such a long stretch of time during COVID has been it has been yeah, strange, but not that strange. It's just been strange because we've been so incredibly busy this year that it's not like we you know, it's not like we've spent huge amounts of time outside of this particular bubble.
Yesterday, because knowing that we were going to speak today, I rewatched part of the Weekend Never Dies, which is currently on Stephan's shaking his head there, what's the shake of that head?
What does that mean? It just feels like.
We we re released Night Versions and a couple of months ago, and we had to do interviews about it as well, and people would reference that movie all the time, with that documentary all the time, and I kind of find it weird now having gone through everything we've gone now in our lives, to go what how I mean, how are we all still alive?
Yeah?
Well that is like I'm like, wait, and then when you look at it, I feel the the non sleep, the a lot of anxiety, but I also feel a lot of partying, and I also feel a lot of like loudness, and it's like a really intense world that I think now, especially in COVID times is for a lot of people's gone maybe.
Stale a little bit, it's not.
Yeah, sure, And so when I watched a little bit a little bit when we're doing this interview, and I.
Was like, oh, whoa wow.
We've been going on like it's like a really fast car. Yeah yeah, really fast car.
Well, it does still felt so the was the film released in two thousand and eight or two thousand and around that time, Ish, you guys don't know, let's say that, we'll say that. Let's say that it is, by the way, for anyone listening available, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube now. It's on your official channel, isn't it? Seven doesn't know, still shaking.
His head but still not see it.
Rewatching yesterday. There was a couple of things I did from it. One, it made me feel just super super nostalgic for that time and for the different artists that are talking on that film, Justice and busyp and all of those people, and the music of course. But yeah, as you say, like the editing on it really does communicate the craziness of that time, how wild it was, how much you were touring, you were just playing like
you know, shows, every single night. For there's a part in the film I think, Stephan where you talk about how you get to it. By the time you've got to sound check to leaving the venue, you might have been there for thirteen hours or something ridiculous. Yeah, and then you'd go and do that the following day. At what point did you start to tone down that intensity of touring or have you it? Has it been COVID that's made you just stop.
COVID's the one thing that's made us, of course, grind to a halt. But I think that really the answer to your question is this building. Like up until this building, it was it was sort of like that, and then gradually something's shifted in our heads because that that period of a part of the weekend never dies is a perfect example.
It's like peak.
Of peak, moment of the balance being tipped the other way, which is that we would be just gone most of the time and come back maybe for like four or five days too, you know, do your laundry and finish a real mob. Yeah, you see your parents, that that
kind of thing, and then you'd be gone again. And I think gradually, since we built this building, and so the other thing I should actually mention is that in that period we that we didn't really leave much time to create a main, a main sort of thing that we were doing back then, other than a few remixes here and there, is we were just touring the world, and even though we were making new music to play live, we never we never released it, like it was just
it was like an that was like an ongoing work of art, if you will. But what changes when when we built this building, we we grew into a lot more different state of productivity in that this opened our headspace to like, oh, wow, we can work with different kinds of people. We can we can take on jobs that we would maybe never do like a play or a film soundtrack or you know, like another crazy project that that we would never have time to do otherwise.
And that it sort of came with the building. I mean, just prior to the building this building, we'd done another project called Radio Soax, where we did twenty four hours of music with visuals, and that sort of instigated that that sort of sense of instead of instead of the escapism that I was talking about earlier, which is about hiding in travel, we started to more hide in work and uh, and now we're in a similar state where we can we can still get away with not going
to people's birthdays and weddings just because we're so busy in the studio, and that sort of started with radio.
Soax, is it safe to say that your workaholics?
Or are we afraid of or are we afraid of just what's looking in the mirror of going like the amateur psychologist, there's so much here now. But but it's it's a really good question because I never thought about it. But David's right, though we kept do like when you look at part of the weekend ever dies that intensity. I mean it did change a bit because that particular documentary talks about us playing as Solwaks but also DJing taking friends with us along super a long period of
a couple of years of really constant touring. After that, I think also the world changed a little bit, like I think with what we did with night versions and as too many DJs kind of changed dance music and the way that people all of a sudden, a lot of teachers were playing rock festivals. It became the norm where I think at that point we were making a clear effort to play with as a live band, say, for instance, at Fabric, something that both LCD and have done.
I think there was this idea of us of like what if we would can we have the same impact as a live band on an audience that comes just for clubbing, And I guess that was the thing that we achieved for ourselves and then it.
Became the norm.
And then we kind of wrote that wave a little bit because we're djaying a lot. And then but I think the intensity of us doing other stuff Radiosolax, the app all these other things, it was super big until we started building the building and then we kind of had to sit down here and think about, Okay, how are we going to do all these things and what are the things that we want to focus on and do.
And the first things were like, we want to make a Sowax record again, we want to produce mix rite with other people, but let's make it into a manifest that if people come here, we have to work together and then release it. And that kind of calmed things down a little bit, and then the pandemic kind of made it go from zero two hundreds. All of a sudden, you're in the studio all the time, which has also been an amazing thing because that's never happened in the last twenty five years.
I mean, you're completely right, Like music changed in that way, like as you say, loads of DJs would play rock festivals and things like that. Like a huge, huge part of that was the Too Many DJs album, that mix
that came out when I was around twenty. You know, the Internet was around, but it wasn't like what it is now and people now talk about like we live in a post genre world where everybody likes everything, and but that record, I think is the thing was for certainly for a generation like that was a real starting point for that. I'm sure you guys are fully aware
of that. And I'm not saying anything original here, but like at the time, did you were you aware of how original that mix was in doing that?
Actually that No, Like I don't think we were aware
of how uniqueaed it was. Yeah, but we saw the impact and it almost it Amos grew to a point where because that the impact of that record, because it came out in two thousand and two, but that lasted till about two thousand and five, and so during that whole period, I think we were we were we grew to be aware of that there was something special about what we were doing, but initially no. But what did happen is after maybe a year and a half, it felt like it was out of our hands like that,
like the record was living its own life.
Yeah, well it's like it Yeah, it wasn't like it was ours and we were linked to it, but it became another monster. It's like it's like you can detach
yourself from it. But I guess to come back to your to your question, we we didn't the impact of the album, no, but before that it all because it all begins with us playing as Solwax as an indie rock band, and we were playing a lot in the UK and we got that hang out with Errol really because it just came to us after we played a show with the Dandy Warhols, I think, and he was like,
we would come play trash and we did it. We had exactly the same records in our boxes, which was a little bit weird because like this guy has n window liquor and rolling and scratching and motorhead asa spades. It's a bit with this, you know, like there was like similarities that were like uh, And so we started making these mixes for ourselves, just to play out and
to make a long story short. The thing where you know is something that's happened is that we would go to rough Trade with Errol and we would look to the records and there'd be some randomly and our guy coming in and go like, oh my god, I heard
this mix on XFM or something. I need it, And the guys like, I have no idea what you talked about, mate, I mean what is this And Errol Dave, I mean look at it, go like, yeah, it's ours, like completely like and you could see that through the Internet and through the fact that we were making these things, playing them the the speed of it. There was no need for like a record company or like all all the whole system that we still till today fight against. I
think that was gone. We found we found a way to go direct it to people and to go make them blow their minds. And I guess that's we we understood the impact of that. That was something. And then when PS came up to us and they were like, oh, we should do the mix album. I actually remember DA even me saying, come on, it's old. We've done it, you know, Like it's like we've done this part for the last two years, and then they'll be like, yeah,
we're gonna try and clear some tracks. And then it came back with a list and we were like, wait, you got the sturges in the valvel the underground, Okay, And.
At that point you've got to put it out. You're like, yeah, down to what.
They could get. We were like, oh oh, and I guess that's where I go. Where a lot of that started. And then something where it happens is when people start to really freak out about the record. And the way that people reacted to us DJing was a little bit similar to like going to see, for lack of a better reference, a Simpultura show. Like we would play and people would stage dive, they'd be like stage invasions, people
would lose their minds. I remember reading and leads where people were climbing up and then and it was like like literally mayhem, and it was like a rock concert. They were like this like a proper concert. And that's where I think a lot of promoters who were completely not into dance music all of a sudden went, oh, but these guys can play after the White Stripes or Depeche Mode or any headliner. They can do this, and that's where a lot.
Of that happens.
It becomes like the ultimate after party for a rock show, essentially the cheapest have and it's the that's true, I mean, but because that project, because you guys started I'm right, I think in saying that you started djaying because after the band would play, you'd want to like do something.
You'd be in a city somewhere and you'd be like, I want to go out, so you'd go to clubs and then you'd start DJing in those clubs, and it kind of happens almost through boredom, like you're a band and then you start djaying because it's what happens.
What can happen after a show.
So when you're at reading, for example, and you're you're playing as too many DJs and that records like on fire and everyone's loving it, are you kind of thinking this is kind of ridiculous because this is our hobby. This is like a hobby to the to the band, you know.
Yeah, there was some super surreal instances where we would tour with with LCD because we'd become friends with them. Nancy was my girlfriend, so we would constantly play together. We would make an effort that too many DJs would play, an LCD would play, and LCD would sometimes play like the smaller tent in the festival because there was starting out and then Dave and me were like head letting
the dance plays or something or like another tent. And it happened a couple of times that we were supposed to play at the same stage and then the promoter's like, no, no, no, too many have to finish off on the main stage. And we'd be like, are you insane, and they're like, yeah, no,
you have to do it. And so a couple of instances, I remember we'd be in front of like fifty thousand people with just two turntables and then like James and Nancy and everyone being our dancers on stage, and then like it was like the weirdest thing, you know, like and people.
Would love it.
They totally got it. But it was a weird world where I think we yeah it over. It's hard to explain.
I think for a very long I was just trying to while stuff are saying this. I was trying to think until when, But I think it's until now.
James and Tyler were the Eclectic Dance Troupe.
That's when he was dancing. No, but I was trying to think of like when it became normal, because it had like what you were describing, yes, one hundred percent. We were saying it in interviews also like we were like, we don't understand it's it's like we're living in a science fiction movie where people's values have just gone upside down.
Like we we would we were.
We understood how it worked before. We understood that you had to play small clubs and then maybe a bigger venue and then you you know, get some radio play. Like we understood how that worked, and we didn't understand what was happening to us in for I mean, it's silly to say now the dance world because that it doesn't it doesn't. That division doesn't even existing more. We've
were talking about rock festivals. They don't exist anymore, like it's a festival, just a festival, and they have everything. But but back then there was this division. And what was very clear is that the the dance side of of the of the industry or the music world was really embracing us in such a way that was so insane, and we were we were suddenly living this ab like upside down world. That's and and while Steph was uttering this, I was trying to think, like, oh, well when I
remember thinking this vividly and when did it end? But I don't really think. It's like I think still to this day, the amount of importance that's being given to djaying and we feel comfortable saying this because we're DJs, is is it's it's it doesn't merit the it's like we're giving the the the amount of value that we're putting on on the act of DJing, even though it's cool, we love doing it, it's amazing, it's it's a it's a real you know, it's a source of joy and pleasure.
But we are putting so much importance, and not only in terms of value culturally, but like financially, it's it's just insane.
It's also I think for a lot of people it becomes a singular part of their art, so you're just the DJ and I guess for us, And that's another
thing I wanted to because it's it's really weird. Also, but we never talk about these things unless it's second interview, So something like this, but what It's also very clear for me is like at say like four festivals in they even me start to go, oh, wait a minute, if we play this track on this speed, or we do this, or we have I don't know, the gossip standing in a way of like we we need to
use this and this and this. Our remixes or some of the stuff that we've done from then on are influenced by what we what we saw happening in front of our faces when we were playing these big audiences. So it did we did take that and use it for something else. And I think what Davis talking about is that there's a world now where I think people this this world of DJing, it's just that it's just and I guess for us it was a way of having a direct.
A direct view on how people react to what you make.
You kind there was kind of more of a feedback loop between what you'd play out. You'd then go away and you'd adjust it before you.
One hundred percent, and there would be a radio show that we could do maybe two weeks or three weeks later, where we could then play that track and then somebody would like have downloaded it and stuff like that, and and that's that's where it becomes that whole instantaneous. This is before Instagram and I think Facebook and a lot of that stuff. Was it just yeah, it was really
exciting for us. The record companies were completely caught out because we were way faster than them in every on every level, the audience, us, even the artists that we would remix.
There's a line actually in the film that James Murphy says, what you were just saying. Then Dave reminded me of where he says that every DJ, he feels every DJ should go and tour as a punk band for a year because he feels that DJing is up there with one of the most ludicrously paid compared to workload things along with and he compares it to being a games game.
I mean, listen, we're called too many DJs, so it's it's.
We still does anyone beat any and we feel like it's a true.
But the weird thing is that over over us a twenty year span of time, we we have appreciated, like I can be honest, like I when we started djaying, I had I had no DJ heroes. I had know like it did.
It wasn't like.
Like the the act of djaying to it was something that we of course had been around all of our lives, because our dad was one, and we'd been around the radio, and we'd been around club culture and dance music our whole lives. But I think the reason why it lasted for so long is because we had zero respect for it. That's right, I think. I think if you really care about it, you start to make choices based around it, and and we have had very little.
We we we had no.
Awareness of any of the rules that, by the way, are no rules. So we just played loose by the Stooges and then went straight into a techno track and we were like, yeah, that's exactly the same vibe and it's connected with people.
But it's so crazy that we're even life with it. It's another thing.
Look, it's like the fact that we're even saying this, and then it sounds like as if it was like everyone does that now, like everyone, but it felt strange then.
But the weird thing is like we were doing it at that time, there was like maybe two hundred people there and one hundred and eighty five hated us, yeah, but fifteen really liked us. And I think we're a little bit. I don't know, like maybe we are a bit we kind of like being friends with those fifteen guys and we don't care about the other hundred and eighty five who didn't wanted to hear Cruder and Dorf three And it's okay, but we just yeah, it wasn't in our world.
Have you two always shared tastes quite quite neatly, like you know when just in terms of not necessarily the too many DJ tracks that you selected, but just just growing up, did you enjoy the same music? Did you have the same reference points?
Did you or did you?
Were you brothers that? Because my brother I'm younger than my brother and we are polar opposites in our tastes. We have how many years do what you do?
How many years? Two years? Two years? So we have five so between us.
Okay, I'll take this because I think this is it's important for me to point this out, is that I am I'm five years younger and Steph, which means when I'm Tenny's fifteen, when I'm twelvey seventeen, when I'm fourteen years like, that's it. He lives in a different world.
Big gap.
Yeah, it's a big gap. Which means that. And also we grew up in a house with our dad being a DJ and and our mom sort of being the real music fan of the of that couple, so she was quite often going through the records that he was sent and compiling them for his radio shows. So in a household with three people who were very much involved in music, I think for me it wasn't until the age of maybe fifteen or sixteen that music became a thing.
And up until that point, for Steph, very early on, I once say age seven, he was already like obsessed with everything in music, And a lot of my musical upbringing, if you will, comes from Steph and his friends, five
year old gang of people and what they like. When Steph went through his deaf jam period, I went through my deaf jam period when I mean when Steph goes to London and buys pump up the Volume by Mars I listened to would extend because my my door, the we share we didn't share a room, but like there was like one door dividing our rooms. When he was blasting music, I was hearing it. So that so a lot of this when whenever whatever period Steph went through,
I was very much exposed to it. And Steph and I are very very different people, like the way we the way we go through life and the way we deal with problems or the way we deal with people's extremely different. But if there's one thing that we almost always agree on, it's that that you point out, it's the taste in in sort of in music. And and I doubt that it would be the same if I hadn't been exposed to like whatever ten years of his musical journey from such a close because.
Dave's the first first rack was a Roland red soup star rat wrapping.
But interestingly who bought it?
I bought it for him? How how how O would you have been? Like?
When I was ten? Ten?
Was Steph like my brother will like this.
Steph was really into simple minds and he and and uh and he he bought the roll because we good friend of our parents was a Belgian, asked juwardous and she'd married a guy in Birmingham and we we was sometimes sent to like spend a week in Birmingham and hang out, you know there. And I remember I was ten and I discovered rolland rapt and I loved like.
Well, I loved it. He loved watching it on TV.
So remember when that Racord came out, I was like, I gotta buy this, and Steph bought me the twelve inch.
Jave's got to have the twelve inch of this. I mean, you have you still have? You still got it? Yeah?
See, that's one of those records that I was completely wrong. Now it's so politically incorrect, but I mean, but for him, it was like this, yeah, so yeah, that's it's good. It's they've explained it really well.
I think at the time it was so innocent. Rat rapping there's so many things.
I mean, I was aware of of of it being knaf is the word, I guess, but he was who was the other character that Kevin? Kevin does Kevin the Gerbil have a Does he have a firse on rat rapping? I think he does, But but there's I think on the b side he has his own song.
Okay, right, I guess it's.
The equivalent of people when they grow up now who would say that they got to compare the Mirkat Doll?
Remember that. I feel like that's what we're living in now. How are you guys doing? For time? I realized that we're like we're good. We're good. We're good for now. Cool.
One thing I wanted to ask you about was d wee t V. Mm hmmm, what can you tell me about the wee t V? It's coming early May?
Right, Yeah, we're actually when you're asking us, do you we are we good for time? That's the thing that we're going to go back to when we're recording some stuff right next door. I don't know if you can see.
Ye oh, okay, that's like this is that the set that's like the the show set, studio interviews. Okay, I can see yeah, yeah, yeah, So.
This idea, this idea of dv TV. I think this idea of TV. Yes, it's really annoying.
Microphone, it's a bit weird, but not hearing yourself. We got asked to do live streams, and I guess, like every artist in this pandemics like, oh could you live stream this? So that we just weren't feeling the live streams. We're like, nah, it's a bit weird. And then I think when because they go here, let's do the do the compilation, they were like, but could you show the
studio to people? And then we've already we've always had this thing in our head, like, hey, why don't we just make like TV like the way that we would want to make it, you know, like as a zapping experience but just like our world. And that's a little bit what we're trying to do. And we're we're taking it way too serious, are we.
I mean, I'm sad that we've never we never got it was never part of British culture to have public access TV like they had in the States.
It would be it's honestly okay, but I don't know if I can say this. There is public We have public TV in Belgium and it's reach. It's a bit like you would have, don't you have like York Yorkshire to BBC Yorkshire, you would have the West Midlands, so you would have you have like different areas of like BBC.
We have a little bit of that, but it's it's not as it's not as.
It's not TV Party in the in New York where it's amazing where you have like one hour of just like the crazy stuff. Honestly, it's been number one on our list because it's the thing that we wanted to do, but of course, with everything that's going on, we kind of want to manipulate it a little bit and control it, but it would be our ultimate dream to just err it on the regional channel and just have some old people look at it and go like what is this?
So that also, I think one thing that we we should we should probably point out that to avoid people getting wrong expectations. It's not like that they've taken down the expectations. It's not like a long form thing. I think in this day and age, we're quite aware that the people's attention span is even shorter than what you know,
we were talking about radio soaks earlier. So so it's going to be like a switching channels experience where you like just going from one thing to the other and very on like very short bits as opposed to one sort of like an hour long stream. And that's I think because you know, we live in a time where either you go all the way and you do a one topic.
Deep dive it's called a podcast, yeah, or or you make.
A thing that's sort of that stays visually exciting and has you know, has.
A short detention spend like us.
You're going to have an interview with faruk Ganji, right, have you done that?
Well, no, that's actually that's it's a it's something that we have had for five years and we released an exhibition on it. Yeah, we we We did a small exhibition maybe five years ago in Paris about our cool Abitha collection and that's been like an ongoing thing because it grows and sometimes it'll do like a big exhibition though, and we'll lend some of our collection.
Maybe it's good to explain to people because it's like it sounds a bit we're our collection, but I think something that's very part of this building because we never really got into it, but one floor in the building has our books, another floor has our record collection, and I guess what we wanted to do with the building was to house all the things that we've been collecting over the years, because it looks impressive now, but it's stuff that we've been doing for twenty to thirty years.
And one of those things is to say when we would go to Ibitha, we completely didn't fit in with the ibitha esthetic or the or the whatever was going on when we were being booked a safe from two thousand and none. And then we would start to dig into the history of Ibitha and we would all of a sudden discover things that were interesting and we'd be like, oh, what is this?
What? Wait? What what?
And so whenever we would go to Ibitha, Dave and me would start calling people who would live their their whole lives and started collecting posters and getting into who was making the graphic design.
And so.
This whole Farrook thing was something that we would do whenever we would go and play Pasha or ibetha Rock so something like that. You would be there, we'd be like, hey, can we interview you about the times? And he would be the yeah, and I have an old friend there and we would drive and then like, I still have
a poster? Could we all this stuff? Like it's something it's work of like years and years and years and and so what we started with the studio We're building Dewey Hill Studio where they were always like, oh, well we come to your studio. It's full of all these amazing things. We should do something about it. And d WEE shouldn't just be a record label. It shouldn't just
be about music. It should be about Dave and Steph and all the and the hordes that you are and maybe tell that story and and I guess that's where a lot of that comes from.
So I should probably just say that for Rick Angie, the guy we're talking about, he he was like a key club promoter in ib for in the eighties, right, Yes, and the club the club was the Ky It's now called Privilege.
Yes, and when you and this is another amazing anecdote that is pretty Dave and me have played Privileged many, many, many times. The first time we played Privilege is I think one of the last MANU missions, the tenth University and University of the legendary MANU mission night, and we were asked to go and DJ and LCD was playing as well, by the way, so it was Elsid and Dave and me uh and and Electric six Electric six and we all it's really weird enough, by the way, this is.
The first time you're playing the first time you play Privilege. What year is it?
What is two thousand? Yeah, two thousand and three were booked.
Electric six are high like they're on the main stage and Dave and me and I don't know if everybody know, Privileges like this huge mega discotheque and they have a pool in the middle and we were playing in the middle of that pool for the for the people, and then like Alsidi was playing in like a small, tiny little room, so what they call the backroom, the back room for like three hundred people with Evan sm with Evan smug And it was really weird because I think Nancy, Pad, James,
Dave and me, We're like, we're not your Ibitha people. We were like the Indy kids who took the wrong plane. It's it's not we we were not fitting in and it was a really weird thing. But we played, people loved their people went nuts. But what David never realized is that still till today, that pool is in there and it has the cool logo in there. So it has the beautiful Coup logo in the mosaic of the
of the pool. And we've now done that many times and from the last ten years for us, whenever we go there, we always ask them, oh, could we have a look because it's the it's the original Coup logo.
It's on there.
And what made Coup so special was that it was it was maybe the precursor of a lot of stuff that we are talking about now, mega clubs, VIP rooms, but it was also the precursor of a lot of uh musical genres and way of partying that were happening there. And I think for Rucas one of those people who was a conduit for that kind of lifestyle, and it went hand in hand with a guy called Eve Euro who was also a designer who after a lot of research, turns out spend a lot of time in Brussels. So
there was like a Belgian connection again. And so yeah, it's it's been this never ending discovery us. So we have a very double relationship with Ibitha because we weren't really liking Ibitha, but we love its story, we love it's it's the Yeah, it's it's it's a truly interesting place.
Are you Do you feel more like ibef for people now now that you're kind of veterans at it and you've been there a lot, Do you feel like you're fit in any more now than when you first went?
Yeah?
Yeah, because there was there was sort of like a pivotal moment where we also have another project. It's like a space rock band called diver Bolton that we also put out on DEWI and it's us with two other guys.
One is.
Focus psell Fergadelic. He's an amazing artists graphic genius. The other one is our friend Riton, who also makes music, and they at that point they were brothers in law. And we started this band in two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, and for a period of maybe three or four years, we would go. Each year we would go for like two weeks to abitha drive out with a van and set up a studio out there and record music and I.
Kind of do the same that we would do here. It's kind of like make a place so we didn't have to go out and go to these clubs and see all the drunk people and all. Like we were like, oh, we're going to make our little haven here.
And what was very cool about those experiences that is that the through friends and then other friends, the sort of the real freaks, the real Beethans, the people who escaped their hometown to go live at that place, that we sort of we met them, and we grew, we grew to understand that it wasn't just about sort of you know, sorry to say this, like but British tourists, you know, like that whole San Antonio thing, and there was a whole history.
Of eccentric people who throughout the seventies and the eighties and the nineties escaped i think their day to day life and also financial ruin sometimes just to be in that place because for them it was almost like a magical place because they could be extravagant, extravagantly gay or or or transactual even or anything, you know, like or dress up in a weird way or be that, and it's it was meeting those people that would come to
our villa and we would hang out. We would be like, oh, wait, but there's and they would start telling stories and you would start going, oh my god, and they would be like, yo, but there's a restaurant there. You should go there, and you start to discover a completely different world.
And so do we feel more like like we're yeah, we still don't fit in, though it's it's not like we drive around with like, ah, yeah, yeah, we really fit in.
We still look at those billboards like, but there is.
That there's something about those There's something about Abitha that does feel like, if if all, if that whole club thing that's sort of embarrassing, if that was all, if that was gone, I still think that like I miss it now, Like we've been in Ghent for a year and and I would just I would love to get on a plane and go to a little beach and that there's something really magnetic about that particular island that even if you think away all the VIP bullshit and all the sort of the.
Crabwage, actually becomes sort of a fun like we're starting to like the tackiness of a lot of it now. It's really weird, but like I also love that you see people really hopeful coming there and go like this is going to be the best week.
Of my life, and you're like, oh, no, it's not.
And you see, yeah, but there's people scheming to like make money, and and it's it's a there's there's a certain something to it.
But like Dave said, I think the real.
Attraction to Ibitha is those people who've come from swith learned, Belgium, everywhere, Georgentina, American who who go to this one little tiny island which is by the way you can drive from one side to the other side in thirty minutes and feel like it's a homecoming for them and they can be this other person and yeah, it's it's it's it's yeah. I think that's the thing that attracts us.
So so all this to say that an interview that we have done with Faruk Sorries just went, it's going to be it's gonna be a little part.
It's in there.
It's like one of the one of the twenty things that are in a in a ten minute episode of TVTV.
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Anyway, good night,