Part of the Weekend Never Dies

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.