Soulwax - Nite Visions

Chibuku Shake Shake. Arguably the best club night in the country has tonight become Club Soulwax. Airing their stunning new remix album ‘Nite Versions’ and also giving a lesson in how to DJ without coming off like complete twats in their 2 Many DJs alter ego, music’s favourite Belgians are here to rock. And rock they ****ing do. After much shuffling around and being moved from hither and thither waiting to be seen the boys finally emerge and Gigwise are ushered onto the tour bus to meet the smiling yet very weary looking Soulwax. Guitarist, frontman Stephen's brother, and one half of 2 Many DJs David Dewaele does all the talking. Being a DJ and a rock star takes it’s toll it would seem so to start gently we are told why on earth they started this Nite Versions tomfoolery in the first place…

From the outset, David confesses that in making their second album, ‘Any Minute Now’, they had an eye on interpreting some songs into dance tracks. He says: "The original album took a lot of time to make in the studio and in some cases was made in the studio from just loops and breaks. Quite often we would say that this would probably make a good dance track if we didn’t have a song on it! There is a lost art of doing extended dub twelve inch remixes and no one really does it any more."

Speaking about friends it’s plain to see that they are now fully fledged stars on the DJ circuit and have eschewed the indie ghetto hell that engulfed many of their contemporaries. "My friend Felix, you know ‘Da Housecat’? He’s working on an album with P Diddy and he does this rant that lasts for like two minutes saying that ‘This song is dedicated to all the DJs that play the full extended twenty minute version…’ And we decided to use it at all of our shows, it kind of says for us what we’re trying to achieve."

Rather than simply pasting beats over tracks, David confirms that 'Nite Versions' is very much divorced from the original work. He adds: "It’s totally different to Any Minute Now, I think they serve different purposes, I can see why it works so well, because it only has to serve one purpose, it just has to make you dance. It’s a bit tougher with the actual album because we spent two and a half years working on it and every idea you have has to go into one album and it doesn’t necessarily have a good lead throughout the whole record. It was like a really good rock track and then there’s 'New York Excuse' and then there’s like a ****ed up pop song and can see how that confused people and 'Nite Versions' is just… practical I guess."

In making the album, the band resisted the temptation to draft in other producers and DJs to remix the work. Having worked their wizardry on tracks by the likes of Kylie Minogue, Sugababes and Ladytron in the past they were certainly well-equipped for the job. "We wanted to do our own remixes on this because like in the eighties you had like The Human League with their album Dare and Duran Duran did their own Nite Versions so we thought it would be cool to avoid the big name remixers and you know… Just do it for ourselves…"

Fortunately for anyone fearing they may focus more on the big money spinner 2 Many DJs, David sees the DJing and Soulwax as two harmonious units that work well together, "If we only had the band I think we’d get kinda bored and if we only had the Djing it would become superficial so it’s nice that we can flit between the two. It all works in unison, with 2 Many DJs we get offered a hell of a lot more money I mean in a band unless you’re bon jovi you can’t really make any money so we use the money we make from 2 Many DJs to subsidise the band so it keeps Soulwax afloat. On the other hand though 2 Many DJs wouldn’t have happened unless we were in Soulwax so it all works out in the end."

He continues: "It doesn’t bother the other members of the band that 2 Many DJs are bigger than Soulwax, I mean any band is finished for like eleven o’ clock so these guys go nuts! Free drinks, chatting up the women and for them it’s a decadent lifestyle for us (2 Many DJs) it’s ****ing exhausting! It’s drugs man, I’m really sorry to say this but people on E make for a much better crowd. While the rest of the band are having a good time and doing whatever we are Djing, so for us we're surrounded about it but we don’t really take it."