Speaker 1: You should take one year off because sometimes you do
Speaker 1: the thing where the you know, when people wear headphones
Speaker 1: and yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly, that's how this podcast start.
Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to Midnight Chats, a podcast of casual
Speaker 3: interviews with leading musicians, published weekly at midnight to suit
Speaker 3: these informal and often under researched conversations. This week's episode
Speaker 3: is hosted by me Stuart Stubbs, editor of Loud and
Speaker 3: Quiet magazine. Apologies for the delay in episode one hundred
Speaker 3: and eight of the podcast. We've had a busy couple
Speaker 3: of weeks here at Loud and Quiet, launching a whole
Speaker 3: new membership plan for what we do to try and
Speaker 3: get some more support for the magazine, the podcast and
Speaker 3: the other things we do. That's now all done and dusted.
Speaker 3: You can check it out at loudon quiet dot com,
Speaker 3: forward slash subscribe. If you do want to sign up
Speaker 3: and become a supporting member of Loud and Quiet, you
Speaker 3: will receive our magazines, playlists, some more podcasts, and there
Speaker 3: is even a tier where you can come bowling with us.
Speaker 3: It's all allowed on Quiet dot com, forward slash subscribe.
Speaker 3: That's my plugout the way, because the podcast is back
Speaker 3: from today and my guests this evening on episode one
Speaker 3: hundred and eight are Stephan and David Devali, the two
Speaker 3: brothers also known as Solwax, Too Many DJs and Dewe.
Speaker 3: These guys have created a lot of work over the
Speaker 3: last twenty five years under a few different names, so
Speaker 3: let's just quickly set that out now. Sol Wax is
Speaker 3: the name of the four piece rock band that the
Speaker 3: brothers play in. Too Many DJs is the name of
Speaker 3: the DJ duo that they go by, who released a
Speaker 3: mix album in two thousand and three called as Heard
Speaker 3: on Radio Solwax Part Two. That was an album that
Speaker 3: mixed together punk and rock and pop with dance music
Speaker 3: and techno in a way that up until that point
Speaker 3: hadn't really been done, and it really did break down
Speaker 3: a lot of boundaries in music between genres for the
Speaker 3: first time.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 3: I remember that album very fondly. I was at university
Speaker 3: and I was very excited to talk to the brothers
Speaker 3: about that time in their lives and about that record
Speaker 3: as well as that. They also run their own record
Speaker 3: label and studio in the middle of the hometown of Ghent, Belgium.
Speaker 2: It's called Dwee.
Speaker 3: It's an incredible looking place, and I have put some
Speaker 3: links to some photos of it in the show notes
Speaker 3: of this podcast. That's where we pick up the conversation
Speaker 3: talking about the dwee building on what they've got going
Speaker 3: on there. There's also a link down there to the
Speaker 3: film that we talk about. That's a documentary about soul
Speaker 3: Wax and too many DJs being on the road. It's
Speaker 3: very fun, it's very silly. It's called Part of the
Speaker 3: Weekend Never Dies, and you can watch the whole thing
Speaker 3: on YouTube for free. Other than that, we talk about Ibitha,
Speaker 3: and we also talk a bit about dwe TV, which
Speaker 3: at the time of recording this a few months ago,
Speaker 3: they were making their new TV show, which is also
Speaker 3: available on YouTube. There's a link for that also. It
Speaker 3: hadn't launched at that point. They were still putting some
Speaker 3: finishing touches to it. But since then the first episode,
Speaker 3: or maybe the first couple of episodes, are already up,
Speaker 3: so you can also check that out. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 3: As I say, we're now back. This is episode one
Speaker 3: hundred and eight with Soulax. Thank you to David and
Speaker 3: Stephan for talking with me, and if you would like
Speaker 3: to support Loud and Quiet this podcast. The place to
Speaker 3: now do that is at loudon Quiet dot com forward
Speaker 3: slash Subscribe, where you can see what we've been up
Speaker 3: to for the past two weeks and why this podcast
Speaker 3: has come a little later. This episode of Midnight Chat
Speaker 3: is supported by some very good friends of ours at
Speaker 3: Visions Festival, which will return this year on the seventh
Speaker 3: of August twenty twenty one. The festival will go ahead
Speaker 3: here in London, based around the Oval Venue across free
Speaker 3: venues nearby. One ticket will get you into the whole thing.
Speaker 3: It costs thirty pounds twenty five pence at visions Festival
Speaker 3: dot com and there you'll see just how good the
Speaker 3: lineup is. It's always a great festival, there's a good
Speaker 3: community spirit to it is very diy proper independently run.
Speaker 3: There's always great bands on and this year they have
Speaker 3: chosen to concentrate on up and coming new British artists,
Speaker 3: many of which have been featured in Loud and quite recently,
Speaker 3: from Porridge Radio and Wolu to Yard Act, Geicer, Flow, Hio, Billy,
Speaker 3: No Mates, Caroline, I could go on. All the information
Speaker 3: is at visions Festival dot com. So we'll hopefully see
Speaker 3: you there. The seventh August is also my birthday, so
Speaker 3: there's really no excuse for you to not come. Thanks
Speaker 3: to Visions for supporting this episode. At midnight chats.
Speaker 2: The main control room.
Speaker 4: This is where everything that we've released on Dewie has
Speaker 4: gone through. This desk, the one that you're I'm gonna
Speaker 4: show to you. This is our desk.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a serious that's a serious set up. I'll
Speaker 2: show you. I'll show you what I'm recording on.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Great, this is great.
Speaker 4: I can't do this, but I mean your Your microphone's
Speaker 4: fancier than our.
Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah, I'm winning. I went on the microphone.
Speaker 1: This is a great radio. By the way, every the
Speaker 1: listeners are going to love this.
Speaker 3: Yea, they're gonna love love all this visual stuff. Well,
Speaker 3: I did actually want to ask you about a certain
Speaker 3: visual aspect of that building, of the building that you're in,
Speaker 3: because it's incredible to look at. Anyone listening to this
Speaker 3: should do a Google image search of the DWI building.
Speaker 3: It looked when I first saw a picture of it,
Speaker 3: I thought it was a render, you know, I didn't
Speaker 3: think because it looks it looks like an architect render.
Speaker 1: But also don't forget that those pictures were taken when
Speaker 1: the building was like fresh and new, fresh, brand new,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't look at state now, but there's like
Speaker 1: makes like you know, it's a it's a lived in
Speaker 1: building right now, so if you if you were to
Speaker 1: come now, it would look more realistic.
Speaker 3: I think it's like a beautiful the outside is like
Speaker 3: a beautiful, sleek black like a monochrome block. Really is
Speaker 3: design and architecture and that side of things something that
Speaker 3: you to have always been influenced by and into since
Speaker 3: you were like super young.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I guess it's it's not just architecture. I
Speaker 4: think it's uh, things that I don't know, like that
Speaker 4: make you, that move you in a way. It could
Speaker 4: be it could be paintings, it could be graphical, it
Speaker 4: could be instruments, it could be like, really, I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's a very wide and random thing. Deeve didn't go
Speaker 4: to art school, but I went to art school, and
Speaker 4: I think some of the other people in the band.
Speaker 4: So I guess it's always been in your subconscious. Where
Speaker 4: we were building this place, I feel like we were
Speaker 4: using a lot of the stuff that we like A
Speaker 4: lot of the references that came up were things that
Speaker 4: throughout the years, I think they've been very interested in
Speaker 4: a little bit of super studio guys, the Italian collective.
Speaker 4: It was also this idea of having a smaller building
Speaker 4: in the middle of a town, a medieval town, because
Speaker 4: Kent is very it's a bit like, I don't know
Speaker 4: what the comparison could be, but it's like we have
Speaker 4: the oldest castle we have, like the Lamb of God
Speaker 4: is here. I mean, it's it's it's pretty old school
Speaker 4: to have an hyper modern building in there.
Speaker 2: It took some persuading.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, what did the what did what
Speaker 3: did the local community think? As this thing was being
Speaker 3: built and and it's there because it you know, as
Speaker 3: you say, it's completely it's a monoloch almost like a yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like a space ship that's landed.
Speaker 1: In the middle of this That was actually the one.
Speaker 1: The one's concern was the fact that we don't have
Speaker 1: any windows, Like if you're standing in front of the building,
Speaker 1: you don't see any windows. And that was the maybe
Speaker 1: the biggest objection that we had to defend. But other
Speaker 1: than that, I think, I mean, I think it helps
Speaker 1: that that. You know, we and the architect that we
Speaker 1: did it with, a friend of ours called Glenn Saystick.
Speaker 1: You know, they they they knew us and they knew him,
Speaker 1: and I think they were quite you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot worse architectural buildings to have to deal with it
Speaker 1: than this one.
Speaker 4: But in the first design, in the first design, we
Speaker 4: had the facade the front, the front of the building
Speaker 4: was really a block, and they wouldn't allow us to
Speaker 4: do it in one line because they felt like people
Speaker 4: would think it was a factory or like a power
Speaker 4: station or something else, and so they asked us to
Speaker 4: make an ornamental change to the front. And I think now,
Speaker 4: I think for a lot of people starting to know
Speaker 4: that it's a studio and it becomes like it's like
Speaker 4: this weird building that people look at, you know, like they're.
Speaker 2: Like, huh.
Speaker 3: It feels I imagine, quite sacretive and cool. Like if
Speaker 3: I was walking past that burn and I'll be thinking,
Speaker 3: what's it like in there, what's like going, what's going
Speaker 3: on in there? What magic's happening in there?
Speaker 1: Have you have you ever been to in l A
Speaker 1: on the Sunset Strip? I guess there's the there's a
Speaker 1: Devo building and it's it's been there since the seventies,
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, And and it's just insane.
Speaker 4: It's an amazing lips Well it's like I think it's
Speaker 4: a circular like a building. It's it's luescent green, fluorescent green.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like we've no it was yellow ones as well,
Speaker 4: I think, And I think from the first time we
Speaker 4: went to La we've always been like, what is that
Speaker 4: building because it's there's no advertise, it's not a shop,
Speaker 4: it's not a and then people would be like, Oh,
Speaker 4: that's the Devo studio and you're like, wow, I see
Speaker 4: that that's always been and maybe the aesthetics are very different,
Speaker 4: but this idea that there was a studio and you
Speaker 4: always were like like like you would say, like.
Speaker 2: What are they doing in there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, almost like hiding in plain sight, like you're in
Speaker 3: the middle of this major city. Yeah, And it's just
Speaker 3: this mysterious thing.
Speaker 4: And I guess we needed that, Dave and me because
Speaker 4: as Slovaks or too many DJs or everything else that
Speaker 4: we're doing, we I think for us having a place
Speaker 4: where we could disappear in or like even if it's
Speaker 4: in Ghent or it could have been anywhere else. It's
Speaker 4: just it's a place where we can lock ourselves away
Speaker 4: from the outside world a little bit.
Speaker 2: And so far we I think we've we've achieved to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 3: What else is in there other than what I can
Speaker 3: say now and what I can imagine. I know I've
Speaker 3: seen some pictures where there's some bedrooms in there.
Speaker 1: Right, there's one bedroom.
Speaker 4: There's one bedroom, so people could come and stay on
Speaker 4: the top floor.
Speaker 2: We have.
Speaker 4: Sort of a lounge. I think you could call it,
Speaker 4: but I guess maybe we should preference to people that
Speaker 4: in the building. There's four floors, but everywhere in the
Speaker 4: building we put a patch be so we could record.
Speaker 4: So let's say in the elevator hall or in the stairs,
Speaker 4: or I don't know, anywhere, we could plug in and
Speaker 4: go to this board and we could record. So it
Speaker 4: had to be multifunctional for us.
Speaker 2: So you all sat there.
Speaker 3: But essentially, if somebody says, I want to record this synth,
Speaker 3: but I want to record it in the lobby, yeah,
Speaker 3: but that they can go and they can go and
Speaker 3: do that. And I suppose is that just an acoustics thing,
Speaker 3: just to think like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the with the you'll give an example of
Speaker 1: a synth, it wouldn't necessarily make much different.
Speaker 4: Drums or that a singing or something like that. I
Speaker 4: guess we want because because this is like the main
Speaker 4: control room and it's acoustically treated, and then next to
Speaker 4: it is our recording room, which is like huge, a huge,
Speaker 4: it's like the biggest the room in the building. Those
Speaker 4: are all acoustically treated, but everything else is like concrete
Speaker 4: or like metal or or our records or whatever we have,
Speaker 4: and so it makes it different acoustics. And so when
Speaker 4: you put a drum kit there, or like a microphone
Speaker 4: or a namp, it will have a very different thing.
Speaker 4: And we just wanted that building to be multifunctionals so
Speaker 4: we could do that.
Speaker 2: So the whole thing is the studio.
Speaker 1: I have to point out that everything except for the toilets.
Speaker 1: I mean that is to.
Speaker 3: Draw the line somewhere, draw the line what is Ghent
Speaker 3: like as as you guys grow up there right? Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: grown and bread the whole time, born and bred gent
Speaker 3: Ghent boys did obviously you you like, obviously you love
Speaker 3: the experience as you would have moved away our presume,
Speaker 3: but like, what is it? What is it like as
Speaker 3: a place to move, to grow up in and also
Speaker 3: to live in now.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a strange question because for us, you're
Speaker 1: asking us this question right now at a point where
Speaker 1: we have been here for like a year NonStop, so oh,
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, and for the first time in maybe
Speaker 1: more than twenty years, where we would have been traveling
Speaker 1: more than ever and for a long time, for maybe
Speaker 1: thirteen years, we would move between here and London and
Speaker 1: sort of the rest of the world, like you know,
Speaker 1: Singapore one day and Australia next.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: So we've been here now for the first time for
Speaker 1: so long, and we've sort of had to rediscover our
Speaker 1: own home town again after yes, just a little bit
Speaker 1: more of twenty years of being abroad more than home,
Speaker 1: and and each time we were home it's sort of
Speaker 1: like you're just catching up on on like just catch
Speaker 1: like you know, male that you haven't seen or like
Speaker 1: the things that you and we've been in this constant
Speaker 1: state of we were actually just talking about prior to
Speaker 1: this interview, we've been in this constant state of escapeism
Speaker 1: from reality because every everything that you don't really want
Speaker 1: to do, you have a perfect excuse because you are
Speaker 1: away you're busy, you're gone, so you know, like yeah,
Speaker 1: but but equally you miss you know, you missed your
Speaker 1: best friend's weddings and birthdays and all this stuff because
Speaker 1: people don't even check anymore. People don't expect you to
Speaker 1: be there anymore. So you don't even count as a
Speaker 1: as a as a as an even like as a
Speaker 1: social opportunity. So so being here right now, it's it's
Speaker 1: very strange for us.
Speaker 3: Are those friends that you that that kind of would
Speaker 3: just be like, well, those guys are doing that thing,
Speaker 3: so we might might not invite them to the birthday
Speaker 3: part because that's probably on tour. Yeah, those types of
Speaker 3: people you've been now that you've been back for a
Speaker 3: year of they are you're all still friends.
Speaker 4: Yeah's birthday because it's called puts it a bit weird,
Speaker 4: Like I don't think we were still in contact. But
Speaker 4: they would all like, hey, I'm getting married, but you're
Speaker 4: going to be No, they were good like this. They
Speaker 4: were like I'm getting married and I see you're in America.
Speaker 4: Are You're like yeah, damn oh man. And it's been
Speaker 4: pretty much like that for twenty five years. But you're
Speaker 4: still friends. And then I mean because of the pandemic,
Speaker 4: it wasn't. Also it was we weren't allowed to all
Speaker 4: hang out all the time and stuff like that. So
Speaker 4: but we would go for walks now and you do
Speaker 4: different things. Another other thing is that so many people
Speaker 4: from a from a think from UK now and other
Speaker 4: places are moving to Ghent and we're rediscovering our city
Speaker 4: through them. Like one of our friends is living from London,
Speaker 4: is living here now for three years, and during the
Speaker 4: pandemic he was like, oh, you know where you can
Speaker 4: get really good this or second hand books? There's a
Speaker 4: place there a guy.
Speaker 2: And and like I'm like, I've.
Speaker 4: Walked past this for like my whole half of my
Speaker 4: life and I didn't know. So it also has benefits.
Speaker 1: And it's a fun thing to do because we've been
Speaker 1: in that like our friend's situation. We've been in his
Speaker 1: situation when we had girlfriends in London or New York
Speaker 1: where where they sort of rediscover their city through our eyes.
Speaker 2: Because for us it's all new. We're like, hey, what's
Speaker 2: that building, Hey what's this?
Speaker 1: That's so that is fun, but but being being the
Speaker 1: person who was who has grown up in Ghent and
Speaker 1: and then sort of being here for such a long
Speaker 1: stretch of time during COVID has been it has been yeah, strange,
Speaker 1: but not that strange. It's just been strange because we've
Speaker 1: been so incredibly busy this year that it's not like
Speaker 1: we you know, it's not like we've spent huge amounts
Speaker 1: of time outside of this particular bubble.
Speaker 3: Yesterday, because knowing that we were going to speak today,
Speaker 3: I rewatched part of the Weekend Never Dies, which is
Speaker 3: currently on Stephan's shaking his head there, what's the shake
Speaker 3: of that head?
Speaker 2: What does that mean? It just feels like.
Speaker 4: We we re released Night Versions and a couple of
Speaker 4: months ago, and we had to do interviews about it
Speaker 4: as well, and people would reference that movie all the time,
Speaker 4: with that documentary all the time, and I kind of
Speaker 4: find it weird now having gone through everything we've gone
Speaker 4: now in our lives, to go what how I mean,
Speaker 4: how are we all still alive?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Well that is like I'm like, wait, and then when
Speaker 4: you look at it, I feel the the non sleep,
Speaker 4: the a lot of anxiety, but I also feel a
Speaker 4: lot of partying, and I also feel a lot of
Speaker 4: like loudness, and it's like a really intense world that
Speaker 4: I think now, especially in COVID times is for a
Speaker 4: lot of people's gone maybe.
Speaker 2: Stale a little bit, it's not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, And so when I watched a little bit
Speaker 4: a little bit when we're doing this interview, and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, oh, whoa wow.
Speaker 4: We've been going on like it's like a really fast car.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, really fast car.
Speaker 3: Well, it does still felt so the was the film
Speaker 3: released in two thousand and eight or two thousand and
Speaker 3: around that time, Ish, you guys don't know, let's say that,
Speaker 3: we'll say that. Let's say that it is, by the way,
Speaker 3: for anyone listening available, you can watch the whole thing
Speaker 3: on YouTube now. It's on your official channel, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Seven doesn't know, still shaking.
Speaker 2: His head but still not see it.
Speaker 3: Rewatching yesterday. There was a couple of things I did
Speaker 3: from it. One, it made me feel just super super
Speaker 3: nostalgic for that time and for the different artists that
Speaker 3: are talking on that film, Justice and busyp and all
Speaker 3: of those people, and the music of course. But yeah,
Speaker 3: as you say, like the editing on it really does
Speaker 3: communicate the craziness of that time, how wild it was,
Speaker 3: how much you were touring, you were just playing like
Speaker 3: you know, shows, every single night. For there's a part
Speaker 3: in the film I think, Stephan where you talk about
Speaker 3: how you get to it. By the time you've got
Speaker 3: to sound check to leaving the venue, you might have
Speaker 3: been there for thirteen hours or something ridiculous. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then you'd go and do that the following day. At
Speaker 3: what point did you start to tone down that intensity
Speaker 3: of touring or have you it? Has it been COVID
Speaker 3: that's made you just stop.
Speaker 1: COVID's the one thing that's made us, of course, grind
Speaker 1: to a halt. But I think that really the answer
Speaker 1: to your question is this building. Like up until this building,
Speaker 1: it was it was sort of like that, and then
Speaker 1: gradually something's shifted in our heads because that that period
Speaker 1: of a part of the weekend never dies is a
Speaker 1: perfect example.
Speaker 2: It's like peak.
Speaker 1: Of peak, moment of the balance being tipped the other way,
Speaker 1: which is that we would be just gone most of
Speaker 1: the time and come back maybe for like four or
Speaker 1: five days too, you know, do your laundry and finish
Speaker 1: a real mob. Yeah, you see your parents, that that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and then you'd be gone again. And
Speaker 1: I think gradually, since we built this building, and so
Speaker 1: the other thing I should actually mention is that in
Speaker 1: that period we that we didn't really leave much time
Speaker 1: to create a main, a main sort of thing that
Speaker 1: we were doing back then, other than a few remixes
Speaker 1: here and there, is we were just touring the world,
Speaker 1: and even though we were making new music to play live,
Speaker 1: we never we never released it, like it was just
Speaker 1: it was like an that was like an ongoing work
Speaker 1: of art, if you will. But what changes when when
Speaker 1: we built this building, we we grew into a lot
Speaker 1: more different state of productivity in that this opened our
Speaker 1: headspace to like, oh, wow, we can work with different
Speaker 1: kinds of people. We can we can take on jobs
Speaker 1: that we would maybe never do like a play or
Speaker 1: a film soundtrack or you know, like another crazy project
Speaker 1: that that we would never have time to do otherwise.
Speaker 1: And that it sort of came with the building. I mean,
Speaker 1: just prior to the building this building, we'd done another
Speaker 1: project called Radio Soax, where we did twenty four hours
Speaker 1: of music with visuals, and that sort of instigated that
Speaker 1: that sort of sense of instead of instead of the
Speaker 1: escapism that I was talking about earlier, which is about
Speaker 1: hiding in travel, we started to more hide in work
Speaker 1: and uh, and now we're in a similar state where
Speaker 1: we can we can still get away with not going
Speaker 1: to people's birthdays and weddings just because we're so busy
Speaker 1: in the studio, and that sort of started with radio.
Speaker 2: Soax, is it safe to say that your workaholics?
Speaker 4: Or are we afraid of or are we afraid of
Speaker 4: just what's looking in the mirror of going like the
Speaker 4: amateur psychologist, there's so much here now. But but it's
Speaker 4: it's a really good question because I never thought about it.
Speaker 4: But David's right, though we kept do like when you
Speaker 4: look at part of the weekend ever dies that intensity.
Speaker 4: I mean it did change a bit because that particular
Speaker 4: documentary talks about us playing as Solwaks but also DJing
Speaker 4: taking friends with us along super a long period of
Speaker 4: a couple of years of really constant touring. After that,
Speaker 4: I think also the world changed a little bit, like
Speaker 4: I think with what we did with night versions and
Speaker 4: as too many DJs kind of changed dance music and
Speaker 4: the way that people all of a sudden, a lot
Speaker 4: of teachers were playing rock festivals. It became the norm
Speaker 4: where I think at that point we were making a
Speaker 4: clear effort to play with as a live band, say,
Speaker 4: for instance, at Fabric, something that both LCD and have done.
Speaker 4: I think there was this idea of us of like
Speaker 4: what if we would can we have the same impact
Speaker 4: as a live band on an audience that comes just
Speaker 4: for clubbing, And I guess that was the thing that
Speaker 4: we achieved for ourselves and then it.
Speaker 2: Became the norm.
Speaker 4: And then we kind of wrote that wave a little
Speaker 4: bit because we're djaying a lot. And then but I
Speaker 4: think the intensity of us doing other stuff Radiosolax, the
Speaker 4: app all these other things, it was super big until
Speaker 4: we started building the building and then we kind of
Speaker 4: had to sit down here and think about, Okay, how
Speaker 4: are we going to do all these things and what
Speaker 4: are the things that we want to focus on and do.
Speaker 4: And the first things were like, we want to make
Speaker 4: a Sowax record again, we want to produce mix rite
Speaker 4: with other people, but let's make it into a manifest
Speaker 4: that if people come here, we have to work together
Speaker 4: and then release it. And that kind of calmed things
Speaker 4: down a little bit, and then the pandemic kind of
Speaker 4: made it go from zero two hundreds. All of a sudden,
Speaker 4: you're in the studio all the time, which has also
Speaker 4: been an amazing thing because that's never happened in the
Speaker 4: last twenty five years.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're completely right, Like music changed in that way,
Speaker 3: like as you say, loads of DJs would play rock
Speaker 3: festivals and things like that. Like a huge, huge part
Speaker 3: of that was the Too Many DJs album, that mix
Speaker 3: that came out when I was around twenty. You know,
Speaker 3: the Internet was around, but it wasn't like what it
Speaker 3: is now and people now talk about like we live
Speaker 3: in a post genre world where everybody likes everything, and
Speaker 3: but that record, I think is the thing was for
Speaker 3: certainly for a generation like that was a real starting
Speaker 3: point for that. I'm sure you guys are fully aware
Speaker 3: of that. And I'm not saying anything original here, but
Speaker 3: like at the time, did you were you aware of
Speaker 3: how original that mix was in doing that?
Speaker 1: Actually that No, Like I don't think we were aware
Speaker 1: of how uniqueaed it was. Yeah, but we saw the
Speaker 1: impact and it almost it Amos grew to a point
Speaker 1: where because that the impact of that record, because it
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand and two, but that lasted
Speaker 1: till about two thousand and five, and so during that
Speaker 1: whole period, I think we were we were we grew
Speaker 1: to be aware of that there was something special about
Speaker 1: what we were doing, but initially no. But what did
Speaker 1: happen is after maybe a year and a half, it
Speaker 1: felt like it was out of our hands like that,
Speaker 1: like the record was living its own life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well it's like it Yeah, it wasn't like it
Speaker 4: was ours and we were linked to it, but it
Speaker 4: became another monster. It's like it's like you can detach
Speaker 4: yourself from it. But I guess to come back to
Speaker 4: your to your question, we we didn't the impact of
Speaker 4: the album, no, but before that it all because it
Speaker 4: all begins with us playing as Solwax as an indie
Speaker 4: rock band, and we were playing a lot in the
Speaker 4: UK and we got that hang out with Errol really
Speaker 4: because it just came to us after we played a
Speaker 4: show with the Dandy Warhols, I think, and he was like,
Speaker 4: we would come play trash and we did it. We
Speaker 4: had exactly the same records in our boxes, which was
Speaker 4: a little bit weird because like this guy has n
Speaker 4: window liquor and rolling and scratching and motorhead asa spades.
Speaker 4: It's a bit with this, you know, like there was
Speaker 4: like similarities that were like uh, And so we started
Speaker 4: making these mixes for ourselves, just to play out and
Speaker 4: to make a long story short. The thing where you
Speaker 4: know is something that's happened is that we would go
Speaker 4: to rough Trade with Errol and we would look to
Speaker 4: the records and there'd be some randomly and our guy
Speaker 4: coming in and go like, oh my god, I heard
Speaker 4: this mix on XFM or something. I need it, And
Speaker 4: the guys like, I have no idea what you talked about, mate,
Speaker 4: I mean what is this And Errol Dave, I mean
Speaker 4: look at it, go like, yeah, it's ours, like completely
Speaker 4: like and you could see that through the Internet and
Speaker 4: through the fact that we were making these things, playing
Speaker 4: them the the speed of it. There was no need
Speaker 4: for like a record company or like all all the
Speaker 4: whole system that we still till today fight against. I
Speaker 4: think that was gone. We found we found a way
Speaker 4: to go direct it to people and to go make
Speaker 4: them blow their minds. And I guess that's we we
Speaker 4: understood the impact of that. That was something. And then
Speaker 4: when PS came up to us and they were like, oh,
Speaker 4: we should do the mix album. I actually remember DA
Speaker 4: even me saying, come on, it's old. We've done it,
Speaker 4: you know, Like it's like we've done this part for
Speaker 4: the last two years, and then they'll be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: we're gonna try and clear some tracks. And then it
Speaker 4: came back with a list and we were like, wait,
Speaker 4: you got the sturges in the valvel the underground, Okay, And.
Speaker 2: At that point you've got to put it out. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: down to what.
Speaker 4: They could get. We were like, oh oh, and I
Speaker 4: guess that's where I go. Where a lot of that started.
Speaker 4: And then something where it happens is when people start
Speaker 4: to really freak out about the record. And the way
Speaker 4: that people reacted to us DJing was a little bit
Speaker 4: similar to like going to see, for lack of a
Speaker 4: better reference, a Simpultura show. Like we would play and
Speaker 4: people would stage dive, they'd be like stage invasions, people
Speaker 4: would lose their minds. I remember reading and leads where
Speaker 4: people were climbing up and then and it was like
Speaker 4: like literally mayhem, and it was like a rock concert.
Speaker 4: They were like this like a proper concert. And that's
Speaker 4: where I think a lot of promoters who were completely
Speaker 4: not into dance music all of a sudden went, oh,
Speaker 4: but these guys can play after the White Stripes or
Speaker 4: Depeche Mode or any headliner. They can do this, and
Speaker 4: that's where a lot.
Speaker 2: Of that happens.
Speaker 3: It becomes like the ultimate after party for a rock show,
Speaker 3: essentially the cheapest have and it's the that's true, I mean,
Speaker 3: but because that project, because you guys started I'm right,
Speaker 3: I think in saying that you started djaying because after
Speaker 3: the band would play, you'd want to like do something.
Speaker 3: You'd be in a city somewhere and you'd be like,
Speaker 3: I want to go out, so you'd go to clubs
Speaker 3: and then you'd start DJing in those clubs, and it
Speaker 3: kind of happens almost through boredom, like you're a band
Speaker 3: and then you start djaying because it's what happens.
Speaker 2: What can happen after a show.
Speaker 3: So when you're at reading, for example, and you're you're
Speaker 3: playing as too many DJs and that records like on
Speaker 3: fire and everyone's loving it, are you kind of thinking
Speaker 3: this is kind of ridiculous because this is our hobby.
Speaker 3: This is like a hobby to the to the band,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was some super surreal instances where we would
Speaker 4: tour with with LCD because we'd become friends with them.
Speaker 4: Nancy was my girlfriend, so we would constantly play together.
Speaker 4: We would make an effort that too many DJs would play,
Speaker 4: an LCD would play, and LCD would sometimes play like
Speaker 4: the smaller tent in the festival because there was starting
Speaker 4: out and then Dave and me were like head letting
Speaker 4: the dance plays or something or like another tent. And
Speaker 4: it happened a couple of times that we were supposed
Speaker 4: to play at the same stage and then the promoter's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: too many have to finish off on the main stage.
Speaker 4: And we'd be like, are you insane, and they're like, yeah, no,
Speaker 4: you have to do it. And so a couple of instances,
Speaker 4: I remember we'd be in front of like fifty thousand
Speaker 4: people with just two turntables and then like James and
Speaker 4: Nancy and everyone being our dancers on stage, and then
Speaker 4: like it was like the weirdest thing, you know, like
Speaker 4: and people.
Speaker 2: Would love it.
Speaker 4: They totally got it. But it was a weird world
Speaker 4: where I think we yeah it over. It's hard to explain.
Speaker 1: I think for a very long I was just trying
Speaker 1: to while stuff are saying this. I was trying to
Speaker 1: think until when, But I think it's until now.
Speaker 2: James and Tyler were the Eclectic Dance Troupe.
Speaker 1: That's when he was dancing. No, but I was trying
Speaker 1: to think of like when it became normal, because it
Speaker 1: had like what you were describing, yes, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: We were saying it in interviews also like we were like,
Speaker 1: we don't understand it's it's like we're living in a
Speaker 1: science fiction movie where people's values have just gone upside down.
Speaker 2: Like we we would we were.
Speaker 1: We understood how it worked before. We understood that you
Speaker 1: had to play small clubs and then maybe a bigger
Speaker 1: venue and then you you know, get some radio play.
Speaker 1: Like we understood how that worked, and we didn't understand
Speaker 1: what was happening to us in for I mean, it's
Speaker 1: silly to say now the dance world because that it
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't. That division doesn't even existing more. We've
Speaker 1: were talking about rock festivals. They don't exist anymore, like
Speaker 1: it's a festival, just a festival, and they have everything.
Speaker 1: But but back then there was this division. And what
Speaker 1: was very clear is that the the dance side of
Speaker 1: of the of the industry or the music world was
Speaker 1: really embracing us in such a way that was so insane,
Speaker 1: and we were we were suddenly living this ab like
Speaker 1: upside down world. That's and and while Steph was uttering this,
Speaker 1: I was trying to think, like, oh, well when I
Speaker 1: remember thinking this vividly and when did it end? But
Speaker 1: I don't really think. It's like I think still to
Speaker 1: this day, the amount of importance that's being given to
Speaker 1: djaying and we feel comfortable saying this because we're DJs,
Speaker 1: is is it's it's it doesn't merit the it's like
Speaker 1: we're giving the the the amount of value that we're
Speaker 1: putting on on the act of DJing, even though it's cool,
Speaker 1: we love doing it, it's amazing, it's it's a it's
Speaker 1: a real you know, it's a source of joy and pleasure.
Speaker 1: But we are putting so much importance, and not only
Speaker 1: in terms of value culturally, but like financially, it's it's
Speaker 1: just insane.
Speaker 4: It's also I think for a lot of people it
Speaker 4: becomes a singular part of their art, so you're just
Speaker 4: the DJ and I guess for us, And that's another
Speaker 4: thing I wanted to because it's it's really weird. Also,
Speaker 4: but we never talk about these things unless it's second interview,
Speaker 4: So something like this, but what It's also very clear
Speaker 4: for me is like at say like four festivals in
Speaker 4: they even me start to go, oh, wait a minute,
Speaker 4: if we play this track on this speed, or we
Speaker 4: do this, or we have I don't know, the gossip
Speaker 4: standing in a way of like we we need to
Speaker 4: use this and this and this. Our remixes or some
Speaker 4: of the stuff that we've done from then on are
Speaker 4: influenced by what we what we saw happening in front
Speaker 4: of our faces when we were playing these big audiences.
Speaker 4: So it did we did take that and use it
Speaker 4: for something else. And I think what Davis talking about
Speaker 4: is that there's a world now where I think people
Speaker 4: this this world of DJing, it's just that it's just
Speaker 4: and I guess for us it was a way of
Speaker 4: having a direct.
Speaker 2: A direct view on how people react to what you make.
Speaker 3: You kind there was kind of more of a feedback
Speaker 3: loop between what you'd play out. You'd then go away
Speaker 3: and you'd adjust it before you.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent, and there would be a radio show
Speaker 4: that we could do maybe two weeks or three weeks later,
Speaker 4: where we could then play that track and then somebody
Speaker 4: would like have downloaded it and stuff like that, and
Speaker 4: and that's that's where it becomes that whole instantaneous. This
Speaker 4: is before Instagram and I think Facebook and a lot
Speaker 4: of that stuff. Was it just yeah, it was really
Speaker 4: exciting for us. The record companies were completely caught out
Speaker 4: because we were way faster than them in every on
Speaker 4: every level, the audience, us, even the artists that we
Speaker 4: would remix.
Speaker 3: There's a line actually in the film that James Murphy says,
Speaker 3: what you were just saying. Then Dave reminded me of
Speaker 3: where he says that every DJ, he feels every DJ
Speaker 3: should go and tour as a punk band for a
Speaker 3: year because he feels that DJing is up there with
Speaker 3: one of the most ludicrously paid compared to workload things
Speaker 3: along with and he compares it to being a games game.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, we're called too many DJs, so it's it's.
Speaker 4: We still does anyone beat any and we feel like
Speaker 4: it's a true.
Speaker 1: But the weird thing is that over over us a
Speaker 1: twenty year span of time, we we have appreciated, like
Speaker 1: I can be honest, like I when we started djaying,
Speaker 1: I had I had no DJ heroes. I had know
Speaker 1: like it did.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like.
Speaker 1: Like the the act of djaying to it was something
Speaker 1: that we of course had been around all of our lives,
Speaker 1: because our dad was one, and we'd been around the radio,
Speaker 1: and we'd been around club culture and dance music our
Speaker 1: whole lives. But I think the reason why it lasted
Speaker 1: for so long is because we had zero respect for it.
Speaker 1: That's right, I think. I think if you really care
Speaker 1: about it, you start to make choices based around it,
Speaker 1: and and we have had very little.
Speaker 2: We we we had no.
Speaker 4: Awareness of any of the rules that, by the way,
Speaker 4: are no rules. So we just played loose by the
Speaker 4: Stooges and then went straight into a techno track and
Speaker 4: we were like, yeah, that's exactly the same vibe and
Speaker 4: it's connected with people.
Speaker 2: But it's so crazy that we're even life with it.
Speaker 2: It's another thing.
Speaker 1: Look, it's like the fact that we're even saying this,
Speaker 1: and then it sounds like as if it was like
Speaker 1: everyone does that now, like everyone, but it felt strange then.
Speaker 4: But the weird thing is like we were doing it
Speaker 4: at that time, there was like maybe two hundred people
Speaker 4: there and one hundred and eighty five hated us, yeah,
Speaker 4: but fifteen really liked us. And I think we're a
Speaker 4: little bit. I don't know, like maybe we are a
Speaker 4: bit we kind of like being friends with those fifteen
Speaker 4: guys and we don't care about the other hundred and
Speaker 4: eighty five who didn't wanted to hear Cruder and Dorf
Speaker 4: three And it's okay, but we just yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 4: in our world.
Speaker 3: Have you two always shared tastes quite quite neatly, like
Speaker 3: you know when just in terms of not necessarily the
Speaker 3: too many DJ tracks that you selected, but just just
Speaker 3: growing up, did you enjoy the same music? Did you
Speaker 3: have the same reference points?
Speaker 2: Did you or did you?
Speaker 3: Were you brothers that? Because my brother I'm younger than
Speaker 3: my brother and we are polar opposites in our tastes.
Speaker 3: We have how many years do what you do?
Speaker 2: How many years? Two years? Two years? So we have
Speaker 2: five so between us.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll take this because I think this is it's
Speaker 1: important for me to point this out, is that I
Speaker 1: am I'm five years younger and Steph, which means when
Speaker 1: I'm Tenny's fifteen, when I'm twelvey seventeen, when I'm fourteen
Speaker 1: years like, that's it. He lives in a different world.
Speaker 2: Big gap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a big gap. Which means that. And also
Speaker 1: we grew up in a house with our dad being
Speaker 1: a DJ and and our mom sort of being the
Speaker 1: real music fan of the of that couple, so she
Speaker 1: was quite often going through the records that he was
Speaker 1: sent and compiling them for his radio shows. So in
Speaker 1: a household with three people who were very much involved
Speaker 1: in music, I think for me it wasn't until the
Speaker 1: age of maybe fifteen or sixteen that music became a thing.
Speaker 1: And up until that point, for Steph, very early on,
Speaker 1: I once say age seven, he was already like obsessed
Speaker 1: with everything in music, And a lot of my musical upbringing,
Speaker 1: if you will, comes from Steph and his friends, five
Speaker 1: year old gang of people and what they like. When
Speaker 1: Steph went through his deaf jam period, I went through
Speaker 1: my deaf jam period when I mean when Steph goes
Speaker 1: to London and buys pump up the Volume by Mars
Speaker 1: I listened to would extend because my my door, the
Speaker 1: we share we didn't share a room, but like there
Speaker 1: was like one door dividing our rooms. When he was
Speaker 1: blasting music, I was hearing it. So that so a
Speaker 1: lot of this when whenever whatever period Steph went through,
Speaker 1: I was very much exposed to it. And Steph and
Speaker 1: I are very very different people, like the way we
Speaker 1: the way we go through life and the way we
Speaker 1: deal with problems or the way we deal with people's
Speaker 1: extremely different. But if there's one thing that we almost
Speaker 1: always agree on, it's that that you point out, it's
Speaker 1: the taste in in sort of in music. And and
Speaker 1: I doubt that it would be the same if I
Speaker 1: hadn't been exposed to like whatever ten years of his
Speaker 1: musical journey from such a close because.
Speaker 2: Dave's the first first rack was a Roland red soup
Speaker 2: star rat wrapping.
Speaker 1: But interestingly who bought it?
Speaker 2: I bought it for him? How how how O would
Speaker 2: you have been? Like?
Speaker 1: When I was ten? Ten?
Speaker 2: Was Steph like my brother will like this.
Speaker 1: Steph was really into simple minds and he and and
Speaker 1: uh and he he bought the roll because we good
Speaker 1: friend of our parents was a Belgian, asked juwardous and
Speaker 1: she'd married a guy in Birmingham and we we was
Speaker 1: sometimes sent to like spend a week in Birmingham and
Speaker 1: hang out, you know there. And I remember I was
Speaker 1: ten and I discovered rolland rapt and I loved like.
Speaker 2: Well, I loved it. He loved watching it on TV.
Speaker 1: So remember when that Racord came out, I was like,
Speaker 1: I gotta buy this, and Steph bought me the twelve inch.
Speaker 2: Jave's got to have the twelve inch of this. I mean,
Speaker 2: you have you still have? You still got it? Yeah?
Speaker 4: See, that's one of those records that I was completely wrong.
Speaker 4: Now it's so politically incorrect, but I mean, but for him,
Speaker 4: it was like this, yeah, so yeah, that's it's good.
Speaker 4: It's they've explained it really well.
Speaker 2: I think at the time it was so innocent. Rat
Speaker 2: rapping there's so many things.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was aware of of of it being
Speaker 1: knaf is the word, I guess, but he was who
Speaker 1: was the other character that Kevin? Kevin does Kevin the
Speaker 1: Gerbil have a Does he have a firse on rat rapping?
Speaker 1: I think he does, But but there's I think on
Speaker 1: the b side he has his own song.
Speaker 2: Okay, right, I guess it's.
Speaker 4: The equivalent of people when they grow up now who
Speaker 4: would say that they got to compare the Mirkat Doll?
Speaker 2: Remember that. I feel like that's what we're living in now.
Speaker 2: How are you guys doing? For time? I realized that
Speaker 2: we're like we're good. We're good. We're good for now. Cool.
Speaker 3: One thing I wanted to ask you about was d
Speaker 3: wee t V. Mm hmmm, what can you tell me
Speaker 3: about the wee t V? It's coming early May?
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, we're actually when you're asking us, do you
Speaker 1: we are we good for time? That's the thing that
Speaker 1: we're going to go back to when we're recording some
Speaker 1: stuff right next door. I don't know if you can see.
Speaker 3: Ye oh, okay, that's like this is that the set
Speaker 3: that's like the the show set, studio interviews. Okay, I
Speaker 3: can see yeah, yeah, yeah, So.
Speaker 2: This idea, this idea of dv TV. I think this
Speaker 2: idea of TV. Yes, it's really annoying.
Speaker 4: Microphone, it's a bit weird, but not hearing yourself. We
Speaker 4: got asked to do live streams, and I guess, like
Speaker 4: every artist in this pandemics like, oh could you live
Speaker 4: stream this? So that we just weren't feeling the live streams.
Speaker 4: We're like, nah, it's a bit weird. And then I
Speaker 4: think when because they go here, let's do the do
Speaker 4: the compilation, they were like, but could you show the
Speaker 4: studio to people? And then we've already we've always had
Speaker 4: this thing in our head, like, hey, why don't we
Speaker 4: just make like TV like the way that we would
Speaker 4: want to make it, you know, like as a zapping
Speaker 4: experience but just like our world. And that's a little
Speaker 4: bit what we're trying to do. And we're we're taking
Speaker 4: it way too serious, are we.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sad that we've never we never got
Speaker 3: it was never part of British culture to have public
Speaker 3: access TV like they had in the States.
Speaker 4: It would be it's honestly okay, but I don't know
Speaker 4: if I can say this. There is public We have
Speaker 4: public TV in Belgium and it's reach. It's a bit
Speaker 4: like you would have, don't you have like York Yorkshire
Speaker 4: to BBC Yorkshire, you would have the West Midlands, so
Speaker 4: you would have you have like different areas of like BBC.
Speaker 2: We have a little bit of that, but it's it's
Speaker 2: not as it's not as.
Speaker 4: It's not TV Party in the in New York where
Speaker 4: it's amazing where you have like one hour of just
Speaker 4: like the crazy stuff. Honestly, it's been number one on
Speaker 4: our list because it's the thing that we wanted to do,
Speaker 4: but of course, with everything that's going on, we kind
Speaker 4: of want to manipulate it a little bit and control it,
Speaker 4: but it would be our ultimate dream to just err
Speaker 4: it on the regional channel and just have some old
Speaker 4: people look at it and go like what is this?
Speaker 1: So that also, I think one thing that we we
Speaker 1: should we should probably point out that to avoid people
Speaker 1: getting wrong expectations. It's not like that they've taken down
Speaker 1: the expectations. It's not like a long form thing. I
Speaker 1: think in this day and age, we're quite aware that
Speaker 1: the people's attention span is even shorter than what you know,
Speaker 1: we were talking about radio soaks earlier. So so it's
Speaker 1: going to be like a switching channels experience where you
Speaker 1: like just going from one thing to the other and
Speaker 1: very on like very short bits as opposed to one
Speaker 1: sort of like an hour long stream. And that's I
Speaker 1: think because you know, we live in a time where
Speaker 1: either you go all the way and you do a
Speaker 1: one topic.
Speaker 2: Deep dive it's called a podcast, yeah, or or you make.
Speaker 1: A thing that's sort of that stays visually exciting and
Speaker 1: has you know, has.
Speaker 2: A short detention spend like us.
Speaker 3: You're going to have an interview with faruk Ganji, right,
Speaker 3: have you done that?
Speaker 1: Well, no, that's actually that's it's a it's something that
Speaker 1: we have had for five years and we released an
Speaker 1: exhibition on it. Yeah, we we We did a small
Speaker 1: exhibition maybe five years ago in Paris about our cool
Speaker 1: Abitha collection and that's been like an ongoing thing because
Speaker 1: it grows and sometimes it'll do like a big exhibition though,
Speaker 1: and we'll lend some of our collection.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's good to explain to people because it's like
Speaker 4: it sounds a bit we're our collection, but I think
Speaker 4: something that's very part of this building because we never
Speaker 4: really got into it, but one floor in the building
Speaker 4: has our books, another floor has our record collection, and
Speaker 4: I guess what we wanted to do with the building
Speaker 4: was to house all the things that we've been collecting
Speaker 4: over the years, because it looks impressive now, but it's
Speaker 4: stuff that we've been doing for twenty to thirty years.
Speaker 4: And one of those things is to say when we
Speaker 4: would go to Ibitha, we completely didn't fit in with
Speaker 4: the ibitha esthetic or the or the whatever was going
Speaker 4: on when we were being booked a safe from two
Speaker 4: thousand and none. And then we would start to dig
Speaker 4: into the history of Ibitha and we would all of
Speaker 4: a sudden discover things that were interesting and we'd be like, oh,
Speaker 4: what is this?
Speaker 2: What? Wait? What what?
Speaker 4: And so whenever we would go to Ibitha, Dave and
Speaker 4: me would start calling people who would live their their
Speaker 4: whole lives and started collecting posters and getting into who
Speaker 4: was making the graphic design.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 4: This whole Farrook thing was something that we would do
Speaker 4: whenever we would go and play Pasha or ibetha Rock
Speaker 4: so something like that. You would be there, we'd be like, hey,
Speaker 4: can we interview you about the times? And he would
Speaker 4: be the yeah, and I have an old friend there
Speaker 4: and we would drive and then like, I still have
Speaker 4: a poster? Could we all this stuff? Like it's something
Speaker 4: it's work of like years and years and years and
Speaker 4: and so what we started with the studio We're building
Speaker 4: Dewey Hill Studio where they were always like, oh, well
Speaker 4: we come to your studio. It's full of all these
Speaker 4: amazing things. We should do something about it. And d
Speaker 4: WEE shouldn't just be a record label. It shouldn't just
Speaker 4: be about music. It should be about Dave and Steph
Speaker 4: and all the and the hordes that you are and
Speaker 4: maybe tell that story and and I guess that's where
Speaker 4: a lot of that comes from.
Speaker 3: So I should probably just say that for Rick Angie,
Speaker 3: the guy we're talking about, he he was like a
Speaker 3: key club promoter in ib for in the eighties, right, Yes,
Speaker 3: and the club the club was the Ky It's now
Speaker 3: called Privilege.
Speaker 4: Yes, and when you and this is another amazing anecdote
Speaker 4: that is pretty Dave and me have played Privileged many, many,
Speaker 4: many times. The first time we played Privilege is I
Speaker 4: think one of the last MANU missions, the tenth University
Speaker 4: and University of the legendary MANU mission night, and we
Speaker 4: were asked to go and DJ and LCD was playing
Speaker 4: as well, by the way, so it was Elsid and
Speaker 4: Dave and me uh and and Electric six Electric six
Speaker 4: and we all it's really weird enough, by the way,
Speaker 4: this is.
Speaker 2: The first time you're playing the first time you play Privilege.
Speaker 2: What year is it?
Speaker 1: What is two thousand? Yeah, two thousand and three were booked.
Speaker 4: Electric six are high like they're on the main stage
Speaker 4: and Dave and me and I don't know if everybody know,
Speaker 4: Privileges like this huge mega discotheque and they have a
Speaker 4: pool in the middle and we were playing in the
Speaker 4: middle of that pool for the for the people, and
Speaker 4: then like Alsidi was playing in like a small, tiny
Speaker 4: little room, so what they call the backroom, the back
Speaker 4: room for like three hundred people with Evan sm with
Speaker 4: Evan smug And it was really weird because I think Nancy, Pad, James,
Speaker 4: Dave and me, We're like, we're not your Ibitha people.
Speaker 4: We were like the Indy kids who took the wrong plane.
Speaker 4: It's it's not we we were not fitting in and
Speaker 4: it was a really weird thing. But we played, people
Speaker 4: loved their people went nuts. But what David never realized
Speaker 4: is that still till today, that pool is in there
Speaker 4: and it has the cool logo in there. So it
Speaker 4: has the beautiful Coup logo in the mosaic of the
Speaker 4: of the pool. And we've now done that many times
Speaker 4: and from the last ten years for us, whenever we
Speaker 4: go there, we always ask them, oh, could we have
Speaker 4: a look because it's the it's the original Coup logo.
Speaker 2: It's on there.
Speaker 4: And what made Coup so special was that it was
Speaker 4: it was maybe the precursor of a lot of stuff
Speaker 4: that we are talking about now, mega clubs, VIP rooms,
Speaker 4: but it was also the precursor of a lot of
Speaker 4: uh musical genres and way of partying that were happening there.
Speaker 4: And I think for Rucas one of those people who
Speaker 4: was a conduit for that kind of lifestyle, and it
Speaker 4: went hand in hand with a guy called Eve Euro
Speaker 4: who was also a designer who after a lot of research,
Speaker 4: turns out spend a lot of time in Brussels. So
Speaker 4: there was like a Belgian connection again. And so yeah,
Speaker 4: it's it's been this never ending discovery us. So we
Speaker 4: have a very double relationship with Ibitha because we weren't
Speaker 4: really liking Ibitha, but we love its story, we love
Speaker 4: it's it's the Yeah, it's it's it's a truly interesting place.
Speaker 3: Are you Do you feel more like ibef for people
Speaker 3: now now that you're kind of veterans at it and
Speaker 3: you've been there a lot, Do you feel like you're
Speaker 3: fit in any more now than when you first went?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there was there was sort of like a
Speaker 1: pivotal moment where we also have another project. It's like
Speaker 1: a space rock band called diver Bolton that we also
Speaker 1: put out on DEWI and it's us with two other guys.
Speaker 2: One is.
Speaker 1: Focus psell Fergadelic. He's an amazing artists graphic genius. The
Speaker 1: other one is our friend Riton, who also makes music,
Speaker 1: and they at that point they were brothers in law.
Speaker 1: And we started this band in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, and for a period of maybe
Speaker 1: three or four years, we would go. Each year we
Speaker 1: would go for like two weeks to abitha drive out
Speaker 1: with a van and set up a studio out there
Speaker 1: and record music and I.
Speaker 4: Kind of do the same that we would do here.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like make a place so we didn't
Speaker 4: have to go out and go to these clubs and
Speaker 4: see all the drunk people and all. Like we were like, oh,
Speaker 4: we're going to make our little haven here.
Speaker 1: And what was very cool about those experiences that is
Speaker 1: that the through friends and then other friends, the sort
Speaker 1: of the real freaks, the real Beethans, the people who
Speaker 1: escaped their hometown to go live at that place, that
Speaker 1: we sort of we met them, and we grew, we
Speaker 1: grew to understand that it wasn't just about sort of
Speaker 1: you know, sorry to say this, like but British tourists,
Speaker 1: you know, like that whole San Antonio thing, and there
Speaker 1: was a whole history.
Speaker 4: Of eccentric people who throughout the seventies and the eighties
Speaker 4: and the nineties escaped i think their day to day
Speaker 4: life and also financial ruin sometimes just to be in
Speaker 4: that place because for them it was almost like a
Speaker 4: magical place because they could be extravagant, extravagantly gay or
Speaker 4: or or transactual even or anything, you know, like or
Speaker 4: dress up in a weird way or be that, and
Speaker 4: it's it was meeting those people that would come to
Speaker 4: our villa and we would hang out. We would be like, oh, wait,
Speaker 4: but there's and they would start telling stories and you
Speaker 4: would start going, oh my god, and they would be like, yo,
Speaker 4: but there's a restaurant there. You should go there, and
Speaker 4: you start to discover a completely different world.
Speaker 1: And so do we feel more like like we're yeah,
Speaker 1: we still don't fit in, though it's it's not like
Speaker 1: we drive around with like, ah, yeah, yeah, we really
Speaker 1: fit in.
Speaker 2: We still look at those billboards like, but there is.
Speaker 1: That there's something about those There's something about Abitha that
Speaker 1: does feel like, if if all, if that whole club
Speaker 1: thing that's sort of embarrassing, if that was all, if
Speaker 1: that was gone, I still think that like I miss
Speaker 1: it now, Like we've been in Ghent for a year
Speaker 1: and and I would just I would love to get
Speaker 1: on a plane and go to a little beach and
Speaker 1: that there's something really magnetic about that particular island that
Speaker 1: even if you think away all the VIP bullshit and
Speaker 1: all the sort of the.
Speaker 4: Crabwage, actually becomes sort of a fun like we're starting
Speaker 4: to like the tackiness of a lot of it now.
Speaker 4: It's really weird, but like I also love that you
Speaker 4: see people really hopeful coming there and go like this
Speaker 4: is going to be the best week.
Speaker 2: Of my life, and you're like, oh, no, it's not.
Speaker 4: And you see, yeah, but there's people scheming to like
Speaker 4: make money, and and it's it's a there's there's a
Speaker 4: certain something to it.
Speaker 2: But like Dave said, I think the real.
Speaker 4: Attraction to Ibitha is those people who've come from swith learned, Belgium, everywhere, Georgentina,
Speaker 4: American who who go to this one little tiny island
Speaker 4: which is by the way you can drive from one
Speaker 4: side to the other side in thirty minutes and feel
Speaker 4: like it's a homecoming for them and they can be
Speaker 4: this other person and yeah, it's it's it's it's yeah.
Speaker 4: I think that's the thing that attracts us.
Speaker 1: So so all this to say that an interview that
Speaker 1: we have done with Faruk Sorries just went, it's going
Speaker 1: to be it's gonna be a little part.
Speaker 2: It's in there.
Speaker 1: It's like one of the one of the twenty things
Speaker 1: that are in a in a ten minute episode of TVTV.
Speaker 3: For previous episodes of Midnight Chats, simply search your podcast
Speaker 3: app and don't forget to follow or subscribe in order
Speaker 3: to receive new episodes as that published every week at midnight.
Speaker 3: For more information on the music magazine that makes this series,
Speaker 3: visit Loud and Quiet dot com.
Speaker 2: Anyway, good night,