Share

To round off an impressive year that marked the release of its highly rated - and anticipated - ‘From DEEWEE’ album, Soulwax has planned a massive show at the Lotto Arena in Antwerp, Friday December 22. For the occasion, the Dewaele duo will perform both a live set and a DJ-set – and they have invited Hot Chip founder Joe Goddard and their whole DEEWEE family over. In a busy week filled with six shows, David Dewaele (one half of the iconic, brotherly duo) was kind enough to have a little phone chat with us while he was sitting in a Manchester taxi on his way to catch a flight to Paris. In anticipation of the homecoming show, we prepared a handful of questions about their record label (which, by the way, took home the gold medal in the ‘Best Label’ category at the most recent Red Bull Elektropedia Awards), their exhausting tour and their New Year’s resolutions.

You guys are in the middle of a short, but stacked series of shows that take you across the UK, France, The Netherlands and Belgium. How have the first gigs been so far? "So far so good! We did two nights at London’s Roundhouse and one in the Manchester Academy – where we did a BBC Session too. Tonight we’ll be in Paris, which I’m sure is going to be great as well. It’s good to be able to do shows like these now, as they are not easy to plan. The stage setup is a lot bigger for these shows, there are so much more things you have to take into account – and you have to find the right venues and the right dates for the whole team. It’s not like any other tour, where we just accept an offer that comes in and play. This is a whole lot more complex; the preparations for these shows have been going for about 6 months already."

Will the last night (at the Lotto Arena in Antwerp on Friday, December 22) be something a little more special compared to the others? "Absolutely! It has been a very special year with the release of our album – and this is the perfect way to end it. It’s also the only show with such a big production; and the only one where we play a DJ-set as 2manydjs, accompanied by special visuals and whatnot. Basically, this gig is an opportunity to invite all of our family and friends, from all over the world. Joe Goddard will be there, the whole DEEWEE crew, etc. It’s basically an excuse to give one hell of a party at the Lotto Arena. And it doesn’t hurt to be able to crawl in our own beds afterwards for once."

What’s on the schedule after this week? Catching some rest? "No, not at all actually. On Christmas Day we leave for another tour that takes us to Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Dubai – and some more places I’m probably forgetting right now. We will be back halfway through January; after which we have reserved some studio time until March."

Studio time? To make what exactly? "A lot of things, really. There are so many DEEWEE releases in the pipeline. We have invited a lot of producers to come down to Ghent to finish their material with us, so it’s not only our own music we’ll be working on. ‘Studio time’ never really means working on one project for us. We work on a whole bunch of things on the same time. If we really want to have a productive time in the studio for new Soulwax music, we really have to plan ahead – and that’s not the case right now, unfortunately."

We were intrigued when you said you expect a lot of new material on the label… "Yes, we are expected a whole lot of new stuff. A lot of people that will do something on DEEWEE have never even released music before. Many are friends of ours that have something to say, and we help them with this. We give them that extra push. So for us, DEEWEE provides a real showcase opportunity."

What are your plans for New Year’s Eve? "We will be in in Australia, performing. That’s actually fine, compared to other years in which we had two or three gigs in one night. Hustling in the snow, catching jets, that’s too stressful. It’s a lot more fun when we can just party and have a ball ourselves."

Any New Year’s resolutions? "Easier said than done, but maybe we should consider trying to take a vacation more often..."