Juggling Guises And Growing Up Listening To Flash & The Pan

Belgian brothers Stephen and David Dewaele have always been music buffs. It's why they developed the indie-dance band Soulwax, only to moonlight as 2manyDJs. Now these 'anything goes' turntablists are headed back to Australia for a couple of New Year's festivals.

As it happens, the Dewaeles are old fans of a cult Aussie new wave act, Flash & The Pan - in the media following the passing of George Young, who initially found fame in The Easybeats. "Midnight Man was a hit record in Europe," David, the younger Dewaele, enthuses. "Our dad, he was a radio DJ, and so I guess it was played around the house quite a bit. I remember the record being in the living room - I remember it being part of our pop culture. It was as much part of our pop culture as maybe Queen and Talking Heads were. It was up there with big records."

David realised Flash & The Pan were Australian when he saw them interviewed on Dutch television. Later, the Dewaeles learnt that the group was a studio vehicle for Young and his cohort Harry Vanda. "They also produced, to my ears, the best AC/DC records." The Dewaeles have tried to build a similar operation to Vanda & Young in their Ghent-based Deewee studio-cum-label, producing all the acts themselves. "I guess that approach is something that Stephen and I really like," David says. "It's not so unique, but we also apply it in how we make music."

The Dewaeles are practised musical jugglers. David jokes about them having "two or 12 or 20 different guises". Soulwax formed as a rock band in the mid-'90s to modest success. But, gravitating towards dance, they broke through with their second album, Much Against Everyone's Advice. Meanwhile, the Dewaeles began DJing as 2manyDJs. They unwittingly popularised the mash-up with 2002's sanctioned mix As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt 2 (combining The Stooges and Salt N Pepa!). "It was just playing all these records in a big melting pot and, 'Oh, that works with this and that's quite interesting, and it's fun and it's slightly subversive 'cause they kind of juxtapose each other in era and time.'" Soulwax recorded 2004's Any Minute Now with Flood - remixing the album as Nite Versions. The Dewaeles then threw themselves into other endeavours, including the kosmische band Die Verboten. 

The idea of the mash-up seems retro now that hybridisation is so pervasive. "One of the reasons we started DJing was 'cause, when we went out, we didn't really hear anyone [playing] the records that we wanted to hear. I mean, definitely here where we were living, in Ghent, which is always seen as kind of a dance music destination, we thought it was just boring! 'Cause everything was segregated in either 'deep house' or 'drum'n'bass' or 'hip hop' or 'house'. [But] you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who only listens to deep house these days, 'cause they all listen to a bit of Tame Impala and a bit of Beyonce... It's just so normal to have an eclectic taste now that it's almost inconceivable to think that there was a time where people were looking so rigidly at music." Still, while the notion of DJs spinning everything is no longer a "novelty", choice cuts will never go out of fashion. "We play the music that really excites us and that we think works on the dancefloor."

This past March, Soulwax resurfaced with their first album in 13 years, From Deewee. They were inspired after touring Europe in a new configuration involving three drummers, no less. From Deewee was cut live, in one take. "To us, it was also a little bit strange that it had been such a long period between official albums, even though we had done many projects," David says. "We were even touring Soulwax until, I think, 2012 or '13. So it didn't feel to us like there was such a massive gap." However, Soulwax are on a roll. "We see it as an ongoing thing, where I think next year we'll just make another album with the exact same set-up."