Never Enough

Chances are your first experience of 2manyDJs was wondering how the hell As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt. 2 could pack almost 50 hits of adrenalin into less than an hour-long high without ODing. Taking in a mind-boggling diversity of aural drugs – from The Cramps, Velvet Underground and The Jets to Peaches, Basement Jaxx and Vitalic – the 2002 release not only left bedroom dancers gurning, but forced rock fiends to admit that perhaps this DJing thang wasn't all boom and doof doom. That was ten years ago and you can be assured many of those exposed to such Radio Soulwax mixes have stepped onto many a real dancefloor since. Of course, the Dewaele brothers – David and Stephen – have no intention of giving up dealing either.

“I think the reason behind the longevity of our career, which we still don't really understand, but the reason perhaps is that we don't really understand what we're doing,” David Dewaele laughs wryly as he tries to come to grips with how over all these years they haven't changed their musical blueprint; mixing old with new. “We're just playing music that we like and it seems to transcend to a larger audience.”

Indeed the sonic template has been an extremely successful one, seeing 2manyDJs headline the world's biggest festivals and create some of the most ridiculously fun dancefloors in history. When past classics are thrown together with a slice of the now as skilfully as the Dewaele brothers do, well, there's really nothing left to do but to shake a tail-feather. Whether it's working Ike & Tina Turner's Nutbush City Limits into Kraftwerk or Dolly Parton' 9 To 5 into Royksopp, their seamless mixing is also helped by their prolific bootlegging, earning them the title of Mash-up Kings.

Yet although their 2manyDJs sound philosophy hasn't changed much over the years – apart from an overwhelming gravitation towards the French electro sound for a brief period in the mid-noughties – this is still only one slice of the Dewaele pie. Another large one is their Soulwax project, and David has some good news ready to serve: “I'd say in the last nine months all we've been doing is Soulwax stuff.”

Dewaele is talking about the follow-up to 2004's Any Minute Now he and his brother's band Soulwax blasted into our ears/eyes with such memorable tracks/titles/video clips as E Talking and NY Excuse. Seeing as it's been so long between pills and The Flying Dewaele Brothers (another of their projects) are so diverse in their tastes, you wouldn't want to bet on what styles they've been brewing. Turns out, they wouldn't either. “For this specific one,” David ponders, “I don't know. We're making a whole bunch of different things and we don't know yet whether it's going to come out as a Soulwax album or whether it will come out on other people's albums, or we'll just do another project with that.”

Either way, he assures us we can expect some form of Soulwax album in 2013. Apart from producing, jamming, rehearsing and DJing constantly, what's also been keeping them busy is the latest edition of their hour-long Radio Soulwax series, the latest an ode to David Bowie. Unlike their usual mix of genius and comedic music and visual pairings, Dave has been a project of passion with a difference. “It's like a weird, film noir dream sequence, and it wouldn't work in a club – it's not the feelgood hit of the summer,” David laughs, emphasising 2manyDJs' Australian tour won't be featuring it. Yet that's not the only difference.

“It's because of the visual side to it, which ended up becoming a film,” he continues explaining the cinematic release, their RS sessions normally being restricted to their website, online and apps. “It was just a lot more of an ambitious project. We had to wait for people for that to happen. We finished that mix just under a year ago, but that's then how long it took to get the visual side of it right.”

That's a long time to commit for such busy bros that you might be wondering how much time they put into each normal (non-cinematic) Radio Soulwax 'show'. “I'm embarrassed, I'm embarrassed to tell you,” David grimaces, “I'd say all in all – like, collecting the music, making the playlists, recording it, making the mix, making the visuals – it's about a minimum of a month… But then there's a few other ones that with the visual side we have to wait 'til other people have time off from their paying jobs, sometimes a year, because so much of it is based on other people's goodwill.”

Their ridiculously epic Radio Soulwax opening sequence also has to be seen to be believed. “I've had a few women come to me personally and say they were initially offended but then really loved it,” David responds frankly when asked if Stephen or he have received any criticism for the visuals involving a naked woman with, er, hot wax pouring through her. Whatever your feelings are on the opener, it represents what the Dewaeles are extremely good at: creating an emotional reaction.

“It was such a Spinal Tap thing, with our friend directing it,” David its of the opening sequence. “It took him, like, four months to get it right. The initial thing was he just wanted to create something really breaking… It's kind of like in Spinal Tap how they make the drawings of Stonehenge on a napkin, like he literally just made a tiny little drawing, emailed it to us and we said, 'Yay, go ahead,' and it gradually became that kind of weird, fucked-up thing… Then we were like, 'Oh shit, we need some music for it,' so we spent one night in the studio and came up with it!”

Whilst the music may only have taken a night in this case, generally the Dewaeles seem like the kind of guys that would bumble home the long way every time, and thankfully so. Especially in an age where artists are trying to manipulate technology and the music industry to maximise their profits, their model seems to rely on surprisingly large amounts of good faith, time, commitment and even generosity, considering they give much of their produce away for free. “You know what? The only thing I can say is that, in theory, on paper – and if you ask the people that work with us, and especially our accountants – the truth is that we're in quite a fortunate position where we can go and DJ on the weekends and it can pay for stupid things like this [Dave]. But I think that it's stupid things like this that you kind of have to do. And in our case, it's very simple; we're just doing it because we can. And who knows, maybe in five years no one will care about us and we won't have the money to pay for the stupid things. But right now we do, so that's why we have to do it.”