DISPELLING BELGIAN MYTHS

Soulwax prove they're more than chocolate and beer

Recent top forty artists Soulwax talk about the benefits and drawbacks of being a band in Belgium

Belgium is hardly the pleasure centre of the universe. In the world's thinking it rates alongside Wales as the spiritual destination for wet Wednesday afternoons spent doing your maths homework. But whereas Wales has the Manics et al, all plucky little Belgium would seem to have going for it is homicidal policemen, well connected child killers and a roaring trade in blood diamonds. To this illustrious list you can now add the mighty mighty Soulwax.

With two LP's of their blues meets metal meeting the funk under their belts (My Cruel Joke and Much Against Everyone's Advice), Stephen and David Dewaele, who form the core of Soulwax, are fast becoming the most exciting musical siblings since, er, Gary and Martin Kemp. And, gulp, they're Belgian. Is this the first sign of the apocalypse? We set out to find the truth.

Soulwax's music is loved by everyone from the Kerrang! crew to the trendy Wendy style mags. They've clearly done a good job of mixing up loads of different influences without it sounding like appalling mush. So how do they manage it? David explains, "Maybe because we didn't try and do it. We never set out to mix loads of music together. We just make music, good music. In every genre of music, whether it be reggae, rock, hip hop or anything, there is a band that always transcends the genre and become almost pop music. Like Bob Marley; he transcends Reggae and has become like pop music. That is what we are trying to do. We took stuff from lots of different groups who we thought had more about them than being one type of music."

In fact the band have truly become that rarest of commodities; famous Belgians. "We are very popular in Belgium, though it is hard to compare it with anything in the UK. There are way more bands in the UK than there are in Belgium so it is easier to be famous, but I'd say we're up in the top three." This popularity doesn't always sit easily.

"Embarrassed," replies David when asked how public recognition makes him feel. "I don't think it is a particularly good thing, success. It's cool because you can get some things for free but that's about the only thing that is cool about it, getting records and guitars. People expect a lot more from you. It is a bit strange for us as a band because we always like to feel like the underdog. It's a lot more interesting in that position."

Talking about how much more comfortable Soulwax felt being the underdogs, rather than a successful group of whom a lot is expected, David tries to frame this thinking in the context of how Belgium feels as a country, particularly relative to France, whose music scene has taken off dramatically in recent times. "The difference is the French have never been the underdogs ever. They have been very consistent in what they do. They are very nationalist, whereas Belgium has always been inferior to France or Germany. As a people we have always been part of another country, either part of France or part of the Netherlands. It is only in the last 150 years that we have been one country. At the moment France is making the most interesting music and to a certain extent I can see how Belgium would follow it. But we could never do it the way they do it, they have an attitude of 'We are French, this is who we are'."

David then follows this up by pointing out that the band never even anticipated that their audio offerings would be unleashed on this green and pleasant land. "We never expected to even have our record released in England. We thought Britain would hate Soulwax. It turned out different but it is something we never imagined. I can imagine a band like Phoenix who are from Paris would expect their record to come out in the UK and do very well." So why didn't you think it would come out? "Because we are a Belgian band I thought it would be very hard to get foreign releases. Well, maybe not hard to get but to get them done well, y'know having the proper support from a record company. For England we thought we would get a hard time as we'd seen what they'd done to other Belgian bands like Deus and Evil Superstars and to be honest thought it might not be worth it."

Good job they changed their minds.

Martin Pashley