Terry Hawaii talks fame, riches and Belgian identity with David Dewaele of Soulwax

IT'S HARD to make a case for musical siblings. Family Jackson? Family Nolan? Family Corrs? Family Kemp? Oh my God, Family Hanson. But here we might just have an exception to the rule - and what's more they come from Belgium. 

With two albums of blues meets metal meets funk under their belt ('My Cruel Joke' and 'Much Against Everyone's Advice'), Soulwax - brothers Stephen and David Dewaele - are doing that bit to fix the reputation of sibling musical offerings. We met up with brother David to find out more.

So, David, Soulwax's music is loved by everyone from the Kerrang! Crew to the trendy Wendy style mags. You've done a good job of mixing up loads of different influences without it sounding like an appalling mush. How did you manage it? "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". 

Belgium isn't reknowned for its musical offerings - there's Soulwax and, erm, well that's all that springs to mind. But does David think music from his native country could follow the French route and go stellar. "I think the French benefit in having a strong, almost arrogant identity," David explains, "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."

To illustrate this lack of attitude, David points 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 the lack of expectation of foreign interest? "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 we thought it might not be worth it"

So has all this glory made the Soulwax brothers rich and famous? "Off Soulwax we haven't earned that much, we make much more money doing DJ'ing. But Soulwax it is more about enjoyment" So the DJ'ing keeps Soulwax going "Yes, but we would be doing Soulwax even if we weren't making money because it is something we love" 

And what about the fame? "We're 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".

So you get mobbed on the street then? "Yes". How does that make you feel? "Embarrassed. 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."

'Much Against Everybody's Advice' is out now on PIAS.

interviewer: Terry Hawaii   interview date: September 2000