In 2008 Soulwax blew Parklife away with an almost continuous hour of non-stop electro-rock featuring their originals and remixes for easily one of the sets of the day, followed in close second by their closing set under the 2ManyDJs guise. This year sees the group’s return to Parklife in the live Soulwax format, and if you were there in ’08, or have seen their documentary “Part Of The Weekend Never Dies”, it’s something to be excited about.

Groupie Magazine caught up with David Dewaele, the younger of the legendary “Flying Dewaele Brothers”, as him and brother Stephen used to be known, who have been bringing punk-infused electronica to the masses for almost 20 years now. Groupie finds Dewaele back home, on a “break” from their hectic touring schedule. “We’re here for two days. Then back on tour again – it can be quite fun and quite tough at the same time,” Dewaele says of their ever-constant scheduling.

Dewaele also reveals he’s very exhausted, but for good, and exciting reasons. “We’ve been working on Soulwax tracks all day,” he happily admits. “New ones for a new collection of songs but we’re not necessarily sure if we want to put this out as a CD. We think these are the kind of things that would work really well live hence what we’re doing at Parklife.”

Not only do fans have some new material to look forward to come late September/early October, but Dewaele adds there is a new visual component being added following the massive success of their record-sleeve visuals in 2ManyDJs sets. “We’re working on a visual side of it as well which will come on tour with us. It’s quite cool we’ve got it set up to do visuals for 2ManyDJs and now we’re doing it with Soulwax. So while we’re making the tracks we’re doing the visuals as well.” He adds that making the documentary in 2008 has fuelled their visual fire. “We didn’t really intend to but we ended up working on [the dvd], like editing and making things for it for about six months and I guess it really inspired us with a whole new way of creativity and prior to that we hadn’t really been into it that much.”

Sadly we won’t be getting much of the 2ManyDJs experience, although it’s through no lack of want on the behalf of the brothers Dewaele. “We wanted to but I think there’s some kind of unwritten rule where if you do something in Australia once you can’t do it for another two years,” he jokes, before admitting there will probably be the odd show here and there, minus visuals.

Finally, we ask if there’s any chance of them slowing down after being such kings of the scene for such a long time. “Maybe the touring bit will slow down a bit… In terms of working on things yeah I still love making music. And eventually that is what drives everything. If you have an idea and want to get it done, all the rest is un-important.”

Catch them playing at Parklife this October

By Troy Mutton