836. - Soulwax

27:09I mean, it's like, and it's like a whole lot of game. And it's like, I mean, you go to this club and it's all smoky. It's like a dive bar. A dive bar. and they set up decks for us and the guy comes in and does the big announcement like, the big international DJs are coming to play for you guys. And we start playing and it's like nothing. Zero. They're all just giving us like the stare. They're barely even looking up from their beer glass. They're like, what are you guys?

27:37Jason Stewart:They're not big fans of minimal techno, electro remixes. They don't listen to that kind of music. No shit. we were trying to do our best all of us everyone were trying and then I think at some point Danny Days was like fuck this and then he just puts Rihanna on and the place was nuts and then we all started playing hard Danny has a lot of experience in the Miami club so he knows how to get the little Caribbean flavor going shine bright like a diamond but it was kind of like a feedback on the ground to Canada. But it was kind of amazing. And after that, by the way, after that episode, we started interacting with all these people and it was kind of amazing because I think those two worlds came together.

28:26So the whole cruise thing was a bit of a, yeah, it was a weird episode in our career. Yeah, because you played some, I'm sure you played some fucked up places at fucked up times. Yeah, yeah, 100%. We once did a porno boat. Yeah, oh my God. What do you mean by porno boat? It's in Amsterdam. so okay say no more yeah say no more no i would like you to say more actually if you could

28:50Jason Stewart:no i think there's got to be good do you get to fuck the boat or is the boat people on the boat was anybody else djing other than you that we would know okay yeah okay errol dave and me and sabrina the italian you guys know sabrina it had did sabrina reach the us no no she's she's like a italo house italo house icon from the 80s who had a song for boys boys boys boys boys yeah yeah and she was doing a love that song so she was performing she's you know performing okay she she makes sense for the sex cruise exactly but it was more than errol more than more than you guys no offense no offense i mean i don't know you guys could be a couple of shaggers for all we know a couple but yeah sabrina is a great boys boys boy love that and hot girl i think yeah And just so you know, this is about 20 years after the hit.

29:43So it's like, actually, the party's called Ex-Pornstar. And it's like, it's... Or they call it the porno boat. Sex positive? I don't know. Yeah, it was all about... The sex cruise was sex positive. Thank you for your maturity and switching that up. I appreciate that. Thanks for rectifying that.

30:03Jason Stewart:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you open for Sabrina. everyone's waiting for sabrina but they'll sit through you guys are you playing like horny it's hollow house with like moans in it and stuff no no we were just doing our thing i will leave and then play some common moccasin remixes for these horned up but then they had a lot of strippers they had a lot of strippers and they started getting people out of the audience there was like a lot of like um there was a male stripper but there was also a um a cavorting a penis doll like a guy who was in a penis doll and like dancing to the music so you're saying there's a man dressed as a penis and he was dancing to your music how long is this podcast?

30:51one hour we have a full hour and this is exactly what we want to talk about

30:54Jason Stewart:as long as you need it to be daddy so were you able to bring in your own wines from your home seller for this particular party no but but i'll tell you what the the thing is i think both errol dave and me we were teaching and this the male strippers were in front of us dancing and asking women to come on stage and they would do their act but we were facing them not the audience so we saw everything that happened i think i think errol dave and me being three indie kids that wasn't really our world yeah you were like oh what is going on you were scandalized by these sex acts being performed while you were trying to bless the crowd with some of your music you can put it so much better than i i just it sounds like a real i i feel like you yeah you you kind of knew what you were signing up yeah but you got you have such a collection of vinyl and you in your interests go all over the place you'll you know you'll dj a motorhead record or whatever fix it to boats boats only so what we when you were pulling vinyl for the sex cruise where i mean it's been a long time but you know we getting prints like where what are we doing i don't remember it's 2002 so i think was i don't think the guys who organized it it wasn't like a cheesy kind of thing it was more it was cool it was kind of a cool yeah it was uh you know with the wink of an eye yeah so we were just doing whatever we were doing but it was also with our our music not really the soundtrack for a sex cruise or a porn so we were playing hey don't don't limit depends on what kind of drugs they're using depends on what kind of drugs i know we were playing the rapture and all this kind of stuff the rapture famously gets my penis the opposite of erect fun to dance to love them it's good but i was talking about house of jealous lovers two days ago and i i was sending it to a friend being like do you remember how good this is and then i went down a dfa hole and felt like i'd done cocaine and it was two in the afternoon on saturday that made me do cocaine it was good overall it was good they made they made me it wasn't my choice i was forced what is your okay so what is your are you guys wine collectors like do we have a cellar is this serious business for you no we're not serious we are wine amateurs.

33:19Okay. Speaking of the Efejo,

33:25it's true. It's not a conversation between the four of us. It's like we're sharing this. This is, this is whatever, like 15 years ago with, through James Natural Wines, like we've become just, you know. Actually, Dave, Dave, for my birthday, gave me a sommelier course, a private sommelier course by a guy that we knew. and the guy used to come to our flat in in london and it started off with just me but then i was doing blind tastings and they had all these bottles up and he's like you might as well got your brother involved and other people and it ended up being a table of people and we all ended up doing this course because i mean we were drinking wines but we didn't know what we were drinking where it came it was and so you kind of like you don't have an you don't have like a an alphabet you don't have any words or yeah there's no and so we learned a little bit how to do that we got into it and i think a lot of the natural wines that we liked and stuff it's a bit like records you know there's only a guy making 400 there and it's like so we got really into it well i feel like that's that's disrespectful to your beer drinking culture in history that's crazy we're the maybe the only two belgians who don't drink that's crazy because we don't drink beer wow i mean i'm do you think something happened to you that turned you off during your childhood?

34:42Or is this just...

34:43Jason Stewart:They're just kind of like anarchy vibes, you know? Maybe. Maybe it's the... I think it might be a cultural thing that beer drinking... I don't know. I don't want to be the amateur psychologist here. But it does have sort of a connotation of Belgian culture that when we were kids, we were maybe trying to escape. Kind of like how some of our really good, hippest, trendiest friends are into cycling. Okay. Of course. Cycling is so good. Well, and this is not to age any of us, but once you reach a certain age and a certain level of income, the long distance cycling as a hobby becomes much more attractive.

35:24So for us, it's always a connotation with a culture that we never really liked. Because in Belgium, it's like your basketball maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to follow something. Oh, really? It's the second biggest thing after football. Like cycling here is like, yeah, people. And now it's become like a global thing. You see all these people from Australia, everywhere, friends of ours going like, yeah, I just did like 40 kilometers on a second bike. And you're like, great. Not really our bike. Super cool. Super cool. All right. So you've rebelled against your homeland, it sounds like. Are there some Belgian foods at least besides French fries?

36:06and fries yeah come on guys waffles no and there's no no snobbism against those those are the best

36:13Jason Stewart:but what about mayonnaises the mayonnaises of the world are we a snob there all of them great i'm not a man equal opportunity employer i like that about you okay well when you were younger like chris and i when we were in high school age teens and stuff like that we were like straight edge hardcore guys rebelling against beer drinkers as well did you have any of that kind of straight edge punk rock energy to you when you were younger uh no i think the in the way we rebelled like it wasn't really rebelling but when we were that age and started to make music here in this town and specifically in ghent it was kind of the where in this part of western europe um dance music and electronic music was huge because of a few things one is that there was this um start of uh the four-day weekend where people would like there would all be all these clubs on the highway and people would come from well i think all these germany documentaries about new beat and hardcore and stuff like that all that stuff is very much where we where we grew up and everyone around us was into electronic music and i think we rebelled against it like they said by being into kaios and monster magnet all these bands and that was kind of our vibe and and it was monster magnet yeah i wasn't expecting a monster magnet today on today's show but i think that's really interesting i think for us highest and monster magnet those kind of bands because i'm talking 90 i don't know when when all that stuff happened for us i think we were like guys and people like why you know using a sampler you're not releasing this record on rns and we're like no we're going the other way but the irony is that we like ended up doing the other thing and also that we were like so many of the what would now be seen as big players in that field and it's like no world were people that just knew or just you know it's a small town and so it's not that we were rebelled against it as in like oh we hate what they're doing it's just that it's a natural thing i think when you're 17 totally totally yeah you just don't want to do what everyone's doing yeah i mean i I didn't want to be going to church.

38:25I didn't know any electronic musicians, but I still found a way to rebel.

38:29Jason Stewart:Wasn't there a big metal scene in Belgium though? Yes. Like a lot of black metal and that kind of thing, right? Not black metal, but more like there was a band here called Ostrogoth. I do think Belgium has always been this weird little small country that's squeezed in between Germany, France, Holland, and the UK. and in a way a bit like switzerland i think in canada because people speak three languages in it it was just a really really great place to be in the middle of a lot of stuff and it just absorbs and then creates these weird things um and and in a way for a population of nine million or ten million it's pretty amazing what all the cultural stuff that's happened here but we've always been good in subverting these big things you know or being the place where i'm going to give a really bad example but like for u2 i think one of the first big gigs was in belgium was in ireland and then like it started here and then the company that does all their show stuff is stages up until today is a belgian company it's always been sort of hidden in it's been the first place that people to go to or that i mean fashion fashion sounds like the glendale of europe i will say sorry for interrupting you chris i mean fashion wise is what i think of first and foremost 100 but i mean it's a lot of you're right though it's a lot of output for such a small place insane in a way if you look at it you're like it doesn't make sense um but it's also because you go 40 minutes to the left 40 minutes to the right 40 minutes to the back you're in another country another culture another language and you would pick up on all those things when you go that's amazing not go to school alone but if you put tv on or radio it's easy to hear another language or to hear another sound or to see that there's another culture going in or like hardcore you could tell that people coming from the northern part of france that was specific scene but there was also psychobilly scene there was also there was like a lot of stuff happening and they would be all around you you could easily go into it and be like like this and a lot of those genres submerged into some more popular like techno or like stuff like that was that too serious this episode of how long gone is brought to you by Squarespace.

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42:17Jason Stewart:But Chris, I know how to do stuff. I'm handy. But then, you know, as you get older, time is money. Money is time. Certain projects, you know, the gate needs a new coat of black paint. You know, it's been hot or whatever. I could do it, but it's starting to look pretty nice to go on TaskRabbit, pay a professional to come over and do it. The cleanup is going to be done. The disposal of the shit's going to be done. It's exactly what you want. And quite frankly, it's worth the money. Never hang another TV as long as you live. Just call TaskRabbit. When life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get$15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com on the TaskRabbit app using promo code HOWLONG.

42:54Taskers book up fast, especially for same-day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That's$15 off your first task using promo code HOWLONG with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince. Jason, as you know, but some of our listeners might not, Quince specializes in everyday staples that work harder, like their ultra-soft organic cotton tees and premium Mongolian cashmere sweaters. I like my navy blue V-neck cashmere sweater. I wear it all the time. It's a little hot right now, but it's a go-to. It's versatile, timeless, and it transitions seamlessly from a casual workday to a big dinner out.

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44:05Go to quince.com slash howlong. Get free shipping and 365-day returns now available in Canada. Let's go. And the UK, mate. Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash howlong. No, no, no. I've always wanted to go to Belgium. I'm envious. Yeah, I've always wanted to visit Belgium because I haven't been there. And I always, I just find, I don't know. I've just, it feels nice and like an easy place to visit. but did you guys ever leave? Have you ever left or have you lived there your whole lives? Oh, no. Up until the pandemic, we lived in London. It's always so easy. Like I was saying, the commute from here to London is door to door.

44:45It would have been like two hours and 20 minutes if you go to the world to get on a Eurostar. So it's not, it's in the middle of everything. That's why I was going to go is because you could take the Eurostar. That was my whole thing. I was like, where should I go where I can take the Eurostar from London or Paris that's that close and I haven't been? And that was part of my thinking.

45:02Jason Stewart:That's like me. I can get to Coachella from my house in that amount of time. The culture just gets worse. Wait, there's a Eurostar? There's a Eurostar from Glendale to Coachella. It's my Euro car, actually. You can take a train there or a helicopter. Yeah, you've probably taken a helicopter. We have to take cars. Well, speaking of fashion, guys, I know you've done a lot of music curation for fashion shows for Drees. Yeah. And some other ones. I was just watching a video where it looked like you had Smashing Pumpkins tonight, and you were adding some 16th hi-hats on it. It sounded like a really fun thing to create when you're in the business of creating serious dance music and then thoughtful remixes for cool people.

45:48Jason Stewart:Is it like a weird playground to do the fashion stuff or just do some dumb, crazy, weird shit? specifically with with those the ones that like we worked with other people but specifically the ones that we've done for drees most of them what was amazing is that we um i don't know if you know but like generally uh fashion soundtracks they used to tend to have like four or five songs badly mixed into each other and it'd be always a bit like uh but with drees what was really cool is that he would be open to us saying hey why don't we just take one song one and build the whole thing around and make that into a 12 13 minute thing and then we would go and ask the artist or the label for stems and then we'll build completely new versions and we did that with smashing pumpkins but we did it with bowie proxy music but the shade one which was really weird we did some really good hold on y 'all are telling me that all these motherfuckers gave you the stems just because you asked yeah yeah okay big dick swinging do you have to pay do you have to pay Sade to get the Sade stems?

46:49We didn't have to pay, but they have to pay.

46:52Jason Stewart:Somebody did something. Somebody might have. That's not our responsibility. Somebody agreed to a dollar amount where that would be okay, and we all amicably got there. I think in a lot of cases here, it was down to either being Dave and me doing it for them, which was good, and also the fact that it was trees. They liked the clothes. Yeah, I was going to say that helps. That helps. And in the case of Bowie, I think we did like a hero's 12 years before and then for drees's last show we ended up doing sound and vision and they were super like the estate was super nice they were like yeah if it's you guys great who did you do hero who did you do heroes for or what was it was it oh for trees as well okay okay it was amazing because the bowie was still alive at that point and we got given they brought the the master the The multitrack in like a case to our flat.

47:45And it was all like, and he couldn't use it online at that point because Bowie's like, you can only use it for the show in Paris and that's it. And so, yeah, we still have it here, but it was amazing to do as well because I think the other part is as music fans, like you were saying a little bit, the fact that Roxy Music or you get the stamps of something or even Smashing Pumpkins and people go, here, have fun with it. it's almost a bit like music history because you can listen to how they were mixing things it's kind of a i think it's the thing that we really love yeah and do you ever feel like uh

48:22Jason Stewart:it's it's a bummer that this music is just going to be played at a fashion show one time and then oh no that's it or that's beautiful about it yeah yeah that's nice that's kind of i mean in fact It's the ones gradually, like over the, I don't know, 16 or 17 years that we have been doing some random fashion stuff. The industry has changed so much for it to be so online focused. And it's kind of nice that stuff only exists for that day and that's it. And they are very different than remixes because if we do a remix, a Solax or something, we would do it a little bit out of self-interest because we could DJ them so there's an economy for them to live you want people to dance to it or to react to it and I think what was cool about those things in fashion was they weren't made for people to dance but it was as a soundtrack to an image, to a culture and that was really exciting to do because it came from a different point of view wow we've really turned from the porno no no I mean you guys contain multitudes I mean that's the whole I think that's the thing we're gonna steer the shit back there before we finish don't worry yeah actually I DJ'd a fashion show a couple months ago or a couple weeks ago in Copenhagen oh and I really feel like Ableton Live has really created a way for anyone to create you know a 12 minute long super crazy song he had all these songs and there's like a hard techno song playing and then it went into uh tom petty learning to fly at the very end nice and like the acoustic strumming was right on the kick and i was like this sounds so fucking stupid like they like you can't do this to tom petty and then by the time the transition ended i was just like you know take my shirt off just like ah like it was so good so we're offended that part was like nah don't touch at first i was like you know imagine hearing for the first time just like a like a crazy techno kick and then like ding ding ding ding ding ding ding like it was i have to say i'm not an expert like the three of you but even i was skeptical and he's right it when it hit it hit and it did it was a plane that didn't look like it was gonna land but it landed beautifully and it was cool like you know the 300 people in this room got to experience it i'm the only person who has thoughts on it what was the what was the brand's name sunflower but it's it's funny because it's funny because i also feel like tom petty is like the most american like i feel like a lot of danish people in that room did not know that song which makes it even better like how good it was that's cool yeah that's i mean but that's but that's kind of the genius of a lot of these things you know like where i mean it's not not just about fashion shows but i think tj sets as Well, it's kind of nice when you can get somebody's attention or turn it around.

51:19Jason Stewart:Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Win a crowd over. Win those Haitians over eventually, thanks to Rihanna. Or clear the wound. After three hours of banging your head against the wall with your own music, you just put on some Rihanna and everything can be fixed. Exactly. A couple questions about stems. Do you have any stems? Can I have access to your Dropbox? No, no. MP3 is fine. I don't even need the eighth. Okay, so are there any stems that you've received that you just haven't been able to crack? Like, we've tried to remix this. It's just too powerful, too intimidating. We've never been able to do it.

52:00There was one that we tried to do remakes for, but it took us a really, really, really long time. I don't remember. Which one? The Arcade Fire one. Arcade Fire. That's them asking us to do a remix. I thought you meant something more. No, no, no. Look, anybody doing anything to make Arcade Fire better, I think, is a noble cause. And I'm sorry that you guys couldn't complete it. No, but we loved the song. I'm joking. I'm joking. The song was really great. And I don't think we've ever spent so much time on it. We just couldn't get it. And then when we got it, we were so happy. We were like, oh, my God, this is great.

52:38We got some and they loved it. So it was good. But I'm just saying, like, sometimes it's not as, I mean, it doesn't come as easy as people always think you just you just have to but also sometimes it's it's it's just a matter of time yeah like when you asked that question i just remembered that we have the stems for this song that we think is amazing which and we just haven't done it yet it's uh rita mitsuko oh yeah yeah and this this this yeah this stuff that we we have and we still

53:05Jason Stewart:haven't but maybe yeah thank you for reminding us yeah no problem okay well the second question about stems now that people are able to use ai technology to extract stems from any song in the world as two people who have been digging for crates stems getting master files reel to reel tapes all this crazy shit doing it the right way with all analog equipment no bullshit no laptop stuff do you have any thoughts on the ability of being able to get stems that sound good enough nowadays well that's the thing so you you the the key word is good enough there because if if it works good enough we would be doing it all the time like we would want the stems to all these records that we we love just in our experience it's always just like just just not good enough yeah and by am i just not good enough do you mean sound quality just sound glass okay yeah yeah the way it isolates yeah i mean it's it's kind of like wine to use a wine and you know just like most wine is good enough for most people.

54:08Jason Stewart:You have a palette for stems and audio quality that is more advanced and it just simply is just not good enough. My word's not yours. We have a palette for stems. You do. By the way, great sweatshirt. Great sweatshirt. A palette for stems could be the name of the next album. I mean, that's really poetic. What's the other one? A DFA hole that made me do cooking. okay let's say a band sends you the stems for a song and there's like 377 files one of them is an eight minute long file with one shaker for four seconds panned all the way to the left you're never going to use it how do you consolidate what do you do when you get you know the king size 11 gigs worth of stems it's exactly in those files that the that the gems are to be found yes we did one oh so faster yeah we did one for we did one for You Make Me Feel Mighty Real Mighty Real so faster track we asked for the master tapes we got the master tapes multi-track multi-track and we go through it and we're already like it's amazing it's unbelievable and you hear them playing it and then we get to the end point and all of a sudden it just goes into a gospel version of the song and like but like the last like 30 seconds like a previous take so somebody had done a previous take and then and i still wonder and so after a little bit of digging we heard that like they would rehearse the track and being a gospel guy as well they would do a lot of versions of these disco tracks they were playing gospel-y or like soulful or they do a different version of it and uh so yeah sometimes you find these things where you're like oh my god it's like so crazy like they don't even realize they're sending you that and then you find it and you're like what about this part so we released it and at the end of our 10 minute remix of it we cut to that just a tiny little bit because we thought it was kind of so yeah yeah that's nice show as long as it stayed in beat for the night for the dj who's playing it you know then that's good but if it was it could fuck up a lot of mixes but it wasn't it wasn't it was it was it was trouble less of an easter egg and more of a quicksand pit to ruin your 10-minute blend okay it goes back to the historical significance of some of these masters like when you get given these these these master tapes so multi-tracks you can you kind of yeah as a music fan oh this is not just as as the people that has to work on it it's just you kind of go wow some of it is just some of the the playing is maybe not so great as you think, but then the unit of all of them playing together in the room is just magical.

56:57Yeah, I don't want to hear some of that. Some of that shit don't need to be isolated. I know what you're saying. Some of that shit don't need to be isolated. Yeah, I think we had it with the Roxy Music one. We had a Roxy Music one, and I remember David Meek going like, wow, the drums are all over the place, and not in time and normal, but really off. If you hear them separate. Yeah, really off. And then when you hear the whole thing together, It makes so much sense because he was just following how the band was playing and how Brian was singing.

57:25Jason Stewart:They were all in the pocket together, but the pocket was oddly shaped and took a lot of twists and turns. Why does the pocket have to be on the grid? Why does the pocket have to be shaped? The pocket shouldn't be on the grid. Whenever I play the song You Make Me Feel by Sylvester, if I got the stems and I played all the parts to it, I would say like I don't what can I do to improve this is already a perfect song anything I do to it is just going to fuck it up and then when you hear the 30 seconds of the gospel take you're like oh thank god I finally have my unique way to put out a song where I don't feel like I'm ruining something correct and then we also found it's not that you guys would ever ruin it I'm sure it did a great job but you know it's an intimidating song to tackle so that's kind of the rule for us is like if we don't hear that we can do something with it then we don't like we tend to say we get we get asked a lot to do things and i think most of the time we say no not because we don't like them but just because we were like it's good but you still said yes to arcade fire huh interesting

58:33i need to know what i need to know what song it is because there's three that are good so i need to know if it's one of those three um i'm sure i oh it's sprawl too it's one of the good ones

58:43Jason Stewart:Oh, Sprawl 2 is the best song. That is actually the best. That's the best song, actually. So you're fine. I'm sure I've played that song before at some point in my life. Great song. Great song. Why all the arcade fire hitting? Have you seen him play in the last five to seven years? They're having a tough time right now. We saw this amazing... There was a friend of ours who sadly died, Steve Mackey. And on his funeral... Steve from Pulp. Yeah. On his funeral... Um, when Regine did this insane acoustic thing for his funeral and honestly, guys, it's easy to maybe. Of course. But it was so good. I remember standing there, like almost crying.

59:28We were both like so moved by it. There's something about the band that is really. Was it their own? Did they play their own song or was it a cover? Oh, they did. Yeah, but it was stuff that they worked on with Steve as well. But it was pretty amazing. I have to give it to them. man it was that was wow they had a special band they're a very special band they're very special they can be powerful we were asked to dj at the funeral yeah i didn't know i think that might be the first time i've ever jason when i die you can dj at my funeral that this i've done i've done a

59:58Jason Stewart:lot of weddings and you guys probably have too what's more fun to collect you know what what is a more fun playlist to make uh you know 327 2014 wedding or funeral which one's more fun in the record box as i know anyone else who was listening to this i mean there's so many things to make fun of now but in all fairness it was one of the hardest thing we've ever done yeah no it sounds yeah it's because it was something even me i mean we adored steve and to be asked i mean he was he was beloved from all but it was the hardest dj set yeah yeah ever god gives his hardest dj sets to his toughest warriors and you guys are fit for the battle that's true that's true because you're like do i do how much of it is like solemn how much of it is celebratory how much of it is you know which pulp songs do you play so so his wife um who asked us, I think she wanted it to be fully celebratory.

1:01:01She was like, she wanted to be at the party. That's what I was going to ask, if it was like a celebration of life type thing. That makes it a little easier for you. We're doing that after Jarvis does an amazing solo, acoustic version of a song, and then when the Regine does the thing, and everyone's crying, and everyone in that room we know, or we are famous, or stuff like that. And then they're like, and now let's rave. and like

1:01:29Jason Stewart:so everyone's wiping their tears and Jarvis puts the guitar back down and then you put on Robin dancing on my own and everyone's like

1:01:41I don't remember what we played no to be fair I think both of me and Dave we were after that we went back I think it's one of the very few times we went to our room and we were dead because we were like that was like that was the most nerve-wracking thing and we succeeded in everyone feeling happy and celebrating and remembering steve yeah but it's not something i mean i'd rather i mean i'd rather be in the underneath in the cruise ship you'd rather rather be in the bowels of the yeah that's i mean no

1:02:13Jason Stewart:that's really i trust any days trust in danny yeah yeah i always do uh especially with my crypto um so i heard you talking about um on the ra podcast about how robbie williams reached out you did a remix of his a long time ago nothing really ever happened with it and then he emailed you guys saying hey i love that remix can i use it for the for the his live tour that he's going on now have you watched his actually oh sorry go ahead he didn't say that it was for his life tour he just like can i get the stems oh and we were like yeah fine all you motherfuckers do is send stems back and forth to people.

1:02:50This job doesn't sound that hard to me. Good research. You're just a STEM agent. Okay, so he's like,

1:02:57Jason Stewart:hey, can you send me this song of mine? It's really dope. And you're like, yeah, of course. Yeah, and then he did, I don't know if we were allowed to say it, but he sent us back something he did with it. See, I didn't say that in the interview because I was like, maybe we shouldn't say that. Too late now, guys. you're saying to me that he took your version of his song and did something to it. I'm having a hard time following the lyrics. And it's pretty amazing. Did he add vocals to it or was it like, what if we made a dubstep? Okay, so he didn't mess with the music. No, no, no, no. He just made a whole new song.

1:03:30He made a whole new song on our remix of his song.

1:03:33Jason Stewart:Yeah. And it's good. It's actually pretty amazing. That's awesome. That's cool. I would not have expected that. I know, that's what I think. When you're saying, it wasn't a... We weren't... I think he's amazing because we were like wow and also his email oh i'm sure but his email was amazing the way it was written it was like he's a legend this is robbie williams this is it's like robbie williams at gmail.com and the subject is this is robbie williams you're like yeah i got it robbie 420 at aol it was another day but it was like this is robbie williams i remember it could go like when i saw it i was like no it's not and then you're like oh it is oh it is it is and he wants his own song that's And here you go, guys.

1:04:17I made it better for you.

1:04:18Jason Stewart:I would have made him send a photo with today's newspaper to prove that it's really Robbie Williams. But have you guys seen his monkey movie on a flight? Not yet. No, not yet. Is he good? Everybody says it's quite good in my life. Everyone has told me that, yes, it looks insane, and it feels insane, but it's actually very good. Okay. It is. If you see it on a flight, it's good. We're behind with a lot of stuff. I mean, I know that you're too close to Robbie. It's probably weird. you have to get in the right headspace to finally watch it yeah yeah but he's he's such a showman and such an entertainer he sacrifices his whole life and body and mind for everyone else and it's beautiful to see and i understand why he made himself a monkey but it is weird to watch i like the i like his whole thing i like his whole attitude now i like his like i just got fucking veneers i just did ozempic i don't give a fuck i'm not the coolest guy in the world but i'm a you know i'm gonna sing for my supper i'm rich as fuck i see but i i i'm not sure about the coolest guy my words yes well dave and me do we do two podcasts and all we do is talk about robbie i mean it's he's well he's having a moment you know he is having when do we play pink pop as a band the soul maybe 98 or 99 it's in 1998 90 we play at soul wax the band in a dutch festival we're playing the main stage in the afternoon and he was on after us but he just broken big with his record and Dave and me were always wearing these vintage suits and we walk off stage and he clocks us and comes to us.

1:05:50I have no idea who he is and he stopped us and he was like, he's like, he's like, guys, I'm something like, I loved what you were doing and he takes out a business card and gives it to us and I remember taking the business card and putting it in my jacket and just go to the backstage and then when I took it out, it said, this is to certify, I really met Robbie Williams. This was 1999. But this is 1998, so this is before all of this. That's why he's a legend. That's why he's a legend. You look like, you smell cool, but I remember from that moment on, oh, this guy's having a lot of fun. Oh, yeah, he's definitely having a lot of fun.

1:06:26I mean, I think that it's just such an interesting, I was just reading a Bob Lefsetz email about Oasis in America, and Robbie Williams is very similar. It just never really happened. It did on some small level. But it never did. But not like cultural. But Europe did. Yeah, but everywhere. Now that I know you guys will remix anything, I think I'm going to send you the stems of our theme song. Because we need... It's a Brooks and Dunn song, so it's country. But we did... Jason found a karaoke version to use rights-free. But if you want... No pressure. But if you want the stems, I'm sure we could dig them up for you.

1:07:00If you want the stems.

1:07:01Jason Stewart:And we'll keep it all kind of analog. Modular only. If you don't mind. If you wouldn't mind. No samples. You're going to send them by post? Yeah, exactly. We're going to send them USPS. Tariffs or no tariffs. I'll send you the karaoke file via the post. So this studio, have you had this building for a long time where you are? 2015. Okay. But it feels like a place that you can't really move at this point. There's too much shit in there. And too many people, too many things. When you say move, you mean move away from it? I'm saying this feels like this is the end. This is it. This is where you're going to work for the rest of your days because you've spent so much time and money on it.

1:07:41Jason Stewart:You're going to die in this podcast studio slash record hall. Exactly, exactly. You don't have another move in you, even though other people will move the records for you at this point in your life. Yeah, I know you're just showing up in your 911 and the movers are doing everything, but it's still a lot of stuff. It's still a lot of stuff. Listen, this is not the only room. Oh. Do you have a separate storage area for gear that you don't use? Oh, my God. How do you know? Many. Off-site, though, I'm saying off-site. Yes. And the off-site room is next level. And it's twice the size of this building.

1:08:15It's twice the building.

1:08:16Jason Stewart:Are there people in your life, maybe a spouse or a family member, who have said, you know, it's time for an intervention? Maybe, you know, we can get rid of some of this stuff, and you drag your heels? But because we've kind of carefully curated whatever's in here, no one says that. That's because we have the privilege of having the warehouse where all the stuff is. You're like, my wife doesn't have to look at all my synthesizers when she comes by the studio. We keep that separate. I see what you mean. Okay, that's smart. So you're investing in your future by investing in this off-site storage facility.

1:08:50It was never the investment. I mean, I don't know who comes up with this, but this is just hoarding. Let's just call it a spade. Thank you. I mean, I'm just, listen, we can justify it to accountants and to your spouse and to everyone, but it's just too much stuff. If you have any tips, I recently just moved and I was going through this with my spouse and she didn't understand why a 42-year-old man had a box of stickers that he couldn't let go of. Or a thousand matchbooks that I just couldn't part ways with.

1:09:24Jason Stewart:And you guys probably have a thousand cables where the plug is very unique. It's a brain worm. Actually, we also have a box with a love stick. See, I'm telling you. Because we're real heads because we know we're, I mean, we're. And some of these stickers are fucking sick though. And our wives don't understand that. I was trying to say, but the stickers are cool and she just didn't, she wasn't getting it. You know, she just wasn't getting it. I was on the friendship cruise and all I got was the sticker. I mean, exactly. I'm glad that you've, I'm glad that you guys are dealing with some of your stuff.

1:09:54But it is true. It is true. I think Dave is right. I think we curated it really well. It takes almost enough storage with a lot of stuff where you're like, guys, why? So how many people are, on a daily basis, if you guys are coming to work, how many people are milling around? You got engineers and assistants and the whole thing? So on a normal day, like minimum four. Sometimes. With us included. So it's minimum four people. But it depends on what project we're working on. And also the building is a label called Diwi. We release stuff. And so a lot of artists come in. We do a lot of stuff. But if we do like Greece, we do it here as well.

1:10:30And then people come here. Yeah. There's always people. like i don't think when we've made the building we have a really small kitchen we thought we were never going to cook here never going to eat here because we're like this is our workplace you know and it turned out to be the most the dumbest idea because we end up sitting here with 12 people to 10 people sometimes every afternoon sure when you bring this string section all of a sudden the deliverer is taking up a lot of space on the counter and it's also become a building for a lot of other people so it's our building in a way but it because it's part of the people who work here but there's a second studio upstairs where people always do demos and stuff and so it's it's nice it's nice because it's and it's also kind of having the library here i think for a lot of people we think it's evident that people know who the rapture is but i think a lot of young kids it's no yeah and so having all these records around and stuff like that is easy for them they they they discover stuff where they go like what were you guys thinking yeah that's really nice it's really nice they're like wow this sucks monster magnets really what is the what is the coffee setup at the studio is one of you a part-time barista it's a very funny funny so i i'm i'm a no no coffee person um okay freak damn go off but everyone else is right okay and so i think at some point people were like it doesn't make sense that we you know like you guys spend months finding the best you know uh by the way we dave and me i think we're really into teas okay and so we we buy a lot of weird teas that we find for guys okay sure we go deep into it yes but they're like why don't you do for coffee yeah people are like if you're going to be nerds about every like about about vinyl or mixer everything why not why not go all the way with coffee and like me personally I don't really care because I don't drink coffee stuff, drinks both.

1:12:24So we, someone who works with us on the label, she's a barista. And so she came to us and was like, you know, I know guys like design. So she found us a really beautiful, brutalist, concrete, a special machine. A special machine with a grinder and everything. And we get these special beans from somewhere and stuff like that. The problem is, and it's just Dave and me, we don't know how to work that machine sure sure it's just a really full machine to look at but so it's not like we uh but everyone who comes in goes like oh that's a really cool coffee machine but we're like yeah but we're not we're going to give you an espresso now i think that's i think that's even better oh yeah that that old thing i don't i don't know anything about that that's just something collecting

1:13:05Jason Stewart:it looks really cool looks really cool looks really cool you can you can nerd out with the tea stuff though right i know a lot of people who get very deep in it yeah yeah yeah we we do and we Maybe we nerd out too much with a lot of stuff. Oh, I wouldn't go that far. I think that's how you got to be where you are right now and you're able to enjoy a life that you can do whatever you want and nothing that you don't except for a cruise every now and again. I think it's okay. Is this an intervention? All we said, we've had a good run, guys, but I think it's time to stop, okay? Yeah, you guys, you got all these monikers, different names.

1:13:39I'm confused. Like, let's just pack it in. Let's just pack it up. That is confusing. But we need that for ourselves. I understand. Sometimes you got to compartmentalize.

1:13:46Jason Stewart:Well, we can do these podcasts maybe quarterly just to check in and make sure everything's running okay, okay? I can't even ask. Just like a health checkup. I guess like any Robbie Williams emails. But dead ass, if I ever come to Belgium, I'm coming to the lab. More than welcome, guys. I'm coming to the lab. But to be fair, you will have to come with Glenn. That's fine. That's fine. He's the only way I can get in. That's fine. He's been here before, by the way. He's been to the mothership. God bless. All right. well look thank you guys for joining us we really appreciate it um and uh the album is out there's a new album out very soon right yeah it's a no it's on october yes you know more than us yeah in october yeah all right great that's such a that's such a weird detour from uh pouring books and uh coffee to be like oh the album's out in a few weeks well we have to remind people before we go that you do have an album coming out you you you're gonna do many of your album comes out in 51 days, a little early to do this press run, I will say, but I'm sure between now and then you will have lots of opportunities to discuss the intricacies of the recording process and how track seven was this and blah, blah, blah.

1:14:54Jason Stewart:We're here to talk about cool stuff and then promote your album and that's it. Can I ask you a question? Sure. So in the beginning when you were dissing Resident Advisor and their podcasting abilities? Yes. Well, I like how you make it into a thing. Is there a rival podcast. Is there a rival podcast? Well, there's several rival podcasts. I want to destroy all of our competition, of course. Not Resident Resident. Who would be the one that you hate the most? Hate the most? I probably shouldn't say that on air. But you can edit it out. You can edit it out. I think that Smartless hits us closest to home because they're doing a very similar version of what we are, but they've managed to earn $200 million from their version.

1:15:38Nice. And we have not earned that much so it is there's a little bit of okay okay okay oh yeah but it's it's one of those classic situations where they don't know who we are you know you know what i mean it's one of

1:15:49Jason Stewart:those things but you yeah yeah yeah it's a one-sided rivalry it's a one-sided rivalry exactly only because we do the same exact thing it would be like if there was a huge group you know like lady gaga level but they made music that sounded exactly like soul wax yeah you'd be like this is some bullshit guys just because you have access to whoever you want you can get sabrina carpenter on the soul wax album i see yeah but chloe seven year is cooler i will say yeah i mean exactly so how have they have you guys been around longer than they have we started around the same time we started the same time same time okay we a lot of i mean a lot of podcasts started and many have ended but during covid like we started we're a covid project we started two weeks in basically oh if that and then it's been going from there but um it is fuck smartless on this side unless of course they want to talk to us on their show and then we'd love to come on uh but no thank you guys both for joining us we really appreciate it was fun thank you guys our pleasure all right we'll see you soon later bye-bye ciao was that good fabulous i'm gonna edit it all up tomorrow and it'll be out on um on every everywhere on vinyl the white label is actually already sold out i'm so i'll see if i can get you a copy we only did 300.

1:17:05Jason Stewart:Nice. Listen, guys, we play Portola in two weeks in San Francisco, and we do three points in Miami, and if you guys can get the final to us, I'll play it happily.

1:17:17Jason Stewart:Beautiful. Yeah, I saw that. I wanted to go to Portola. We're friends with Imogene, who's putting it together with Golden Voice. So, actually, her dad, Justin, is an artist on our label. We've released him. Justin's amazing, man. Yeah, he's a lot of artists. Love the guy. Bye guys. Have a good one. Bye.

1:17:54I want to run free. With the music.

1:18:04Jason Stewart:I'm not giving up. I am selling the building. The final season of FX is the bear. The restaurant is flooded. Everything's either going to be okay. No, stop. Or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned. We have each other. FX is the bear. The final season. All episodes now streaming on Disney+.