Every Thursday I look back to the past.
“Never meet your heroes” they say. I think that was the feeling back in november 1999, when Dave and Steph had a chance to interview Prince.
At the time the legend was there to promote his album ‘Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic’ and the people running The Music Factory knew the Dewaeles were big fans. They hosted their weekly show @alter8 on the music channel.
I uploaded the whole interview probably fifteen years ago on YouTube, but after a while it got flagged and as a consequence my whole channel (dedictated to Soulwax / 2manydjs) was deleted! That was before YouTube had more options to deal with copyrighted material. The strike wasn’t by The Music Factory but by Prince’s company (until his death he was notorious for taking down videos and websites, even those that were maintained by his own fans)
I don’t know if Dave and Stephen ever had another encounter with Prince.
In an interview Stephen recalled that they were quite nervous. “I remember that right before the interview, after he sat down, he put his arm in the air. A lady came up to the stage with the largest can of hair spray I have ever seen in my life. After she was done spraying his hair, Prince turned to me and said ‘Want some?”
Obviously star struck, Prince (who they couldn’t call Prince because he called himself ‘the love symbol’ in that specific period) reluctantly gives answers to their questions. You can tell he knows these 2 guys are not journalists, but fellow musicians.
Last year some people behind the TMF tv channel started a youtube channel and they uploaded the two clips you see here. Quite a few of the people commenting on these clips on youtube (“real” Prince fans, you know) give Dave and Steph some slack for the way the interview is done. True, they look nervous and are obviously in awe of meeting the man. But they did get a couple of answers and in general Prince is messing a little bit with these “fans” and is not a complete dick.
My favorite part of the interview is when Prince suddenly asks Dave “Did you steal that shirt?” and Dave has to explain that “Hotel Motel, Holiday Inn” – which is printed on Dave’s shirt – is a line from ‘Rappers Delight’.
But also the clip about his disdain for people doing cover versions of his songs is quite hilarious, because the brothers didn’t tell him they did a version of ‘Poplife’ on a cheap CASIO digital guitar.
It’s kind of funny that two years later Dave and Steph would make the ‘Album Of The Year’ according to the New York Times for ‘As Heard On Radio Soulwax Part 2‘ and David Bowie becomes a big fan of these two excited Prince fans.
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