Psychedelic-blues renegades DeWolff return to display the full force of their live experience on their new record ‘Live & Outta Sight II,‘ which will be released on Mascot Records on 14th June, 2019.
Following the release of 2018s ‘THRUST’ and the acclaim that followed, the band picked up the prestigious Dutch Edison Award for ‘Best Rock Album’ in February, which capped off an incredible 9 months and saw the band play over 100 shows across 13 countries – The Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Lithuania, Italy, Denmark, UK, Czech Republic, Austria and their first trip to Indonesia.
The live album was recorded over their 2018-19 tour of the Netherlands; during DeWolffest 1.5 to 2000 fans at Tivoli, Utrecht on December 29th 2018, the beautiful old theatre Luxor Live in Arnhem on January 10th 2019, Paard van Troje in Den Haag (The Hague) on February 1st 2019 and the EM2 in Groningen on December 6th.
Talking about the shows, singer/guitarist Pablo van de Poel remembers; “Utrecht was totally epic because Gibson Guitars gave us a Gibson Firebird guitar for the occasion that we could give to a fan. So we organized a competition where people had to post videos of themselves playing a DeWolff song on guitar and the “best” video would win this guitar.” The winner of the guitar, Sonny Ray, joined the band on stage to play. They were also joined by best friend and former guitar tech Stefan Wolfs. “Stefan is a great guitar and pedal steel guitar player himself. He’d been out of the game for some time because he was seriously ill. So it was quite an emotional moment when he went on stage for the first time in almost half a year,” Pablo says.
Many of the songs on ‘Live & Outta Sight II’ are taken from ‘THRUST,’ which is a testament to how well the songs have connected with the fans. Pablo explains, “Once we started playing the songs from our new album live they start living their own life. We use the album track as a foundation and playing together, having fun, somehow always takes us to a 2.0 version of this song.” The record includes new fan favourites ‘Double Crossing Man’, ‘Deceit & Woo’ and ‘Big Talk’ as well older favourites ‘Medicine’ and ‘Don’t You Go Up The Sky’.
‘THRUST’ crashed into the Top 10 Netherlands Album charts, and then the band stormed across Europe playing sold out shows along the way and visited Indonesia for the first time to play shows in Jakarta, Jogjakarta and Malang. “It was great! It was also crazy!” says Pablo. “Indonesia was totally crazy. We were being treated like rock stars: everywhere we went people wanted to get a picture with us!”
Life on the road is always eventful; there was a show in Russia at a biker festival that included pyro cannons, naked fans and strippers, a cancelled show on the Canary Islands due food poisoning, almost hitting a Spanish highway cop with their van driving at 120 km/h which resulted in three motorcycle cops and howling sirens and later wrecking the van in an accident. All the while capturing everything on a 4-track cassette recorder and a portable recording setup with us on tour to write and record a new album!
The band formed in the Netherlands’ Deep South of Geleen, when they were barely teenagers in 2007 by brothers’ Pablo (singer/guitarist) and Luka van de Poel (Drums) and Hammond organist Robin Piso. Named after Harvey Keitel’s character, Winston Wolfe, in Pulp Fiction. They have since picked up fans in the shape of Seasick Steve, had a chance meeting with Robert Plant and have played with Blues Pills, Wolf People, The Black Keys and Deep Purple.
It’s the 12 years of hard work that saw them receive a well-deserved Edison Award for ‘Best Rock Band’ in February 2019. Talking about the win Pablo laughs; “I didn’t expect it at all, because usually rock n roll bands don’t win these kinds of prizes in Holland. ”
DeWolff have another busy summer planned, taking themselves back on the road; headlining the Volt Stage at Sziget Festival (Hungary), playing Krach am Bach Festival (Germany), Paaspop (Netherlands), Raismes Festival (France) and will be supporting Wolfmother in Utrecht (Netherlands) in June as well as continuing to prolifically cover ground across the continent.
