Exclusive Interview: Mr. Belt & Wezol

Dutch duo Mr. Belt & Wezol have been dominating the charts lately with tracks like \’Finally\’, their \’We Like To Party\’ remix and their most recent hit \’Somebody To Love\’ (currently #2 in the Beatport chart). All released under the almighty Spinnin\’ Records.

I met these awesome guys during the Extrema Outdoor Festival, right after their crowd-pleasing old school Dutch house-inspired set, which eventually led to this interview.

While they, of course, aim at only releasing high quality tracks, they also seem to have a lot of fun doing it. This results in cool YouTube/Facebook videos that will put a smile on your face and a podcast that is a pleasure to listen to. Keep an eye out for these jocks, this is just the beginning of their rise to the top.

Hey guys, how has your festival season been so far? Any highlights?

Bart (Mr. Belt): Hey! So far it has been great, we\’ve done a lot of cool shows in the Netherlands as well as in the rest of the world already. But our absolute highlight would be Summerfestival in Antwerpen two weeks ago. The crowd was really the most insane one we had till now. Luckily we filmed the whole show, we\’ll put it online on YouTube in a few days in our new episode of Mr. Belt & Wezol Room!

Your latest single \’Somebody To Love’ is climbing the charts fast. How did the track come together?

Sam (Wezol): A few months ago I found Freejak on Soundcloud and instantly fell in love with his distinctive garage sound in all of his tracks. I asked him for a few promos and we added each other on Facebook shortly after. We got to know each other a bit and decided it would be cool to try and make a track together! As my latest track \”Finally\”, containing the vocals from CeCe Peniston\’s classic track, did so well in the charts I really wanted to try another rework of a classic. After a long search I finally found Jefferson Airplane\’s \”Somebody To Love\” to be a good follow-up on that. We started working on it right away, exchanged the project a few times and the whole track was finished within a week or two.

You produce music as a duo. How does that work for you? Do you send drafts back and forth to each other or meet up a lot to work on productions together?

Sam (Wezol): We don\’t actually! I take care of all the productions of Mr. Belt & Wezol. Bart takes care of all the video editing we have going on our YouTube channel like Mr. Belt & Wezol Room, Mr. Belt & Wezol\’s College and Demo Ride. Go check it out if you haven\’t already! Things like social media and our radio show are something we both look after.

What can we expect to find in your studio?

Sam (Wezol): I always love to show my studio to people, cause it\’s such an awesome place to be in! I recently moved to Amsterdam where I now have a studio in my house, which works really great for me cause I can make music whenever I feel like it! Technically there\’s not really too much going on. A powerful Dell laptop, a MIDI keyboard, a decent microphone, an angry weasel head and some Genelecs 8020A\’s. I work completely inside the box so no analog synths or effects for me.

Can you give us a top 3 of tracks you are feeling right now?

Bart (Mr. Belt): We can give you even more! Here\’s our most recent Beatport top 10 chart, which features a lot of tracks we\’re digging right now. Also; we have our own radio show every month where we feature a lot of tracks we\’re liking at the moment.

Mr. Belt decided to ask Oliver Heldens to marry him last Saturday during the Dutch Extrema Outdoor festival in Holland. What was that all about and where will you go to on your honeymoon?

Bart (Mr. Belt): We always try to make cool (video) content for our fans. Since our last track is called \”Somebody To Love\” we tried to make all the promotional videos for the track about us, finding somebody to love at different places in the world. We also tried to hug people in Germany, which didn\’t work out too well.. After that we gave highfives to as many people at Summerfestival; which worked out great, but we were not fully satisfied yet! Asking Oliver to marry me was the final effort to find somebody to love, and now we can finally say we found somebody to love.. The country for honeymoon is a secret but I can give you a small hint: it begins with a P and ends in ortugal…. see if you can figure it out. 😉

Keeping in line with the ‘Love’ theme: What are your ultimate movies for a first date?

Sam (Wezol): Movies on a first date are a no go for me! Cause in the cinema you have to be quiet and stuff, while it\’s pretty important to get to know each other on a first date, right? I\’d rather talk and have a nice dinner or something like that, movies are more of like a third date thingy for me. Though, if you are going to watch a movie on your first date, I\’d go for \”Accepted\”; such a cool comedy! It hasn\’t got the best rating on imdb, but trust me; you\’ll love it!

What can we expect to hear next from you?

Sam (Wezol): My next single with of course another classic sample in it, this time from the early happy hardcore days. Clearing of the sample has just been finished so hopefully the release date will be pretty soon! But first up there\’s quite a few remixes getting released, the first one is set for release at the end of July and it\’s a remix on a recent Beatport #1 track. So keep an eye on our Soundcloud!

‘Somebody To Love’ is out now on Beatport.