Nestled on the banks of the Tennessee River, just South of Nashville and to the East of Memphis sits the town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. In the 1960s with the help of two recording studios, FAME and the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, it became the heart and home to the Soul of America.
The studios produced some of the greatest songs ever. FAME Studios saw the birth of Aretha Franklin as the Queen of Soul when she sat at the piano and laid down, "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)". There was also Arthur Conley ("Sweet Soul Music"), Wilson Pickett ("Land of 1000 Dances", "Mustang Sally"), and Etta James ("Tell Mama", "I'd Rather Go Blind”) amongst countless others.
A little more than two miles up the road is Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, who took that baton and ran with it. The artists that recorded there were similarly breathtaking; Cher, The Rolling Stones, Boz Scaggs, Canned Heat, Bob Seger, Art Garfunkel, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Leon Russell, Bob Dylan, and all the way up to The Black Keys when they recorded their Grammy-winning 2010 breakthrough album, 'Brothers,' there.
Authenticity surges through the town. So, when the opportunity for DeWolff to head to Muscle Shoals and record at both studios came up, it was a dream come true. It's not hard to see why the Dutch trio would want to venture into the heart of America's Soul when it's a band that released 2023's #1 album, "Love, Death & In Between", which was partly inspired by attending an Al Green sermon in Memphis and recorded in a fully analogue studio, deep in a forest in North-Western France. It was the authenticity they were searching for once again.
"Even before we were into Southern Rock, as a kid, Luka got an album of Southern Soul, and most of it was recorded at FAME. That was our introduction to soul music," says singer/guitarist Pablo van de Poel of his brother. "We didn't start with James Brown; we started with the likes of Wilson Pickett. Muscle Shoals Sound had been closed down for a pretty long time, and then the Black Keys did 'Brothers' there. That's been one of our favourite records ever since it came out, so It's been a dream for a long time."
In May 2024, they travelled to Muscle Shoals to record their 10th studio album over two weeks with Grammy Award-winning producer Ben Tanner (Alabama Shakes, Dylan LeBlanc, Betty Lavette) - a producer recommended by singer-songwriter Dylan LeBlanc. "You can really feel some kind of rock 'n roll magic in the air there," Pablo adds. "Right when we played our first notes there, I got goosebumps: here was that sound I've been hearing on all those classic albums! This definitely was one of the best recording experiences we've ever had. Even the grand piano Leon Russell used was still there, just like the electric Wurlitzer piano that was used on "I Never Loved A Man" by Aretha Franklin!"
Regarding the recording experience in the studios, Pablo explains, "Our anticipation of those legendary studios was so high that the chances of being disappointed were pretty high too. But the experience surpassed all of our expectations." He continues, "When we were at FAME, Robin and I looked at each other, and we just started playing all those songs recorded 50 years ago. Just thinking about it gives me chills."
At the recommendation of Tanner, they split the album recordings between the two studios. "FAME is the more live room and Muscle Shoals Sound is a much drier-sounding space. So you can tell the big-sounding songs we did at FAME and then the drier ones we did at Sound. We have a song, "Fools and Horses", which is like the first Boz Scaggs album, which was recorded at Sound, so we had to record that there."
The album kicks off with "In Love," a swirling funky soul ode to cheating. "It's about if you're with someone for a long time and you meet someone else and they really turn your world upside down by challenging the promises you make to your partner when you have a long term relationship. There's all these things that you want to do. There's a line that goes 'tell me babe why can't we meet, at the dark end of the street,' - a reference to Dark End of the Street, written by Muscle Shoals songwriter Dan Penn.”
The brooding lowdown soul-funk of "Out on the Town" was inspired by a novel. "The musical part came together with us jamming, and then the lyrics were influenced by a book Chris Robinson recommended when we were on tour with The Black Crowes. We talked a lot about literature, and he gave me a list of books that he really liked. One of them was The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren. Every page had an insane quote. When I wrote the lyrics, It was very much in the vein of that book. It describes a bunch of low lives that get together every night at a dive bar and get up to all of these different things."
"Let's Stay Together" is one of the most personal songs Pablo has ever written. "It's the breakup song on the record. That, fortunately, didn't lead to a breakup. It's one of the most direct emotional love songs I've ever written. In a long relationship you go through rough patches sometimes. I was going through one right around the time we were writing the album, so this one really is very autobiographical."
"Ophelia" sees them create their own mythological story where Ophelia keeps all the world's secrets and lies. "Truce" is about constantly fighting in a relationship and wanting to go just one day without arguing and features Saxophonist Brad Guin, who previously played with Bobby Blue Bland and Clarence Carter.
"Snowbird" is a gentle but epic 8-minute journey about a person fleeing from a cold place, such as a relationship and looking for somewhere warmer to be and was written on an acid trip whilst listening to John Coltrane whereas "Ships in the Night" is about missing the one you love and features singer-songwriter Dylan LeBlanc. "Dylan arrived at the Studio at six, we had some fun; at seven, we started recording, and at eight, he was gone again. It was beautiful. We sang it with the three of us live, in one room, and it was quite a magical way to round off the album."
The album closer “Cicada Serenade” is special in its own right. In May 2024, Alabama saw the emergence of billions of insects called cicadas, a 13-year periodical cicada brood. This was the first time since 1803 that two cicada broods emerged at the same time. DeWolff was there to capture that sound. "It was very cool, so we really wanted to capture that. 221 years ago people weren't able to record sound, so it's quite special."
Over the past 18 months, the enchanting psychedelic soul ‘n' rollers have played a cruise, a castle, and sold out countless headline tours across Europe; they've transformed festival crowds into their own congregational disciples from Sweden to The Netherlands, the UK to Belgium, France, Germany, Romania and more. They've toured with The Black Crowes and have previously played shows with Blues Pills, Deep Purple, TOTO, and count Seasick Steve as a fan.
"The Black Crowes were like our Beatles," Pablo enthuses. "We grew up listening to their music, so they're such big heroes of ours. We got to hang out with them, which was amazing, and saw and got to hang out with them again at the Sweden Rock festival recently."
Most of their young lives have been on the road, preaching their Electric Gospel to crowds across Europe since their early teens. But even with that adulation, putting in the incredible miles they have, takes its toll. "After months on the road, at times, it's tough. We actively try to make the most of it and have fun," Pablo says. "We'll have lunch at a roadside restaurant, or if we're passing Hamburg, we could just drive into the city and have Tacos. Many bands just go straight to the hotel and spend all day there. That gets very depressing after a while."
He opens up about life on the road. "It's hard to be away from the ones you love. We've been doing this for 17 years, and in a way, we don't have much of a social life. When other people our age went out with friends on weekends, we played shows.When we go home you can have the feeling that you’re some kind of alien because we’ve never did these “normal” social activities. We meet a lot of people, but it's also a quick interaction, and it's not the same as sitting down with a close friend and having real in-depth conversations. But, at the same time life on the road is an absolute privilege and most of the time it’s great. We’ve made a lot of really good friends by doing what we do.”
With Muscle Shoals, they will have released five albums in four years - Live & Outta Sight III (2023), Love Death & In Between (2023), Live at the Royal Theatre Carré, Amsterdam (2021) and Wolffpack (2021), which reached #2 in the Dutch charts only missing out to Foo Fighters for the #1 spot. Before that came Tascam Tapes (2020), Live & Outta Sight II (2019), Thrust (2018), Roux-Ga-Roux (2016), Live & Outta Sight (2015), Grand Southern Electric (2014), DeWolff IV (2012), Orchards/Lupine (2011), Strange Fruits and Undiscovered Plants (2009) and DeWolff (2008). They have celebrated several Edison Awards (The Dutch Grammy's) and also received the 'Gouden Notekraker' in 2023, awarded to the artist/band with the most special and influential live performances of the past year. In June 2023, they produced the world's fastest Studio-to-store record - 2 hours, 59 minutes, and 38 seconds for "Rosita Rápida", beating the record previously held by Jack White. You can watch the short documentary HERE.
Formed in the Netherlands' Deep South of Geleen as teenagers, Pablo van de Poel (guitar/vocals) and Luka van de Poel (drums/vocals), alongside Robin Piso (Hammond/Wurlitzer), have carved out a place for themselves as carefree adventurers; prolific in the studio and well-worn road-rovers.
"It sounds like a fantasy story," Pablo reflects. "When we first started, we couldn't believe that people would be interested in what we were doing. We were just in it for ourselves. 17 years ago, my mind would have never dared to go there to think of all the things we’ve done and places we’ve seen.”
You can see how much of this free-wheelin' travelling life inspires so many songs about relationships and their varying cycles, so where better to marry the experiences and songwriting than the home of Soul at Muscle Shoals.
