While playing with nine-figure Hollywood budgets, the Kill List and Meg 2 director has become a prolific music producer. Next up is his experimental film, Bulk
D
ave Welder may just be the most prolific musician you’ve never heard of. In a little more than a year, he has released a staggering 26 records spanning electronica, dub, ambient, kosmische and drone. One of these albums, Thunderdrone, is more than four hours long. Based in Brighton and Hove and described as “a rotating group of musicians and artists”, in reality “Dave Welder” is largely the work of one man who, until now, has been operating in secret: film director Ben Wheatley.
“I’ve always wanted to make music,” says Wheatley, whose films include the independent movies High-Rise, Kill List and Sightseers, along with big-budget Hollywood flicks such as the shark thriller Meg 2: The Trench. “I wanted to do it for my films but there was a dissonance. Of all the art forms, I couldn’t really understand it. I would dream that I could play, but then it was like, no, I can’t.”
After he started tinkering with GarageBand a few years ago, it quickly became an obsession. “It’s this weird flow state where you sit at the machine and then this tune pops out and it’s like, ‘Oh, fuck,’” he says. “I listen back and I don’t even know how I’ve done some of it.” Music-making can be a healthy distraction: “I might have a job to do but I’m like, ‘I don’t want to do that’, so I’ll do some music and then go back to it”. Or alternatively, “a reward for doing stuff, whereas before it might have been playing games or doomscrolling. It’s a more productive and creative way of calming down.”
