Film-maker Ben Wheatley is the person behind prolific music project Dave Welder

Film director Ben Wheatley is the person behind Dave Welder, a prolific musical project based in Brighton and Hove that has released 26 records in a little more than a year across electronica, dub, ambient, kosmische and drone. One of the albums, Thunderdrone, runs for more than four hours; the project has been described as "a rotating group of musicians and artists" but is largely the work of Wheatley, who until now had operated in secret.

Wheatley, whose films include High‑Rise, Kill List, Sightseers and the shark thriller Meg 2: The Trench, says he always wanted to make music and turned to GarageBand a few years ago. He described the process as an obsession and "this weird flow state" where tunes appear almost without him knowing how he made them.

He has used music-making as a way to procrastinate or to calm down, calling it "a more productive and creative way of calming down" than gaming or doomscrolling. His latest film, the experimental sci‑fi Bulk, is the first for which he also wrote the music as Dave Welder. Wheatley said being his own director made the feedback loop easier, joking that "the arse of being a composer is having to listen to directors".

Key Topics

Culture, Ben Wheatley, Dave Welder, Bulk, Thunderdrone, Garageband