Del Water Gap on Starting a Film Club With His Grandma, Bringing His Bop It on Tour, and His Upcoming Album
Photo by Rebecca Bloch
[UNPUBLISHED:] How does it feel to be playing Outside Lands?
[DEL WATER GAP:] It’s so sick, I love San Francisco. I’ve spent some amazing off time here and I’ve had two really good shows here. Coming from Los Angeles, it’s a nice change in pace. I grew up on the East Coast and San Francisco feels like Los Angeles with an East Coast flare. It’s a bit cooler, there are more trees.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have a song you’re most excited to perform?
[DEL WATER GAP:] I crowd surfed during my last song which is an “ Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat” and that was really fun but then I got dropped on my head.
[UNPUBLISHED:] You’re going on tour in Europe soon, do you have a city you’re excited to visit?
[DEL WATER GAP:] We had an amazing show in Dublin and it was probably my favorite show we’ve played in the last couple of months. People were like passing beers up to the stage. Some of my family is from Ireland so it was nice being there. Everything is so old in Europe like these cities and buildings are three times as old as our country.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What makes you feel close to home when you’re on tour? Any items you can’t go on the road without?
[DEL WATER GAP:] That’s a good question. I’m part of this film club with my grandma and we talk on Zoom every week. We watch a movie and then meet up on Zoom and talk. It’s been some of her friends and it’s been some of my friends. It’s been such an amazing ritual on tour to check in and see her.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What was the last thing you watched?
[DEL WATER GAP:] We just watched Wong Kar-wai’s In The Mood for Love and it’s so beautiful. I loved it so much, I watched it twice. Before that, we watched Chungking Express which is another film of his which is always amazing.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have a Letterboxd?
[DEL WATER GAP:] Oh no! Should I get that?
[UNPUBLISHED:] Are there any items you can’t live without while on tour?
[DEL WATER GAP:] I tour with a Bop It. I bought one like five years ago when I started doing writing sessions because it was a good way to break the ice. It was an original 90s Bop It and I like taking it on tour, it annoys the shit out of everyone in my band, but there’s something very meditative about it - the physical, reactive part of it, I just love.
[UNPUBLISHED:] You’ve been all over, this past summer you did Gov Ball, Lollapalooza, and now Outside Lands, what’s your favorite thing about playing festivals? And what has been your favorite festival that you’ve played this far?
[DEL WATER GAP:] Gov Ball honestly. I started this project in New York and New York is my home so going there was such a full circle moment. I grew up going to that festival, saw Arcade Fire play there, and never thought I would play there. That was a bucket list, life-changing moment for me. Over the last two years, I think the thing that we’ve really lost during COVID-19 was this feeling of being part of an artistic community and being part of a lineage. Pulling up to your trailer and seeing it next to one of your hero’s trailers is one of the best feelings and something I didn’t know I’d be able to feel ever because of COVID-19. Getting to feel like I’m part of a community and getting to meet new people I’m a fan of is really special.
[UNPUBLISHED:] You recently re-recorded your song “Perfume” on Spotify Singles, what made you pick that song specifically and what was your inspiration behind slowing it down a bit?
[DEL WATER GAP:] I write a lot of my songs on acoustic guitar and then I produce them. I always feel like the test of a good song is just one that I can play on an acoustic and it will still be interesting and beautiful. That song in particular because it is one of my more produced songs, I’ve always wanted to strip it down and see what would happen. My guitar player and I were just exploring a few different songs and that one felt the most dynamic and different from the original. We had so much fun creating it at Electric Lady Studios.
[UNPUBLISHED:] You also did Avril Lavigne's “Complicated” - what made you pick that song specifically?
[DEL WATER GAP:] “Complicated” was just one of the first songs I remember being my favorite when I was a kid. I had the biggest crush on Avril Lavigne and I made my parents buy me a skateboard. I had this fantasy I’d be chilling at the skate park and she’d meet me and fall in love with me and we’d end up together. I never even used the skateboard, I just carried it around and I never met Avril Lavigne and we never fell in love. I’ve always had a soft spot for that song and it was super fun.
[UNPUBLISHED:] You recently worked with Maggie Rogers on her new album Surrender, does your music-making process differ when you’re working with artists versus making your own?
[DEL WATER GAP:] Oh yeah definitely. I think the best part about collaboration is that you end up making things you wouldn't have made on your own. You push walls and I really think collaboration for me is rarely successful. I’m a bit shy and I have much more luck working alone but when it is good, it’s better than anything I can do alone. Maggie and I have known each other for so long and working with her in a way is like working by myself. We can sort of share our artistic brains when we work together/
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have a dream artist, dead or alive, you’d love to collaborate with on any of your tracks?
[DEL WATER GAP:] That is such a good question. Honestly, I think I would really love if one of the Sesame Street characters would feature on a track of mine. Believe it or not, Cookie Monster has a Spotify profile. He has a couple hundred thousand monthly listeners and I think the sickest thing would be Cookie Monster doing verse two on one of my songs.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Which song would you want Cookie Monster to do?
[DEL WATER GAP:] I don’t know yet. I just started working on an album but the song would have to be about cookies. All of his songs are about cookies and he has this song called “If Moon Was Cookie” and it’s about if the moon was a cookie, he’d go up and eat it.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What are you most excited about when it comes to your upcoming album?
[DEL WATER GAP:] Just discovering more about my brain and my heart. Making songs is such a way to learn about yourself. It’s like journaling, right. You write something and you realize you’ve been holding something you didn’t know you had. An album is sort of like an extended version of that. You get the breathe and move through things that are trapped inside your body and I’m excited for that.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Whose set are you most excited to see at Outside Lands?
[DEL WATER GAP:] The Marías! I love their album and I think their creative direction is unparalleled. I’ve been wanting to see them play for a year so I’m very excited to see them.
