Closing the Gaps with Del Water Gap
“The journey has been everything”
Del Water Gap started with the passion of being a writer, with this, music was a quicker way of sharing this skill than writing a book. Long story short Del Water Gap built a fan base around New York performed frequently and worked 5+ jobs to stay to keep a solid income. Since then, Del Water Gap has been a successful project with 10 years worth of music under his sleeve and now is about to head to Australia for his Splendour In The Grass appearance with sideshows in Melbourne and Sydney. However, this didn’t come without its challenges, COVID turned the project on its head with shows cancelled and labels cutting deals. Like most of us at the time, Del Water Gap felt like giving up and took it as a sign to turn away from music. Yet, deleting socials and isolating himself from the world of music, still managed to find its way back to him and has been on the road for 3 years whilst making his upcoming album “I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet”.
Del Water Gap recalls writing this album as a rather stressful time with the overhead pressure to consistently release music. Furthermore, Del Water Gap turned to “survival mode” and wrote with Sammy Witte (now his best friend) to form the new body of work. For someone who takes my work very (sometimes too) seriously, I found that I could see myself in Del Water Gap and the necessity for a collaborator with a relaxed mindset to balance him out, which is exactly who Sammy was for Del Water Gap.
“We’re all hard on ourselves, so having the album done and knowing I made a great body of work that I am proud of is all that matters” You can see how this album has also allowed Del Water Gap to truly find his place as a performer and musician. The combination of touring and meeting Sammy allowed Del Water Gap to discover that he can be a frontman without having to be so hard on himself and as a result, people responded to it positively. “I always loved pop music, hooks and dance music but I didn’t let myself make sad indie music” he says reflecting on how he never let himself dive into other genres. Now with this album Del Water Gap is proud that he was able to close the gap between what he listens to and can make.
Recently, Del Water Gap released the latest single ’All We Ever Do Is Talk’ which Del Water Gap reveals to be an ode to the frenetic beauty that occurs early in a relationship follows by the anxiety that occurs about questioning how long this feeling would last. Touching on the world of transience and touring at the time of the relationship, Del Water Gap recalled the struggles of trying to maintain his relationship as the constant in a world that is moving around him. Nevertheless, after COVID and the lack of clarity on where his career was heading, Del Water Gap shares how the single is also applicable to the political, environmental and social state of the world, how we look back on simpler times and wonder if that feeling would ever come back again.
Working with other people is so relieving and having the mutual back and forth with someone is so comforting for Del Water Gap. The “self-aware camera that is always pointed inwards” disappears when collaborating with other artists on their music, this is a therapeutic reminder for Del Water Gap that he is a skilled musician especially when it’s not his music. Revealing this brings clarity to Del Water Gaps’ resilience and ability to continue making music no matter the circumstances.
Making his Australian performance debut, Del Water Gap is so excited to finally make his way down under. “I’ve heard a lot about it and Splendour in the Grass is a bucket list festival that I have always wanted to play” - super excited to play alongside Mumford and Sons who is a great inspiration to him, as well as BENEE, Arlo Parks, Sam Fender and Jeremy Zucker. “The music world is pretty small, it’s the same 15 people everywhere” and he can’t wait to see what Australia has in store for him, with a set list of hits and the performance from an incredible artist… we’re in for a great. Make sure you grab your tix to see Del Water Gap here and pre-order/save ‘I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet’ here (out September 29)!
