Interview: Brooklyn’s Del Water Gap Talk About Their Two New Singles

Since their inception as a full band back in 2012, Brooklyn-based alt-folk band Del Water Gap have been steadily rising in the impossibly competitive NYC scene. In 2015, the band played some of their biggest gigs to date including a night at a Communion Records showcase and a support slot at Bowery Ballroom.

Del Water Gap will close out the year with the release of a new 7″ featuring singles “Lamplight” and “Cut The Rope.” Groundsounds caught up with band founder S. Holden Jaffe to learn more about the new tracks and what’s ahead for Del Water Gap.

1) Hey Del Water Gap, thanks for talking with us. How has 2015 treated you? 

Hi! It’s been quite the year so far. 2015 is the year of the Wood Sheep. Sheep eat from dawn until dusk. So we’re trying to be conscious of our eating habits. After finishing up the singles last spring, we started off the summer with a show at Bowery Ballroom and some pretty heavy east coast touring. It’s been a few days here, a few days there, whatever we can fit in. We’ve also started working on a new EP with an engineer upstate that should be ready to share by the time the weather warms up again.

2) Tell us a little bit about your origin story. I heard you got together after Hurricane Sandy?

We were living in the same Greenwich Village dorm when the hurricane took out the Con Edison plant and left most of lower Manhattan in the dark. Bloomberg cancelled Halloween and people were suffering all along the east coast, but we were lucky enough to be locked down in one of the only buildings in the neighborhood that had a generator. So in an effort to kill some time until life returned to normal, we got together and started playing songs in the stairwell of the building. We liked how it sounded. 

3) You’re about to drop a new 7″. How did that all come about?

We went back and forth on the idea of pressing vinyl for a while. At the time that we were finishing up the singles, we were collaborating with some guys that had started a little label together, and they proposed the project to us. The vibe was like:

“Wouldn’t it be cool to have these songs on wax?”

“Yes!”

“Will they sell?”

“Maybe!”, and before we knew it, we were picking the records up from the plant in our manager’s mom’s car.

4) “Cut The Rope” and “Lamplight” are pretty dynamic in that they showcase two sides of your folk-rooted sound. Could you tell us what each track is about thematically?

Listen to them!

5) What is it like being a musician interested in naturalistic songwriting living in New York City? 

Songwriting is more about mind set than setting. It’s about showing up to the page and finishing. There’s always something to draw from, even if it means reaching as far back as early childhood.  

6) I saw that you have a studio in upstate New York that you use to record. How often do you get up there and what is your process like? Do you go up there when you know you have something to record or is that space reserved for writing and experimentation? Perhaps both?

We’re up there a couple times a month if we can swing it. It’s as much a space to decompress as it is a space to be productive. When we are working, it’s mostly in the spirit of being creative and just throwing ideas at the wall. When we were first parsing through songs for the new EP this past winter, we would demo the same song three or four times and end up with a completely different outcome each go-around. Choose a song, start, finish and repeat. It’s a really effective way to find out a song’s natural space, how it needs to breathe, as long as you can let yourself be patient with it.    

7) Who are some of your biggest inspirations?

It’s an eclectic mix when we’re driving around. Lots of classic country like Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and Conway Twitty. Newer rootsy stuff like Gillian Welch and Ryan Adams as well. Elvis Costello is a staple. We lost disk one of Charlie’s copy of The White Album, so we’re really familiar with side three and four. We also listened to the entirety of The Marshall Mathers LP during a recent drive up by the Canadian border. It was nothing short of spiritual.

8) Favorite records of 2015?

We all dig Ryan Adams’ Live At Carnegie Hall. Really next level shit. He could release his banter as a separate album if he wanted to. Tobias Jesso Jr.’s Goon is special too. A couple of us saw Tobias when he came to New York this fall. Honorary mentions go to Dawes for All Your Favorite Bands and Alabama Shakes’ Sound & Color. 

9) Plans for 2016?

The focus is writing. The songs will outlive us. And we’ll be watching our eating habits, of course.

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