Indie rock’s freshest face is hitting the road and taking VMAN along for the ride
Tour Diary: Kicking It Back With Del Water Gap
Indie rock’s freshest face is hitting the road and taking VMAN along for the ride
Text by Savannah Sobrevilla
A few weeks ago, I was walking up Avenue A on my way to Tompkins Square Park when I spotted a familiar face. Instead of stopping to ask this person how I knew them, I stared (admittedly) rather hard and texted “Is Holden in NYC? I think I just passed him,” to Carrie, Holden or, as he is known more commonly, Del Water Gap’s publicist. She confirmed that he was—a confirmation that felt a tad unnecessary to seek on my end since Del Water Gap is quite easy to pick out from a crowd. He’s got big bushy brows which contrast nicely with his nearly vampiric pallor, his gaze is soft and intentional much like his music, and, of course, he was wearing his signature ultra-high rise pants. “I wish you guys met! He’s the sweetest!” Carrie replied.
Two days later Carrie sent me a link to one of Del Water Gap’s Threads. It read, “long eye contact on ave a” which not only offered me double confirmation but felt satisfyingly aligned with Del Water Gap’s general output. 2010 Tumblr anthropomorphized: hazy, moody, cigarette-y, poetic, indie, and romantic in the way only young people are. Especially with sonic tributes to the everyday, every person pains like “Coping on Unemployment,” “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat,” and “All We Ever Do Is Talk,” Del Water is Notes app realism at its finest. These days, he’s bringing that deliciously trippy melancholy to the stage. Now that he’s about to set out for a tour of the States and is gearing up for the release of his second album, I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet (out September 29th), he took a moment to walk VMAN through his recent tour of Australia.
“This is a photo of me in the artist compound at Splendour in the Grass after my set. I didn’t bring a proper jacket on tour because no one told me that it would be winter in Australia, so I’m wearing my stage trench coat over a sweatshirt to try and keep warm. The dead look in my eyes was from sleep deprivation but I really was having fun on the inside.”“This is the confetti blizzard that rained down at the end of Hilltop Hoods’ Splendour in the Grass set. I had never heard of Hilltop Hoods but I met some really nice Australian pro soccer players in catering who told me that they were like the Aussie Vanilla Ice or something and I thought that sounded interesting so I followed them to the set and was really impressed! I hope I’m still playing shows like that in my 40’s.”“This is Molly Payton drinking a bevvie backstage at our Sydney show. I think she was talking to my guitar player Nick about Bruce Springsteen or something. She’s Kiwi and opened my two headline Australian shows and is an absolutely brilliant writer and artist and funny as all hell. She has a dog named Bug and my favorite song of hers is called ‘Honey’.”“This is me and Nick backstage at our Sydney show dark-horsing around. Dark-horsing around is like horsing around but in a calm, ironic way, rather than in a rowdy way. We realized we were matching so we decided to pose for a cheeky photo together. Nick is one of my best and oldest friends and keeps me sane on tour. He’s also played guitar for me live and is an absolute child prodigy.”“A few minutes after we got to the venue in Sydney, I walked out the front door to go a snap a photo of the marquee and met this nice fellow. He was hanging outside the venue with a hand-drawn Horse with Bowl Cut sign. Horse with Bowl Cut is my spirit animal and my logo ((((real ones know)))) – I drew him on a napkin one day a few years ago and since then I’ve built a cult and a high fashion brand around his likeness.”“This is a moment from one of my press days in Sydney. My band and I landed early morning and I took an Uber straight from the airport out to a point called Cape Banks. We pulled up to a helipad in between a shooting range and a lighthouse and my driver got all concerned about leaving me there with all my bags. But I was soon greeted by the two smiling faces in this photo and had one of my favorite photoshoots ever. The clothes were wonderful and the view overlooking the ocean took the air out of me. You can see the helipad in the background of this photo. To the left is an old military ruin that had been heavily graffitied and clearly lived in by someone.”“This is a detail from one of my outfits during the photoshoot. The stylist had me in a vintage fur coat, white Saint Laurent loafers, and matching white undies and socks. He and the photographer had me rolling around in the dust and we got a good laugh out of some hikers walking by. It struck me how seemingly friendly Australians are to strangers, at least in comparison to some of the folks I had met back home.”“Here are some photos of my favorite look from the Sydney shoot. I had never worn Prada in my life but the stylist pulled a really elegant outfit for me complete with a pretty little handbag and I frolicked around in the tall grass overlooking the ocean. Some passersby told us there had been a pod of whales around, just off the coast, just a few minutes before we had hiked up. I love that you can see the shadow of my arm holding the bag in the photo on the right.”“This is a photo of me taking in the glorious Australian sun during one of my photo shoots in Sydney. We were shooting out on the beach so I had to shave with the little water left in my Nalgene, using my iPhone as a mirror. I had splashed water all over my body and my hair so I stood shirtless in the sun for a while to dry off and warm up.”“This is a POV photo I took during the last shot of the day on a shoot in Melbourne. We had been shooting all day since the early morning and we were all exhausted, so the photographer had me do the final shots of the day lying in the grass. He’s the one on the right, and his assistant is on the left shooting 16MM motion film.”“This is a photo I took of some birds on an electrical wire in a park in Melbourne. It was early morning and I was walking and having a coffee and they reminded me of Hitchcock. I had been thinking about Hitchcock because I had just watched Vertigo with my grandma before leaving for Australia. Hitchcock is obviously known for his horror, but I think his shots and compositions can be as elegant as they are ominous. I found this scene as elegant as it was ominous.”
