Esquire Studio Sessions: Del Water Gap on doing a shoey, and his new album ‘Chasing the Chimera’
Esquire caught up with American musician during his Australian tour to discuss doing a shoey out of his R.M. Williams boots, his media diet on the road, and the comedy of adulthood
By 
S. HOLDEN JAFFE, aka Del Water Gap, bends pretty easily to pressure. On the road this past month touring Australia, for instance, he’s bent to the crowd’s shoey chants: slipping off his well-worn R.M. Williams boots to drink a beer out of them. As I sit down for his edition of Esquire‘s Studio Sessions before his Sydney show, I look down at his brown Chelsea boots, wondering how he dried them off since Adelaide a few days prior. “I’m a little afraid I’m gonna be pressured into doing a third,” says Jaffe. (Crowd footage the next day showed he did it again later that evening.) “I’m a little bit of a people pleaser, especially on stage. It’s something I’m working on in my personal life.”
Before that third swig from his boot, Jaffe sat down with Esquire to discuss life on the Australian road (“Australians are generally nice to Americans”), the Aussie artists he’s loving (“Love me some Tame [Impala]), his Letterboxd Top Four (“I love Gus Van Sant”), and how he’s gearing up for his third solo album, Chasing the Chimera (“I heard the phrase on a psychology podcast).
Read on for his full musings below.
On his tour wardrobe
Esquire Australia: You ditched the Thom Browne suit on this tour. Why is that?
Del Water Gap: Thom Browne will always be a part of my lore, a part of my fashion world. I wore suits on stage for five months last year, and I loved walking out on stage in a suit. But it got hot and sweaty. And you need to change up your fit and you get to access different parts of yourself. So I thought it was time.
What are you wearing on this tour?
I’m wearing a lot of vintage. I bought a lot of clothing at a spot called Moth Food in LA. I’ve been collecting stuff over the years as I travel. My favourite part about being on tour is getting to hit up vintage stores and find cool, weird things I wouldn’t be able to find in New York or LA.
On the vibe in Australia
Everyone abbreviates everything. And I feel like Australians are generally nice to Americans, which I really appreciate ’cause I’ve been on tour a lot and I think, you know, in other countries, sometimes people are a little sceptical of us, understandably. We have quite the reputation right now.
I saw you did a shoey during your Adelaide show.
I’ve done two shoeys on this tour, and I’m playing in Sydney tonight, and I’m a little afraid I’m gonna be pressured into doing a third. I folded pretty quickly, I will say. I’m a little bit of a people pleaser, especially on stage. It’s something I’m working on in my personal life. I haven’t really fought back when the shoey chant has started. And I very fittingly did a shoey out of my RM Williams boots, Australia’s finest. It’s not a bad shoey boot. It holds beer very well. It didn’t leak, maybe it was made partially with that in mind.
What did you pour?
I was handed a mystery beer from the crowd. And then, actually, the girl that handed it to me told me that I owed her $12 because it was her beer. So I gave her my credit card and I said, ‘Take my credit card. But please, please only buy yourself one drink.’ And then she tried to spend $200 on it, but the bar voided it. I think they figured out what was going on.
On his pre-show rituals
I like to meditate. I like to stretch a bit. I like to listen to some music, either Oasis or organ music, depending on the day. I hang out with my band. We usually have a little chat. We talk about what we want the show to be like. I’ve struggled a lot with anxiety on tour and I struggle a lot to stay present. So I think a big goal of mine is to just centre myself and try to show up, be present and enjoy [the show] the best I can and, and give the best show that I can.
What have you been reading while you’ve been on the road?
I’m reading a book called Circe, which me and my crush are reading at the same time. It’s pretty great doing a little book club to stay in touch. My cousin gave me an Alan Watts book called The Way of Zen. And then my grandma gave me a book called Kairos, it’s a dense and beautiful novel about an affair.
On his favourite Aussie artists
I’ve actually been listening to an artist called Good Morning for years, they’re a really good band.
I really like the new Royal Otis album [Hickey]. I played Splendour in the Grass with them a couple years ago, which was super cool.
Love me some Tame [Impala].
Of course, Parcels. There’s a lot of good guitar music here.
On his summer playlist
I have been listening to Moon Dog, an interesting instrumental artist. He’s this guy that used to live in New York on the street and he wore a viking hat. I think he might have played saxophone too.
Molly Lewis, who whistles over music.
I’ve been listening to the new Mac DeMarco records, Guitar, which I thought was a cool name for a record. I was drawn to it, very simple.
I’ve been listening to some Wagner, also via my grandma. She is a big fan of Wagner.
I saw Oasis this summer, so I’ve been listening to them a lot, recapping.
Been getting into Alex G for the first time [with] this record, House of Sugar. Very good. Big recommend.
And I’m always kind of listening to opera. I love going to the opera in New York, it’s something I got to do growing up. It’s a good way for me to unplug and consume music that has nothing to do with me. So I’ve been listening to some Verdi.
Would you ever want to go into that genre?
I’d love to be an opera star. I don’t know if I have the ability. I think my talents lie in other parts of music. But if I could wake up tomorrow and be an opera singer, I would take that path.
On the chimera he’s chasing in his new album
What three words would you use to describe your new album, Chasing the Chimera?
My first word is gonna be hyphenated: existential-dread. Then adulthood. And situationship.
The album’s a lot about growing up and trying to find a version of adulthood that doesn’t feel like surrender, and dealing with all of the feelings that come with that: this illusion of arrival that we tend to have when we’re younger, this idea that one day we’re gonna grow up and everything’s gonna make sense and just click into place. And then getting to an age where you realise that might not ever happen, the line keeps moving a bit.
A lot of the songs are through the filter of some little relationships I had over the last couple years. I was like single for the first time in a few years and, and experienced that. So that was a big new experience for me that came out in the music.
I heard the phrase [‘chasing the chimera’] on a psychology podcast. This guy was talking about happiness and the ways in which we chase these false markers, thinking that we’ll ascend or we’ll become happy, whether it’s status or money or relationships. A lot of the songs I was writing involved that topic of things that I’ve chased, and the ways in which getting certain things hasn’t fixed me in the way that I thought.
On cinema
I think I’m probably more influenced by film than any other medium. I have a film club with my grandma. We watch a movie every week with some of her friends and some of my friends, and she does a presentation about it. I’ve always been really affected by [Ingmar] Bergman’s work. I love Gus Van Sant. I just saw a great film called . . . fuck, what is it called? Let me check my Letterboxd.
Is it public or private?
My Letterboxd is public. It’s called Riddle of Fire. It’s about these kind of mischievous kids running around; it’s a neo-fairytale-like adventure [where] they’re getting into trouble and they’re getting to know each other. It paints this really interesting dissonance between this child-world and the adult-world. I think it paints a good picture of the absurdity of adult life. And it’s just beautifully shot too.
I’m curious what’s in your Top Four?
Well, Riddle of Fire actually just made my top four.
My Own Private Idaho [by] Gus Van Sant. I think it’s a great picture of male friendship and care, and it’s romantic too. It blurs the lines between platonic and romantic love. And it’s a great road movie. It’s a great American movie.
Tampopo has been one of my favourites for many years. It’s a Japanese Western. It’s sort of comedic and serious, and it’s really focused on the joys of food. It’s a great film to watch while you eat ramen.
And the last film in my Top Four is The Eight Mountains, which is another film about friendship. Its follows a boy that lives in the country and a boy that lives in the city and they spend time together every summer in the Italian Alps. It follows the lifecycle of a friendship over the course of a lifetime. It’s stunning. It’s profound and sad, and there’s a bit about generational trauma and lineage and I was just very moved by it when I saw it.
On friendship
Friendship is a big theme for you.
Friendship, to me, is like the closest thing I’ve felt to God in my life. Especially with traveling and performing so much and feeling so untethered a lot of the time, it’s the one consistent thing I’ve had over the years. I think non-possessive love is a really powerful force, right? It’s unconditional in a way that I think romantic love can never be in some ways.
So it’s very moving to me. I actually have a song about my best friend called ‘Doll House’, and it’s about not needing a reason to call him. Because he’s someone that I call a lot during the day just to hang out. Like I’ll call him with nothing to say, and I always thought that was kind of romantic, you know?
On the comedy of adulthood
The Del Water Gap world is one of a soft-hearted recovering cynic who is trying to find beauty in the mundane, and trying to romanticise difficult parts of life as a means to survive and to make something beautiful out of it. It’s also a world that I’m realising does have a lot of joy in it. I think in the past it always felt a bit dark to me. I’m finding some comedy in it recently. Again, finding some comedy in the absurdity of adulthood and the complications around it.
What’s something in adulthood that’s made you laugh recently?
I think it is just the repetitive nature of it and the predictability of it. That we’re all just big children acting out our frustrations on each other. It’s all the same stuff that we went through as kids, right? Like fighting over resources and jealousy and insecurity. It’s all the same when you get older, you have a bigger body.
See more of Esquire’s Studio Sessions:
Sons Of The East talks music and life on the road
Daniel Domig’s humanoid houseplants
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran’s eclectic practice
