I can’t remember where I first met Del but I know it was back in the Sunset Riot days and I know that I’d met him before he and his band proceeded to blow me away in a slightly muddy field in Prior Creek Oklahoma at the legendary Rocklahoma Festival. Over the years we’ve caught up regularly, but we’ve never sat down to do an interview. Del is one of those guys you know is a star as soon as you meet him and someone who gives his all no matter how big or small the stage. He’s funny, articulate, creative and just happens to have one of the best voices in Australian music. Back in 2015 Dellacoma, his band released the seriously good ‘South of Everything’ it was a stunning debut but ‘Blood’ the follow up which has just dropped on vinyl is even better. We caught up with Del to talk about the album and the serious business of getting back to Rock and Roll.
Mark: Del, good to see you mate, how’s things?
Del: G’day mate! I’m well things are going pretty well!
Mark: It’s been a while!
Del: It has definitely been a while, far too long.
Mark: I think last time we were in each others presence would have been back in 2019 when we put on that gig in a day on the Friday before the cut back Melodic Rock Fest in Melbourne, a great little show that was for one put together in 24 hours!
Del: Yes indeed. I’m back in Melbourne at the minute but I relocated to Queensland a couple of years ago now.
Mark: It’s a long way from ‘Whole Lotta Love’ where we were that night.
Del: It is but strangely I now live on the property that’s owned by the guy who started that! Yeah D.W. Norton – he’s most known for Superheist but he was also in Walk The Earth and others.
Mark: Thanks so much for taking the time for a chat about what’s ahead for you and thank you so much for the vinyl you sent through, I love vinyl and it’s great to have that in my collection, there’s nothing like having a real record in your hands but I bet that pales into insignificance to an artist getting to release in that format?
Del: Oh man, it’s been a dream of mine for a very long time. The first solo single that I put out ‘Dead Will Rise’ I did a test pressing on vinyl and that test pressing ended up being bought by Ace Jendell I believe.
Mark: One of the Adelaide crew!
Del: Yeah either him or Lyndsey, but I never ended up pressing it on vinyl it was just too costly at the time. I think I sent off and paid for it and everything in 2020 and then it didn’t get into my hands until early this year,
Mark: It’s been a while since ‘South of Everything’ which I think I bought from you wen you supported The Bulletboys.
Del: Wow! That was a while ago (laughs).
Mark: But we do get to catch up every now and again! (laughs) I loved the latest single and you have a new video on the way.
Del: Yes ‘Akashic Memory’ should be out for radio on August 2nd and the video follows on the 5th.
Mark: It’s a seriously good album ‘Blood’ you drop the needle and you get hit after hit with ‘Adrenaline’, ‘Defiance’ and ‘Kill Your Idols’ and then you drop that on us! You must have been pleased with how it came out after such a long time in the making?
Del: I’m very excited how it cam out and it’s something I’m very proud of. I only put out music that I am happy with but this album specifically because of the time it took – it’s been in the works since 2016! Two of the tracks ‘Kill Your Idols’ and ‘Defiance’ I wrote with the same line-up that did ‘South of Everything’ and we actually demoed those along with a third track that’s since been lost in the ‘nether regions’! We demoed those three tracks with the Producer Frenchy Smith that did ‘South of Everything’ back in 2016. And then we were meant to go it and record what would have become ‘Blood’ in 2017. We did a European Tour and we were meant to go back to the US a finish up rehearsing, do a short tour and then go straight in the studio, and then head back to Europe. But the band broke up after that first European Tour. So I had to cancel all of the recording sessions Jarrod who is on this record, he’s still in the States, I have so much respect for that dude, I’ve known him for a very long time – he plays for Tantric and also now plays for Heaven’s Edge and he just got the call up, his favourite guitarist is George Lynch, to play with George on his upcoming tour. So it’s interesting swings and roundabouts.
Mark: It’s incredible. I know we go back to the Sunset Riot days and they were great days but I kind of get the feeling that the music we love is coming back a little bit now, more so in Europe maybe?
Del: Well my fa club is run out of Europe, out of Germany and I’ve only toured over there twice (laughs) The last European Tour was 2017 so hopefully my new label Curtain Call Records, I say new but I’ve been with them a couple of years now, they been so supportive of the whole process. The album was meant to have been recorded in 2017 but the band split, that was when I got Chris Green on board and Troy Patrick Farrell to do that tour. Then to go back to Europe Troy and Jarrod couldn’t go, so that was when I got Tommy Sunset and Jerry Medwin with Chris and we did the European Tour together. Chris couldn’t commit full time so that’s when Jason Todd came on board and we got to the point of the second time of trying to record the record which was when we recorded ‘Vampires’ and ‘Until We All Belong’ and ‘As Long As I Can See The Light’ and that was meant to be the first session of recording this album!
Mark: So we got those as singles which was great.
Del: Yes, so what happened then was that line-up split then I was like ‘Man! Those songs were done!’ and I didn’t want to record an album with different players done in different studios, I’m fine with the different studios but not different players, I wanted a flow for the record, you know. But I also felt they were too good songs to leave on the shelf. So that’s when I decided to release them as singles and close that chapter. So I’d been writing with Voya the whole time, and he’s been a long time collaborator of mine and finally I got to a point where I said ‘You know what?’ In 2019 I’d been formulating the idea of just recording records in Australia because I’d taken a pause in touring, ‘South of Everything’ came out in 2015 and I’d been touring that through three different line-ups for three or four years so when 2020 hit that was when I finally pulled the trigger and said “It’s just been too long of waiting I’m just gonna do this completely remotely.” So Noel Tenney on drums and Jarrod on bass – and none of those guys have actually met each other!
Mark: Tell us about the songs.
Del: Well the crux of the songs – there’s a few songs that I wrote, there’s songs that I wrote with Matt and Rick from the first record and then there’s the bulk of the record written by Voya and myself.
Mark: It works as an album remarkably well, it’s very cohesive. Your big night coming up is August 12th at Musicland when the ‘Cosmic Experience’ comes to Melbourne. You did a few shows under that banner back in 2020?
Del: Yeah, everyone remembers where they were when the world shut down. I was actually on stage in New York with the Cosmic Experience. The idea of that was I hadn’t toured Dellacoma for a while but I wanted to tour the U.S. but I didn’t feel like I could do that without a new record. So I’d been doing an INXS show, a Bon Jovi show and I thought what if I put together something that melds my favourite songs – some original and some maybe a little left-field songs that I just love. So I put together a band in New Hampshire, a young band at the time they were called Victim of Circumstance, but they’ve since split and are all doing different projects now, but they were a three piece and the guitarist was the singer so they were my backing band. So we did some of my songs, we did ‘I’m No Angel’ by Winery Dogs, we did .38 Special tune and we did ‘Separate Ways’ by Journey: just some of my favourite songs as well as some original ones.
Mark: I have to ask which .38 Special as I talked to Jeff Carlisi a while back, a lovely guy who co-wrote some of my favourite of their songs.
Del: We did ‘Hold On Loosely.’
Mark: My favourite.
Del: And we did ‘Caught Up in You’ – those are two of my favourite songs, those songs are on repeat in my household, we ended up doing ‘Hold On Loosely’. They’re one of those bands for me that I absolutely love and I got into them so late. I only discovered them in 2017 or 2018! I discovered them on the road – one of those bands that, you know, a song came on in some bar somewhere and I asked someone and it went from there.
Mark: I’m glad you love them, I’ve been a fan since I was a teenager finding a record of theirs in my mate’s brother’s record collection. I think they tend to get lumped in with the whole Southern Rock genre because of where they’re from and who they grew up with, but they’re really commercial hard rock with a southern favour to them. Interestingly Jeff cited The Cars as an influence on their music.
Del: They are an interesting one because they have those ties to Lynyrd Skynyrd, and they do have a very sophisticated sound. I love Southern Rock but it is very Blue Collar and that’s part of the charm, but when you delve into a song like ‘Hold on Loosely’ there’s a lot of work on sounds, there’s different rhythms going on that donlt normally occur in Southern Rock.
Mark: You mentioned the INXS and Bon Jovi shows and of course the pandemic hit us all but you must feel energised at the minute – you have the bog show on August 12th and then hopefully big plans for the next year or so. Is it easy to restart things?
Del: I am excited about the 12th – we have a great setlist for that and I decided to use that as a segue back in. I have to build a brand new band for Dellacoma which I haven’t done since 2018, so it some ways that’s daunting so I thought I’d use the cosmic experience as a bit of a gateway I guess. So it will be the same guys who do the INXS show and Bon Jovi show with me. We have six of my songs in there and we also get to play some of my favourite tunes – we play ‘Hooligans’ Holiday’. we’re doing Black Stone Cherry’s version of Adele’s ‘Rolling In the Deep’.
Mark: The only version I can listen to.
Del: (laughs) It’s a wonderful version on the ‘Live From Wembley’ show. I will say now that things have dragged on so long in some ways I do find myself sat down and thinking “I want to get back into it, but how has the world changed in the time I’ve been away?” I’ve had a few places like Airlie Beach Hotel who have had us every month so that’s been a constant, and I’ve had a few random shows here and there – a Classic Rock Theatre show, I’ve done solo acoustic stuff, but touring – it will be like three years ago by the time it comes back! So were projecting working on a 2023 relaunch of Dellacoma. I’m hoping by the end of the year to be able to do an album launch here in Australia and then in 2023 I want to go back to teh U.S. if everything stays where it’s at. So that’s been going on in the background but I’ve been a bit hesitant to let that out because there have been so many false starts. I feel it gets a bit old announcing things then cancelling them again and again.
Mark: I know what you mean and I feel you pain. The vibe I’m getting from all my mates in the U.S. especially on the West Coast is that people are hungry now and they do want to get out there. i think people have finally shaken off those fears in teh main and are realising that the world hasn’t come to an end.
Del: I have to say this real quick as I’m living in the Sunshine Coast Queensland at the moment and I’ve been part of the music scene in New York, L.A., Melbourne – I’ve never seen what’s going on there in my lifetime. There are musicians in their 60’s playing gigs with kids that are straight out of High School and there is a real healthy competition going on. In most local scenes there’s a ‘I don’t want to play on teh same bill as them’ attitude, but when a scene is really firing you want to play on the same bills because you know how good the other bands are and it makes you play better. So it’s been really interesting for me at this point in my journey. I’ve been in the music scene 15 years now, so I’m not quite where the guys are who’ve been in the industry all their lives and I’m not straight out of school either so it’s interesting to see that, and I do think that in many ways, if you want to look at the positives of it (the pandemic) I think it’s that focus on the local and I think that’s something Australia could do a little bit more. We’ve been waiting for the borders to open so that we can get the music in from overseas and I get that, but I think there’s a real opportunity to allow the average punter who just wants to get back out there, to make a night of something a bit more local.
Mark: It’s certainly been the case in the West here. I’ve managed to see some wonderful new bands.
Del: That’s so important.
Mark: Now it’s time to ask the two questions everyone gets when we interview them for the first time, a Rockpit tradition.
Del: Let’s go!
Mark: If you could have been a ‘Fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great Rock album from any point in history, what would you have loved to have been in the studio for – just to see how the magic happened?
Del: Phew! The first thing that come to mind is ‘Rumours’ by Fleetwood Mac and the reason being, it’s not necessarily my favourite album but, knowing the back story of that album it blows my mind to think that everyone could have been in teh same room ad creating constructively. There’s part of me that thinks it would have been an absolute mess and part of me that thinks that they were so mature for being able to take the inspiration for what is going on between them in their personal life, extract that and then look at it from a pragmatic stand point and think “This is gold, how do we refine this gold without letting emotion get into it?” That’s been something that has always boggled my mind, but when I listen to that record it is so good, but I also know that the two people singing this song – one is singing about the other one! How do you get to a point where you can say I’m going to sing a song about how much I dislike you and you’re going to sing backing vocals on that song. “OK cool” No I’m going to write a song about you and you’re going to sing backing vocals on it “OK fine!”!
Mark: It’s crazy isn’t it, but one of the greatest of all time. Let’s end with a really easy one ‘What is the meaning of life?’
Del: Can I say 42?
Mark: You can join that long list of Hitchhikers fans! (laughs)
Del: I would say the meaning of life is to refine and uncover what is true.
Mark: Nice. A wonderful answer because you’ve left it nice and open there. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit today Dell, next time we catch up I hope will be when you’re on stage and I’m out there in the crowd enjoying live local music and realising how lucky were are to have it all back.
Del: Take care Mark! See you soon. We’ll try and get over, we’ve had a date of the INXS show planned for W.A. for like two years. Every time there are rumours of teh borders opening they’ve been asking of we’re still interested – we’re still keen! If and when that happens I’d love to try and line up a ‘Cosmic Experience’ show too. That’s my thinking behind that then I can get some originals in there for you!
Mark: Now that would be something to look forward to.
Del: Cheers mate!
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