Interview: Johnny Delaware

Photo by Ismael Mendez

Never one to settle down, Johnny Delaware’s musical journey spans the width of the United States while dipping into Mexico as he constantly seeks out adventures and challenges which inspire songs. Delaware recorded his debut album in Charleston, South Carolina in 2013 but that career was put aside when he helped form SUSTO with Justin Osborne. While not perhaps a household name, SUSTO’s had moderate success with their five-album catalog that’s led to opening slots on tours ranging from The Lumineers to The Head and The Heart. Delaware’s wandering itch led him to move to Mexico during the pandemic where he recorded his second album, Energy of Light.

With a sound rooted in a Laurel Canyon-meets-Southwest-American vibe, Delaware’s latest, Para Llevar, which, fittingly, translates to “to go,” continues to sound familiar yet escape an easy genre pigeonhole. Even Delaware has a difficult describing to others exactly what his music is, though he strives to write songs that have good choruses and can be played not only in an acoustic setting but with a full band.

After a 13-hour drive back to South Dakota from Wyoming, Delaware unwound by talking to me about his wanderlust, the artists that have helped him throughout his career, how his siblings helped shape his music tastes, and how he’ll chase the dream as long as he’s breathing.

I judge musicians by the company they keep, and, in this case, that means who they follow on Instagram and how many mutual follows we have in common. You keep good company – we both follow the typical suspects – Band of Horses, Israel Nash, Fancy Gap and, of course, SUSTO, a band that you are a member of. I’m assuming that not only do you follow these artists but you also run in those crowds.

JOHNNY: Absolutely. Ben Bridwell Band of Horses was one of the first people in that echelon of rock music and songwriters that came along and stared helping SUSTO right away. And he took me out on tour in the other band The Artisanals I was in. I owe him a lot of favors. He’s been very good to us. I love Band of Horses and Ben Bridwell.

Band of Horses has been around a while, but I didn’t really dive in until they released their last album, Things Are Great. Now I’m a huge fan of the entire catalog. Are there any bands like that for you, that, for whatever reason, you didn’t catch on to until many years later and became a big fan of way after your friends did?

JOHNNY: There’s been a lot of those bands in the past. Big Star was one of those bands that everyone would always talk about. I was like, “Yeah, whatever. They’re just another band.” And then I heard the song “Thirteen” for the first time when I was like 26 or 27. Hanging out with hipsters when you’re all in your young 20s, you hear Big Star all the time but when you’re 26 or 27, you listen and you’re like, “Holy shit, this is an amazing band.” But I’m not a geek with Big Star. I can cherry pick three or four songs out of the record that I really, really love. But, they’re not a band I’m obsessed with.

You’re in South Dakota now. Is that where you were born?

JOHNNY: Yeah, I was born here. I’ve been hanging out here for the summer, but now I’m gearing up for the promo of the record and going to be traveling the next few months. Then I’m heading back to Mexico where I kind of have been living the last four years.

What drove you to Mexico in the first place?

JOHNNY: I had an archeologist friend who was digging up pyramids in Mexico and he said, “You should come down to Mexico.” I had a song placed in a Nissan car commercial so I had money for the first time in my life. And I was like, “Okay, yeah, I’ll come down.” The world had just shut down, it was 2020. I guess it probably wasn’t the best idea to go to Mexico City but I was just like, “Fuck it. Let’s do this.” I had a great time. I love that city. And I met my girlfriend there and fell in love with her and we ended up going around Mexico for the next few years, living in various spots as the world was shut down. I got a good tour of Mexico and it’s been great ever since.

Prior to that, you were in Charleston, South Carolina?

JOHNNY: Yep, I was in Charleston for seven years. I lived in Atlanta for like a year and a half in between Mexico and Charleston. And before that, I was in Albuquerque for two years and Austin, Texas for a year. I also lived in Nashville for a year. I didn’t like Nashville though.

Of all the places you’ve lived, what’s been the place that has made you write differently and maybe out of your comfort zone?

JOHNNY: South Dakota. I’ve become a country writer when I’m here. It’s really crazy. I think I’m just embracing the fact that I probably am a country singer. I used to write indie rock songs, like The National and wanted to be a rocker. But I don’t think that’s really who I am. Sometimes artists go their whole life wandering, not knowing who the heck they really are yet. I’m beginning to figure out that I’m a country singer, not like pontoons and keystones and bikinis and shit, just singing songs with a guitar and making a four-piece band around it and making it sound great and genuine and real and authentic.

It seems like geography is very important to the way you write. As I listen to the album, it doesn’t sound like an album that was written in New York City.

JOHNNY: For sure. There’s always been a Southwest element in the spaciousness. Wherever you live, it really interacts with the way you write.

You live a bit of a nomadic lifestyle. What’s behind that? Do you get restless and want to try living somewhere else or are there things driving you to all the different places you’ve lived?

JOHNNY: It’s never been deliberately. I’m very envious of people that actually have a house and can store all their things in one place. I have guitars scattered across the United States and in Mexico. I have three guitars on the beach and on the Pacific in Mexico. I have six other ones in Mexico City, in an apartment at my girlfriend’s brother’s house. And then I have guitars in Charleston, South Carolina, and then some here in South Dakota. I’m very envious of all of you folks that have just one designated place. I did not choose this lifestyle; it’s just what life has thrown at me and I accept it and I’m cool with it. I just bought land with my girlfriend. We’re going to build a home within the next year or two. I’m excited about that. It’s in a small town in Mexico on the Pacific Ocean and is two blocks away from the beach.

Did I read that you were an athlete in high school?

JOHNNY: I was a long-distance runner. I was a state champion runner, and I went to college on scholarship to run but I kept getting injured. I didn’t really like college anyway. I hated going to general courses, it was not interesting to me and seemed like a waste of money so i got out of college pretty quick. I knew I wanted to be a musician anyway.

Do you still run?

JOHNNY: Yeah, I do it mainly for my mind, not for vanity. It sharpens my mind. I like to put my body through a little pain, not in a masochistic way, but there’s a certain element when you put your body through pain like running or even doing a cold plunge or going in a hot sauna. It makes you realize all the other things in life aren’t as hard. It makes the day easier when I have little trials and tribulations. It makes me realize I can get through these; they aren’t that bad.

It would be easy – and lazy – to describe you as a singer/songwriter because you could call everyone from David Bowie to David Lee Roth singer/songwriters and none of you sound the same. So, if you’re grabbing a cup of coffee today and someone realizes you’re a musician and asks, “What type of musician are you?,” how would you respond?

JOHNNY: I run across this problem every day where people ask me and I still don’t know the answer. I think I need to pin it down and come up with something. Maybe you can help me, Chip. I want to say singer/songwriter/folk/country, but that doesn’t describe it. I don’t know what the hell it is.

I get 30 emails a day from publicists pitching artists. Subject lines are important because seeing that you are a member of SUSTO is what made me open the email. When I listened to the album, although my parents weren’t big music listeners, I thought it sounded like something that would have come out in the mid-70s and that really appealed to me. You’ve said that for the song “Running,” you were trying to go for a ‘70s production feel. Can you tell me what about ‘70s production appeals to you?

JOHNNY: It’s hard to explain. It’s what comes naturally. I’m not trying to be anything. When I sing, I naturally project my voice and I sing like a ‘70s singer/songwriter. I didn’t even notice it until someone came up to me, a mixer at a club. He’s like, “Dude, sounds like you’re coming from the fucking ‘70s on that microphone.” I was like, “Really?” And he’s like, “Yeah, I didn’t even touch the knobs. I didn’t do anything to EQ it. It just sounds like you’re from the fucking ‘70s.” I never really thought about it like that. I always thought, “I put a little reverb on the vocal. I put a little slap back and there’s production tricks,” but sometimes people just embody a certain era. Like Amy Winehouse, even if she didn’t have the production and the producers of those records, she had a soulful voice that sounded like it was from the late ‘50s, early ‘60s. Not saying I’m any caliber like Amy, but you know what I mean.

Some of the songs on the album are ones you’ve had kicking around a while. How did you decide that now was the right time to finish those songs and release them?

JOHNNY: I’ve always been a bit ADHD with my productions and I’ve never had a cohesive production design for a record. I wanted to make a singer/songwriter record that you could walk up on a stage and play it with a four-piece band and it would resonate perfectly with how the record sounded. I wanted to make a record like that because I’ve never been able to do that because I overproduce shit and I’ll be the first one to raise my hand and say that I do that. But I like pop music too. I’m very inspired by other stuff. To get to the point, I wanted a cohesive record for the first time and I was analyzing all these songs that I had in my Rolodex and I was going through everything with the album that I wanted to make and the sound of it. I wanted to have a record that wasn’t trying to be anything. I just wanted good songs that people like because there’s a good chorus and you can sing along to it or whatever.

Looking down the song hallway, are there any doors that you keep closed, things that you won’t write songs about?

JOHNNY: No, I’m not scared of anything. If I have mistakes in my life, I like to put those out. I had a woman who loved me a lot and I left her because I was too much of a child and I was scared. I had too much fear to be in a committed relationship and a lot of this record, some of the songs came from that aspect. It’s like, “Man, I really fucked that up.” Luckily, I got my shit together. You have to make a lot of mistakes in order to learn. That’s what a lot of these songs are about.

What kind of stuff did you grow up listening to?

JOHNNY: I was always hanging out with my brother who was listening to West Coast rap. I was surrounded by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. My brother and sister are twins so I had that paradigm of West Coast rap and then my sister was listening to Alanis Morissette and the Cranberries and 10,000 Maniacs. So, I got the singer/songwriters from my sister. She also liked the Smashing Pumpkins a lot.

Your stuff sounds like it’s from the ‘70s, when did you get into that kind of music?

JOHNNY: I got into Jim Croce in high school and then I kind of permeated from there. It was like, “I really like John Denver. Oh, wow. I really like Gordon Lightfoot too.” And it felt like I could sing a lot like them. I was like, “This feels like it’s in my wheelhouse. I could be like my heroes,” you know?

Are there any songs that, when you hear, take you back to a very specific time and place in your life?

JOHNNY: “Red Red Wine” by UB40 brings me back to the pool that I swam in when I was a kid. It would always be playing on those little radios that the lifeguards had and when I hear that song, I’m back swimming in a pool as a 9-year-old.

Because you don’t seem to have a permanent address, does that mean you don’t have a lot of physical media?

JOHNNY: I travel so much. I’ve been trying to get a record player in Mexico for so long, but every time I’m about to get one, we’re moving. So, I’m always just listening to music on my phone.

Do you explore or do you stick with favorites?

JOHNNY: Believe it or not, I give everyone a shot in today’s age. When I have friends who put out records, I always try to listen to them once or twice to really understand what they made and to be supportive. I’ll be real with you, when I was in my 20s, and even in my early 30s, I had my head up my ass and I wasn’t listening to anyone around me. I was more focused on myself, listening to the records that were already being listened to because they were well known. But now I’m more about finding artists that aren’t known because no one does that anymore. I’m a nobody, but there’s a girl, Lane Marie, who is going to be playing with me in Athens, Georgia, and she’s better than Maggie Rogers, that’s my subjective opinion. She’s in that same wheelhouse, she’s not yet discovered. She’s just waiting to be discovered, no one knows who she is yet and she’s going to play a show with me and I think that’s really cool.

How do you break through all the noise? There is so much music being released on a daily basis.

JOHNNY: You have to keep your worm in the water. You have to believe in Isaac Newton and physics and keep your worm in the water and keep moving. When you’re moving, that creates momentum and just always keep going because when you suddenly stop all that hard work, it’s going to get rusty and it’s going to go get pushed to the wayside. I believe that there’s enough out there in the universe for everybody. It’s very hard, it’s competitive. But if you’re making good music and you just keep going. You’re going to be fine but first and foremost, don’t pay attention to what other people are doing. Don’t get jealous. If anything, support them and try to find a good song of theirs and really listen to it and tell them how good it is.

How did you wind up on Normaltown Records?

JOHNNY: I give all the credit to George at Normaltown. He’s always been a friend of mine and supportive of every band I’ve been in. I love seeing him out on the road. He comes out on the road and visits. It’s been great getting to know him over the years, but I’m just really grateful for him taking a chance because I’ve never been on a label. I’ve never really been good at playing the game and I never thought that I could until I met George. I realized that I really want to make a living at this and I need someone who’s really cool, who understands me, to help but also would do business with me knowing that I’m a crazy dude. Most people maybe wouldn’t take me on because I’m a bit of a firecracker, a little different, but he had his arms open right away and I’m really grateful for that.

You mentioned having a song in a commercial. Have you had other cool experiences like that? Have you ever had the opportunity to perform on a late night talk show?

JOHNNY: I had a lot of big shows with Band of Horses back in the day that were awesome, like playing the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. two nights in a row on New Year’s. I had left SUSTO to start a new band and the first two shows for that band were these shows with Band of Horses. It was incredible. I couldn’t believe it was happening. Playing in front of 2,000 people ten shows in a row after starting a new band was really big.

It terms of talk shows, man, I was so close to getting that same band, The Artisanals, on Colbert. It was 2018. I was so close. The director who does the music, he loved that band so much, but he only had so much pull. I feel like maybe we were just a couple minutes away from making it happen. The timing’s got to be perfect.

Is this the first time you’ve gone out on tour, under your own name, with a band?

JOHNNY: Yeah, it’s going to be a four-piece band. It’ll be bass, drums and another guitarist with me, and then I’ll be switching off from lead guitar to rhythm. It’s a whole new crew. I’ve never played with any of them. I’m just kind of going with it. I’m really excited. I’m not a name dropper at all but the bass player, Owen Lange, he’s very young, like 22 or 23, his dad is the drummer for R.E.M. He was just texting me today about bass parts. I don’t really care that his dad is in R.E.M., I just thought that was cool. I just care if you’re a good person and you care about music and playing great shows together. And then Jared Pepper is playing drums. He plays for a lot of Atlanta artists. He’s really good. I’ve never had the chance to share the stage with him, but I’ve just seen and heard great things. I always trust all my fellow musicians that I know. If they say someone’s good, I trust them. And then my other buddy, Paul, he’s playing lead guitar and I just love his energy. I know he’s a good guy and I’ve seen him play. My stuff’s really easy so he’s going to be just fine, but he’s a great guitarist.

How long is this tour and do you have any plans yet for 2025?

JOHNNY: I’ve got this promo tour happening in a few days. I’m playing a lot of record stores and radio stations just leading down to the tour. And then the tour starts November 12th and goes until December 12th. In 2025, I’m going to be playing in May and June in Europe, pretty much all over. I’m going to be playing with an artist called Dylan LeBlanc. He’s another artist that’s always been good to me. Dylan grew up in the Muscle Shoals area and has made great music ever since.

Between the upcoming tour and the summer tour with Dylan, what do you do?

JOHNNY: I’m kind of like looking at SUSTO tour dates and seeing if I could hop on a tour. Or I can go sell internet. I’m actually a really good door-to-door salesman selling fiber optic internet. I was just in Wyoming. I sold 30 in like five days. Most artists are kind of ashamed to say they have to work another job. But you know what? I don’t give a shit. I think it’s great. It actually allows me to get to the place where I’m actually gonna go. You might feel ashamed because you have a fear of failing, but I know where I’m going, baby. I know where I wanna go. And this is gonna help me get there. So yeah, I’ve been selling a shit ton of internet.

If I weren’t just doing my solo efforts, I would just still be playing in SUSTO, but now I’ve gotta make so much money on the side. I spend $1 ,000 a day on the road. I don’t know if a lot of artists tell you about the logistics of touring. It’s crazy. It’s like $300 a night just in hotels. You got a hundred bucks in gas. I gotta rent a van. I don’t own a van, so I’m renting a van. On top of that, I gotta pay the guys out every night. I gotta keep a van together. So it’s crazy. And no one knows who I am quite yet, because I am very new to this, and it’s my first record coming out on a label, so I just have to look at this as an investment, because I’m not gonna make money on this tour. It’s kind of scary, Chip, because a lot of bands, no matter where they’re at, what level, if they’re in one bus, two buses, a van like me, having to rent a van like me, they aren’t making any money, and it’s kind of bizarre. It’s like, if you are that two bus band, maybe it’s time to get back in a van and just drop the ego a little bit and make some Skrilla. In terms of me, the only way I would save money is by not playing, and I can’t do that. I gotta go out there, because you know what? Playing shows is a great way to get your music out. I still think it’s fascinating. I could go out and do an acoustic tour, but it’s not gonna resonate the same way. It’s where we’re at. Hopefully prices start to go down, and it gets easier on artists again, but it’s where we’re at. I’m not gonna make any excuses and look at the negative. I’m just gonna keep moving forward.