admin S. Holden Jaffe was a self-described “odd kid” from Connecticut who made his earliest recordings under the name Del Water Gap when he was still in boarding school. Jaffe eventually moved to New York City to attend NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. In Manhattan, he says, he “learned how to be an artist,” and Del Water Gap became a big-city band with a rotating roster of members, most famously his friend and former tourmate Maggie Rogers.
On Jaffe’s latest album, I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet, Del Water Gap is a solo act, musing over moody electronic-tinged production by Sammy Witte (SZA, Harry Styles) about sobriety, frayed relationships, “listening to Sky Ferreira in a K-hole” and shopping for Bertoia chairs. “This album feels much more like Del Water Gap and Holden becoming one and the same,” Jaffe says. “I really allowed myself to tell the unembellished truth.” GQ caught up with Jaffe in between tour stops to discuss moving to Los Angeles, how the films of Wong Kar-Wai and a note from his late grandfather found inside a William Carlos Williams poetry book shaped his approach to the new album, and the pros and cons of high-fashion stagewear.
GQ: Now that your album is out, how do you feel? How are you taking it?
Jaffe: I feel good. The period of time between singles coming out and the album coming out is a really funny liminal space—feeling like you’re sitting on this really well kept secret. And there’s a bit of a denial that kicks in, because you have to finish music so early. I finished a lot of this record like five months ago. So having it out in the world is a really interesting practice. (I’ve been) thinking about how these songs that I made so long ago apply to me now, in this month and this year. It’s been wonderful. I mean, we’re a couple days into the tour and seeing people know all the words to these songs that have been out for a week is very life affirming. Getting to see people is special.
The cover image is quite interesting. You look a little beat up, but there seems to be hope in your eyes. Tell me about the idea behind that cover and why you chose that image.
A lot of the album is about the last three years of my life. I came pretty close to quitting music during the first part of the pandemic, dealt with some addiction problems and mental health stuff. Out of the pandemic I went straight into two years of touring, which was an absolute blessing—getting a second chance at a life in music. In a lot of ways, I never thought that I would make it to this second album. So when this album actually finished, I thought a lot about my journey the last few years. I had just seen Fight Club on tour, when we were opening for Girl In Red. I was like “Man, there’s something so beautiful about this notion of fighting with yourself.” Like the ways in which we torture ourselves and probe ourselves, and hopefully on the other side of that, there’s hope. I’m happy you picked up on that. It was the first shoot that we did for the album. I worked with Erica Snyder and it was freezing cold. We were on a roof in Bushwick.
