Jun. 04, 2008 - Issue #659: Nextfest

SIRENS Third Annual Summer Splash

Pop stardom pipe dreams are just blown smoke for Gaye Delorme

Gaye Delorme is the kind of musician who has been there and done that. Over a career spanning more than four decades, he has written countless pop hits for countless artists, but his true love has always remained the flamenco and jazzy styles he plays with his own band which he will be bringing to town this week for SIRENS Third Annual Summer Splash fundraiser, which helps support at-risk individuals in the community.

Even though Delorme has written hits for the likes of Cheech and Chong (“Earache My Eye,” later covered by Soundgarden), he has remained just slightly in the background, something he prefers to pop stardom.
 

“Most people, their sights are set on the pop world and that’s the standard for success that everybody thinks of now, but the artistic side has taken a back seat. The greats of the great are way in the back row, but the pop is the main media frenzy attention thing,” he says. “I’m basically motivated by music and my first love was flamenco guitar, so I played for many, many years without even thinking about making a living—I could never in my wildest imagination believe that I could make a living.”
 

This lack of a desire to become famous even extends to his interviews. While he was supposed to be talking about himself, Delorme was more interested in talking up an old friend of his who will also be performing at the fundraiser—LA legend Danny Peck.
 

“Danny and I starved to death together—I was living in the same area of Hollywood as him. I took Tommy Chong’s truck and drove around LA for two months looking for a place to live and I finally found this little guest house,” he remembers. “I heard about this kid that was an incredible singer-songwriter looking for a deal. I ran into him and we got together and he just blew me away. His house got tore down—he was about two blocks from me and he moved into my closet because I had a grapefruit tree and an avocado tree. We were starving artists so we would buy a bag of bagels and we’d live on avocado and grapefruits and bagels.”

 

No longer starving, Delorme is planning two releases this year, one of which is just about finished. American Jumbo will most likely come out later this year, and because Delorme no longer sells his music through a label, it will be available on his website as well as iTunes. The album itself was easy to make, once things got rolling.

“I just went through a miserable two-year period where I thought I just didn’t have it anymore. I played in Victoria in a place called the Alex Golden theatre and the sound in there was so great that it inspired me to write a piece and that opened the door and in the last couple of months it’s been like, ‘Boom!’ and it’s back,” Delorme explains. “When you’re inspired you really play a different way, but when you start thinking like, ‘Oh yeah, people will really go for this,’ it just dies.” V 

Fri, Jun 6 (7 pm)

SIRENS Third Annual Summer Splash

With Gaye Delorme, Danny Peck, More

Granite Curling Club (8620 - 107 St), $35

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