Meet David Vandelay | Independent Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Vandelay and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, what is the most important factor behind your success?
Despite being an “independent artist”, I absolutely couldn’t have achieved this level of professionalism (in terms of production quality) if it weren’t for the University of Miami. My producers, Erik Gunnarsson and Camilo Salas, are two graduate students from the Frost School of Music at UM, and it is no exaggeration to say that they have made my dreams come true.

I remember when my debut single “Hot Pursuit” came out on May 26th. It was the day of my high school graduation, and I went to an arts boarding school, so my roommate and I were sitting in our empty room, with all our bags packed, all the posters torn down, knowing it would be our last night living together. I was already an emotional wreck, but when Hot Pursuit song dropped at midnight, I just started bawling cause I felt like I had just taken two huge steps towards the future, and that’s so scary.

That night I was pacing back and forth down the hall of the dorms and I could hear people listening to it through the doorways.. like EVERYONE was listening to it, and people were coming to my room to congratulate me, there were listening parties, people staying up late. And all I could think about was how lucky I was to have met Erik and Cami. I mean they took an idea I had in the practice room of that school and turned it into a real SONG. Like the kind that you play in the car, and you know all the words, and you sing along with your best friend sitting in the passenger seat.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The name “All Fun… All The Time!” is an inside joke with my dad and me. He used to always tell me “Life is 90% work and 10% fun” and I would always disagree and say that I’m gonna live my life the opposite, 10% work and 90% fun. He’d laugh and say “no you live your life all fun, all the time.” And that stuck with me because when I was writing these songs, I wanted to establish an atmosphere of pure dopamine.

I’ve always loved when artists go the extra mile with little gimmicks. Like how Taylor Swift used the word “Midnights” 13 times throughout her discography as a hint towards her then upcoming album, “Midnights”. In this EP, 4 of the 6 songs use the word “fun” in some context or another, uniting the EP as a body of work, instead of 6 independent songs that happen to be on a record together.

Although this music is new to the listener, I have heard these songs for a long time, a few I’ve been playing for years, with no plan of releasing them! Now that they’re going to be more than just files on my computer, the part I’m excited about, as stupid as it sounds, is to do all the little things I do for my idols to myself. I can’t wait to hang my own poster on my wall, play my songs in the car, etc. When I’m writing, I’m writing for myself as a listener, not a musician. The goal has always been to create something that, even if it weren’t me singing, I would listen to. I am looking forward to achieving that goal.

A year ago, I was in New York and I met up with an old friend who happened to be there at the same time I was- my friend Daniel, who I hadn’t seen in a while since he moved away. We used to play music together, he would play the violin and I’d play the piano and sing, even though he was a much better pianist than I am, but that’s besides the point. I showed him the demo for Hot Pursuit, he had one Airpod in, I had the other, and he told me “nobody’s just going to appear out of thin air with a record deal. If you want to jumpstart my career I was going to have to produce my own songs.” And right as I was about to release the Hot Pursuit demo two weeks later, a record deal appeared out of thin air.

Something I’ve learned about the process of releasing music is that people under-estimate the power of word-of-mouth. I’ve been trying to promote my music on TikTok (@davidvandelaymusic) and Instagram (@davidvandelay) but I haven’t made nearly as much progress getting my music out there as I have by my friends sharing it with their friends and family. It actually really surprised me how eager my classmates were to bring my songs to their families and be like “I know this guy!!” and of course everyone’s mom is going crazy on Facebook it’s all so sweet. I have over 1000 monthly listeners on Spotify as of right now, and I know for a fact that I haven’t shown the song to 1000 people myself.

I guess I kinda don’t want the world to know much about my story. I want the music to speak for me. I want people to hear the songs, and immediately recognize the feeling. All fun, all the time.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
The South Carolina State House, the Riverbanks Zoo, Soda City Market on Main Street, etc.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It’s a wild string of events to look back on your life and the little butterfly-effect moments that led to where you are now. If my parents hadn’t joined the Peace Corps, my dad never would’ve started taking piano lessons overseas, and in turn, he wouldn’t have bought an electric piano, and I wouldn’t have started playing at a young age, and I never would’ve started singing, writing, producing, etc. Every aspect of musicianship I have, I credit my dad with inspiring me– the accumulating pile of Christmas gifts that I call “the music room”, all the files on my computer of just god awful songs I wrote when I was 12- it all stems from my dad, and it all led to this record deal: the “All Fun… All The Time!” EP.

Website: https://deanvandelay.wixsite.com/davidvandelayandco

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidvandelay/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidVandelayMusic/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Z5U69CLFkXBsaNThg32mg

Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/77O7vB7m2AfBtbxC9TL1cz?si=I7NIVuZtQjCOJlmAUevBvA Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/david-vandelay/1686587388

Image Credits
Reagan Taylor, Vera Tjader