Michelle Vawer - Featuring Bosco Delrey "Get Outta Dodge"

New Jersey is not a toxic wasteland. Parts of the Garden State
are honest-to-God gardens. Bosco Delrey grew up in one these green corners of Jersey, across from a cornfield and atop a mountain. Kids in his high school wore John Deere hats. Bosco was a skate kid, blasting punk mixtapes. His mom grew up in Newark—until a highway was paved over her home. These roots run deep in Bosco Delrey’s junkyard pop, a place where urban meets rural, where hip-hop dips into rockabilly.

When he began work on his debut album, Everybody Wah, Delrey was living in Brooklyn. His songs echoed old rock ’n’ roll but moved to a modern groove, Elvis with a laptop. Take Get Outta Dodge, a hillbilly shuffle surfing atop space-age synthesizers. One day, his apartment filled with firemen and carbon monoxide. So he picked up and moved to Memphis. Which got rid of that Elvis influence fast. “Oh, the fantasy dissolves once you get there,” Delrey says. “It goes from this historical place to a tourist trap.”

Having opened for Sleigh Bells and Neon Indian, Delrey used to tour alone in his car. He’d take nothing but a guitar and sampler onstage, playing solo. At night he’d sleep in his backseat or sneak into the headliner’s hotel room to steal a nap on the desk. These days he’s back living in Flatbush, Brooklyn. And he’s done with the loner routine. In 2012, Delrey will be touring Europe, and he’s recruited a coed band. But won’t he have to split the money from gigs now? “Yeah, what money?” he asks with a laugh.

Q & A with Bosco Delrey

What inspires you?

Gorilla Munch cereal. The park. Romanian folk dances. Cyndi Lauper. Manhattan’s Museum of Natural History. Halloween.

The first record you owned?

Probably Thriller. Thompson Twins, Genesis, stuff from my parents. I don’t know what the first record was that I bought myself. Bell Biv Devoe, probably.

Your favorite sport?

Ping-Pong. I’m pretty good. And downhill skiing, even though I haven’t done it since I was a kid. Nah, scratch skiing. Just Ping-Pong.

Your favorite beach?

In L.A., El Matador Beach. It has giant monolithic rocks sticking up out of the sand. It’s not a traditional beach. You walk down cliffs to get to the bottom. There’s oysters covering all the rocks. It looks like a surrealist painting. Last time I went to the Jersey Shore—I’m not going to name the beach, as I don’t want to shame anyone—but I fell asleep and woke up to a woman and her son. He was buried up to his neck in sand. She was holding a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and feeding the head sticking out of the sand. Piles of bones everywhere. That’s the last time I went to the Jersey Shore.

Something from the past you wish you could bring back.

I like that idea that in the past, people didn’t have to bring their guitar amps around. The clubs were set up for bands. You could just show up and plug in. No touring with piles of junk food and coats and all these people in a rickety van, teetering on the edge of death.