Artist Spotlight: Dan DeLuise.
Stream "Demon Parade" Now

By Alex LaVallee

Dan DeLuise has a lot of things going his way right now.  On top of recently graduating from Rowan University (Glassboro, NJ) and planning to move down to Baltimore, he is in the process of writing and releasing new music.

DeLuise has been playing music since the seventh grade.  From humble beginnings, he started writing music in the eighth grade and starting his first band in the tenth grade.  DeLuise progressed through the years and grew significantly as an artist. 

“My first band was called ‘22 West,’ and we played a lot of punk and alternative kind of stuff.  After that I went off to college and started writing under the name ‘Daniel West’ to sort of carry on with the whole ‘22 West’ thing.” DeLuise said that the surname ‘Daniel West’ was a sort of homage to bands like the Ramones and 7 Seconds where the original members carry the band name along with them throughout their musical careers.  “But now I’m sort of moving away from the ‘Daniel West’ thing, it’s kind of cheesy and inorganic, so I decided to go with my real name.”

While 22 West had an alternative/punk flare to it, the Daniel West project moved in a different direction, taking on folky lo-fi feels and sounds.  DeLuise’s newest project moves even further from that original punk feel, citing inspiration from bands like The War on Drugs (PA) and Beach House (MD).

“I want this new thing to be kind of keyboard-based, with a lot of full band sounds and arrangements more along the lines of bands like Arcade Fire and The War on Drugs.  I’m also trying to add in more percussive stuff kind of like artists like Animal Collective and Dan Deacon.  Ultimately I’m trying to morph them into some kind of weird spacey rock sounds with folky undertones.”

As a solo artist, DeLuise’s live sets are all speculation as of right now.  There are a lot of directions that he could take his music as far as live sets go.  With the thought of DeLuise moving to Baltimore, he could gather a band to play full shows, or get a little creative with his pedals and pre-recorded instrument tracks.

DeLuise talked a little bit about how he tends to focus more on lyrical content, saying that writing is a big part of his life and he would eventually like to release some sort of writing piece along with music. 

"Demon Parade" is the first single off of Dan DeLuise’s upcoming record, A Fish Pitched Up by the Angry Sea, set to be released by the end of the summer.  You can listen to "Demon Parade" by Dan DeLuise here. 

About the Writer

Alex LaVallee is a junior, Public Relations major at Rowan University.  He grew up in a small rural community in Hunterdon County, NJ.  LaVallee is a lover of music, art, and nature, spending most of his time finding new music or outside with his friends.  LaVallee takes pride in the fact that he grew up in NJ, and continuously is fighting for the proper recognition of Central Jersey.  Follow Alex LaVallee on social media @alex_lavallee (Instagram), @bread_cruz (Twitter).