CAPYAC are the surrealist dance band who fuse French house, Detroit electronic, jazz, funk, and several other modern genres. Originating from Austin, TX, the founding duo of Delwin Campbell and Eric Peana migrate regularly to Berlin, connecting with a slew of collaborators along the way, from guest vocalists to horn sections to dance troupes. Their new EP with Reggie Watts, Songs From Celestial City, is out now on Nettwerk.
Reggie Watts is an LA-based comedian and musician; Delwin Campbell and Obie Puckett are two-thirds of the LA-based band CAPYAC (along with Eric Paena). Reggie and the band just put out an EP together — Songs From Celestial City, via Nettwerk — so to celebrate, on the eve of its release last week, the three friends hopped on a Zoom call and caught up.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
Reggie Watts: So you’re in Mexico?
Delwin Campbell: Yeah, I’m in Mexico right now, and I just got back from the small city of Guanajuato, where I was eating tacos and tamales every day. It was pretty good, but I was pretty excited to have a hamburger.
Reggie: Nice. How was the hamburger?
Delwin: Honestly, it was solid. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t bad. Oh, it looks like we got Obie!
Obie Puckett: Hey!
Delwin: Obie, this interview is just us hanging out. There might be some moderation.
Obie: Interesting.
Reggie: I think it’ll probably mean, like, making sure that we don’t say lewd things.
Delwin: Or incite something…
Obie: Like, in case that we have conflict, there will be a mediator.
Reggie: Yeah. Or unless we start saying things against the Empire.
Obie: I have so much to say against the Empire.
Reggie: I know but, yeah, we can’t really get into it. I mean, I think we can on a light level. A little resistance is OK.
Delwin: A little resistance is what justifies the Empire’s existence, actually. You ever think about that?
Reggie: I didn’t know that… What have you been doing, Obie?
Obie: I’ve been painting and watching Downton Abbey. Super cool. I’m in super cool guy mode.
Reggie: SCGM.
Obie: Yeah. I think I’m gonna sell paintings on tour, so I’m just making, like, a billion of them. For a while, I kept painting just ears of corn over and over again on accident, so I had to get out of that. And now I’m in a better place. I’ve left the cornfield.
Delwin: Is this like how Picasso had a blue period, you have a corn period?
Obie: I’m literally staring at a painting that looks like psychedelic corn. I was in it deep. I was deep in the ears.
Reggie: Wow. I’m so excited about this.
Delwin: I think we’re not going to get an Eric, by the way. I think he picked up a set gig.
Reggie: What’s gig?
Delwin: I don’t know. Movie making, I think.
Obie: Well, he was working on a stunt man’s workshop the other day. That looked pretty cool.
Reggie: That’s really cool.
Obie: Yeah. I wanna go to a stunt man’s workshop. I love watching stunt men practice with each other. It’s so fascinating how good they are at making it look like their bodies have been crumpled in half. They make it look so real.
Reggie: Yeah. The one that they do where they get thrown — like they go upside down, but they land between their shoulder and their head, and then you hear that crack sound or whatever. How do you know how to hit that exactly? Because that just seems like a recipe for a bulging disc.
Obie: They just literally exercise their necks so much that nothing could possibly pop out of place. So they just have the biggest neck muscles. And they also practice falling on every level of cushion before they get to ground.
Delwin: That’d be a fun skill to pull out in public. Like, super convincing, really painful falls.
Obie: When I worked on that action film and we would go out with the stunt crew to dinner, they would literally do that. They would, like, fake break themselves in the street and then everyone would be like, “Oh, my god!” And then they would just stand up and giggle.
Delwin: That’s what I was thinking about when we were at the Magic Castle. Like, if I had magic skills, I’d be pulling that out all the time. At restaurants… When I’m trying to buy a bus ticket… I’m sure you’d make lot of people angry.
Obie: [Laughs.] Yeah, I feel like there’s no one that would be angrier about an unplanned magic trick than a bus driver.
Reggie: I guess we should talk about the EP. So, we have an EP.
Delwin: Yeah. It’s coming out tomorrow.
Obie: February 28. Short month, better pay rent. EP’s coming out. You can listen to it while you pay rent.
Delwin: Yeah, the songs were inspired by rent payments, and all of the various money transfer apps that we have in the 21st century. Which is a lot more than what we had in the 20th century. It was basically just a wire transfer and Western Union.
Obie: What are the names of all of the tracks on the EP?
Delwin: We got “Outer Wishes.”
Obie: Right.
Delwin: We got “Dreamwalking.”
Obie: That one’s a good one.
Delwin: We got “Dreamwalking (Club Mix).”
Obie: Ooh!
Delwin: Yeah, that’s my personal favorite. I’m a really big fan of that one. And then we got “Hearts on Loop,” in both the extended and non-extended flavors.
Reggie: And that’s all of them?
Delwin: That’s all five of them, yeah. I mean, it doesn’t feel like enough because every time we play together we—
Obie: End up making, like, 600 songs.
Delwin: Yeah, so we’ve got a repertoire of probably hundreds of songs by now. But those will come out in due time. Maybe the next CAPYAC-Reggie Watts collab should be 120 songs.
Reggie: That would make sense. It’s a lot. But it’s so good. Just you have to choose, which is the tough part.
Obie: I have so many voice notes on my phone of very, very good things that should happen.
Delwin: We’re overwhelmed with material. Dozens and dozens of demos.
Reggie: But we did it. We’ve got this EP coming out. We made a video [for “Dreamwalking”].
Obie: That was a good, fun time. I just loved how it made us forget how physics worked a lot, and we couldn’t remember which direction left and right was.
Reggie: Yeah, it was like working with a magic mirror.
Delwin: It reminds me of what video effects looked like in the ‘80s, like when I watch Earth, Wind & Fire music videos.
Reggie: Yeah.
Delwin: Or my dad’s band played on local Austin TV, like public access. This was early ‘80s and they had just gotten new video effects at the station, and it was basically what we were doing.
Obie: The ‘80s was the time for silliness. I watched maybe seven ABBA videos last night.
Reggie: Oh, my god. Are you OK?
Obie: I’m OK. I wasn’t, but after I was better. Much better. They used the silliest effects at the most random times, and there’s no reason. We gotta get back there.
Reggie: [Laughs.] People were just doing basically anything. I think we captured a little bit of that spirit.
Obie: I’m very glad that this EP’s coming out now. It’s time, you guys.
Reggie: Well, I miss you guys, and I’m excited that we did this EP and excited to see what people think about it.
Obie: Yeah, I really love it. So I’m hoping that the people like to wiggle.
Reggie: I think they will.
Delwin: And if they don’t like it? Fuck ‘em.
(Photo Credit: Lily Harte)
