Slightly Stoopid’s DELA talks about Snoop Dogg, new band
Slightly Stoopid’s saxophonist DELA talks about his experience performing with Snoop Dogg and his band, DELA & Steady Rock Easy.
NEW YORK – Daniel “DeLa” Delacruz is gearing up for another busy summer as the saxophonist in Slightly Stoopid, the genre-fusing rock band that tours and plays festivals across the country. The band’s 2025 trek kicks off May 24 and runs through mid-September, with stops in between at Bonnaroo and Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
Before the musician hits the road again, he reveals exclusively to USA TODAY that he’ll drop a new single with his solo project, DELA and Steady Rock Easy.
“We’re going to release a single called, ‘ ‘Til the Dancing’s Through’ that we’re going to play today,” Delacruz, 46, says before headlining USA TODAY Acoustic, a new series that provides a stage for notable and rising talent across the USA TODAY Network. “I write all the material for us. I feel like when I try to force the songwriting, I’m not as into it as I am when it just kind of lightning bolt hits me and I’m like, ‘I’m singing this melody in the shower, I have to get out before I forget it and record it,’ “
After Steady Rock Easy releases the single and plays a show on Saturday at The Knickerbocker in Westerly, Rhode Island, the project will go on hiatus while DeLa resumes his role with Slightly Stoopid, a position he’s held since 2006.
“It’s the longest job I’ve ever had,” he says. “I’m so grateful for it. It’s taken me all over the world and then some.”
A health scare led DeLa to create his solo project
Delacruz was born in Massachusetts and raised in Colchester, Connecticut, before living in New York’s Brooklyn borough. When he joined Slightly Stoopid, the musician made the cross-country trek to San Diego. The move proved fortuitous for multiple reasons. California doctors discovered a brain tumor under Delacruz’s frontal lobe in 2010. In hindsight, the artist questions “what would’ve happened” had he not visited those doctors in San Diego.
“I had a full frontal bilateral craniotomy to remove that tumor,” Delacruz says. “Ten days later, I was flying to Austin City Limits to play in front of 50,000 people.”
DELA & Steady Rock Easy performs for USA TODAY Acoustic
DELA & Steady Rock Easy is USA TODAY Acoustic’s second musical guest. The band unveils their new song “Til the Dancing’s Through.”
While DeLa was on the mend, Slightly Stoopid called in Karl Denson to fill in on saxophone. Delacruz and Denson, who tours with the Rolling Stones, struck up a friendship. One day on a tour bus, Delacruz played “sketches” of songs he was working on.
“Denson was like, ‘I know what we’re going to do with this,’” Delacruz recalls. “I looked at him like, ‘We? What you mean, we?’”
That conversation proved to be the genesis for Delacruz linking up with Denson and Los Angeles-based reggae band The Aggrolites to create his first solo album, “Opening Night.” In 2018, Delacruz and his family moved back to New England. That led to a reunion with a number of Boston-based musicians that he’s known for decades.
“Steady Rock Easy was born out of (the move back East), wanting to continue playing my music,” he says. “I’ve known some of these guys that I’m playing with in this band for 20-plus years, so it’s automatic for us.”
DeLa’s fond memories of sharing the stage with Snoop Dogg
It was the summer of 2009. On the Billboard charts, the Black Eyed Peas are about to cement dance music’s place in the mainstream with the David Guetta-assisted “I Gotta Feeling.” A new artist named Lady Gaga is gaining traction with a song called “Just Dance.” And on the road, Slightly Stoopid is on the “Blazed and Confused” tour with none other than Snoop Dogg.
DeLa remembers it as “incredible.” Snoop was backed by his band Tha Snoopadelics, which DeLa describes as a “band of cold-blooded killers, some of the best musicians.”
“They’re just playing triple-platinum hit after triple-platinum hit every night,” he continues. “(Slightly Stoopid) would just sit there (side stage) every night and watch this show. Then he would come and do “Gz and Hustlas” with us. That’s like a dream.”
DeLa couldn’t have predicted how Snoop’s career would evolve. The rapper is now ubiquitous in American culture, whether it be as a spokesperson or the face of NBC’s Olympics coverage.
“To see his evolution has just been great,” DeLa says. “And to be a tiny little part of that, to share the stage with such a legend, it’s an honor.”
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