Interview: Elijah Delgado sees ‘Both Sides Now’ of Austin City Limits

Austin native Elijah Delgado spent his youth attending Austin City Limits Music Festival as a festivalgoer; however, this year, Delgado returned to Zilker Park as a performer. His latest EP, “Wherever You Go, There You Are,” fittingly reflects the questions that accompany his transition to adulthood and his search for ways to stay present. 

Written by Caroline McConnico

Photo by Makenna Morgan

For Elijah Delgado, ACL Fest is a place he now knows from both sides of the crowd. The Austin native first attended the festival as a kid, watching the stages from the audience before eventually making his way onto one himself. When he returned to Zilker Park this year, Delgado found himself living out a dream he had always imagined. For Elijah Delgado, ACL Fest is a place he now knows from both sides of the crowd. He and his band took to the festival’s Snapchat stage on Friday, Oct. 2 at 2 p.m., delivering a fun debut performance full of “indie-rock lullabies.”

Afterglow: Can you tell me about growing up in Austin? 

Delgado: I loved it. I feel so grateful and fortunate to have grown up here. I feel like I got to experience some amount of peak Austin weirdness before it really started to develop downtown. There were so many cool local spots that I got to experience as a kid, and we were always going out to little local shops to see live music. I remember listening to music on a Sunday afternoon as a kid. It was awesome. 

How do you think living in Austin has impacted your music or your style?

When I was growing up, I was really inspired by some of the guitar slingers and the blues music. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Clark Jr., and all of those guys. I wanted to be that just from directly growing up in Austin. You know, the blues culture here is so rich, and so I adapted that very early on from a young age. I'm very far from that now, but I'm glad that that was there because it's still a part of me. 

What does it feel like to go from a former ACL audience member to now performing at the festival? Is it weird to be up there instead of in the audience? 

It's so surreal. A few years ago, I told myself that I wouldn't go to ACL again until I was playing. So even that little bet is just crazy. I've had literal dreams of playing on the stage at ACL, so I feel like I haven't really wrapped my brain around it yet or processed it yet. It's so weird. It’s such a different experience. I have always wondered what it is like on the other side of the festival experience. And it’s just one of those things you can’t understand how these things coexist. 

Do you feel like the way that you play festival-wise is that different from a normal show? How does the festival atmosphere play into that?

I think the festival atmosphere is just so energetic. There's so much energy. Everyone's like, ‘Is this real?’ ‘I can't believe we're here.’ So already going into it, everyone has so much energy, and then to receive that from the audience too. I definitely think there's a little bit more energy, but we always show up to our shows with as much energy as we can, and each room just feels naturally different. There was a lot of joy and excitement in our set yesterday, and there always is, but I think a little bit more than usual.

Do you yourself get to move around the festival and catch some of the other performances?

Yeah! I got to catch Charli XCX and a little bit of Turnstile and Brandon Flowers. Our green room was actually right next to (Flowers’) green room. We walked in, and I saw that, and I was like, ‘No way.’ It’s moments like that that have been just so surreal. We walked in, I shook his hand, and we talked for a second. I was like, ‘What is happening? What is this? What is going on?’

Tell me about your most recent EP. What does it mean to you? How do you think your songwriting has changed and how have you evolved since your first EP? 

So much of what I write is very explorative. The one that I put out over the summer is called "Wherever You Go, There You Are,” and it's just exploring themes of obviously identity, but also like how do I, as like a 24-year-old in this industry, but also 24-year-olds everywhere, manage and navigate the modern pace of life and everything that is so overstimulating and overwhelming. Maybe it's unmedicated ADHD but part of it is just life. Every day is more and more stuff, and so it’s just about navigating and asking questions of how do I do this in a way that's actually fulfilling and not life-sucking. How do I be more present for myself, for my family, and my friends? 

I think this EP is led by the emotion from a melody or chord progression, and so in many ways I don’t think my songwriting has changed at all. But in other ways, I think with more life experience, there’s just more to write about. With this EP, I’ve been working with such incredible people on sonic landscapes, and there’s always a way that you picture how you want a song to sound in your head, and you can always be striving for that. That’s just a constant thing. 

To wrap up, what’s next for Elijah Delgado?

More music, more music, more music. I am going to be recording in LA in December and just around here in Austin. I’ll be touring in 2027, and we’ll be doing as many shows as we can, as many places as we can. Just getting out there.

You can follow Elijah Delgado on Instagram and stream his music on Spotify and Apple Music.

This interview has been minimally edited for clarity and length.