St. Lucia Books & Quotes

“I had this perfect situation where my studio was a three-minute walk away, and every day I would go to the studio. If I had an idea, I could work on it at the highest level possible.”

Ifs Ideas Three Walks Perfect Levels Situation Minutes Highest Studios

Author:St. Lucia

“I decided to create a really good laptop recording situation and to learn how to write that way, rather than have the perfect stuff around.”

Way Writing Stuff Perfect Situation Decided Laptops

Author:St. Lucia

“I try to not be self-conscious in my writing process.”

Writing Trying Self Process Conscious Writing Process Self Conscious

Author:St. Lucia

“I think it's important to just be in your subconscious mind - at least when you're starting an idea.”

Thinking Mind Important Ideas Starting Subconscious Subconscious Mind

Author:St. Lucia

“Normally when I'm writing, in the beginning I don't think of lyrics at all. I'm just improvising.”

Thinking Writing Improvising

Author:St. Lucia

“A lot of the people I was writing with think a lot more about lyrics and a lot more about the details from the beginning. That kind of thinking made me a little self-conscious because I was suddenly having to judge what I was doing early on in the process.”

People Thinking Writing Kind Littles Made Self Process Judging Conscious Details Self Conscious

Author:St. Lucia

“When I start working on an idea, I immediately record without judging it.”

Ideas Records Judging

Author:St. Lucia

“I've been making music for as long as I can remember. I would, as a kid, just sing little ideas or be making something.”

Littles Long I Can Ideas Kids Remember

Author:St. Lucia

“I went to this boy's choir school when I was growing up, and I think that the first time that I consciously started making music was when this one kid joined our class. He was an amazing pianist and would come up with all these ideas. I've always had a really competitive side, so I saw him doing that, and was like, "I have to try writing songs as well."”

Thinking Writing Trying Firsts Wells Ideas Kids School Song Sides Class Boys Growing Up Saws Growing First Time Come Up Writing Songs Choir Pianist

Author:St. Lucia

“I was very conceptual about what I was doing; I had the first five albums planned out, and all the songs on every album, and the artwork. I always had these ambitious musical projects in mind.”

Mind Firsts Song Five Projects Musical Albums Ambitious Artwork

Author:St. Lucia

“There were times when I would suddenly realize making music is a crazy pipe dream. I would see bands that did super well in South Africa still struggling to survive, or even people on the international level who are doing well but financially can't really support themselves.”

People Wells Stills Dream Realizing Levels Support Struggle Crazy Band Music Is South International South Africa Pipe Pipe Dreams Struggling To Survive

Author:St. Lucia

“I was also always interested in the aesthetic realm - architecture and that kind of stuff - but music was my first love.”

Firsts Kind Stuff Architecture Realms Aesthetic First Love

Author:St. Lucia

“When I'm writing, those ideas are seldom inspired by music itself. I won't often listen to an artist and come up with an idea.”

Writing Ideas Artist Inspired Come Up

Author:St. Lucia

“A lot of my ideas come from McNally Jackson bookstore. One of my favorite things to do is just go there and look through architecture books and interior design books. Something about the aesthetics of space and beautiful images works with my brain.”

Looks Book Ideas Beautiful Space Brain Design My Favorite Architecture Things To Do Interiors Aesthetics Bookstores Favorites Things Interior Design Beautiful Images

Author:St. Lucia

“I'm a huge Hayao Miyazaki fan. He might be my favorite director of all time - the beauty that he sees in the world and the attention to detail. I try and focus on that while making music: trying to use as many real instruments as possible, have it feel as tactile and tangible as possible.”

World Feels Trying Real Use Might Attention Focus Fans Huge Directors Instruments My Favorite Details All Time Tangible Attention To Detail Tactile

Author:St. Lucia

“I think that layers in music, whether it's layers juxtaposing emotions and feelings or layers of texture, make for a more interesting product.”

Thinking Feelings Interesting Emotion Products Layers Texture

Author:St. Lucia

“When I was growing up, it was still during Apartheid, so the country was very shielded from the outside artistic world. Anything that was too subversive was basically banned. All the music that we got from outside of South Africa was the poppiest, least subversive music that you could get.”

World Stills Country Growing Up Growing South Artistic South Africa Apartheid Subversive Banned

Author:St. Lucia

“I feel like kids that grew up in New York City or in L.A. were exposed to all these subcultures and subgenres, whereas I was only exposed to the poppiest of pop music so I never had this negative connotation towards pop music. That's not South African music having an effect on me, but just how international music was filtered through South Africa affected me. It gave me a not-negative connotation towards pop music growing up.”

Feels Kids Cities Growing Up Growing Effects New York Grew Grew Up Negative South International Pops Affected New York City Exposed South Africa Pop Music Connotation Subculture African Music

Author:St. Lucia

“What I love about African-African music is how unselfconscious it is in so many ways.”

Way Music Is African Music

Author:St. Lucia

“The music that I listen to the most is probably world music, whether it's from African or South America or all over.”

World America South South America World Music

Author:St. Lucia

“World music evokes a feeling. You don't have to think about the scene that it comes from.”

Thinking World Feelings Scene Evoke World Music

Author:St. Lucia

“When I was developing St. Lucia - around 2008, 2009, at the peak of Pitchfork culture - what was considered cool was being as alienating to your audience as possible.”

Culture Audience Developing Pitchforks

Author:St. Lucia

“Trying to be really dark and alienating just felt exhausting to me, so I started going back to the music that I grew up with, whether it was African music or pop music. It took me away from being overly self-conscious about what I was doing.”

Trying Self Felt Dark Grew Grew Up Conscious Pops Self Conscious Pop Music Exhausting African Music

Author:St. Lucia

“When I think back, I felt like I had the life that a lot of white American kids grew up with in the suburbs in the States. I started noticing, as Apartheid's grip weakened, that we had more and more black kids at school; I had more and more black friends. But I never really saw a separation between myself and the black kids at school.”

Thinking States Kids School Felt Black White Saws Grew Grew Up Separation Noticing Suburbs Apartheid

Author:St. Lucia

“I think I was just too young to even understand what was going on. When I was still living in South Africa, there was still so much racial tension.”

Thinking Stills Young South Tension South Africa Racial Tension

Author:St. Lucia

“The racial conversation in the States is so multifaceted and multilayered. Obviously it's not always a positive conversation, but it's just so much more detailed than it was when I was growing up in South Africa.”

States Growing Up Growing Conversation South South Africa

Author:St. Lucia

“I was extremely frustrated, almost at the point of giving up on coming up with a name for the project (because I'm awful at it), when I decided to play the 'put a pen somewhere on a map with your eyes closed' game with South Africa. About the 5th try was St. Lucia in South Africa, which coincidentally also happens to be an idyllic sub-tropical seaside resort town. The name seemed to fit with the mood of the music, and so after a while it just stuck.”

Giving Trying Play Happens Eye Games Names Fit Giving Up Projects Decided Towns South Stuck Mood Awful Maps Pens South Africa Frustrated Resorts Tropical Idyllic

Author:St. Lucia

“My family still lives over there [ in South Africa] .I miss them terribly. I would say that most of my life over there was probably very similar to the sort of life someone would experience growing up somewhere like Australia or in the US.”

Stills Growing Up Growing Missing My Family South Australia South Africa Still Life

Author:St. Lucia

“We lived in a suburb in Johannesburg, which is a massive city of about 8 million people, and my parents would drive me to school every day and over the weekend I would go to the mall and then occasionally on Safari. Pretty normal stuff, apart from the Safari.”

People School Stuff Parent Cities Millions Normal Massive Weekend Suburbs Malls Safari Johannesburg

Author:St. Lucia

“When I was 10 I went to the Drakensberg Boys Choir School, which is this idyllic Harry Potter-esque music boarding school in the mountains in South Africa, and that's when everything started to change for me and I realised that music is my thing.”

School Boys Mountain Music Is South South Africa Harry Potter Potters Realised Choir Idyllic

Author:St. Lucia

“Of course I had the parallel of having the early years of my life being spent during apartheid, and then having a lot of awful poverty going on around me while I lived in this bubble of middle-classness, but I was a child, and I only really started to (I hope) understand all of that fairly recently.”

Years Children Courses Poverty Middle Awful Bubbles Parallels Apartheid

Author:St. Lucia

“A pretty pivotal moment for me was having a songwriting class with Paul McCartney when I was at LIPA, and then being called in a few days later by the headmaster of the school to tell me that Paul McCartney likes what I'm doing.”

Moments School Class Likes Songwriting Pivotal Headmasters Pivotal Moments

Author:St. Lucia

“Music has always moved me really deeply, and it's always been more about that than about the desire to rebel or annoy people (although, I've had my moments of that as well). I think it was just years of maybe moving slightly away from it but always coming back to it as the thing that I'm best at.”

People Thinking Years Wells Moments Moving Desire Moved Rebel Annoying Coming Back Really Deep

Author:St. Lucia

“I met the guys at HeavyRoc through the drummer in St. Lucia, Nick Brown. He is Ben from The Knocks' cousin, and at the time we'd been doing some work together, but everything was still very much in the unsure developmental phase (even though I'd been in it for a year and a half). I told him that if he was going to play the music for anyone that he shouldn't say anything about it and should just play it and see if anyone says anything, and he did it one day at their studio and they loved it and got it touch.”

Ifs Should Years Stills Play Together Guy Half Mets One Day Studios Brown Working Together Phases Say Anything Cousin Drummer Unsure Developmental

Author:St. Lucia

“The moment you're too apologetic about something and people know that something isn't finished, they listen/look for the mistakes or cracks, but if you act like it's done people experience things in a totally different way.”

People Ifs Knows Way Looks Different Done Moments Mistake Finished Different Ways Cracks Apologetic

Author:St. Lucia

“I wrote, in total, about 50 or so songs (finished and unfinished) in the 2 and a half years leading up until this moment, and trying to decide what songs to include on the Mini-Album was super difficult, because there were so many different sound/mood roads I could have gone down. But, after going through everything, these tracks seemed to fit together and communicate a similar sentiment and mood the best.”

Trying Years Different Moments Together Song Difficult Sound Half Gone Fit Track Albums Communicate Finished Mood Sentiments Unfinished Half A Year

Author:St. Lucia

“I'm really into a lot of different music, and a lot of stuff that sounds absolutely nothing like anything on the Mini-Album.”

Different Stuff Sound Albums Absolutely Nothing Different Music

Author:St. Lucia

“Sometimes it's just the creative intent of an artist or band that inspires me. I'm generally drawn to artists or bands that put themselves out on a limb somewhat and do something that infuriates both the mainstream and the indie purists, but that can't necessarily be classed as either. To me it seems somewhat convenient to be on either end of that scale.”

Ends Sometimes Seems Artist Creative Inspire Band Scales Mainstream Limbs Convenient

Author:St. Lucia

“Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for anyone who has the nerve to even attempt to do music today, but this is just about what excites me.”

Today Nerves

Author:St. Lucia

“Musically, some of the acts that I've really been identifying with are: Fleetwood Mac, Roxy Music, Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Earth, Wind & Fire, in general music that seems to have a lot of romance to it and a certain glamorous idealism.”

Seems Earth Romance Certain Fire Wind Idealism Glamorous Macs Identifying Fleetwood Mac

Author:St. Lucia

“Most of the writing that I do is a complete train of thought process. I'll just be walking down the street or sitting on the toilet or whatever and something will pop into my head and I'll record it on my phone and then over the next little while it'll develop a little more in my head.”

Writing Littles Next Process Records Streets Walking Sitting Train Phones Pops Toilets Thought Process Train Of Thought

Author:St. Lucia

“Generally I'll keep 95% of what I sing on that first scratch vocal take. Sometimes that idea will ferment for a long time, and sometimes I"ll be close enough to my studio and have enough time (kind of rare these days) to go and work on the idea. Not every song is super easy though.”

Firsts Kind Long Ideas Sometimes Enough Song Easy Long Time Studios These Days Scratches Vocal Enough Time

Author:St. Lucia

“I labour over details and whether a song should be a straight pop song form or exploratory. This is the curse with doing things by yourself.”

Should Form Song Details Pops Curse Labour Pop Song

Author:St. Lucia

“There are literally endless options and possibilities, and often no clear or obvious path in how to make that choice, and nobody to tell you to go this way or that. But somehow, it works itself out if you trust in the process, which is often easier said than done.”

Ifs Way Said Done Choices Process Path Clear Possibility Easier Obvious Endless Easier Said Than Done

Author:St. Lucia

“None of my songs are written 'about' someone or something, they all just sort of tumble out unannounced, like the worst kind of house guest.”

Kind Song House Written Worst Guests House Guests

Author:St. Lucia

“Normally the meaning of the songs, if there is any, occurs to me after I've written the song.”

Ifs Song Written

Author:St. Lucia

“Everyone can of course take their own meaning, that's the beauty of music and lyrics, but to me it seems like everything is about being attached to the past and being afraid of moving forward, afraid of that big dive or step and losing what was.”

Bigs Seems Past Moving Courses Steps Losing Moving Forward Being Afraid Music And Lyrics

Author:St. Lucia

“Like, in retrospect, this whole Mini-Album is about itself, and the process of letting go of the fear of what people will think about the music or of me or whatever and just putting it out there. But none of that was intentional at all.”

People Thinking Whole Process Letting Go Albums Retrospect

Author:St. Lucia

“I'm looking forward to seeing more of the US, and hopefully spending some of the summer in Europe playing festivals. It's early days though, so who knows.”

Knows Seeing Summer Europe Spending Hopefully Looking Forward Festivals

Author:St. Lucia

“From as long as I can remember, I was always fond of drawing.”

Long I Can Remember Drawing

Author:St. Lucia

St. Lucia Books

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