Q&A: With A New Take on Music and Life, St. Lucia Talks New Single “Touch,” Upcoming Album ‘Utopia,’ Touring & More

Q&AMusic

Jul 27

☆ BY Isabel Dowell ☆

PUTTING A TWIST ON MUSICAL INFLUENCES NEW AND OLD — St. Lucia, led by South Africa–born Jean-Philip Grobler and Germany-born Patti Beranek, is a husband and wife duo that is known for always stirring up good vibes. They recently released their latest single, “Touch,” which Jean-Philip calls a “yacht rock [track] distilled to [its] essence and sent through the St. Lucia filter.” The song is the lead single off their newly announced LP, Utopia, which is mentioned to have equal parts colorful disco, ’70s funk, and ’80s pop. Utopia is set to release on October 7, via Nettwerk.

On the date of Utopia’s release, St. Lucia is setting out on a 29-stop tour, starting in Boston, MA, and ending in Brooklyn, NY, a little over a month later. They will be supported by Caroline Kingsbury and Blanks, already having to add additional dates onto the tour’s run due to its high demand. This will be St. Lucia’s first time touring since the COVID-19 pandemic, and they are excited to bring their music to life in-person once again.

On top of their own musical achievements, St. Lucia has been known to take on music new and old, to bring us St. Lucia remixes featuring artists from Jake Wesley Rogers and Aly & AJ to Joywave and Nick Wilson and everyone in between.

Read below to learn more about St. Lucia’s latest and upcoming releases, as well as their return to touring.

LUNA: What does St. Lucia mean to you? What do you hope your music means to other people?

JEAN-PHILIP: St. Lucia is essentially everything I do, other than being a father and a husband and my normal everyday life. I pour almost everything into this project in a multitude of different ways, and I risk a lot doing it. It’s basically the way I express myself to the world. I’ve been thinking about this idea a bunch recently — how we humans express ourselves on a daily basis through talking and body language, etc. but how artists use our chosen medium to express things that can’t just be expressed by the normal human means of communication. A big part of the reason I’ve chosen pop music as the vessel for this communication is because it can be so many things at the same time. It can just be an enjoyable pop song on the surface, but if you choose to delve deeper you have an opportunity to really move people and potentially change their minds. Like the court jesters of old, who were arguably the most influential voices on a king's thinking, artists today have the most influence over the way many people think.

LUNA: It’s mentioned that you rely on music as an escape from mental health, depression, etc. What about music makes it so healing for you?

JEAN-PHILIP: I wouldn’t call it an escape per se — it’s more like a form of therapy, sorta like exposure therapy. Instead of trying to look away from your problems, you’re looking directly at them. Like I was saying in the above answer, art is a means to communicate complex ideas, and something I learned about depression and general mental health issues is that they’re often tied to unexpressed or repressed thoughts and emotions. I like to think I’m a good communicator, but I often struggle to find the right words to express something that’s on my mind purely because of the limitations of language. Meaning is so fluid and subjective, and as beautiful as language is it can only ever be a granular representation of what it describes. We fill the gaps with our imaginations. So music is the language I use to express complex thoughts and ideas to the world that I wouldn’t be able to express otherwise.

LUNA: Your latest single, “Touch,” was released and also helped announce your upcoming album, Utopia. Tell me a little bit more about “Touch” and why you chose this song to make such a big announcement.

JEAN-PHILIP: It just feels like the most immediate and irresistible song on the album, and I think it’s important to put your best foot forward first, especially in this age of total media saturation. That’s not to say that there aren’t other songs on the album that I feel could’ve been great first singles, but the timing of the release (mid-summer) and a bunch of other factors pointed to it being the best choice. The song also has a message I feel like the world needs right now. On the surface, it’s a love song but one about still feeling the need for someone even after you’ve ended things with them. On a deeper level, it points to the idea that we need other people even though we see the world differently from them. The world is so divided on so many levels these days, but it’s important for all of us to have the humility to realize that people we might totally disagree with are also just trying to live their lives and might in fact have some perspective we can’t see. The balance of the world has always been created by the push and pull between the extremes, not by the Utopian thinkers themselves.

LUNA: Utopia releases in October — what can we expect from this album? How will it be different from music you already have available?

JEAN-PHILIP: To me, it feels like the most focused vision of St. Lucia I’ve ever made. What’s interesting is that it came out of a very unfocused time, where I was going in a million different directions musically, and that period spanned almost four years. I’m almost always writing and recording, and so you have to imagine that a lot of music was made — probably enough for four or even five albums (with songs to spare). It’s important for me when I’m working on a new record to give myself the freedom to go wherever my subconscious leads me, and so I’ll often make a lot of music that makes absolutely no sense for St. Lucia, but I just need to do it and maybe it’ll see the light of day someday. Like, I could probably release a whole country-ish, singer-songwriter record tomorrow if I had to. Often what ends up being on the actual album is the best parts of all those musical excursions, so the journey isn’t in vain.

Then at some point in 2021, just after we moved to Germany from pandemified NYC with our two kids, one freshly born, something just clicked in my head regarding our purpose as a musical project. I’d already made and basically finished an album, and we were starting to shop it around to some record labels. Something about having escaped New York, being with family, already having a done record under my belt, made me feel lighter and freer musically than I’d felt in a long time. I just started making music because I wanted to and not because I had an album that needed to be done. I worked purely from inspiration, and these songs just started pouring out that felt really effortless and hopeful. Then as the year progressed, I was doing more and more DJ sets and that experience influenced the music I was making too. It wasn’t a decision at any point, but I started noticing myself wanting to make a record that makes people feel really good and is fun to listen to but also has layers and depth. It came together by itself, but that was kinda my guiding light. I often get these really emotional messages from people telling me how our music saved them from some really dark time in their lives, and that was in the back of my mind too. I really hate a term like “positive music” because it just feels so saccharine, but this is something that people often use to describe what we do. But I like to think that our positivity is earned. So it’s a fun, overall positive record but with some darker corners. Some people who’ve heard it have said that it feels like all the best parts of our last three albums combined.

LUNA: St. Lucia is credited on a number of other artists' songs in the form of a remixed version, from Jake Wesley Rogers, Aly & AJ, and more. How has this process of collaboration shaped your career?

JEAN-PHILIP: I honestly just love doing remixes. I love producing for other artists too, and I’ve done a lot that I’m really proud of. But doing that takes a big chunk out of your life, especially the way that I like to do it, and most of my time is taken up with St. Lucia and my family. What I love about doing remixes is that all the most difficult parts of making a song are taken care of: the lyrics are written, the vocals are recorded, and normally if a label or artist wants to put money into doing remixes, they really believe in the potential of the song. So I’m getting this finished thing that’s mostly pretty great put in my lap and I’m asked to just have my way with it. My process is normally to try and have not heard the song at all before I remix it , and I’ll start by only listening to the vocals and imagine what I would do with the song. This allows me to give the song a whole new spin because I don’t even know what the original chord progression is.

I love having a couple of remixes happening at almost all times while I’m working on other music because it takes me out of my head. At times I can get a bit heady with my own music, and if I switch to working on a remix for a day or so it’s a nice change of perspective that reminds me to have fun with the process.

LUNA: Do you have a favorite remix you’ve worked on?

JEAN-PHILIP: Phew, there’s so many at this point. Out of the older ones, maybe the one I did for Joywave’s song “Somebody New.” Of the newer stuff, Nick Wilson’s “All I See.” I think these two illustrate the extremes that I take remixes to. Sometimes I’ll try to make something more danceable, in the case of Nick Wilson's song, and at other times I’ll just try to take the song on a new journey, in the case of the Joywave song.

LUNA: On top of all of this, you’ll be touring come the fall of this year. Is this your first tour since music has returned? If so, how are you feeling about everything? If not, what can fans expect from this tour that sets it apart from those previous?

JEAN-PHILIP: We are so excited to tour, of course! And yes, it’s our first time touring since 2019. I feel like it’s at shows that our music comes to life. We really put a lot into the live performances, and I’m so blessed to be surrounded by an incredible group of musicians who also happen to be great performers. We try to make the show as close to a real classic show as possible, so we have a ton of real analog synths on stage, a bunch of percussion, and we'll have some really cool production and lighting. Just overall doing our best to bring the vision of St. Lucia to life but on stage, bring you into our world. We have four albums under our belt now with a lot of bangers (if I do say so myself) so it’s gonna be a high-energy show where you’ll probably wanna dance (laughs). We recently made a list of all the “must-play” songs from all four albums, and it was five songs longer than the longest set time we’re able to play so we’ll be varying things up a lot. I’ve been rehearsing with the band a lot in NYC recently and honestly things are feeling better than ever.

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We couldn’t be more stoked to have Suriel Hess as our new headliner for our upcoming LA show 🤩 🫶 Not gonna lie, us & Notorious Noise kinda went OFF with this line up & you’re not gonna wanna miss it - ticket link in bio 🎫