Interview by Carol Wright | Photographer: Tom Knibbs
To make his dreams a reality, singer-songwriter St. Lundi left Hayling Island and moved to London to pursue a music career. His decision paid off as he’s already collaborated with artists like Kygo and is opening up for acts like Take That. He hopped on the phone to talk to NYOTA about being obsessed with the Rat Pack, how working on his upcoming album has been therapeutic, and his growing interest in film.
Do you remember the first time you fell in love with music?
I didn’t start singing until I was about 19 years old, but I always had a love for music. I remember one of the first musical artists that I actually created a bit of an obsession with listening to every day was Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, which is so funny, like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and those guys back in the day. I would sit and watch a DVD of them all singing, and they’d have glasses of whiskey, and I’d have a little glass of apple juice cause it looked like whiskey. My mom had pretty good taste in music, so in the car on the way to school, I’d be listening to Damien Rice, David Gray, James Blunt, and so on. I think that steered my love for singer-songwriter-esque music.
You took a big leap by leaving home and moving to London to pursue a career in music. Have you learned a lot about yourself since pursuing this journey and was there anyone in particular who pushed you to make that choice?
There wasn’t really anyone in my life that pushed me to take the leap. I’m from a small place and the idea of doing even what I do now, the level that I’m at now in terms of music, it’s quite an unrealistic dream to most. My family definitely didn’t quite get it at first and I think that’s one of the reasons why when I left home, I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving. I felt like if I told my nan and grandad, they’d just talk me out of it. I’ve learned that I have this trait in me to put it all on red a little bit. I’m definitely someone who runs things down to the last minute. If I believe in something, I’ll put everything on the line for it. But I have become a lot more conservative and sensible, probably is a good word, since just jumping on a train to London with no money. It’s created this pathway to me finding myself as a young adult, as well. I had a couple of years of having a really good time in London and writing songs and so on, but then after that it was like, ‘What am I here to do?’ I think the big thing is I’ve returned to myself after all of it. It was a bit of a big ‘fuck this’ moment. Like I’m just going to do this, and I think you have to have that in you to do it. A lot of people have that moment where they’re like, ‘screw it, I’m just going to go and do this.’ Then something gets in the way of it. Nothing got in the way of it for me at that moment. I learned that I’m hungry for this career and to chase my dream.
Growing up in Hayling Island did you write poetry or short stories before starting to write songs?
I’ve always loved music and songs, and that’s not something that came later on, but the confidence to start singing and writing songs at 19 was all it was really about for me. I dreamt from a young age – and I told this story in New York as well because it was so fitting, but I had this dream when I was younger. I think I saw a movie of someone busking in New York or something, and I remember being like, ‘Oh, I want to run away to New York and play guitar and sing.’ I was probably seven years old at the time and didn’t realize you’d have to get on a flight to New York or whatever. For me, the idea of my mom or my friend from school walking past me in the street and seeing me sing was the worst thing in the world. So, I just wanted to be able to run away somewhere and do it. I guess I kind of did that when I was 21 when I ran away to London. But I had been playing guitar for five or six years and just humming along to the words. Then I wrote a song and showed it to my friend. He was like, ‘You’re not that bad.’ I think that’s what he said, ‘You’re not actually that bad at singing,’ and I was like, ‘Alright, cool,’ so that was all I needed to then go out and play an open mic night and get the thrill of playing live, which is something I really love.
I’ve also always had a love for creative writing. I remember being in school and writing a lot of stories. I’m often so far ahead of myself that with the stories I wrote when I was younger, I remember my teacher would come up to me the next week and go, ‘Archie, what happened here?’ I’m writing the story, and then I’m thinking about the next chapter already, and I just start it without even finishing. But I’ve always loved it, and I love film now. I’m super into cinematography and all of this kind of stuff. So I think I’ve always had a bit of a love for the arts, visual and audio.
You’ve been able to collaborate with high profile artists such as Kygo. How do you decide who to collaborate with and do those collaborations inspire you to experiment with your sound?
I definitely think to an extent, it can. For a couple of years, I went into a lot of writing sessions, and I wrote with a lot of songwriters, producers, artists, and so on. In the past couple of years, I’ve done a lot of touring and distanced myself a little bit. I’ve started writing songs by myself for the first time in a while, which I couldn’t do before, which is, in itself, a really great thing to be able to do. But equally so, meeting people, hearing other people’s stories, and seeing how they write their music and what they can bring to yours is such an amazing thing. As for the collaborations, the Kygo thing was pretty crazy. I didn’t really know how big Kygo was at the time. The backing track, let’s say, fell into our laps as it did hundreds of other people, and it was like, you’ve got 48 hours to write this song. We sent it in, and we really liked the song, but my management was kind of like, ‘Let’s not expect anything here because this is Kygo,’ who at the time had 40 million monthly listeners and his album was out in a month. A week before the album came out, they came back and were like, ‘Yea, your song is track six’ or something like that. It was crazy.
I definitely intend on doing some collaborations again in the future. I’ve got a duet on my album with a friend of mine called Emily Burns, which I’m really excited about. As for the DJ/dance stuff, it’s something that I think I’ll do again at some point, but I wanted to build up my own artist project a bit more before I started featuring on a ton of dance records because it wasn’t really where my heart was at and I think it can quite quickly take over. I think collaboration in any form and in any job is such a great thing because, ultimately, it’s all about being the best version of yourself, and getting a second opinion is always good and healthy.
Has writing the song “Following My Heart” and making music in general been therapeutic for you?
I think music started off as a bit of an escape for me and it ended up being the very opposite of that. Ultimately, the big thing, and this is something that I’m openly telling lots of people because I think it’s good to talk about. I did therapy for the first time just over a year ago because of anxiety, but there was other stuff I wanted to talk about as well. After doing that therapy, there’s a song I put out about a month ago called “Different Houses” and all of the songs on this album that’s coming out, including “Following My Heart.” All of it is about things that I’ve experienced and my relationship with my family, my girlfriend, my mom, and my dad. So, the whole album is extremely close to me, and doing the whole thing feels like a little bit of closure on a chapter of my life. With “Different Houses” especially, it’s about the day when my parents told me they were splitting up when I was 12 years old, and that’s something that happens with quite a lot of people, that experience. For me, it was a tough one growing up. My parents haven’t always been very close since, and it was something that I never really dealt with too well. I tried writing this song for a couple of years, and I just couldn’t get it. Every time I wrote it, I just made my parents sound awful, and it wasn’t what I wanted. Then I did therapy, and a week after, I wrote this line where it’s like, ‘We’re still a family; we’re just living in different houses.’ As simple as that is, it was like immediately everything that I’d felt for the past ten years became so much easier. The song had hope in it now. For anyone out there listening to it who is going through or has been through the same thing, it’s really sad, but then you get to the end of the chorus, and it’s like we’re still a family; we’re just not living together anymore, and that definitely felt like therapy for me.
Within the album, there are a few voice notes in there where I’m telling my mom that I’ve written that song, and there’s one voice note at the end where I’m trying to call my dad and tell him that I love him basically, but I can’t because we’re not very good at talking and I feel too awkward. So I just left a message on the answering machine for him. Stuff like that was a big step I’ve never done in my life. So, it has been overly therapeutic. When I was in New York recently talking about the album to a room of 50 people, I was telling them all of this stuff, and I was oversharing like mad about my life. It’s so funny because when I was going through that tough time in my late teens. I didn’t want to tell anyone about it. I was so closed in, and now I’m literally traveling the world, telling everyone everything in my life. So, music has definitely become, and this album has become, a therapeutic thing for me. It has allowed me to write down all of my thoughts and hopefully turn them into something positive as well.
How involved are you in the creative process for your songs’ visuals?
I’m always super involved. There have been a couple of times where I haven’t been, but definitely now, in this album phase, I’ve taken the reins a hell of a lot more. The guy that I shot the [“Following Your Heart”] video with, Tom Nibbs; he’s an incredibly talented guy. Basically, we go everywhere together, and we’re really good friends. He travels everywhere with me when I’m doing gigs, touring, and promo. We film everything, and we get the content that’s necessary to be an artist these days. We came up with the idea a couple of months ago, and it was like the song is about following your heart and traveling the world. Tom and I have done a hell of a lot of traveling this year. We were like, why don’t we just document this? The video can show me traveling the world and following my dreams. As cheesy as that might sound coming out of my mouth, I’ve been heavily involved in it.
There are more videos to come that are going to be a little bit more cinematic, and so on. A little bit more dark and deep and story-based. So you can expect that on the visual front. The hope is to make as many visualizers and videos as we possibly can for every song because I’ve got such a passion for it. So it’s something that I really enjoy and get hugely into and motivated by. To be honest, I reckon I’ll make a short film one day because I’m so into it. It will probably be terrible, but I’ll do it just for fun. I really geek out and nerd out on all of that. I’ve just got a membership to the local cinema near me, which is like a luxe one. So there’s big recliner chairs. I’ll just go and watch a movie by myself just to experience it.
Our June issue is our ‘Art Is Life’ issue which explores the effects of art in our lives. Outside of music, do you have a favorite form of art?
I mean, I used to draw and paint a lot growing up. I’ve always loved that kind of stuff. I’m probably quite terrible at it now, but it was a big passion of mine. If you asked me what I wanted to do around then, it was singing or drawing. That was my thing, or playing music. This Christmas, I got a film camera, and now, that’s probably one of my biggest loves. It just got jammed recently, annoyingly. So I’ve got to go and get it fixed, but everywhere I travel, and I’m so lucky to travel everywhere. I take this film camera with me, and it’s about catching a small moment in time that would be completely insignificant if it hadn’t been for taking that photo. I really love going around and doing that. Next time I’m in New York, I think I’m just going to go out by myself for a couple of hours in the evening and take my film camera. I shot a few pictures when I was there anyway, and I went on the subway and just captured pictures of random people. I just find those moments amazing. So that’s probably my biggest passion, taking photos, especially on film.
What advice do you have for aspiring musicians?
It’s hard because this is vague, and if anyone reads it, they might be like, well, what? That doesn’t help me at all. But my genuine advice is just continue to always try and be the best version of yourself. It’s really important to go off and learn, like we were talking about, collaborate with people, work with other artists in your field, and see how they do things. This is a super cheesy mom quote, but there is only one of everyone in the world, and it’s something that I think after going and writing a lot of songs with other people, it’s so easy to get steered into a new direction that maybe isn’t where your heart has always been. And I think just taking everything you learn, sponging it up, and being like, ‘How can I use this to be the best version of me possible?’ I think that’s the best advice I can give anyone. And don’t take yourself too seriously, and no one, no one knows what they’re doing. Like absolutely no one. It’s complete BS if someone’s trying to tell you they know what they’re doing because no one does. Everyone’s just trying to grow and achieve their dream and write songs, and for what one person doesn’t like, another person loves, and it’s their favorite part about you. So I think just being yourself is always key.
This story first ran in issue 36: The Art Is Life Issue. Read more from the issue here.
