Quotes from St. Lucia

It's pretty rare that something I've written is close to something that's pre-existed.

My lyrics are quite train of thought, and they are all over the place, but they evoke something.

I like my music to transport people somewhere.

I had to embrace just basically writing and recording on my laptop. On long drives through the Rockies, I would take my laptop and mess around with ideas and make rough sketches of songs.

I was always very ambitious from a young age.

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

I feel like people associate us with the tropical Hawaiian print because, for a long time, we were wearing a lot of bright colors to exert our personality.

I have noticed that these days, people don't want to take their time to succeed.

The reason I decided to become a solo artist in the first place was because I always felt that the results that I got from working as a team where everyone had equal say... ended up with compromised, watered-down results.

When I'm making the music, the songs that I get most excited about definitely make me feel good, but often, it's a really good feeling combined with some kind of melancholy element.

With Prince especially... he was a really great songwriter and keyboardist and singer and was so good at so many different things, you couldn't pin him down. That really inspires me.

I was born in South Africa and lived there until I was 19.

The longer I lived overseas, the more I appreciated being from South Africa.

We like to try doing new things in the shows and doing things that we haven't done before.

The first city I ever came to in the states was Des Moines. I was 12 and was in a boys' choir.

I love so many songs from the '80s, but I'm obliged to the big ones.

You can hear 'Human Nature' all over our song 'Elevate.' It's an amazing song. That hooky arpeggio in the beginning is great. Unlike most Michael Jackson ballads, even though I'm a huge Michael Jackson fan, this song is kind of restrained. It's not a huge, crazy song you can dance to - it's just this beautiful piece of music.

The upside to doing commercials is you have to work in a lot of different genres and make stuff that you never thought you'd be making.

The name came about from me just closing my eyes and sticking a pen on a map of South Africa. St. Lucia was the fifth place that the pen landed on.

St. Lucia represents, for me, where I found myself musically once I stopped trying to be cool, in some way, and stopped stopping these guilty pleasure influences I had from coming through.

I used to do this huge jump off the drum riser. I had a good way of landing so I wouldn't hurt myself, but then one time, I landed on my elbow.

St. Lucia was a place were we used to go on vacation - not every year, but we went there a couple of times. I remember the last time that I went there, I was really small, and the only memory that I have is that my dad was going swimming or fishing one day - and I really, really wanted to go - but I was too young.

When I left the country to study in the U.K., I suddenly realized, and I'm still realizing, how much other stuff is out there - like My Bloody Valentine, who millions of people are passionate about, but they're still considered an 'underground' band.

A short story can be really interesting and enriching and powerful, but a novel just contains so much more information and richness and depth. That's what I strive for in my music. I want to create something that's like a longform statement.