South Africa via New York’s St. Lucia is a band to look out for. Fronted by the uber talented Jean-Philip Grobler, the group will be playing this year’s Electric Forest festival for the first time. Between listening to everything from Fleetwood Mac to War on Drugs, Jean-Philip is nonstop creating new music that is less self-conscious with more a focus on fun (With some melancholy lyrics to boot). As he described, “St. Lucia will always have a very strong pop element.” With the recent release of their deluxe edition of their When the Night LP the group will be embarking on a U.S. tour in September. Jean-Philip sat down with DJOYbeat to discuss all things going on with St. Lucia.
You guys are embarking on The Night Comes Again tour starting in September. Are there any new places or venues you’re especially excited to play?
It’s an overwhelming amount of shows that we are doing but obviously we’re excited to be playing Terminal 5 in New York. I don’t really think I’ve processed yet that we’re headlining at Terminal 5. It’s so insane to me. The Fonda in L.A. is one. The 9:30 Club in D.C. So many venues that we’ve so many great bands play. To be playing there ourselves is quite overwhelming.
Bigger and bigger venues each time.
It’s a dream.
For someone who has never been to a St. Lucia show, what can they expect on The Night Comes Again tour?
We’re still in the planning process of what we are going to do for this tour. We are definitely planning on making it a show. We’ve been doing this for a while and I feel like our first headline tour was our first time we had production and we can make it our own thing. We just want to take it the next step further adding new material and tracks that came out with the deluxe edition and some covers. We want to play around with things and challenge ourselves and make it fun for audiences.
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You guys just released the deluxe edition of When the Night. Is there any plans for any more new EPs or LPs on the horizon for St. Lucia?
Yeah! I’ve basically even before the album released. When the Night was kind of finished a year before release. So since then I’ve been working on new material all the time. It’s part of what I do. I never stop working on new stuff. I have a ton of new songs and ideas that are in the works. They’re pretty far ahead. We’re already talking to some people I’d like to work with and I’ve been in the studio. We don’t know when it’ll be released but there’s plenty of new stuff I’m pretty far along with.
Your tours have been growing each time you head out. Where is one place in the world you would love to play that you haven’t been able to just yet?
There’s so many places we’ve played. It’s hard to choose. We really want to get to South America, anywhere would be amazing. We’d love to get to Asia. We have a lot of fans in Indonesia (Their first #1 came from there). We love exotic places. Anywhere exotic would be amazing.
What are you excited for playing this year’s Electric Forest?
It’s always such a pleasure to play the outdoor festivals in the summer. All winter we are traveling and it’s freezing, which is cool as well. There’s something about getting to a festival. There seems to be less pressure and everyone is having a great time, as long as the weather is good.
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