A Quick Chat with Santa Fe

What are the origins of Santa Fe? Where and how did it start?

Santa Fe is a music project I started in uni here in Perth after a friend introduced me to Beach Fossils. I wrote music before this but Santa Fe was the first time I actually made a full production. I loved Beach Fossils and lo-fi music was an achievable music style for a DIY uni student. I wrote my first track “Summer” in about 30 minutes and was surprised that I had any success with it. “Summer” is the track that launched Santa Fe and is the reason I’m still producing music today.

Tell us a bit about the new single ‘Undercut ft. Caitie Jayde’. What is it about? What does it mean to you?

Undercut is a song about people who stifle your personality and the need to be around people who let your strengths shine through. It’s written from personal experience but in a theatrical way - like I’m watching someone act out a scene representing the song. The ‘scene’ was the compass directing the lyrics.

The song is important to me because it’s a gateway into a new production process for me. This is a piano-led arrangement where I literally learned piano to play the track rather than relying on my familiar guitar riffs. This changed my whole writing process to construct the song and therefore it sounds very different to my previous work. This felt like a big risk for me because I thought I was sacrificing the Santa Fe vibe to do this which people may not resonate with. However I believe this challenge of stepping out of my comfort zone has become the catalyst for even better music in the future. I’m already working on songs that mesh the OG Santa Fe vibe with the Undercut writing process so I feel this risk was absolutely worth it.

Are there any inspirations you look to beyond music when writing or performing?

I feel like writing when I have impactful life experiences, but nearly all of my music is inspired by other musicians. Watching life performances by my favourite artists is immensely inspiring and I feel the need to immediately write something. I particularly love NPR tiny desk concerts because you can see artists performing great songs with a scaled back set up - the song must really be great if it still sounds great scaled back. Beyond this, getting new music gear or just being in the studio with an engineer is very inspiring. I feel there is so much I still don’t know about music production and the learning process motivates me.

Name the five songs that have informed your song writing more than any others.

Beach Fossils - adversity
Twin Shadow - run my heart
Tennis - my emotions are blinding
Clairo - add up my love
54 Ultra - heaven knows

What Australian artists are you listening to at the moment?

Last Dinosaurs
Scratching
Flume

How do you hope your music might impact listeners?

I produce everything at home and I want listeners to feel like they are sitting in the room with me when they listen to a track instead of feeling like it came from a commercial studio. I’m scaling this up more in future songs to emphasize this - for example, people will hear the reverb from my actual room. The songs and lyrics should feel real, authentic and familia