What's next St. South?

Can you tell us about your latest release Growing Up and what it means to you?

This track has so many different meanings for me - it’s about growing through love and friendships, and learning how to process any pain that comes from losing either of these things. At first listen it sounds like a break up song. But for me personally there’s a double meaning, relating to self-care surrounding mental health. Lines like, “won’t you just try to be brave?” and “you pulled away, I guess that’s when you needed a break”, are things that I’ve said to myself during bad patches of anxiety. It’s easy to get frustrated at yourself when other people are too. But I don’t think that’s okay. When things get tough I tend to turn inwards and focus on self care until I’m ready to be social again. Very rarely, but sometimes, people/ friends can take that personally, and think that they’ve done something wrong to make me pull away. When really, I just need the space to care for myself again, before I can be available to offer that same care to other people. Attentiveness is important to me in every kind of relationship, so if I feel like I can’t achieve it to the best of my ability, then I know I have some self-work to do - alone. There are always going to be people who can’t empathise with that - because we all cope in our own unique way. So I guess ‘Growing Up’ is about letting go of the people who don’t allow you the time and space to work through whatever you’re experiencing. It’s about being gentle with yourself when others don’t have the capacity to be.  

 
I also sampled a home cassette tape from the early 90s - you can hear my mum talking to my brother and I (I was 3 and my brother was 8) so there’s some very real nostalgic value re: growing up for me. 
 
 

How are you finding keeping yourself occupied and sane during this isolated period?

Not gonna lie, these first few weeks have been super tough, but I’m incredibly grateful to live where I do; Perth is the most isolated city in the world, so we’ve done a great job of flattening the curve so far! 
 

I’ve been trying to focus on creating a daily routine, with my main goals being; eating good food, drinking plenty of water, and moving my body in some way each day. It’s such a weird time, but I’m trying to stay mindful and realistic. I went into isolation with grand plans of writing a whole new body of work - but I wasn’t prepared for the toll this would all take on my mental health. I think I’ve realised that removing the self-induced pressure to create a masterpiece in this time is probably the kindest thing I can do for myself right now. So instead I’m just chillin’ and playing my piano, learning covers, playing Zelda - just easing into this new normal. I’ve been getting ready to release more music too, so I’ve been busy with release-prep! I’ve also had some hilarious conversations with followers on Instagram Live. I’d never gone Live before until a couple of weeks ago, but it’s oddly comforting chatting to people from all over the world right now. We’re definitely all in this together. 

Can you give some insight into your writing process please? 

It definitely varies with each song or project. I tend to write when I’m feeling a lot. If something’s happened and I’m desperate to feel better I usually just sit at my piano and improvise something until it becomes a song. But if I’m in a really clear/creative headspace, or I’ve found a new sample pack, it’s an entirely different process; I can sit at my computer for hours, scrolling through 500 kick samples until I find one that I like. The really emotional songs tend to fall together really quickly, as I’m feeling them. It’s more-so a desperate act of needing to get it out of my chest, as opposed to sitting down with the goal of writing a new song. Sometimes I’ll think of a nice song title before anything else, and then the lyrics and melody will come. Or I’ll record a melody on my phone while I’m driving (this happens about 100 times a day) and I’ll forget about it for months, and then rediscover it and go from there. It’s different every time. A funny example is my song ‘Why

Wait’ (from my first EP, ‘Nervous Energy’) - I produced that instrumental while trying to cover ‘Hotline Bling’ by Drake (when I was teaching myself Ableton Live I would reproduce other songs for practice) - but I ended up writing something completely original over the top! 

What is next for you?   

I’m gearing up to release my album this year, so I’m pretty excited about that! The next step for me was going to be setting up my live show, but I’m not sure how possible that’s going to be for the next few months. So for now I’m just going to keep writing and collaborating, and try to slow down and really enjoy the process of releasing my debut album.