When I was 10 I went to the Drakensberg Boys Choir School, which is this idyllic Harry Potter-esque music boarding school in the mountains in South Africa, and that's when everything started to change for me and I realised that music is my thing.

Normally the meaning of the songs, if there is any, occurs to me after I've written the song.

Generally I'll keep 95% of what I sing on that first scratch vocal take. Sometimes that idea will ferment for a long time, and sometimes I"ll be close enough to my studio and have enough time (kind of rare these days) to go and work on the idea. Not every song is super easy though.

I decided to create a really good laptop recording situation and to learn how to write that way, rather than have the perfect stuff around.

When I was developing St. Lucia - around 2008, 2009, at the peak of Pitchfork culture - what was considered cool was being as alienating to your audience as possible.

There were times when I would suddenly realize making music is a crazy pipe dream. I would see bands that did super well in South Africa still struggling to survive, or even people on the international level who are doing well but financially can't really support themselves.

A true artist is practically married to his or her art form so I just couldn't turn my back on it.