Interview: Liam St. John Brings a New Life to Blues
During SXSW, Afterglow sat down with the soul-touching blues artist Liam St. John to talk about staying motivated, vulnerability in music, and balancing social media with artistry.
Written by Lauren Stephens
Photo courtesy of Danny Cordero
Liam St. John is a chart-topping blues artist with a voice that leaves you hanging on his every word. St. John’s captivating vocals, meaningful lyrics, and sheer passion for music has led him to grace stages across the country, including that of NBC’s “The Voice.” Since his song “Dipped In Bleach” went viral for its raw emotion and relatability, St. John has continued to connect with people through emotive vocals and lyrical honesty. During SXSW 2024, he sat down with Photo co-Director Lauren Stephens to discuss his rapidly growing career.
Afterglow: Is this your first time at SXSW?
Liam: Yes.
What’s been your favorite part of it so far?
I mean, seeing all my buddies in town for showcases and stuff has been cool. But yeah, it is a very unique experience.
Yeah, do you like Austin?
I do love Austin. I love touring through here. I played this place called [The Ballroom at] Spider House with my buddy Evan. Then, like 10 years ago I toured through here and played at Maggie Mae’s and Anderson. So, it holds some value to me.
Cool, that's awesome. I wanted to go back a little bit first. I know you were on season 19 of “The Voice” in 2020. How do you feel that impacted the trajectory of your career, and how did you take full advantage of that opportunity?
Yeah, that was a very cool moment for me, turning the chairs and everything. I had been auditioning for like seven years and finally got cast. A lot of people see those shows from the outside perspective as a life-changing thing — and in a lot of ways, it is. But what I've discovered through doing this for over 10 years is it's always gonna be up to the artist on how their career is gonna go, and how much they want it and how much they wanna work. So, I went into the show with that perspective. I was like, “This is gonna be fun, and I’m gonna meet some really cool people,” which I did. I soaked it all in for what it was and had a really good time. I think for me mentally it was a good trajectory thing, you know, it was like a milestone so I could build off of it. But as far as actual concrete advances in my career, it was more of just a moment.
That makes sense. Going off of what you said about motivation and your career being what you make of it, you've done a really great job of creating a lot of short form content for all your social media channels. How do you make those videos authentic and make them stand out against all the other content that's out there?
Yeah, it's the Wild West. [Laughs]. I think that the most important part of being human is being authentically yourself, and I think artists have the opportunity and duty to do that. So, I find it's always my goal to be as honest as I can lyrically, and as honest as I can vocally. Then, just how I present myself. I always try not to judge myself in my videos, you know? Like try to keep it as vulnerable and honest as possible, and I think that sometimes resonates with people. But, also the algorithm just kind of fucks with you. [Laughs].
Also, doing that in addition to making your music and touring and everything else — it's like a second job. How do you stay motivated and consistent with posting on there?
It’s honestly the most frustrating thing as an artist, but there's two options: you can complain and not do it, or you can do it and experience the benefits of it, if it happens to work out. I think what motivates me is that live performance is the thing I love the most in this life, and whatever helps me to do that more frequently, I’ll do. I'll sacrifice and fucking post the TikTok. But yeah, it does really mess with your mind.
Yeah. Do you feel like it's also been a good tool to connect with people and feel closer with your fans?
Absolutely. Not just fans, but I've met a lot of my good friends now, like Evan Honer, Joshua Quimby, Sierra Ferrell — all those people, through the internet. It’s been a really cool tool, , I think it's been awesome. I don't know if the people pre-social media got to realize the impact they made on people, but I get DMs from people all the time telling me how my music has impacted them, and it's very special. I appreciate that part of it.
With that, I feel like there's a lot of pressure to make music that is probably more “marketable” or “viral,” so how do you stay true to making music that you just really enjoy and feels authentic to yourself with that added pressure?
Well, luckily for me, how it happened was I wrote this song called “Dipped In Bleach,” which was a very emotionally and spiritually honest song for me — more honest than I've ever written. And that's what went viral. It kind of created this perspective for me, that the more honest and vulnerable I can be in my songs, the more it will ultimately relate to people. Even though I am forcing myself to be more honest because it could reach more people, I think that's a good thing. Viral videos are like gold, so we have to try our best — we can't just ignore that. [Especially] depending on your goals as an artist, and mine is to play shows to as many people as possible, so I have to figure out ways to get connected with those people.
I'm sure it is nice knowing those deep and vulnerable songs that you wrote from a really special place are the things that are really resonating with people, despite this pressure of virality and all of that. At the core, people still resonate with music for the significance of it.
Yeah, it's pretty special. I feel very lucky that I'm able to dig deep into my soul and my experience and perspective on life, and share it and have it connect with people. It’s what every artist hopes for.
You can follow Liam St. John on Instagram and TikTok and stream his music on Spotify and Apple Music.
This interview has been minimally edited for clarity and length.