Introducing #121 - St Lundi
Let us introduce you to St Lundi, the creative output of twenty-two year old musician Archie Langley. He has just released his debut track ‘You’ve Got The Wrong Guy’, which is a beautiful piano ballad and a powerful first step for this new artist. We had a chat with him about moving to London and how the debut track came together.
So your debut single ‘You’ve Got The Wrong Guy’ is out now, can you tell us what the track is about?
‘You’ve Got the Wrong Guy was written after seeing a tv show where someone was wrongfully sentenced to prison. It got me thinking about how sometimes love isn’t reciprocated and you can become a prisoner of love. I then went on to write this track with Dane Etteridge and make it into what it is today. I really enjoy writing songs with interesting concepts that hide the fact the song is directly about love so it feels right to have this as the first single.
You grew up in a place called ‘Hayling Island’, what or where is that?
Hayling Island is an island off the south coast of England. There’s around 17,000 people that live there so it’s quite a small place. It was such a lovely place to grow up as I got to experience the outdoors a lot. I feel pretty lucky to be able to go back home to Hayling after long stints in London to see my family. It’s a nice break from city life.
Did Hayling have much for musical entertainment?
I wouldn’t say Hayling Island has too much of a musical scene or at least didn’t when I left. Portsmouth was where I started my music career which is the closest city. I started playing open mics around Portsmouth at 21 which is when I first started singing. Hayling Island is a however a great place for songwriting I feel as it’s so quiet there.
You have now moved to London, can you tell us how that happened?
I took quite the leap of faith when I was 21 and decided to leave home on a Tuesday night without telling any of my family members including my grandparents who I lived with. It’s a bit mad when I think back to that time as I left everything behind but it feels like it’s starting to pay off. I’m now really fortunate to have an amazing team of people around me and love living in London so plan to stay here for the foreseeable future.
Who would you say are your key musical influences as an artist?
I grew up listening to Damien Rice, David Gray, Ray Lamontagne so have always had a love for that acoustic singer/songwriter style. This meant when it come to picking up my guitar and trying to write a song for the first time I fell straight into that genre as it was what I loved listening to the most. When I listen to Damien Rice I feel like I can hear every bit of emotion in his voice and that makes me feel something, whether it be hopeful or sad. I try my best to incorporate that into what I do. As I got into my late teens I was listening to a lot of Bon Iver and Coldplay and I feel that moulded my songwriting style into what its become now, especially when it comes to writing piano lead songs. Luckily I have Christian to help with writing and performing all of these as I’m not the strongest when it comes to actually playing the piano. Christian is the keys player for St. Lundi and also a very close friend that I made in my first year of living in London, he’s helped evolve the music I write into what it is today and even incorporate some of his jazz background into our songs which is a nice touch I feel.
Now the debut single is out there, what next?
I’m so excited to have this single out in the world so embracing that whilst preparing to release the next single is the plan. We’re aiming to have the EP which contains five songs out by the end of the year. We’ve also got some shows lined up in London and are also playing Live at Leeds Festival on May 2nd which I’m really looking forward to.