Liam St. John
Biography
Liam St. John had plenty of opportunities to call it quits, to stop pursuing his dreams as a singer and songwriter. He wouldn’t need to feel bad; he had worked his ass off for years and sometimes, things just don’t work out the way you plan. But that’s what makes this story all the sweeter. St. John is a star for all the dreamers, a guiding light for following the things that give you life even when all the signs are neon bright and emphatically suggesting to stop, to quit, to turn around! The Spokane-born artist first found validation that he made the right call back in 2020 when he wowed Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton on season 19 of NBC's The Voice with his sexy and bluesy take on “Sex and Candy.” Of course, being mid-pandemic halted all momentum, so St. John found himself at another crossroads. Before ultimately landing in Nashville, after getting knocked out of the battle rounds on The Voice Liam bet it all on himself and moved to Los Angeles. With nothing but a dream and a will to succeed, St. John zeroed in on his craft in the City of Angels and finally made good on all that potential and hard work when the world discovered a little song called “Dipped in Bleach.”
“I've been pursuing this career for a long time, but what clicked so prominently was the vulnerable song,” St. John explains. “Dipped in Bleach felt like the first song I did that featured me completely vulnerable and telling my story. That's what resonated with a large audience. I've been influenced to keep doing that because the relationships I've created with my fans and with other songwriters has been so rewarding. The best way to connect with others, funnily enough, is to tell the story only you can tell.”
Plenty of other variables pushed St. John to tap into his most vulnerable songwriting to date with “Dipped in Bleach” and his new singles like “Landslide Over The Highway” and “Believer.” Despite the success he found on The Voice, Liam knew he would have to work twice as hard to build on the opportunity the show provided. In fact, at first, he was struggling harder than ever before. “After The Voice, it was an entire year of just absolute trench grind, broke as fuck, advancing my credit card to pay for rent. That was the lowest I'd ever been,” he explains, mostly because he was so close to some of the success he dreamed of and worked so hard for, but it felt further away than ever. A revelation helped him change course.
“I realized I had been shit-talking to myself thoroughly and I just had a lot of shame. One day I woke up and I was like, ‘I need to stop doing that to myself, speaking to myself this negatively.’ I started writing affirmations down.” This practice released much of the pressure he felt, and it allowed him to dig into a deeper place in his writing than ever before. “That's when I wrote ‘Dipped in Bleach,’ because the song is very vulnerable, and it goes into parts of my life I would've never spoken about before this time.”
The mission of Liam St. John’s new songs is to explore himself more deeply, expand his sonic range, and tease out new strands of the roots and rock and roll that fans have grown so enamored by over the years. “Landslide Over The Highway” is a hard-charging rock and roll anthem, built around choir vocals, shredding guitar solos, and Liam’s powerful yet vulnerable voice. “The idea of a Rolling Stone is nothing new in rock and roll, but it's pretty destructive,” he explains with a chuckle. The song is about a relationship that’s doomed because St. John’s passion is singular, entirely obsessed with music and making it by any means necessary. It’s hard to share a relationship with that sort of landslide, that sort of rolling stone. “I got nothing to hide, I showed you from the start/ I put the warning signs at every corner to protect your heart,” he sings. “This music is just never going to change. It's as powerful as a landslide. We both know where I'm going,” he explains.
The accompanying music video features Liam and his band rocking out, interspersed with a modern-day Bonnie&Clyde narrative that paints the love tragedy in this song perfectly. St. John and his lady cruise in a vintage car on a spree of corner store robberies, pass a flask back and forth, and get intimate before the mood changes and Liam is by himself, running from cops trying to figure out where everything went south.
“Believer” showcases a completely different side of Liam and tells his story of his disillusion with the Christianity he was raised on, and how he found that sort of salvation in his partner’s kiss. It’s a beautiful ode to true love, a bluesy epic that is bound to close out festival sets and provoke sing-alongs at sold-out amphitheaters and stadiums for years to come. “That type of love is the thing I could sacrifice my soul for,” Liam explains.
Liam St. John speaks about his music with a confidence that’s both infectious and hard-earned. It’s a lesson learned after running track and field his entire life. After a successful four-year stint competing collegiately at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, Liam took his talents to South Africa where he competed with the world's top-ranked athletes for a year. All with the high hopes of reaching the Olympic pinnacle of the sport. The realization that he didn’t have what it took came quickly, and Liam’s Olympic dream vanished just as fast. This only reinforced the blue’s crooner’s drive and belief that his place was in music.
He saw the no-quit attitude in the single mother who raised him and his sisters, the same beautiful woman who now gets to celebrate her son’s tough-won success. “She's worked hard her entire life. The most satisfying thing for me is showing her that her hard work and how she raised us is paying off,” St. John explains. For Liam, it’s never been about “if,” but “when.” Put in the work, stay patient, stay humble, and results will come.
“It has to happen. There's no other option. I think I understood that because I saw my mom just figure it out when it seemed like there was no possible way to figure it out,” he explains, before adding: “And yet you still do.”
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