Saint Harison: ‘My truth is that love can’t save you’
The Southampton-based pop/R&B singer has honey-sweet vocals and a gift for singing about heartbreak
When Saint Harison released his EP Lost a Friend in 2023, the songs felt like diary entries set to velvet production, full of intimate spiralling and steeped in late night honesty. It was a winning combination that won praise from stars including Elton John and booked gigs on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and the popular YouTube series COLORS, where his performance of the single ‘Ego Talkin’’ has more than 25 million Spotify streams.
Now, the pop/R&B singer is moving forward with a debut album that he hopes to release this year. “I can’t remember how old I was when I started writing Lost a Friend,” he says. “I was a baby compared to now. The new stuff to come feels much more like eyes wide open and feels a little less like ‘poor me.’ It feels a little more like, ‘Aww, poor you.’”
In the meantime, the Southampton born singer is getting ready to release a new EP, Ghosted, on 29 May. The EP’s title track serves as an emotional anchor, carrying that same sensitivity and depth fans of his earlier music responded to, but with a different posture. Harison says he was “surprised” at the haunting swirl of emotions that ‘Ghosted’ conjured when he was writing and producing it with close collaborator Akeel Henry. “He’s just so good at getting that type of production that’s so emotive,” Harison says. “It’s almost like he’ll start making something and it will spark a memory or an emotion, and I’m like, ‘Oh, this feels like this time in my life.’”
Though sadness remains a thread throughout Harison’s music, so does self-awareness. Ghosted is nightcap music where you recognise the difference between asking why and deciding what you’ll no longer tolerate. When Harison croons words like “I love when that whiskey be talking,” on the track ‘Daffodil’, you can feel the empowered spirit. “Ghosted is sad,” he says. “As you age, you sort of realise that dating is not a fun game. It’s like, either you’re gonna marry me or go away, because I don’t have time. It’s very grown, still very raw, and honest.”
At this point in Harison’s life, such hard earned knowledge has changed the way he writes songs too. “I think my non-negotiable truth is that love can’t save you,” he says. “Whatever inner demons are with you are still going to be there, no matter who else is present in your life. I feel like the illusion that someone can ‘fix you’ or you will be happier once you find someone is such a myth that, unfortunately, took me most of my twenties to learn.”
Part of Harison’s magnetism is his restraint. There’s a distinctly British emotional register – humour as deflection and understatement as armour – even as his career continues to grow. Harison says his loved ones keep him grounded, while “life should be fun” is his mantra inside and outside of music. “A lot of times in the studio, I like to push it and have fun,” he says. He mentions writing sessions with another frequent collaborator, Boy Matthews: “He’ll say something like, ‘Is that too much?’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s great.’ I think that’s such a good way to process any of the sad situations that come in life. That’s what creativity is all about – being able to have an outlet for all these moments. I feel like, as British people, we make everything a joke. You have to laugh, or else you’ll cry. That’s kind of the motto that I remember growing up.”
From Los Angeles studios to global streaming audiences, Harison is moving through larger rooms faster than ever. But if anything, he’s more interested in tightening the lens through the small humiliations, the private revelations, and the conversations you replay at 2am. “I’m very conscious of how I’m very willing to lay all my cards on the table, and it’s very easy to write so raw and emotionally, especially because I do a lot of it by myself,” he says. “I can’t fathom that anyone is really going to hear it. It’s only when people are singing it back to you, you’re like ‘OMFG! Did I really say that?’ Sometimes I fear being judged, but at the same time, my favourite songs I write are always so emotional for me.”
When he talks about his songs, Harison often sounds like someone editing himself in real time – choosing which illusions to drop, which instincts to trust, and which uncompromising truths to share. “I just hope that if someone needs to hear one of my songs, it finds them,” he adds.