Saint Harison was in the midst of working on a project that told the story of his upbringing when the fallout from a relationship hijacked his creative process. “As you can tell from the songs, it was one of those,” he says — meaning a relationship checkered with issues, which he explores on his new EP “Ghosted,” released this past Friday. “But there was really no plan for it. It finally came together and I had a project that was a storyline and I didn’t really know I was doing it at the time.”
“Ghosted,” which clocks in at a tidy eight tracks across 21 minutes, marks Harison’s first project in three years following his 2023 debut EP “Lost a Friend.” On it, he wades through the emotional wreckage of that relationship and the feelings that lingered from it, singing of someone gradually pulling away instead of just disappearing from his life on the title track and expressing regret for giving them his time on the swinging “Bad.” Harison delivers each song with bravado and precision, his sweeping vocals heightening the stakes at play across R&B-spangled production courtesy of D’Mile, Akeel Henry and Alex Lewis, among others.
Harison wrote much of the “Ghosted” EP in line with his usual process, penning songs in his bedroom and collaborating with some of the same musicians who worked on “Lost a Friend.” For the 29-year-old, it allowed him to unlock parts of himself that he kept shielded from the world at large. “I’m really bad at difficult conversations. It’s really like anxiety,” he says. “I go insular and go into my room or little home studio, and I just feel so confident writing it because in my brain, it’s like, I write so many songs. When it gets to the end of that process and I have these songs that are so great because they’re so emotional, that’s when it kind of hits where I’m like, I should put this out because it’s come from a real place.”
Harison’s inspirations are clear across “Ghosted,” with the soulful doo-wop of Amy Winehouse and pitched-up vocals of Frank Ocean looming largely over the tracks. One of his biggest idols, though, is Beyoncé — someone who he sings of on “Panic Room,” describing how his relationship’s failure left a stain on his love for her magnum 2022 opus “Renaissance.” “This is one of the realest songs I’ve ever written. I literally couldn’t listen to ‘Renaissance’ for ages because this stupid man ruined it for me, we would listen to it all the time,” he says. “I sat down and was like, you’ve made me hate so many things. You made me hate restaurants and cafes that I now can’t go to. But the worst thing is that I can’t listen to Beyoncé right now. And I hate that.”
“Ghosted” is the latest milestone for Harison, who has spent the past few years building out his career as one of R&B’s most promising newcomers. Hailing from Southampton, the British singer cultivated his love of music at an early age while dealing with the hardship of growing up in an abusive household. He describes living in a safe house with his mother and siblings when he first heard Adele’s “Chasing Pavements,” a song that inspired him to embrace the art of songwriting.
At 13, he won a local singing competition and purchased a MacBook that he used to start recording music. Songwriting, he says, helped him make sense of the challenges he was facing at home. “I didn’t hear any songs that were about what I was going through as a kid. When I was able to get into the music industry and given a chance as an artist, I always wanted to write that story. Because it’s such an important part of why I write music.”
It was with a performance of his breakthrough single, “Ego Talkin,” on Colors that led to his first viral moment in 2023, followed by a performance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and his debut project, “Lost a Friend.” That EP has, in the time since, amassed more than 30 million collective listens on Spotify led by “Homies,” a duet with Tiana Major9.
These days, Harison is still largely inspired by heartbreak. (He has a boyfriend, but his attempts at writing more “joyful” songs sound “cringe.”) For his debut full-length album, he wants to take a different approach, circling back to the themes and challenges that he faced growing up. “That part of my life has influenced so much of who I am now, how I behave, how I love,” he says. “It’s influenced so much of me as an adult and I always wanted to write that story and how I got here and how that influences the way I see life now.”
For now, Harison is focused on his upcoming performance at Los Angeles’ Masonic Lodge on June 4. It’s all in an effort to keep pushing the momentum in the direction it’s naturally been heading. “This feels like a beautiful moment and I’m really glad I get to tell this story,” he says. “But does it feel like do or die? No. It does feel very exciting, and I think it’ll be really rewarding when I know that hopefully the hard work paid off.”
Leave a Reply