St. Lucia Shares New Single “Hey Now” off ‘Utopia’ LP Out Oct. 7th || North American Tour Begins Oct. 6th

Led by husband-and-wife duo South Africa-born, Jean-Philip Grobler and Germany-born Patti Beranek, synth-pop aficionados, St. Lucia, arrives with their new single “Hey Now.” The track is accompanied by its vintage, VHS-style visualizer shot in various locations throughout NYC. Announced last month, the band’s long-awaited fourth studio album, Utopia, will be released on October 7th via Nettwerk.

St. Lucia has partnered with Nifty Gateway and established Nifty artist, Tormius, to create four NFTs tied to songs from the Utopia album. The first drop is slated for August 16th with the group’s previous single, “Touch,” and “Hey Now” NFTs available for purchase.

Driven by elegant arrangements and warm synths, the emotionally charged “Hey Now” transmits an uplifting reminder in the resounding chorus, “Hey now, well it only takes a second fall, but it only takes a minute to start over again.” Thematically, the song is about getting knocked down, but no matter the situation you must find a way to stand up again. “Hey Now” serves as an ode to never giving up despite all odds.

“Phew, what a journey ‘Hey Now’ has been on,” says Jean-Philip Grobler. “To me, it is the emotional core of this whole new era of St. Lucia. It’s the song I always play first when I sit down at a piano now. I’m so thankful that these magical chords came to mind one night in the early stages of the pandemic: it feels like somebody patting you on the back or giving you a hug to tell you everything will be ok.”

WATCH + SHARE “HEY NOW”

On the “Hey Now” visualizer, director Nicole Lipp shares this: “Running around Jean’s old stomping grounds with a Rhodes and a Hi8 camcorder was so much fun. I loved hearing Jean’s stories and memories from all the places we trekked through. ‘Hey Now’ is a really personal and emotional song so it felt right to create a simple, organic, personal visual with to go with it!”

In July, St. Lucia had shared their lead single “Touch”off their forthcoming Utopia LP.“Touch”glides out of the gate on buoyant keys and a head-nodding bass line as the refrain reaches for ecstatic yacht rock. The track was complemented with a mirthful, 80s pop culture style music video directed by Nicole Lipp and featuring LGBTQ+ dancer/actor Liv Mai along with Canyon Carballosa, an inspiring advocate for both the LGBTQ+ and autistic communities.

Equal parts colorful disco, 70s funk, and 80s pop, the Utopia LP is a luminous palette of synths, pulsating with vibrant sonics that has come to characterize their genre-defying career. Inspired by everyone from David Bowie, The Weeknd, Daft Punk, and Parcels, St. Lucia enlisted the mixing talents of trusted collaborator Chris Zane [Passion Pit, The Walkmen] to help steer the sonically sparkling ship to greater heights.

On the group’s forthcoming LP, Jean-Philip expresses, “We at St. Lucia HQ are beyond excited (giddy, in fact) to reveal the next stage of our new musical era: ‘Utopia,’ the full album. Yes, yes, it’s true that we have been stringing you along a little bit, but in our opinion there’s nothing wrong with a little tease, and it might in fact lead to a more satisfying conclusion. ‘Utopia I’ makes up the first half on the album, like a side A, and our upcoming new release, ‘Utopia II,’ makes up the second half of the album, like a side B (remember from the heady days of vinyl?). The journey continues our search for the meaning of ‘Utopia’ through all the joy, sadness, and irony of our modern existence. Is ‘Utopia’ in the extremes, or is it in the tug-of-war between the extremes? Join us over the next few months for more clarity.”

Renowned for their energetic live shows, St. Lucia will embark on a six-week tour starting on October 6th, which will mark their first full headline run in four years. The Dutch musician and YouTube star, Blanks, and synth-rocker Caroline Kingsbury, will support on select dates. See below for the full set of dates. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit stlucianewyork.com/live.

“Hey Now” is available on DSPs here: https://stlucia.ffm.to/heynow

Tour Dates:

10/6 – Charlottesville, VA @ Jefferson Theatre *

10/7 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club *

10/8 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts *  

10/9 – New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall *  

10/11 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Thunderbird Café & Music Hall *

10/13 – Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club ^

10/14 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall ^

10/15 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrew’s Hall ^

10/16 – Chicago, IL @ House of Blues ^ 

10/18 – Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater ^

10/19 – Kansas City, MO @ The Truman ^

10/21 – Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre ^

10/24 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox ^

10/25 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom ^

10/26 – Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre ^

10/28 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades ^

10/29 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall ^

10/30 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda Theatre ^

11/1 – Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory

11/2 – San Diego, CA @ Belly Up

11/4 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom

11/5 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf

11/7 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s

11/8 – Dallas, TX @ The Studio at The Factory

11/9 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live

11/11 – Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre

11/12 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl

11/13 – Raleigh, NC @ Lincoln Theatre

11/15 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel (SOLD OUT)

11/16 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel (JUST ADDED)

* with Caroline Kingsbury

^ with Blanks

About St. Lucia:

Led by South Africa-born Jean-Philip Grobler and Germany-born Patti Beranek, St. Lucia has stayed faithful to what they’re best at: putting on incredible live shows everywhere from Coachella to Kansas City, producing shimmery synth-driven pop grooves, and having a good time doing what they love. St. Lucia has always stirred good vibes. It started with their debut album, When The Night, which entered the Billboard Top 200 and hit #6 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Album chart. The follow-up album, Matter, yielded the hit “Dancing On Glass,” while the band collaborated with Jack Antonoff, RAC and others. Two years later, Hyperion represented a creative and critical high watermark with praise from Billboard, who hailed the album as “buoyant,” and PopMatters who raved, “it feels revelatory.”

Throughout 2020, they wrote and recorded what would become Utopia in Patti’s hometown of Konstanz, Germany and Upstate New York. Following the birth of their youngest son Charlie, Jean-Philip’s self-imposed social media exile, and a return to “normalcy” in the world at large, they shared six tracks as Utopia I in April 2022. “Rocket On My Feet” eclipsed 1 million total streams as the project earned critical praise from Riff Magazine, Under The Radar, and more. Variance hailed it as “a wealth of electropop goodness in the middle of a world on fire.”

In its entirety, the forthcoming LP only expands this vision, hinging on the parity at the heart of the band’s signature style. Synths pulsate like strobe lights as euphoria rains down from a skyscraping singalong. The guitar strings shake and shudder akin to bodies on the dance floor bathed in fluorescence. Freedom courses through every physical and emotional movement as you depart this dimension only to land on St. Lucia’s Utopia. The group’s fourth full-length album unlocks this plane via eloquent and elegant electro-pop projected in cinematic proportions like your favorite fantasy fever dream on the big screen. As the unadulterated and unfiltered vision of Jean-Philip Grobler and Patti Beranek, these 13 tracks engage escape in its purest form.