Interview: Saint Valentine
New Jersey based queer musician and drag artist, Saint Valentine is in the process of releasing their four part debut EP, Transjester, a folk concept album about a fallen king who wishes he’d been born a jester. The singer’s eclectic style and background in theatre give them a creative edge that not a lot of artists have this early on into their career.
Group Chat Mag was lucky enough to have an opportunity to sit down with Saint Valentine and discuss their stage persona, musical influences, and all things Transjester.
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GCM: How did you come up with your stage name and what does it mean for you?
Saint Valentine: So basically, I started performing in drag in 2021 when I turned 18. Essentially, I kind of came up with the name around mid 2022 because I was trying to figure out what my drag persona would be. I wanted it to be kind of like a yandere, a Japanese anime trope where a schoolgirl falls in love with a guy and would kill people to get the guy. I wanted my drag persona to be like that and have a Valentine’s Day core vibe. So I went through a couple of different Valentine names like Cherry Valentine or Bloody Valentine, but they were both taken. I was just searching for something when I realized that Saint Valentine was open and I felt like it fit the vibe of what I wanted. It became this drag persona of a demon that you summon to love you and they will take the form of whatever your biggest desire is and they’ll kill anybody else that tries to be with you and they’ll kill you if you cheat on them. When I started doing music, it just kind of stuck. I intend on someday making a self titled concept album about that persona. As for what it means to me, Valentine also became my everyday chosen name, so I guess it means a lot, but it’s not necessarily something I can put into words. It’s just kind of who I am. It’s just my name, you know? I’ve been going by it for so long now that I guess it’s just kind of part of me.
GCM: You have a very unique look, how has your drag style evolved over time and how did you get it to where it is now?
SV: Honestly, it hasn’t evolved a ton because I always had the same idea of what I wanted to look like. The biggest thing that’s evolved is that I’m shying away from the demon idea that fit my drag routine to one that better fit my music. I make music about a jester, so I kind of started doing more of a clown or jestery type of look. As my style has evolved, my drag style has gone with it. I used to dress a lot more gothic and alternative and then my style became more like whimsy goth and then slowly it became very hippy and 70s inspired. Then I got really into the 60s/70s medieval revival and now it’s like this weird medieval fever dream type of thing. I think the biggest link along the way is that I’ve always been inspired by David Bowie and I’ve always wanted to look like him. My style will keep evolving and it will change to fit the persona of whatever Saint Valentine is. Right now, it’s very jester core, but as I create other characters and other bodies of work, it will change to fit their aesthetics.
GCM: Tell me about your musical influences. Who do you channel when writing music?
SV: I can’t say there’s one specific person who I channel. I think I channel a lot of different artists. I love music so much, so any kind of music that I’ve ever loved, I try to channel in a way. I just think “ooh, I love this song. I want to write a song like this” rather than “I want to write an album like this album.” Although, I will say, any kind of concept art has been a huge inspiration. I love writing a body of work that tells a story and I love writing songs that tell stories. So I would say, in terms of vibe, it’s always David Bowie. I always love the energy he gives, but I don’t think my music necessarily sounds like his. I’d love to make more music that does sound like him. Then, I love Taylor Swift because I love how she writes. I love her lyrics and her storytelling, so I would say that she’s a big inspiration. The band Gorillaz is a big inspiration with how they had lore throughout their career. Pink Floyd’s The Wall and David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust are big inspirations in terms of the concept album. It’s kind of all over the place. I’ll listen to a song and I’ll be like “I want to write a song that gives off this energy, this vibe, this feeling.”
GCM: You have a background in theatre. How has that influenced your music and your live performances?
SV: I write music in a way where I think about just being as honest as possible in what I’m saying. So then, when I perform it, I perform it kind of as a character of myself. I’m performing it like I’m feeling the emotion. Not in a way where I’m thinking about the deep trauma that I thought about when I wrote the song, but I perform the song like a character in a musical would because I feel like that creates a more honest and vulnerable experience for me and the audience. It creates a place where the artist and their audience can really connect because they feel like the artist really believes what they’re saying. Because I’ve been in theatre for so long, I’m not scared to have a stage presence which I think a lot of people who are at the point that I am in my career can’t really relate to because they don’t have as many years of performing experience as I do.
GCM: What was the creative process like when creating your debut EP, Transjester?
SV: I mean, honestly, it’s not different from writing the singles because when I wrote the songs that are on Transjester, I didn’t write them with the EP in mind. They just kind of came to me and then I found a common theme among them all to create this story. The only thing I had in mind was the song Transjester itself. I wanted to write a fictional story about a fallen king and then it became about a fallen king who wished he had been born a jester. From there, I just kind of sat down and wrote it. I had this idea of wanting the song to be very Hozier inspired; I wanted it to sound like Take Me To Church. Letter to a Friend, which is the song that’s going to be released next, is a song that I wrote when I was 14. So I had absolutely no idea it was going to be on this EP. I had no idea I was going to do music back then. I wrote it just for myself to sing along in my bedroom when I was sad, not something that I thought I was going to play for an audience. Fallen, which is the last song on the EP, was just another vent song that I wrote around the time that I was writing Transjester and it became this deeply personal song, but it also fit the narrative of falling that was in Transjester. I don’t know that it was different from writing the singles because when I write songs I don’t think about them going on an album or going on an EP or just being a one-off. I just kind of figure out what the vibe is and where it fits.
GCM: The songs you’ve released from Transjester so far have been fairly different from your previous singles. Do you plan to keep experimenting with different sounds or do you feel you’ve finally found a sound that suits you?
SV: I think that every project I do will have a designated sound because they’re telling a designated story. What happens is that I will have a certain feeling or emotion and I’ll look for a song that puts into words exactly what I want to hear and sometimes I find it and sometimes I don’t. When I find it, I want to replicate it and when I don’t, I want to write it. Beach House was my first ever song to be produced and it was such a good time because it was just so huge. Two inspirations for that song were Night Shift by Lucy Dacus and Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish. I wanted to write this angry, sad, break up song that has its slow moments and delves into chaos at the end. It just felt right for the situation I was experiencing at the time. Then with Darling Avenue, I wanted a bouncy and fun country song. I liked the idea of having a non-binary country love song that doesn’t use any pronouns even though the song was about my partner. With Transjester, I wanted it to be Hozier inspired, so the whole thing became folk inspired. I think that when I’m writing deeply personal, I kind of rebound to folk. Honestly, creating Tranjester bored me a little because I like the big layers of rock music. I think there’s definitely going to be some rock music coming out soon because I need big drums and bass and all that stuff.
GCM: What’s next for you after releasing Transjester?
SV: I’m planning to write an EP that is similar to Transjester in the fact that it follows a specific story, but it’s about a spellcaster witch character. I have written a good chunk of the songs, if not all of them. It’s going be very rock heavy with a 70s or 80s vibe. I would say 70s classic rock and 80s goth music is the style I'm going for. Transjester is probably going to have a deluxe version where I put out a couple songs that didn’t make it on the EP and some acoustic covers. I’m having a lot of fun with Transjester, but I’m also excited to move on and keep exploring different genres and storylines.
GCM: If you could open for any artist, which one would it be?
SV: That’s such a hard question. I mean, if we’re saying any artist dead or alive, it would probably be David Bowie. If it had to be someone who was living, I guess I’d probably say Hozier because I feel like I fit the vibe there. Honestly, I could give you a million different answers: Lady Gaga, Chappell Roan, there are so many. I guess Hozier and Bowie are the biggest ones.