St. Lucia

The '80s definitely influence my music in a big way.

We have such an energetic live show. We have so much fun onstage. We swap instruments. We might possibly be the sweatiest band in the business.

It is funny to me that people think of St. Lucia as this, like, feel-good band.

To me, St. Lucia isn't just purely feel-good; there are these other juxtaposed elements as well.

When you work together in a creative way, you have to be less selfish about your ideas and learn to let both parties feel valued. Of course, that's also a really great quality to have in a relationship, too.

It's easy when you're working together to let work things overtake your life, when all you're talking about is work, and you never leave that space.

With my own stuff, I've always held to the belief that it should take as long as it takes until it feels right.

You can hear 'Human Nature' all over our song 'Elevate.' It's an amazing song. That hooky arpeggio in the beginning is great. Unlike most Michael Jackson ballads, even though I'm a huge Michael Jackson fan, this song is kind of restrained. It's not a huge, crazy song you can dance to - it's just this beautiful piece of music.

Hearing about a visual artist's approach can change the way you think about songwriting.

St. Lucia was a place were we used to go on vacation - not every year, but we went there a couple of times. I remember the last time that I went there, I was really small, and the only memory that I have is that my dad was going swimming or fishing one day - and I really, really wanted to go - but I was too young.

It sounds kind of cliche, and a lot of people say it about our music, but I think a good place to hear our music for the first time is on vacation, or somewhere warm, on the beach or something like that.

I feel like people associate us with the tropical Hawaiian print because, for a long time, we were wearing a lot of bright colors to exert our personality.