Returning after a three year hiatus, alt-pop artist St. Bishop returns with cathartic single Love, out now.
Love is the first single to be taken from Bishop’s upcoming project, exploring the feeling of not being able to say how you feel. It’s a theme that expands to the writing of the track, which started in a car park in Dublin when Bishop was working as a barista and fearing the impending breakdown of a relationship. Voice notes of the chorus and later the verses followed; then nothing…
Enlisting the help from best friend and long term collaborator Sean Behan (Tim Chadwick, LAOISE), the track was finished over a period of months. With Behan writing the musical language around the voice notes, taking Bishop’s unfinished demo and the two helping each other to build a world around it which finally made sense.
“Love is about not being able to find the words, or get them out, or even work out what they are in the first place. It’s the gap between knowing something and being able to say it out loud.” St. Bishop explains. “We met in February and it was over by June. Four months together that took years to figure out. Love took eighteen months to write, considerably longer than the relationship it describes, and for a long time I took that as evidence I’d failed at it. Now I think that’s the point, a song about not being able to say something so important, or understand what it meant, was never going to arrive quickly.”
Since the song was written, Bishop has reflected on what love means to him. Now in a relationship where he doesn’t have to question what love is or means, he describes it as something to be enjoyed, not proven.
St. Bishop has been making music since 2017, using songwriting as an outlet for him to process everything. From expressing his sexuality for the first time, to romantic relationships, trauma, and the most joyful moments of his life. A bold and unapologetic artist, Bishop has already received regular support from the likes of Hot Press, Nialler9, and The Irish Independent. As well as RTÉ 2FM, Today FM, FM104, iRadio and many others. Previous single Talking To You was Fergal D’Arcy’s ‘Single of the Week’ on Today FM and Louise Cantillon’s ‘Track of the Week’ on Spin South West. It also reached the No.1 spot on the overall Irish iTunes Top 100 and Irish iTunes Alt Pop charts.
St. Bishop has also played live extensively with appearances at Electric Picnic, Knockanstockan, The Ruby Sessions, Sofar Sounds in Dublin, Belfast and New York, and headlined The Workman’s Club to a sold-out audience. More recently, he’s played Wilderness Festival alongside Sounds Queer, where he debuted material from his upcoming new project.
Photo credit: Ben Adams