In loving memory of:

Khong San: my older brother
John Barcellano: a great musician and friend that helped record songs for my old band, Light The Pilot.

May you both ride forever in peace. You are both dearly missed.

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I started writing this song in June of 2014 and wanted to start making percussive use of my guitar. It originally had two capos, one fully on and another only covering DGBE. Over time, I changed it to only using one capo covering DGBE and the two low strings being open - tuned to E and G#. Since then, it was difficult to practice (and quite often to perform). But now, I've gotten the hang of it. The title "Saint St." was inspired by "St. Vincent", a movie starring Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy. This song is for imperfect individuals that have done great things in life and have inspired others.

Samuel Vasquez, who created the artwork to this single, helped me share another personal perspective to this song and the movie itself. His vision is as follows:

“So this isn’t the first idea I had but it is the one I thought about most. The thing that really made me want to start with this is that last scene in St. Vincent, where Oliver says Vincent, to him, is a saint. How both of them came into each other’s lives and made an impact. It got me thinking about saints in general and what it means to be a saint, which is a holy person close to god. But obviously in the movie, that isn’t Vincent at all. But despite the prostitution and gambling and drinking, he's still a saint to Oliver. It got me thinking about this story my priest once told us. Now, something you might not know about me, although I’m not at all a religious person, I was actually born and raised to be catholic. My parents would drag me to church with them when I was younger, and even though I didn’t agree with or maybe even believe in what was being said, I still listened to what my old priest Father James would tell us, I respected him because he was a man of great faith and definitely talked the talk/walked the walk (he actually flew out on his own time to marry my brother and his wife). But anyway, he told us a story about how he once went to a hospital to bless a baby that was just born and wasn't going to make it. When he got to the room, he saw the baby had it's arms out, as if it was being crucified. So he believes that everyone is born to carry their own cross, and some have to die on it to keep the sacrifice Jesus made going. Again, I don’t really follow the religion and I'm not sure I really believe that, but the concept still stands. Maybe a child doesn’t have to die to keep the gates of heaven open or anything like that, but they definitely are born with a "cross" on their back, sort of like the one Vincent carries in the movie. His debt, his dying wife, all on his back as he goes through his day. And then he meets Oliver, with his own problems, dealing with his parents divorce and bullies at school, yet they are still able to have positive impacts on each other’s lives, and be saints, maybe not by definition, but by the happiness they bring to each other and others. So, the baby in the drawing, to me, is Saint St. And so is Vincent, and so is Oliver, so is.. most people. A person born with it's own burdens, but still has the ability to do good and mean well.”