Saint Harison Talks New ‘Ghosted’ EP, Touring With Sam Smith & Writing That ‘I Hate Beyoncé’ Lyric: ‘This Is the Realest S—t I’ve Ever Written’
Categoria: Musica
The British vocal powerhouse is back with his first project in three years.
Por Billboard | 29/05/2026
After focusing on friendship with his excellent 2023 Lost a Friend EP, rising British singer-songwriter Saint Harison is ready to cast out the haunting spirits still percolating from his last romantic relationship. On Friday (May 29), the Southampton-born artist, 29, shared his latest project, Ghosted — an immersive, unflinching look at a person working through the demise of particularly tumultuous romance. From regretfully ignoring his own intuition (“Bad”) and soundtracking a full-on emotional shutdown (“Panic Room”) to eventually taking accountability and reaching a precious level of peace (“White to a Wedding”), Harison’s new EP is a deft display of his storytelling ability, both vocally and lyrically. “[In time since Lost a Friend ], I moved to L.A. from England, and this project is all about my time dating out there, finding someone and falling in love, and being on the receiving end of a really s—t situation,” he tells Billboard . “I grew so much through writing this project. I’ve also started therapy. I’ve had some horrible, draining times, mental health-wise, so I wanted that edge and darkness to come across.” To make sense out of that darkness, Harison tapped longtime collaborator Akeel Henry and expanded his circle of co-creatives to include Oscar-winning contemporary R&B architect D’Mile and Nova Wav, the production-songwriting duo of Brittany “Chi” Coney and Denisia “Blu June” Andrews, who worked on Beyoncé’s Renaissance and Cowboy Carter LPs. With a rebooted cast of characters, Harison crafted a project that finds him fine-tuning his singular songwriting approach — not many artists can successfully land a lyric like “You made me hate Beyoncé” — while also exploring notes of ‘60s soul-pop and small, albeit notable, increases in tempo. At the top of the year, Harison joined Sam Smith for their 20-show residency at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, Calif. In between shows, the two queer vocal acrobats were able to foster true kinship — and Harison also got to pick up a few pointers for his own upcoming U.S. trek this fall. Below, Saint Harison walks Billboard through Ghosted , reveals what he learned from Sam Smith and spills what it was like meeting Beyoncé for the first time. Was Ghosted always the title for the full project? I don’t know where it came from really. I was working on a project in February 2024, and I scrapped almost all of it. “Ghosted” was the one song that kept sticking around throughout all the revisions. And it always felt like it set the tone. I find when I write, I get one song that becomes my muse for the rest of the project. It just felt correct that the whole thing would be called Ghosted . Why did you scrap that first project? Oh, it was s—t. Well, what’s your bar for s—t? I was upset because I put so much work into it. I did a whole camp and worked with so many good people on that project, so [me scrapping] it wasn’t a reflection of them. I just didnR