“Our dad was diagnosed with this lung condition in 2017,” Stevie Jukes tells American Songwriter. “He never really fussed about it, he pretty much just said ‘This is what it is. We’ve got to stay strong as a family and just get on with it.’ That’s what we’ve always done—no matter the problem, you roll with the punches and get on with it.”
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For Stevie, this was the beginning of a new chapter in life. Along with his brother, Alan Jukes, the two began making a name for themselves around the world as the Scottish indie-pop duo, SAINT PHNX, when they started putting out singles in the mid-2010s. Striking gold with their 2016 release, “King”—which has racked up over 19 millions streams on Spotify alone—they got to tour the world with artists like Yungblud, ARIZONA, Imagine Dragons and more.
But after their father’s diagnosis in 2017, the brothers decided to hunker down and stay close to their family. Building himself a house on some land outside Glasgow, he made sure to outfit a recording studio in the upstairs space—it was there that Stevie and Alan wrote and recorded their new single, “Happy Place,” out July 2 via Atlantic Records.
For Stevie and Alan, working in close proximity to their father was nothing new—since they were children, he was an influence on their lives, introducing them to all sorts of music. Then, after “King” blew up and the band started touring, they took their father with them.
“Yungblud took us on tour across Europe—we were lucky enough to bring our dad with us,” Stevie said. “I think he was getting sicker, but he came with us and, in hindsight, we had one of the best times of our lives. We went through Milan and Zurich and Prague, all these amazing European cities. Funny thing is: even Yungblud fell in love with him. He was just one of those amazing guys—if you met him for even 30 seconds, it could be life-changing. That’s just the way he operated, he just had that effect on people… and he obviously had that effect on Yungblud. So, I’m so glad we got to share that experience with him.”
They were set to share that experience again when SAINT PHNX dropped their debut full-length in the beginning of 2020, but with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, all of those plans got put on hold. That’s when Stevie, Alan and their father retreated to the little home with the studio upstairs.
“On top of the garage, we built the studio—we put floors down, we painted it, we structured it all, we brought in all of our gear and we created our own space,” Stevie recounted. “Then, for pretty much a whole year, we sat in that studio, just writing and recording music. It was a real blessing, something that we’re really grateful for. Every day after we finished a song, we could come down and play it to our dad to see what he thought. He would give us feedback—though, he was our No. 1 fan and was always biased. Every song we showed him was ‘the greatest song ever written,’ which is quite funny. So, it was a bit of a crazy experience going through all of that, but we recorded a lot of music, including ‘Happy Place.’”
With a palpably uplifting energy, “Happy Place” has an incredibly unique vibe to it. With such a distinctive message of hope, grounded by the profound sadness of losing a parent, the song boasts an incredibly complex emotional palette, marrying the joys and sorrows of life into a single, beautiful expression.
“I realize now that you can only write certain songs at certain points in your life—I’ll never be able to write a song like ‘Happy Place’ ever again,” Stevie said. “It’s taking all of my emotions from that time and channeling them into words. It comes across on so many levels—from a tribute to my dad to an exploration of the grieving process to just dealing with a terminal illness, all of those emotions are floating about. The chorus for that song came about after seeing my dad sitting, looking out to the beautiful hills, just looking at them. That moment stuck with me because prior to that, he had been struggling mentally. When you’re young, your parents are immortal to you, they’re superheroes. So, to see them get vulnerable… it gets to you. I saw my dad in a very vulnerable place. But seeing him at that moment, in peace looking at the hills, I was inspired… I wrote the words ‘Over the hills and far away/ looking out for a better day/ When it seems like there’s no escape…’ and then Alan chimed in with ‘take me to my happy place.’”
They knew they had stumbled across something magic—they started tracking the song that night. “Driving home after working in the studio, I just cried for about 20 minutes,” Stevie said. “I just cried and cried and cried. It was November, a month before we had to take dad to the hospital in December. Deep down, I think I knew he was dying. So, that was… that was the moment it became real, that I realized that. I guess that’s what true art is—as an artist, you want to be as honest as you can so people can relate to your story. I think that’s why I was crying so much—it was so real.”
In December, that unfortunate day came—Stevie and Alan’s father passed away. But looking back now, the two are grateful that they got to spend those final months the way they did. “When you’re writing and producing, you’ve got a different sort of hat on than when you’re releasing it,” Stevie said. “So, going back and re-listening opens up your mind—it brings up so many memories, memories of showing the songs to our dad for the first time, getting to see his facial expressions. We even have the text messages he used to send us—we’d show him a song and go home, then he’d text us his critique. So, there’s something really special about that, about the fact that we got to spend this last part of his life sharing that creativity. He always got to hear everything first—before the labels or managers or anyone else. He liked that, being the first guy. So, all of those really good memories are wrapped up in it all.”
In a lot of ways, that gets at the magic of “Happy Place”—despite the depth of its emotion, it does a good job of not being pessimistic. Instead, it’s infectious, spreading a message of enduring love. For their part, that’s why Stevie and Alan are so excited to share it now.
“It’s a little scary because it’s such a precious song to us, but we believe so much in it and are so proud and excited to finally get it out,” Stevie said. “We just want people to feel good. This is also our springboard into releasing more music and going to play live in front of people, which we missed so much. We were spoiled rotten before—we never took it for granted, but we’ll certainly appreciate it on a whole new level when we get to go out there and share this music with people again.”
SAINT PHNX’s new single “Happy Place” is out now—watch its music video below:
