Morgan Saint and her girlfriend sat, preparing for her show in the back room of the upstairs of the Ready Room—not the most posh area for fairly famous musicians. Her black sweatsuit combo, black fringy hair, and dark eyeshadow highlighted her delicate, mousy features and bright blue eyes.

“I almost feel more empowered the weirder I look,” she said in a recent Vogue interview. I asked her how she was enjoying St. Louis so far and she let out a light sigh, explaining that she was to get on the road for Texas right after the show. Her recent 17 Hero tour with Missio was just a means of filling an empty block in her otherwise hectic schedule. Saint recently performed at SXSW, the most influential of American music festivals for new artists and hadn’t even seen her new apartment on the Lower East Side since she bought it.

A graduate of Parsons Design School in New York, Saint directs all of her album’s visuals and design.

“I love music and I love using it as a foundation to express myself and make art but I love being able to express myself through the visuals and fashion,” she said. “I like to make myself and how I see the world visible and translucent to the people who are listening. I write all my own music and treatments to my videos and photos as well. I want it to be super raw and authentic all round—I’m very adamant about everything feeling like me. Being able to tell that whole story and make it really personal is an extension of how honest I approach my music.”

The line went out the door of the Ready Room for the show that night, and the average concert goer was between the ages of 16 and 25 and decked out in an eccentric outfit, leading me to believe most were there to see Saint. The low-key pop artist, who has been compared to Lorde, Broods and Banks, has taken off in the last year since she signed with Epic Records.
“When I graduated, I was going through a difficult time in my life and I wanted to shift what I was doing and that’s how I fell into music,” Saint said. “I ended up getting the studio and making music that I had written really for myself to get me through that weird time in my life”.

Saint’s songs tell true-to-heart stories about love, loss and self-identity. She explained a relationship she endured two years ago, in which the feelings weren’t quite mutual.
“Has anybody here ever broken their own heart?” she asked the crowd. Saint danced and jumped around stage in her teal two-piece windbreaker outfit. For well-versed fans and newcomers alike, the crowd left Saint’s set inspired by her genuine way with words and performance.