After moving across the nation and starring on ‘The Voice,’ the ‘Man of the North,’ Liam St. John, returns home

Liam St. John, Spokane’s own “man of the north,” has earned millions of streams and is extensively touring the country, but a hometown show will be bringing him back to where it all began as he celebrates a new album.

St. John was born on Fairchild Air Force Base, more specifically the parking lot of the hospital, as his mother didn’t quite make it in time. He was raised by his mother, alongside two older sisters, on the South Hill, and he attended Ferris High School.

“It was honestly the best way to grow up, being out on the street, playing sports and running around,” St. John said.

It was during his youth that St. John found the blues, or as he likes to put it, “the blues finds those that need it, and it found me at a very young age.”

With being raised by a constantly working single mother and being the shy “baby” of the family came a sense of isolation and not necessarily knowing how to process those emotions. But then came the ever-impactful, soulful voices of legends like Ray Charles, Etta James and Tracy Chapman.

“It gave me my voice when I really didn’t know how to express myself,” St. John said. “As I’ve grown, I’ve learned to respect singing the blues so much more because I just really respect the raw honesty and vulnerability.”

St. John’s love for music grew deep and he would perform in church choir, but sports were still the primary focus of his youth. He played football and ran track and field at Ferris before continuing to pursue track and field at Whitworth University. He spent those years simultaneously learning guitar, singing and writing.

“I just had this really deep, deep desire to express that part of myself,” St. John said. “When I graduated college was when I realized it was really all I wanted to do, so I had this degree and then I put it aside and became a starving artist for a while.”

St. John spent years playing dive bars and open mic shows while auditioning for “The Voice,” which he did for about seven years before getting accepted in 2019. In retrospect, he’s ultimately thankful for the rejections and the time he needed to truly find his voice.

Being a part of Gwen Stefani’s team during the pandemic provided a somewhat unusual experience on the show, but St. John is also well aware of how lucky he was to have such an experience at all. After being knocked out during the “battle rounds,” he moved to Los Angeles and found himself his first hit, “Dipped in Bleach.”

He now calls Nashville home.

But even through all those experiences and time away from Spokane, the Inland Northwest has still found itself calling to St. John in ways he’s unable to ignore. He spent years writing songs but didn’t quite understand what they all meant, that is, until writing a song titled “Man of the North” about Spokane’s harsh winters, blistering summers and the local’s ability to withstand the weather like the pines that surround them.

“It was one of those songs that just fell into my lap, I blacked out and the pen did the work,” St. John said. “And once I wrote that song I was like, ‘all these songs now make sense to me,’ they were all written to be this album, to be ‘Man of the North.’”

The result was a full-length, retrospective album dedicated to his roots being released in September. Within “Man of the North,” St. John doesn’t necessarily focus on singing or sounding “perfectly,” rather on truly expressing his emotions in their raw form. He explores this honesty through a gritty combination of the blues, rock, and Americana.

“It comes from your deepest and darkest truth and pain, just pulled straight out of your soul and presented,” St. John said while explaining his love for this area of music. “There’s no sugarcoating, there’s no ironing it out, it’s just raw.”

Now, he’ll be coming home to play the District Bar on Saturday. Especially during autumn, his favorite time of the year in Spokane, St. John often finds himself homesick and missing the place that not only helped shape his sound, but the man he is today.

“I truly love where I’m from,” St. John said. “I went through a lot in that city, it built me for the good, the bad, and the ugly and I love it more because of that … it’s been an awesome journey.”