After spending ten years with the raucous and decadent garage punk band the Black Lips, guitarist and singer Ian St. Pé set out on his own with a new recording and performing project, Saint Pé. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 12, 1977, Ian St. Pé left the Crescent City and moved to Atlanta, Georgia not long after graduating high school in hopes of making music his career. In Atlanta, St. Pé briefly joined a punk band called the Renegades, but dropped out to work on other projects. The band changed their name to the Black Lips, and in 2002, not long after they struck a recording deal with Bomp Records, the group's original lead guitarist, Ben Eberbaugh, died in an auto wreck. Jack Hines took over for Eberbaugh as the Black Lips released their self-titled debut, but when Hines quit the band in 2004, they reached out to St. Pé, who re-joined the lineup. Between 2004 and 2014, St. Pé appeared on four studio albums and one live disc with the Black Lips, and played hundreds of shows with the band, hitting every continent except Antarctica. St. Pé also cut a pair of albums with Diamond Rugs, a side project featuring members of Deer Tick, Los Lobos, and Six Finger Satellite; he also cut material with other side projects the Original Three and the Almighty Defenders. But eventually, he grew weary of life in the Black Lips, and in 2014 he dropped out of the group and relocated to Nashville, Tennessee. Setting up a recording studio in the basement of his new home, St. Pé launched a new band with Matt McCalvin on bass and guitar, Ian McDonald on guitar and drums, Paul Wierdak on keyboards, and John Restivo, Jr. on drums. Calling his new combo Saint Pé, and delivering a more polished and soulful variation on his garage rock roots, Ian released a handful of single tracks before landing a deal with the independent label Ernest Jenning Record Company. They released the first Saint Pé album, Fixed Focus, in April 2017. ~ Mark Deming