As people become increasingly interested in food and musicians—what foods musicians crave and what music gets foodies going—we’ve decided to introduce a new interview series, Kickdrums & Casseroles. The concept for this series is pretty simple: food-related questions for our favourite musicians and music-related questions for our favourite chefs.

This month’s contributor is Jean-Philip Grobler, the man behind 80s throwback band St. Lucia. Jean-Philip first toured the world as a kid with his hometown school choir from Johannesburg, South Africa. He has since become an established solo artist who now lives in Brooklyn, NY. Jean-Philip started St. Lucia after growing frustrated with a rock project that wasn’t turning out the way he wanted it to. He regularly performs live with friends Nick Brown, Ross Clark, Nicky Paul and Patricia Beranek. Their nostalgic sound echoes the early successes of Madonna and Peter Gabriel and the synthpop of the 80s. The band released its first full-length album, When the Night, in October 2013 and has been travelling the world ever since.

I would say be open to new flavours and new combinations of flavours.

-Jean-Philipp Grobler

WRG: What would be your ideal food day?

I like to have a lot of variety, so I wouldn’t like to have the same day one after the other. I mean, I love a lot of different food but my favorite thing to have, and I don’t have it all the time, is a burger. Okay, let’s start from the beginning. I normally wake up and have a coffee, like some kind of cappuccino, espresso-based coffee. So I have that first. And then I wait maybe a little bit. And then something eggy, you know, like an omelet or eggs benedict or something like that. And then maybe a burger for lunch.

A really good burger just satisfies every animalistic desire I have for food. It has the bread and the meat and the cheese, the salad and the fries. Everything is just so good. So let’s say at some point during the day, I would have a burger, let’s say for lunch. Then you manage to digest it by the time you go to bed.

In the evening, ideally, I like to eat a little bit lighter. That’s not always the case, I mean, I don’t know. You’re literally asking me to choose, and I love so many things.

WRG: What food can you never go on the road without? Is there something that you just love?

I would say in general, on the road, a good breakfast is pretty key. You have long days; you do a lot of travelling. We’re about to be on a bus [for our headlining tour], so I think it’s going to be less important, but up until now, we’ve been on a van where you just wake up, have breakfast and then drive for eight hours. So it’s important to have breakfast because everywhere else you go, like stopping at a gas station, they just have terrible food.

WRG: So what are you favorite cities for food? What are the most memorable restaurants that you’ve been to in those cities?

New York for me is very memorable. We live in New York. We live in Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, in New York, and there are so many good restaurants over there. But apart from that there is this place called the Purple Pig in Chicago that’s amazing.

Seattle is amazing. Seattle has amazing food, so does Vancouver. Vancouver has insane food; Chambar is amazing ... Chambar is just unbelievable. Just so many good places.

And then New Orleans is amazing as well. San Francisco. There is this incredible vegetarian restaurant—I’m not vegetarian—but there is this amazing place called Millenium. And it’s like in a Best Western hotel. You would not expect an amazing restaurant to be there but it’s like the best vegetarian food I’ve ever had.

WRG: What’s always in your fridge back home?

Always a lot of good vegetables. The funny thing is we’ve been touring so much we get back and just stay home for like two days. It’s often not worth going shopping for those two days. But when we are back, we definitely have full-fat milk and some parmesan, a few different cheeses, bacon for sure—I’m a huge bacon advocate—eggs.

We have a really cool supermarket called Marlow & Daughters. And they have all local produce and they have their own butcher and we go like, “So what do you have and what is the best cut of meat that you have?” And we’ll kinda go day by day.

WRG: What is your most memorable food experience?

Patty, my wife, and I, we have done a couple of road trips to Italy, because she’s from the south of Germany, right on the border of Switzerland and Italy, and so we would just like take her dad’s car and do a week. And we went to this one restaurant in Piedmont, which is one of the northern regions of Italy, and we were staying at this hotel. We ate a few fancy-ish restaurants and one day we were like, “Let’s ask at the hotel where is like a great local spot where the locals eat.” And they sent us to this place. And it was on top of this hill in the middle of nowhere. There was like this little village and we went in there and basically it was this guy and his wife. In the front of the place, the guy was serving you and his wife was basically doing everything in the kitchen, just cooking in the kitchen, and we had a seven course meal. She made everything—it was unbelievable—she made all the tortellini by hand herself, and he just brought us a bottle of wine and he was just like, “You are just going to like this wine.” And it was amazing. The whole thing in the end, for both of us, with the bottle of wine and seven courses, was just like 50 Euros for everything. And we were on top of this hill and you could see the Alps in the distance—it was just unbelievable.

WRG: On the subject of travel but taking a break from food for a second, what is your most memorable touring experience?

Hmm, probably going back to South Africa, I’m from South Africa originally, and we went back and played two shows in South Africa at the end of May and the beginning of June. And it was my first time basically playing in South Africa since I left 12 years ago. It was just amazing having all my friends from when I grew up at the shows and my family and just to be able to take the band there and show them where I come from. We went on safari for a week after our last show. It was just such a special experience for me and for everybody in the band I think.

WRG: Ok, now back to food; what are your words to eat by?

I would say be open to new flavors and new combinations of flavors. I would say, ask the waiter or the waitress what they think is best because they would have seen what’s coming out and they would have a good idea of what is the best. And I think also don’t try and be too healthy. I just feel like, you know, I personally just get so much joy from food and flavors and textures and stuff like that that it makes me sad when somebody is eating leaves of lettuce and that like all day. You just get so much out of food and so much joy that closing yourself off to that is a shame.

WRG: So what’s the craziest thing you’ve eaten?

From here, it’s probably sweetbreads. I’m just like very sensitive to texture and stuff like that and if it tastes too animally and like a farm...I just have like a sensitive palate. Patty, my wife, is super open to anything. But the one thing she doesn't like is butter.

WRG: Butter?

Yeah. Just like butter on bread. Butter in cooking she can deal with, but a slice of bread with butter she can’t deal with that.

WRG: No! Butter is like the best thing.

I know. I just love it.