I wrote ‘When the Nights Get Quiet’ sitting in my room at Hilton College, late one evening when the world felt particularly still. The Drakensberg Boys Choir School was behind me — literally and figuratively — but its presence never left.

Every line in this song is a real memory. The morning mist on the Berg at dawn. Dorm lights fading. Shoes by the door, blazer on. These aren’t poetic devices — they’re the actual fabric of daily life at Drakies.

The hardest part to write was the bridge: ‘Maybe one day I’ll drive back up, past the gates, past the memories.’ Because when I wrote it, I wasn’t sure if going back would bring comfort or just more longing.

Working with the Drakensberg Boys Choir on the recording was surreal. Hearing those voices — voices like mine once was — sing the words back to me… that was the moment the song became something bigger than I ever imagined.