Don’t Flake, Go Hard: St Vincent Interviewed
Annie Clark doesn’t weigh up her answers in conversation so much as she chews them, lingers on their texture, gauges for sweet or salty undertones in what she’s about to offer. Pauses can stretch on indefinitely, until it’s unclear whether she’s finished the thought or just committed to ellipses. “That’s a sidebar convo,” she offers me after one such moment. “There’s a lot of things to unpack culturally about that. But that would be a fun convo for you and me and a drink, not a magazine.”
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Let’s backtrack a little first. The potted history of Clark’s musical career usually goes something like this: born in Tulsa and raised in Dallas alongside four brothers and four sisters, an anxious but precocious teenage guitarist finds herself hopping between gigs in choral-rock ensemble the Polyphonic Spree, a college act called Skull Fuckers, and Sufjan Stevens’ touring band, before releasing a debut album under the name St Vincent in 2006. The moniker, borrowed from a line in a Nick Cave song, gradually becomes something of a rock-star alter-ego for Clark across a string of critically adored art-rock albums.
It’s been quite the ride in the intervening years. Among other mainstream successes, Clark has taken home multiple Grammy awards, as well as finding herself with a writing credit on one of Taylor Swift’s most popular songs, ‘Cruel Summer’, to her ongoing awe and delight. “That was the wildest thing I’ve ever seen, much less been a small part of,” she admits. “Taylor’s fans took a song from a record that came out a few records ago, that was not a single, and they were just like: ‘No, we love this song! We’re gonna make it a hit.’ And then went and just made it a hit. It’s a testament to her fanbase.”
Sometimes the tabloid narrative, whether it’s who she’s dating or her relationship with her dad, threatens to supersede the music itself. Indeed, the last time Clash spoke to St Vincent was around the release of ‘Daddy’s Home’ the following year, a bohemian, 1970s-inspired “funky soul” record that briefly threatened to be overshadowed by a cancelled interview elsewhere and the ensuing social media circus. During both our conversations, then and now, thankfully Clark is in sparkling form: warm, funny, self-deprecating. (“That doesn’t sound like me,” she quips when I mention it.) But she remains – understandably – careful to say precisely what she means.
This time we’re here to talk about ‘All Born Screaming’, an album with multiple stylistic nods that nonetheless leans back into the searing guitar riffs that defined her breakthrough releases. Whether or not you’d deign to call it a return to form, it’s certainly an extraordinary record: lead tracks ‘Flea’ and ‘Broken Man’ are coruscating in the best way, and much has been made of Dave Grohl’s performance on drums. As a result, less has been written about the involvement of an arguably more influential figure on this record: Welsh musician and producer Cate Le Bon.
“Cate is my favourite modern songwriter, and an incredible producer. I love the way she thinks about music,” Clark says, audibly beaming. “And selfishly, she just deserves the world. I want everyone in the world to know Cate’s music, because it’s worth it. It’s worthy.” As Clark describes it, Le Bon helped to “take the temperature of the record”, and remains one of her best friends. “But you know, Cate is very patient where I’m so impatient, both musically and as a person. So I needed her energy around to not totally tear my hair out.”
For an artist often presented as something of an auteur, St Vincent is certainly no stranger to collaboration; her 2012 album with David Byrne, ‘Love This Giant’, remains a career highlight. Asked if a sequel might be on the cards one day, Clark is unequivocal. “Oh my god, I would do a record with David in an instant if he wanted to, absolutely. I love him.” Like Le Bon, she regards the Talking Head legend as a friend, though she admits that the pair are “both strange enough people that it probably took 15 years for us to finally feel comfortable with one another.”
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It seems that critics frequently mistake Clark’s singular artistic vision for dogmatism. While this is patently untrue – especially hearing her speak so fondly about the fellow “strange” people she draws into her creative world – she’s not averse to striking out on her own, and defending her choices when she does. For her ‘Fear the Future’ tour in 2018, the St Vincent stage show essentially comprised Clark performing tracks from ‘Masseduction’ live on stage to a backing track, without another musician in sight; one Vice headline at the time dubbed it ‘St Vincent’s Lonely Karaoke’, and many were less kind than that.
“I still think that was really cool,” she tells me. Does it bother her that so many people didn’t? “It’s an honour to be polarising, because it means that people either loved it, or they hated it so much that it moved them that way,” she says. “Gotcha one way or the another!” Some people attach a sense of value to how much action they can see happening on stage, I suggest. She isn’t having it.
“Oh baby girl, I spent that money! That money went on the production. I took out a small business loan to take that show out to the people. Come on!” Another pause. “Value…” she adds before letting the sentiment trail off, and it’s unclear whether she finds the concept attached to a live music setting to be ludicrous or intriguing, or both.
Attempts to draw Clark on anything people feel that she ought to be, say or do are rarely fruitful. On the subject of using her platform to support political causes, she shifts into diplomatic mode – “the best thing I can do is to do the things that I’m good at, which is to try to make records” – and one senses that she’s learned the distinction between answers that are suitable for a press interview and the ones she’d voice over a couple of dry martinis in the bar the hard way.
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I ask if she’s thought more seriously about acting, particularly given the suave performance she gave in her deliciously playful 2020 mockumentary The Nowhere Inn. “If Pedro Almodovar called me tomorrow and said, ‘Listen, Annie, we really need you,’ or if Steve McQueen called and said, ‘We need you,’ I’d be there at the drop of a hat, absolutely,” she says. “Give me David Bowie in ‘Labyrinth’. If that opportunity presented itself, I would love to do it, because I love a challenge. But someone would have to hand it to me.”
Throughout all the victories and the bullshit alike, Clark’s true passion remains live musical performance, and it is here that the floodgates open. She speaks about planning her stage shows as a full-time creative endeavour, down to the last detail: colour scheme, choreography, the whole shooting match. Or, in her words: “Where do we want to just go like the ecstasy pill is peaking and we’re going to heaven, and where do we want to go to hell?”
The new live show will be full-band, she says (“equal parts pummelling and ecstatic rave and bleeding heart”) and when we begin to talk about legacy and looking back on her career, it’s clear that she can’t imagine giving any of that up. “I never think about it. I only ever think about my old material when I’m going back and going, ‘Oh, I’m going to put this song in the set. How does this go? What did I do?’ she explains. “I’m always just looking to the future… There’s no world in which I wouldn’t be constantly making something.”
Besides, Clark feels like she’s only just getting started. She’s got a billion ideas, and can’t wait to start dreaming up the next stage show for whatever comes next. “We all just get to take whatever this journey is together. I never had some giant commercial success or some giant thing right out of the gate. It was all like, ‘Cool, I get to learn to become a person while I also learn to be a better artist’. I feel great about that,” she says, and there’s no mistaking the sound of an artist being completely, sincerely honest – even if it’s for a magazine – about how goddamn delighted she is just to be part of this world at all. “I’m fucking psyched, man. Truly.”
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‘All Born Screaming’ is out now.
Words: Matthew Neale // @matthewgneale
Photo Credit: Alex Da Corte
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