St. Vincent: “When I think about music that I love, I don’t give a shit what the artist was thinking”

The title of St. Vincent‘s seventh album, ‘All Born Screaming’, is intended to be life-affirming on several levels. “We’re all born in some ways against our will,” the artist Annie Clark says with a laugh. “But at the same time, if you’re born screaming, it’s a great sign – it’s a sign you’re alive. We’re all born in protest, so screaming is what it means to be alive.”

Out today, the thrillingly visceral LP slinks between rampaging industrial rock (‘Broken Man’, which features Dave Grohl on drums) and marauding muscular funk (‘Big Time Nothing’). It also includes ‘Sweetest Fruit’, a tender tribute to late electronic pioneer SOPHIE. If ‘All Born Screaming’ feels like an album of two halves, with the closing stretch offering melodic bolts of big-hearted optimism, that’s entirely by design. “Life is so weird and hard for everybody in unique ways and universal ways,” St. Vincent says. “But the flipside is that we just have one of them, so, like, let’s really live it. There’s kind of a beautiful contradiction there.”

Since she grabbed our attention with her 2007 debut ‘Marry Me’, a striking collection of orchestral indie-pop, St. Vincent has built a reputation as a musical shapeshifter who can ping from spangly glam-rock (2017’s ‘Masseduction’) to psychedelic ’70s funk (2021’s ‘Daddy’s Home’). The Oklahoma-born, Texas-raised musician is also known as a brilliant guitarist and riveting live performer. When Kate Bush was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last  November, St. Vincent was asked to perform ‘Running Up That Hill’ in her honour. ‘All Born Screaming’ is another firm step forward: the first St. Vincent album she has produced entirely by herself. “I figured that I just needed to really, really hone my lexicon as a producer – I’ve co-produced everything I’ve ever done and I’ve been recording myself since I was 14,” she says.

Though St. Vincent is a fierce and revered talent – her sparkling discography also includes collaborations with Paul McCartney and David Byrne – this doesn’t mean she’s remote or unapproachable. Quite the opposite – this In Conversation begins with a fun discussion of Pret a Manger porridge (much better in London than New York, apparently) before we delve into her fascinating creative process. Of course, we also find time to talk about ‘Cruel Summer’, the Taylor Swift bop she co-wrote that became a surprise Number One last year.

NME: What was the genesis of this album? How did it take shape?

St. Vincent: “The genesis was more or less me playing around with modular synthesisers and drum machines in my studio alone. Like, it’d be eight in the morning and I’d have a little coffee – a little microdose – and then just go in and turn on all the machines and turn knobs and, like, make a little industrial dance party for myself for hours and hours. And then later on, I would comb back through that stuff and go, ‘OK, what’s here that feels like lightning in a bottle that I can make a whole song around?’ Truth be told, probably 3% of the music I made in the past two-and-a-half years is what’s on the album. There’s hours and hours and hours – I’m not saying it’s good! – of me just jamming on synths, drum machines and modulars.”

You obviously had the first and final say on each track, but were there people you brought in as a sounding board?

“God yeah. I’m so lucky to have great friends who also are great rippers. Dave Grohl is a buddy and he came into my studio and, like, everything they say is true: he’s the nicest guy in rock and the most fun hang. Like, he just drives over in his truck and because he’s so musical, he’s heard the song a few times and knows every twist and turn. So you just hang and smoke some Parliaments; he tells war stories, you drink some coffee and smoke more Parliaments, and then he’s like: ‘Cool, let’s go!’ And he goes in there and it’s Dave Fucking Grohl on the drums and he plays it perfectly. Man, it just lights you up to hear him play.

“[I also brought in] Cate Le Bon, who’s an incredible producer in her own right. There’s music you love and then there’s music you love that you also listen to all the time. Cate is somebody I listen to all the time, especially her last record ‘Pompeii’. We’ve been good friends for a long time and she played bass and sang on [the title track] ‘All Born Screaming’. She really held my hand at a moment when I wanted to drown that baby in the bathwater – like, not throw it out, just drown it! And then we had Mark Guiliana on drums. Josh Freese on drums, Stella Mogzawa on drums. Justin Meldal-Johnsen on bass and David Ralicke on horns. It was a tight little wrecking crew.”

The song ‘Big Time Nothing’ just roars out of the speakers with such sonic confidence. How did it take shape?

“That song was a result of one of the many hours spent with modular synths. The first thing that came about is the bassline, [which is sort of] acid-y and early ’90s. I was like, ‘That’s it – that’s tough’, so I wrote the song ‘Big Time Nothing’ around it. I don’t want to give too much of the song away because I would never want my point of view or what it means to me to diminish what it means to someone else. It’s absolutely for the listener. That said, I will say that to me the song was just like what depression says to you. Like, this anxious roiling: the sound of the inside of my head that every day [says]: ‘Go go go, you stupid bitch. You think you’re something and you’re fucking nothing, you idiot!’ How’s that for a slogan?!”

Do you think – not just with this album, but generally – that as an artist you can kind of over-explain a song?

“I think it’s kind of celebrated now to be very specific or very autobiographical – or not to be autobiographical [per se], but to make it about a specific moment in the artist’s life and have all things kind of lead you back to the artist.  And when I think about music that I love, I don’t give a shit what the artist was thinking. I don’t give a shit if [the song] is about their kid or a breakup – I don’t fucking care; I hear what it means to me. And I realise that I’ve erred in the past for sure [in that respect]. So now I really want to protect what it means for other people in their lives. It’s for them, it’s not for me.”

Back in November, you sang ‘Running Up That Hill’ when Kate Bush was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. How did that come about?

“I don’t know how it came about, they asked me to do it! One of the things I realised and learned when I dug deep into not just singing along with Kate Bush on record, but actually singing the song and finding the grooves is just how amazing her voice is [in being] able to feel totally urgent and totally effortless. Like, [when she sings] “it doesn’t hurt me”, it’s not pushed, she’s not straining, but everything about her voice is completely urgent. It’s just like watching a flame across the skies. So I found that fascinating and, I don’t know, then I blacked out and sang her song. I don’t fucking know [how], nobody should cover Kate Bush!”

Another amazing thing happened last year: ‘Cruel Summer’, a Taylor Swift song you co-wrote and played on from 2019’s ‘Lover’ album, became a belated Number One hit.

“That was crazy. I mean, I always thought in the context of that record, like, ‘That should be a single, it’s a great song.’ And I don’t even think it was a single; it just was a fan favourite. And it’s like the fans just decided: ‘No, this is your hit song.’ Which is so wild and so modern, you know. That was just a real bonus Jonas there. And I mean, that’s one hell of a fanbase.”

It’s amazing: they turned a non-single into a Number One.

“I mean, changing world economies, let’s go!”

Taylor has obviously given us ‘The Eras Tour’, and beyond that, music fans often talk about an artist’s latest “era”. But is that how you think about your career?

“I don’t. I think of my life in terms of ‘Wait, where was I on tour?’ Like, there’s a whole chunk of life, especially from my second record [2009’s ‘Actor] to [2017]’s ‘Masseduction’ where it’s just a blur of touring. It was crazy – I would finish a year-and-a-half long, gruelling tour and then start writing a record the next day. I just was ‘on one’ as they say, and some parts are blurrier than others if I’m very honest. But it’s not that I think of my life in specific eras. It’s more like I look back and try to figure out what was happening in my life by which record I was doing. That’s how I trace life and death and relationships, you know.”

‘All Born Screaming’ is out now via Total Pleasure and VMG

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