Annie Clark, best known by her artistic moniker St. Vincent, has a new album, All Born Screaming, coming April 26. All Born Screaming is St. Vincent’s seventh studio full-length, and it follows her acclaimed 2021 release Daddy’s Home, which hit No. 1 in Billboard’s Independent Albums chart that year, and it also landed on the year-end lists of best albums from such publications as Rolling Stone, Spin, and The Guardian.

With All Born Screaming, Clark produced the album herself, and she brought in a roster of talented musicians she dubbed her “little Wrecking Crew,” referring to the legendary collective of Los Angeles studio musicians who worked on countless hits of the 1960s and 70s.

The Current’s Jill Riley spoke to Clark about the new record — and follows the conversation with a debut of “Broken Man,” a lead single that Clark describes as “a ripper.” Listen to the interview above, and read a full transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Jill Riley: You're listening to The Current. Hey, some exciting news regarding St. Vincent. I recently read a profile in Mojo magazine, a little teaser about a new album on the way from St. Vincent. And so I only know a little bit so far, and I know where to go for some more information. In fact, I'm going to go to the source: I have Annie Clark, St. Vincent, on the line with me. Hi, how are you?

St. Vincent: Hi, I'm good. Taking it straight to the source. I love it.

Jill Riley: Exactly. Why make assumptions and try to guess when I can talk directly to the artist? St. Vincent, so yes, you have announced that you've got a new record coming. And I know what it's called. I know just a little bit about it. So let's jump into it. The record is called All Born Screaming. I wonder if you could tell me about the new album and where that name comes from.

St. Vincent: Well, the title of the record is the title of the final song on the record. And I could have called it any number of things, I guess, but I liked the idea of "All Born Screaming" because it's like, it conveys the ecstasy and the agony and everything that it means to be alive, which is like, if we're born screaming, that's a good thing, because it means we're alive. If we're born screaming, we're also like, we're kind of all born in protest. So I thought it summed up a lot of the themes and the kind of journey of the record. 

Jill Riley: The themes of the record — again, it's called All Born Screaming — I wonder if you could talk about what your fans can expect as far as the sound of the record?

St. Vincent: Well, I produced this one myself, and I've been recording myself, you know, and co-producing all my records since I was 14, 15, right? But on this one, I just needed to kind of metaphorically just wander into the woods alone, and see what I found, and kind of talk about the — and it sounds very corny to say — but find out what my soul was saying without any other noise. And I think one of the hard things about self-producing is that you are the first and final filter for all of the material. So you are the only one who's going to say, "Yeah, that was good enough." "Yes, that's right." Because only you know what it should be, and only you know what it's supposed to sound like. So you are chasing that without anybody else going, "Oh, no, that was good." It's a somewhat masochistic process, but I think, in the case of this record, it was very fruitful, and definitely what I needed to do as an artist.

Jill Riley: How difficult was that for you to go, "OK, that is done," or "This song is complete." Or "I don't need to add anything or take anything away from this." Did you find that to be a real difficulty? Or did you find that you really liked the idea of self-producing?

St. Vincent: Well, it's all about honing your own instincts. And if you're the one who's saying, "Yes, I know in my soul that this is good enough and this is what I'm trying to say." And, of course, it's always a process. That's what the work is, is just finding it. But I think the hardest thing about it was, to me, there were songs that were just, they were delicate, in that they didn't want to be performed. So there are songs on the record that I sang by myself, you know, Electric Lady studios, Studio B or whatever, just in that room by myself at night 100 times. There's songs that I, you know, reworked 18 times, and the thing about that is just, it is, you know, a little more tedious, and you definitely have those moments of spinning your wheels and, and wondering if anything is any good. But I think that's where the exciting part is. It's a Bowie quote, but he talks about being if you're a little bit out of your depth, if your feet aren't quite touching the bottom, then that's how you know you're onto something that's exciting. And high stakes and real.

So like I said, if I sang a song 100 times, it was because I had to strip away anything from the singing of it that felt performed. It couldn't be performed; it had to just be sung and felt.

Jill Riley: I'm talking with St. Vincent. All Born Screaming is the name of the new record. It is on the way this spring, April 26. Now, you didn't make the record completely on your own. Can you talk about some of the musicians that you brought in on this record?

St. Vincent: Absolutely! Well, one, I've got a great engineer, Cian Riordan, who I worked with on Daddy's Home, and who mixed that record and this one. It's a tight little Wrecking Crew. I called in my buddy Dave Grohl to play drums on a couple tracks, and he rips so hard. Josh Freese is also on drums.

So you know, as a producer, sometimes you want to bring in players who you're like, "I want your exact sound on this, I want you to be exactly you." And then sometimes you want to bring in players who are so good and so skilled, and then ask them to do something that they don't normally get asked to do. And I've got amazing results with Josh Freese on that.

And Mark Guiliana, who plays in my live band, thank God, and was also the drummer on Bowie's Blackstar; and Stella Mozgawa who's the drummer for Warpaint who's just great. And then Justin Meldal-Johnsen is on bass. He is an incredible producer in his own right, and just the most ripping bass player. And then Cate Le Bon came in and was really helpful. She's a good friend of many years and one of my favorite modern producers and one of my favorite just songwriters ever. God, am I am I forgetting anybody? Oh, this guy, David Ralicke, who came in and played horns on things, and he was great. And Rachel Eckroth, who played some piano on one song, she was great.

Gallery: St. Vincent's "Wrecking Crew"

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Jill Riley: Yeah, that sounds like a great little Wrecking Crew that you've put together for this record. You know, Annie, as we've been talking about the record, you've used the word "rip," or "it rips" a couple times. Can we expect like a lot of rock and roll sound? A lot of guitar? Can you talk about its instrumentation?

St. Vincent: Yeah, I just think it's a heavy, it's a heavy record. The beats go hard. There's obviously a lot of guitar. And it's quite caustic when it needs to be. And then in other times, it's kind of more sensitive and beautiful than I've ever, I guess, gone on a sonic level. 

Jill Riley: Well, the new record is called All Born Screaming due out April 26. I'm on the line with St. Vincent talking about record number seven, the follow up to 2021's Daddy's Home. Album number seven is coming soon. And I know that we have the new song to play. And I wonder if you could help me set it up here. It's called "Broken Man." And we're gonna be playing it here on The Current in a moment. But can you talk about this song in particular? Because really, this is this is our first taste of it.

St. Vincent: Yeah, this one. This one's a ripper. A slow burn. This one goes hard. I hope it resonates. It's certainly how I've felt at various times.

Jill Riley: And how did you feel at various times with this?

St. Vincent: Well, it's a little bit of a sidebar. But I, for a long time, not wanted to give away what songs are about, because the listener completes the song. And I think in some cases, there's no good that can come necessarily of going, "Well, I was going through this, and so then I wrote this." I mean, maybe, maybe, in your like, autobiography when you're 90. Because I think it can rob the listener of their experience, and their experience is the most important experience, because they get to take it into their lives, and it means whatever it means to them. And they get to use it in that way and internalize it in that way. So I'm not trying to be evasive. But I think this feeling of the rawness, the brokenness, the violence, that we all have inside of us, I think this song touches on some of that without giving too much away. 

Jill Riley: OK, well, let's take a listen to it. And we'll see how we react to it and how we feel about it and how we relate to it. So I'm happy to do that. We'll let the listeners have their own experience with it. St. Vincent, All Born Screaming, due on April 26. We've got the first song, the first taste of it. Annie Clark, thank you so much for checking in with The Current.

St. Vincent: Thank you so much. Longtime listener, first-time caller.

Jill Riley: Excellent! Thank you so much. You take care. All right.

St. Vincent: All right. Take care. Minneapolis! 

Jill Riley: Yes, you are listening to The Current.

External Link

St. Vincent – official site