All Her Stars Aligned: St. Vincent

| Print Post This | Like (2) | Comments (0)

ANNIE CLARK NEVER thought anybody would hear the songs she wrote in her bedroom from the ages of 17 to 22. So, she was totally surprised when the Beggars Banquet label came knocking — and then when her solo debut, "Marry Me," under her St. Vincent band name, was loved by critics.

Two years later, months after her sophomore release, "Actor," was similarly adored, Clark is still surprised by how everything has turned out.

"I was proud of ['Marry Me'] — it was my first offering to the world," Clark said. "It was definitely gratifying, because there was critical praise for it and because for no other reason than I didn't know if anybody would hear it at all. ... And with 'Actor,' all you can do is make a record that you like, and that's the only set of criteria. There's no formula, there's no guesswork, there's no trend-spotting — you can't decide anything by consensus or by committee, nothing good ever comes of that. I just focused on trying to make a record that made my ears tingle and had some twists and turns."

The former member of The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens' backing band has gathered lots of attention for her lush indie rock, and will be opening for Andrew Bird at the 9:30 Club on Oct. 28. [Read our interview with Andrew Bird here.]

Clark spoke with Express about how she fell in love with touring, her relationship with her fans and why she considers John Congleton, who produced "Actor" and is the mastermind behind indie-rock band The Paper Chase, one of the industry's few musical geniuses.

» EXPRESS: How did you become interested in and involved in music?
» CLARK: I think I got Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album when I was about 5, and that pretty well did me in — I was hooked. I got my first guitar when I was about 12, and I started writing songs right from the start, so I guess I've been doing it now for 15 years ... although when I was 12, I was probably writing songs about trees and dogs.

But my aunt and uncle are in a jazz duo called Tuck & Patti, and they took me on tour with them when I was about 15, and we went to Japan, because they do well over in Japan. And I saw the sort of road-dog lifestyle, and I just got hooked — I couldn't think of anything more exciting and thrilling then getting to play music for people every night.

» EXPRESS: How did you get involved with The Polyphonic Spree and touring with Sufjan Stevens, and what do you think you learned from each experience?
» CLARK: That was my musical, sort of like, apprenticeship — I probably learned just as much in playing with The Polyphonic Spree and playing with Sufjan Stevens and touring with my aunt and uncle, because you see real people who have real careers doing what they want and making decisions and working hard. And I got to play in front of audiences of thousands and thousands of people before I'd necessarily played tons of shows on my own, so that was a big apprenticeship.

But energy-wise, they're very different animals. With Polyphonic Spree, I played for big festival crowds, and first kind of got into guitar effects pedals — and I have a stupidly gigantic pedal board now. And then with Sufjan, playing with Sufjan is really more about precision and execution, and really, it's just being part of a small orchestra as opposed to being in a raucous, sunshine-rock band.

[Playing solo] is a completely different thing: In my experience, democracy's not necessarily ... the road to the most artistically validating thing. ... It's totally different; I was a guitar player in the Spree, but with this, I write it all and arrange it. One, I was like the small part of a democracy, and the other, with my project, it's my democracy.

» EXPRESS: So how did you put "Marry Me" and "Actor" together? Was there a certain point when you were with the Spree that you were like, "OK, time to do the solo thing," or was it more organic than that?
» CLARK: It was more symbiotic. I was working on the record that going to become "Marry Me" while I was in the Spree, and we were touring a little bit, but mostly I was working on my own music; my end goal was always to make my own music and tour and sing my songs for people, and that's really all I've ever wanted to do. But I just got lucky in that I got to be a part of another band and get some experience under my belt and see how some things work, and go out and do it on my own.

"Marry Me" was sort of like a compilation of songs I had been working on since age 17 and until 21 or 22, and that old adage is true: You have your whole life to make your first record but only nine months to make your second record, and that very much rings true. For "Marry Me," I worked with Brian Teasley, who I met with The Polyphonic Spree, but "Actor" was a very different process. I wrote and arranged it all on my laptop on GarageBand and Logic [Studio] before I actually played a note of the record. ... So it all started with a master plan laid out in GarageBand, because I really wanted to try my hand at being an orchestrator. I was a little tired of just conventional rock instruments and wanted to create something that sounded more like the soundtrack to a film.

» EXPRESS: And with "Actor," you worked with producer John Congleton of The Paper Chase, right? What was that experience like?
» CLARK: I think John Congleton is a genius. I would play him an idea and he has this very, really nice way of seeing what's essential and seeing what's not essential, and toes that really amazing line of something that's musically dense or complicated, but he figures out a way to make it immediate and direct. I loved working with John Congleton; he's — I don't say this about that many people, but I think he's a genius, so bright and so full of good ideas. And really, for me, I can sort of get lost in wandering in my own brain about the ephemeral side of things, or the ethereal, or the cerebral, and he has this really great way of bringing it back down to earth and helping to make things palatable.

» EXPRESS: So how has your tour been going so far, and what's next for you this year and beyond?
» CLARK: Well, a third album is a little bit further off, because I've pretty much been on tour the whole year and I'll be on tour for another month, so when December comes and I have a couple of weeks to not be on tour, I'll probably start thinking about that.

It's funny, though, because I feel like the transition that I made from touring on the "Marry Me" record versus touring now is that with "Marry Me," it was my first record out, and there were definitely fans and people that were into it, or there were people that hadn't seen me before and were new to the party. But with this second record, it feels like there are actual fans — it's not like we're no date No. 1 anymore, we're on date, like, 10. There's two records, we know each other a little bit better and we're feeling more comfortable. It's gratifying to see people sing along and know the words and care — that's amazing to me. I never want to take that for granted.

» 9:30 Club, 815 V Street NW; with Andrew Bird, Wed., Oct. 28, 7 p.m., sold out; 202-265-0930. (U St.-Cardozo)

Written by Express contributor Roxana Hadadi
Photo by Annabel Mehran