A one-time touring member of Polyphonic Spree and backing musician for Sufjan Stevens, St. Vincent (Annie Clark to her parents) broke out on her own in 2007 with the critically acclaimed “Marry Me,” a strong debut of baroque pop songs that immediately made music fans and year-end list-makers take notice. Now, two years later, the 26-year-old returns with “Actor,” a brilliantly orchestrated collection that still retains Clark’s unique sense of whimsy, yet is decidedly darker and more ambitious than its predecessor.
To record the new set, Clark, a film obsessive, buried herself in her favorite movies (“Badlands” and “Pierrot Le Fou,” to name but a few) and began each song on “Actor” as an imagined film score before committing anything to record.
“I wrote the last album mostly on guitar and piano, but on ['Actor'] I kinda threw those things to the wolves and wrote mostly everything on the computer, to mess up my own creative process,” says the Tulsa-born, Dallas-bred musician from her Brooklyn apartment. “Also, I was getting noise complaints from neighbors, so I did most of it in headphones.”
While prepping for her upcoming tour, Clark spoke to us about Woody Allen, getting fired from her day job and the unprecedented “St. Vincent Laser Light Show” (seriously).
Did you feel any pressure recording “Actor” given that “Marry Me” was so highly acclaimed?
I put a lot of pressure on myself to make “Actor” as something that was going to be exciting and compelling and different for me. I wanted to figure out ways to make music that was smarter than I am. That’s where the technology came into play. I think anytime you write on instruments that aren’t your main instrument, you come up with things you wouldn’t normally come up with.
Did you change your process much on this one?
I kind of approached the writing [of the album] like a day job. I’m a very nocturnal person so in my other times of writing, I really got going at midnight and all of a sudden, 7 a.m. rolled around. In this instance, it was like, “OK, I’m gonna wake up at 9 a.m. and start working!”
Was it easy to adjust your schedule?
Yeah, it was OK. You rejoin the living. You’re a living person if you’re waking up at 10. There’s something really gratifying about putting on your proverbial suit and tie and clocking in at the job. It’s like, “I’m a ‘real’ musician.”
When was your last official day job?
I got fired from a flower shop in 2005 in Boston. It was Valentine’s Day and I accidentally delivered flowers to the wrong person. It was horrible.
That’s pretty Draconian to fire you after one mistake.
Wellllll, that was kind of one in a series of mistakes.
‘Nuff said. You mention Woody Allen’s “Stardust Memories”—a movie about a director who goes through a crisis of conscience after being adored and reviled by fans—as a major influence for “Actor.” What is it you like so much about that film and did you go through a similar experience?
I think “Stardust Memories” is such a hilarious and poignant look at the simultaneous self-aggrandizement and humiliation of an artist. With “Marry Me,” I think it was a nice foundation to build upon because it was stylistically all over the map and such a strange collage. I could have gone a lot of places [after that] and it would’ve been accepted by my fans. But nothing really changes in your day-to-day life. Really, all I want to do is make something that I think is really beautiful. As long as you keep your goals really simple like, “Write music that you love,” you avoid the pitfalls.
Were you always a movie geek?
I think I just recently crossed over the barrier between “movie lover” and “film lover.” With touring, you need to take some good things to keep you entertained and keep you going, so I bring a lot of films and I love reading books about directing film and plays. I’m pretty obsessed with it.
When you’re on tour, what movies are must-haves?
I’m looking around my apartment now. Guy Maddin’s “Brand Upon the Brain!” and “Cowards Bend the Knee.” And then a little bit of “30 Rock.” The thing about touring is, like, don’t bring Foucault. Don’t bring “Gravity’s Rainbow.” You’re not gonna crack the code on string theory.
How else are you preparing for the tour?
I think once I get in the van and drive to Boston I’ll be like, “OK, it’s really happening.” I don’t think about it until we’re there. But we’ve been rehearsing a whole lot. There’s gonna be a laser light show. It’s gonna be crazy. We’re next-leveling this stuff!
