St. Vincent

0:06Pushkin

0:10These days, St. Vincent is on a whole new level. Which is hard to believe considering, if we're being honest, she's always been pretty damn incredible. But let's take into account that not only are the reviews of her current tour, the world tour, rave reviews, but she's touring behind the first album of hers that she ever produced all on her own. The album's called All Born Screaming. And in a case of overachieving, she also just recently released a Spanish-language version of the album, Todos Nacen Gritando. which in many ways doesn't serve to replace the English language version but supplements it brilliantly providing a renewed listening experience.

0:49Of all the St. Vincent projects dating back to her debut album in 2007 this is the one that feels the most steeped in a singular vision like an offering from an auteur. But as St. Vincent tells me in today's episode the production process behind this album was far from easy and likely isn't one she'd replicate again or at least not on the next project that she's already busy writing. We talk a bit about what it was like to tour this album, a tour which continues well into the new year, with some dates featuring Olivia Rodrigo, others Nick Cave. And we talk about how she developed her high-level taste, my words, not hers, despite growing up in the middle of the country pre-internet.

1:29This is Broken Record. Line of notes for the digital age. I'm Justin Richman.

1:36This is an iHeart Podcast.

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2:54Whether you are booking a once-in-a-lifetime trip or your next weekend escape, discover more with Chase Sapphire Reserve at chase.com slash sapphire Reserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval, terms apply. You've probably heard me say this. Connection is one of the biggest keys to happiness. And one of my favorite ways to build that, scruffy hospitality. Inviting people over, even when things aren't perfect. Because just being together, laughing, chatting, cooking, makes you feel good. That's why I love Bosch. Bosch fridges with VitaFresh technology keep ingredients fresher longer so you're always ready to whip up a meal and share a special moment.

3:36Fresh foods show you care, and it shows the people you love that they matter. Learn more. Visit boschhomeus.com. Here's my conversation with St. Vincent from Amazon Music Studio 126. And to see the full video version of this episode, visit youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast or click on the link in the episode notes. I just saw the Bob Dylan movie Oh, how was it? You know, I had two thoughts while I was watching it One, it was just great to hear the music I thought the performances The Joan Baez performance I thought was particularly incredible But I thought the framing was a little I don't know if in 2024 I'm so excited by the folk music acoustic versus electric Yeah But it was good I was happy to see it And I think that mythology about people were so mad that Dylan went electric, I think that that mythology is similar to the Stravinsky Rite of String mythology.

4:41I don't know. Can you tell me that? Well, so there was the Stravinsky Rite of Spring Mythology. His piece that he debuted, the Rite of Spring, the debut in Paris, was so, the music was so new that people revolted. In the case of, which was like actually, no, that was kind of, it was kind of a typical reaction because that was just popular music back then. So people typically revolted. They didn't, yeah, I mean, they were, people were extra, but they weren't like, it wasn't necessarily how the mythology is. They were like ecstatic. Yes, but I heard that the reason that people were so mad wasn't that he went electric, it was that the sound was so bad.

5:27And it was like feeding back and it sounded really bad. They hint at that a bit in the movie, like Pete Seeger's like, the sound is, or it's Ed Norton as Pete Seeger. He does a pretty good shot too. But he's like, the sound is muddled, you know what I'm saying? But kind of the rest of the film makes it kind of feel like this drawn out tension between acoustic and electric, which is fine. I mean, I guess that's the mythology, but it did feel like it feels a little quaint. But yeah, I don't know. But no, but my point was there was so much cigarette smoke in that movie. And you really wanted to smoke?

6:01Man, like I would love to. I don't want to die. You know, I'm scared of death, but I really want to smoke cigarettes. And I don't know what to do about that. I feel you there. I've recently rewatched this. I never smoked, but I've recently rewatched The Sopranos. And, you know, they're just like drinking brown liquor at like noon. Yeah. And you're really like, yeah, it seems like a good, you know, you're like, why not? If you watch TCM, that's like your whole, like, you know, for the whole day, you're like, oh my God, I want to be an alcoholic. That's what I wonder. Did, I mean, you have to figure not The Sopranos, but the TCM and like the Mad Men's of the world.

6:35Like they were post-war. Yeah. Those people had been through hell, and so they're just like, fuck it. But you get, like, when you see, you know, anybody in the 50s just, like, drinking and smoking midday, you're like, yeah, I get it. You went through hell. Yeah. But then somehow they're all apparently going to live longer than us. No, they aren't. Isn't that the, aren't they saying, like, the life expectancy is dropping or something? Oh, I've, you mistake me for a person who's looked at the news since November 6th. Okay. I haven't. Okay. Well, I'm going to avoid the news as well. I think that's my...

7:12You know what? It's nice up here. It is. It's nice. And it's the best protest. That man only wants attention, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I gave him almost a decade of my life. He doesn't get a single another moment. That's great. That's great. Well, I want to talk about both the English language version of all born screaming in Spanish. but I think maybe we should start with the English language version since it came out first. So this is the first album you produced completely yourself. You also, I read, called the production of the album An Albatross in Your Cross to Bear. Uh-huh. And I don't know.

7:56Do you care to explain that anymore? I mean, the production of the album was a lot of me sitting in a room, right, by myself. Because part of the beginning, the genesis of making of the record was like, I'm going to figure out new ways to create. And I'm going to figure out new ways to create using machines that I don't know how to use. So like modular synths and a lot of like random old drum machines and just crusty stuff. Right. And I'm going to figure out how to be a better engineer and producer at the same time, learning my studio, routing, patch bays, thinking about music. I don't know, like a like a Rubik's Cube a little bit more.

8:51So I started with that and I started with complexity. And so the process a lot of times was doing these extended like instrumental, post-industrial instrumental jams for hours and hours, which was the totally easy fun part. Kind of like can style, kraut rocky. Can style, except like with drum machines. So Krautrocky, industrial, like, you know, like making blowing up circuits and some distortion and stuff like that. And then coming back through those long ass jams and being like, OK, this four seconds or this four bar loop is like something I want to build an entire world around. So that was the process for like Sweetest Fruit.

9:50That was the process for Broken Man. That was the process for Violent Times. That's interesting. Sweetest Fruit and Violent Times. Sweetest Fruit kind of has a different groove than anything else I feel like I've heard from your songs. It's a little bit reggaeton. It's a little reggaeton. It's a little like Nigerian pop. Yeah, it is. Did you program the drums that way or did it just turn into that eventually? The genesis of that song was the loop that was like, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. That sounds like a cracked out Ferris wheel. But ooh, there's something in that that's evocative to me.

10:31I'm going to build a whole song around it. So long story short is that I really did things ass backwards. Usually people write songs and then they deconstruct them. I like started with a bunch of Lego pieces and then culled songs from them. And that is cool. But it also is, I think, more time consuming. There's a reason people don't write songs that way. There's a reason people sit at a piano and feel their feelings over four chords. What do you think that reason is? Because it's way easier to like have a song and then take it apart than to be like, there's a soul somehow within these pieces. And I need to find the soul and the story with all these disparate pieces at the same time.

11:26So that was like a maddening, that was a maddening proposition for you. It was a silly, yeah, it was the way I did it. And I'm very glad about it. And I didn't stop till it was complete. But like I said, there's a reason why people go, da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. My feelings are this and I feel that. And then they can take it apart. Right, right. And that's typically how you've done it to this point too? Yeah, yeah, more or less. More or less. Yeah. Why did you give yourself the charge this time to do it differently than you and to constrain yourself let me say this is how it's all going to because i feel like if you do things the same way every time you're going to get the same results and i wanted to get get a different kind of result and i what i like about machinery like modulars or um various kinds of synthesis is that like i don't know exactly what's going to happen been and so i'm not relying on muscle memory i'm not relying on like things that i already know i'm i'm relying on like instinct in the moment and that felt like something powerful enough to follow that would eventually lead me to a song that would eventually kind of lead me to a full vision but it was just a more like labor intensive way to do it and you don't know what to expect because it's not an instrument that you've played your whole life and feel comfortable with.

12:57Absolutely. And to be fair, like with analog modulars and certain synths, there's no, even if you set the parameters exactly the same way, like it's still going to be a little bit different because it's unique circuitry. So you're dealing with real electricity. So everything had to start with like aliveness. Got it. Yeah. I mean, I guess to speak candidly, I like all your albums, but this is my favorite. Oh, thanks. And that was the kind of, I was just trying to think about why, just the feel of it. It felt like there was a real spirit in it and an aliveness that wasn't necessarily present in everything that you've done.

13:41Not that that, I mean, sometimes I don't like that in music. Sometimes you don't call for that. But this one, it was just, it felt very much alive to me. You know, like it was like it felt like you were felt more like a documentary than like a big, big budget production. And I guess is how I felt about it. I don't know if that rings true to you. Well, it's DIY. It's like high level DIY. Always, you know. All your all your stuff. Well, I mean. It's it's DIY with a certain level of like expertise, be it. First of all, thank you. I'm so glad. But also, I mean, I think I made choices as a producer to keep that alive.

14:26You know, whether it's not recording guitars direct, putting a guitar through an amp, putting it in a room and recording the sound of air moving through a speaker. There's something intrinsically more alive. You are pushing air, right? Right. Whether it's there's no soft sense on this. This is all if something is played, if an effect is played, it's a manual. It's a manual tape delay and it's performed. You're getting a performance of a drum machine through a piece of tape or a pedal. But it's performed. It's touched. It's tactile. There's that. And then I think also just the subject matter in a lot of the songs.

15:14it's like don't be cute don't be clever life is short we're all gonna fucking die like let's let's talk about it let's let's walk through the fire together because we're all we got yeah yeah lyrically was there any thing you were pulling from in particular either as reference material external to you or internal to you i didn't really pull from anything external lyrically and i usually do you know i usually will it'll be chock full of like references to my favorite writers or poets or whatever this go-round it was pretty it was a it was like a process of stripping back you know any anytime i had an instinct to like i don't know be cute or like be clever or it was like no cut it out strip it to the bone what's underneath that what's underneath that what's underneath that um and same with the performances as well i mean i sing i sing a lot of these songs a lot of times um and i i would liken it i would kind of liken it to like i don't know you hear about directors who do a gazillion takes like um david fincher right he does like hundreds of takes until the actors are just like yeah um take 130 exactly exactly right it's not the social network it's like whatever that scene was to take 130 and you're like but i think if i was producing someone else that's not anything i would make them do but when it's myself i go no you you were lying just there sing it again that's interesting because i was going to ask how do you keep yourself accountable in that way when you're producing yourself but in a way it's much easier you know yeah it's eat because you can ask more of yourself if you're self-critical enough or if you're if you're yeah honest enough and to i mean you know it's a fine balance right there's there's the self criticism that is not helpful to you and it's not helpful to the work and then there's the sort of you know we're somewhere in the the dunning kruger like you know where people who are actually the dumbest think they're the smartest you know i'm paraphrasing that and vice versa so there's you're somewhere in that spectrum always right too much self-criticism stops the art and stops the work and but not enough and it's not good enough yeah so that's a but that's a that's a messy thing to deal with like self self-production that's the hardest part about self-production is that is that um wading through that which is like real real and that which is like oh no you're just kind of you're you're you're being you know needlessly self-punishing or that's that that's the rub that That was hard to figure out.

18:27Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How did you, did that lead to prolonged periods of like punishing self-flagellation? I'm being too, I'm probably being too dramatic. It's. I don't think so. I mean, it's a lot to do. I don't know. Or maybe you would know better. It's just, you know, after, you know, because this is my seventh solo record, eighth record, you know counting the one i did with david byrne it's like you know when it's done and that's the that's the biggest thing that's the biggest lesson is like knowing when something is done and knowing even if you you know roll down the road on a song of like diminishing returns being able to go back to an earlier version and go this was better okay let's go let's let's do this and then it's done yeah yeah so get like just given how unique the process was and and and okay maybe tortured's too too too much calling it an albatross maybe okay maybe maybe it's hyperbole i mean i like of course at the end of the day like i'm a musician i get to do what i love yeah it's the luckiest thing in the world it's true it's true but if it's if it It was even on the spectrum of whatever hyperbole, if it was even airing towards that way, when you got done with it, does the album sit with you?

20:00Even though it's new, does it sit with you a little differently than other albums in your catalog so far, just given the process you went through? Well, I'm still really living this record because I'm out on tour doing it, doing the damn thing every night. So there is an aspect of like, these songs are, these songs are like, I'm going to use, I'm going to mix metaphors and also do a bad one. Great. But like, you got to, making a record is like making a pair of shoes that you're going to have to walk in for the next, definitely for the next like year and a half of your life. And if it's good, like the whole rest of your career.

20:44so you might have like so putting wearing them on tour is like you wearing them in you're like okay they're kind of they kind of give here they kind of like but they can carry me i've never used this metaphor i'm just workshopping it here so it's a good metaphor really uh this is we're getting into dicey territory but um but it's like i'm still living in them so that and that part is good It's exciting. They are holding up and they're growing even more than every other record I've ever done. I know every inch of this thing. I'm like, I know every, I know every track. I know every, when I say track, I mean like Pro Tools track.

21:27I know every, I know the multis. I know the ideas. I know the palimpsest of ideas that didn't make it. You know what I mean? Do you hear those too sometimes? I try not to. But yeah, I know it. I know it so intimately. But I think it's good that I do know it and I know it so intimately, but I also am so psyched to play it every night. So that's a good sign. Yeah. You know? Sounds like it. Would you do it again? Produce yourself again? Yes, I absolutely would, but I would do it differently. How would you do it differently? I'd write a bunch of songs. Okay. And then I would take them apart. Too much to go through again doing it that way.

22:11I would write a bunch of songs, which is what I'm currently doing. Nice. Yeah. Like while you're on the road or now that you've kind of paused a bit for the holidays, I guess? Yeah. I mean, whenever I'm in my studio, whenever I'm home, I'm writing. We'll be right back with more from St. Vincent after the break. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Ooclas Speedtest, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.

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26:05Here's more from St. Vincent. And you wrote this in your studio here in L.A., but recorded it at Electric Lady? I did a lot of the vocals at Electric Lady, but I recorded the majority of this record at my studio, Compound Fracture. I mean, I recorded Dave Grohl on drums there. Did you mic that yourself? No, no, no. I have an incredible engineer. Shout out to Kian Reardon, who mixed this record, engineered all the heavy lifting of this record. It's a lot to put on yourself, too. Yeah, I mean, I can put a, you know, I can make my way through a vocal mic, but no, past that. No, he engineered the drums on the record.

26:53I bought a Neve console. Dang. yeah it was like it was it was pro i you know josh freeze played there uh mark juliana played there stella mogzawa i recorded someplace else but like yeah it was legit that's cool legit josh freeze is his drumming on the first track but that was really awesome it was so tasteful and just beautiful yeah it was amazing i don't know that i've heard him i don't know his whole catalog but i don't know if i've heard him play that way it was like this guy can do anything you know that was it was it's fun as a producer to invite people to play well one i mean it's nice to have like a rolodex a stacked rolodex of like the craziest rippers but beyond that it's really it's nice to have people come in and sometimes you're like i want you to play like your names on the track like i want you to play like it's your you know and then sometimes you're like i i want to ask this incredible player to do something that they don't normally do or do something they're not known for yeah and in that case on hell is near josh just played the most almost like buddhist like monastic beat and it's so beautiful it's it to be honest it's one of my favorite drum performances on the whole record in its restraint.

28:25It blew me. When I looked at it, I was like, whoa, no way, Josh Freeze? Whoa. It just never would have occurred to me that that would be his take on something like that. I know. But we arrived there together. It's not like Josh is a very sensitive drummer and he's an interesting drummer to watch because he listened down to the song, doesn't touch a note doesn't do anything you know writes his note his special notes about how many bars and what you know is whatever his um you know secret wingdings is and then he goes and he plays it perfectly he plays he knows the song so it's not like his first take was he was he was in the zone of this sort of like of the of the meditative aspect of it but we yeah we got there together so when um when did the idea to redo the album in spanish when did that occur to you i mean you're asking a very important question which is why why would you do that didn't want to ask it that way no i i totally get it the short answer is that i've played in mexico a bunch i've played in south america i've played in spain a bunch and i had this moment on stage at bar at primavera barcelona 2023 i'm like looking out at the sea of people thousands of people and they're singing they're singing my songs back to me in perfect english i'm like okay this is your maybe your second maybe your third yeah maybe your fourth maybe maybe fifth like seriously yeah like and you have you have and same with being in mexico so and i was in i mean there was one time in portuguese but i was in uh i was in brazil playing this little club show for like a thousand people and everybody knew every single word wow and i honestly got choked up i got choked up like they people have come to me in my language why can't i meet them halfway and try to come to them in there so that was the thought behind the Spanish record, like a little, just a little token to like Spanish speaking fans.

31:06Like, hey, thank you. I thank you for coming to me all these years. I speak Spanish. Okay. Okay. You spent time growing up in Texas. Yeah, I'm from Texas. You got a little something in there. It's in there. But like, but I have been really wanting to become actually fluent in Spanish because it's just useful and beautiful and all the things. So this was sort of a way to get me jump started into getting back into getting pretty good at Spanish. Cool. And so I asked my best friend, who's from Monterey, Mexico, and we grew up in Dallas together. So he's fully bilingual. I was like, Alan, can you help me translate these songs?

31:51So that process was really beautiful and fun, too. trying to figure out, okay, this is not an expression in Spanish. So this doesn't make any goddamn sense. What are you trying to say? And it got me kind of thinking about the meaning of songs in a totally different way. Yeah, that's why I did it. I don't know. But I also, it was a heavy lift. It was a heavy lift. And not just, obviously, the translation, which is immensely thought-provoking and time-consuming, but also then trying to make sure that I was pronouncing things well. Which, again, my goalpost was like 99 left balloons. You know what I mean?

32:39I'm not going to sound like a native speaker because I'm not, but if I can get as good as like 99 left balloons, then like, okay. That's pretty funny. That's pretty good. And then also, I read it all the vocal production on the record, because I'm the only singer. Yeah, that's crazy. So I was like, you know. You said you already put yourself to a hundred and, you know, I don't know if it was that, but a lot of takes on stuff. Yeah, this is just full glutton. Hey, punishment, just give me some more. Did you see that movie Seven? What'd you say? I said you're in the proper outfit for it, by the way.

33:14I know, yeah. It's not as strict as it looks. Okay, all right. Did I see what? Remember that movie Seven? Yeah. That scarred me as a child. Yeah. A lot of those. That one did. Speaking of David Fincher. Speaking of Fincher. Yeah. That one really scarred me. And then Zodiac terrified me too a bit later. I was older by that point. I mean, and that was a real guy. The real guy. Didn't they just find him? They said, I mean, this is not conclusive. They said there was like, I watched the thing. Wait, is the Zodiac the Golden State Killer? That's different. Oh. They got the Golden State Killer from like 23andMe or something.

33:50Yeah, which is so. Did you sell your stuff to 23andMe? And when I say sell, I do mean sell. I did to Ancestry. I'm debating not whether I want them to know that. I got everything else. But I did to Ancestry. So I figure, you know what's funny? When I was a kid, I was just so fucked up. My mom was like crazy paranoid. so like when I was a kid she took me down to the police station to get fingerprinted in case I went like missing um but the flip side of that was I was always very cognizant that I did anything wrong growing up like that already got me they already got oh my god so I'm kind of like now really I put myself on the record with ancestry I'm like if I if I do any yeah serial killing which I won't but if I were to I'm out I'm on the record now they can just get me so easily like you would you would know if you were a seer like you would you would there would be a like a long line of like cat entrails like you know what i mean like you would know that from early i like to think so i'd like to think i don't think you just although i guess if you had like a crazy traumatic brain injury you know there's stories of like look at the guy that just killed the you know the ceo guy and i'm not i know he's hot that's what i that's what i he's a pretty good he's a good looking dude i was looking at it i was like i kind of wanted his workout i know he's jacked he's jacked And everyone's like, who knew?