Photo by Sarah Cass
St. Vincent
Issue #32
The Polyphonic Spree guitarist and Sufjan Stevens comrade — ka Annie Clark — goes solo with her debut album, Marry Me
By Kristina Francisco
Published: June 1st, 2007 | 12:00am
Annie Clark and I are aimlessly walking around downtown Austin. We’re here for SXSW, and Clark has just played one of her eight shows — four as St. Vincent and the rest as guitarist for Polyphonic Spree. Minutes into our interview, my recorder runs out of batteries, and, without missing a step, Clark kindly suggests we stop by a nearby hotel to buy more.
That’s the type of person Clark is — unintimidating, super friendly, and willing to detour for some batteries. As we leave the hotel gift shop, we run into her lawyer. “It sounds kinda cheesy to talk about — ‘Yeah, my agent’ or ‘That’s my lawyer,’” Clark says, a bit embarrassed, later in our walk. “It feels kinda weird, but to be on tour and to doing what you love to do, you have to have people who love booking tours as much as you love going on tour. ”
Clark has been in the music industry since she was 15, when she traveled the world to lands far from her Dallas home — Japan, China, Russia — as tour manager for her uncle, jazz guitarist Tuck Andress. “I’m really thankful that [my aunt and uncle] gave me the opportunity to do that because as a 15-year-old, I knew I wanted to be a musician, but you don’t really know what that means. You know you want to make music, but you don’t know that it means Motel 6, drive all night, do the in-store.”
Growing up with such a virtuosic guitarist of an uncle, Clark, who started playing guitar at 12, was encouraged to be a musician. It was as normal as wanting to be a doctor, banker, or president. “In the house, we had a grand piano and all these things,” she remembers. “I was encouraged to express and create, and I had an irrepressible urge to play piano.
“For a lot of people, people say, ‘You can’t do that.’ Especially for women, picking up guitars. You walk into guitar stores and whoever is really condescending tries to sell you a Daisy Rock guitar. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a guitar store and known specifically what I’ve wanted, and they go, ‘Is this a birthday present for your boyfriend?’”
The now 24-year-old was doing her solo thing until July 2005 when she auditioned for the Polyphonic Spree, and six days later, ended up in Europe on a month tour with them. “They said, ‘Can you come to Europe?’ I said, ‘Yes I can!’” she recalls. “And the next show was playing in Spain for 20,000 people.”
Between touring with the Spree and as St. Vincent, Clark is practically never home. In fact, it was while she was in Europe earlier this year with Sufjan Stevens (as his opener and part of the butterfly brigade) that Beggars Banquet Records approached her to release her debut, Marry Me. Clark recorded the album herself last summer, in a studio she built. It’s a beautiful listen and lush with layers of rich vocals, strings, guitars, and piano.
Clark’s learned to accept her vagabond life: “It’s a lucky thing when you are able to make your living as a musician. You just resign yourself and start to embrace ‘Where am I? What month is it? What’s happening now? What day it is? I don’t know.’ You get to embrace that and try to absorb as much of wherever you are. It makes you appreciate those days when you can eat figs and read Tennessee Williams — that one marvelous day when you intentionally take that time to just ... ‘ahhh.’”
As we part ways, a couple guys at a corner coffee shop yell out, “St. Vincent! We’re your biggest fans!” For Clark, those days of Tennessee Williams look to be few and far between.
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