St. Vincent has never experienced “anything like” the “power” of Taylor Swift’s fans.
The 41-year-old singer – whose real name is Ann Clark – co-wrote the pop megastar’s 2019 hit ‘Cruel Summer’, and admitted she was astonished by how much Swifties embraced and loved the tune.
Speaking to Music Week, Vincent said: “With the Taylor Swift Cruel Summer moment, that was a testament to the incredible force of her amazing fans. They took a song that was from many records ago, which was not a single at the time, and just said, ‘No, we love this song, this song is a hit,’ and then they marched it up the charts. It was so cool to see and I’d certainly never been a part of anything like that. But also, I haven’t really witnessed that in culture – you could maybe say Running Up That Hill with Kate Bush took fire and new fans were exposed to it but that’s not really the same thing. The Cruel Summer thing was sheer force and lightning in a bottle from her fans who just loved something into existence.”
Elsewhere, the ‘All Born Screaming’ singer recalled feeling “really shaken up” from the “adrenaline” after she performed ‘Lithium’ with Nirvana at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2014, in the place of late frontman Kurt Cobain – who died by suicide aged 27 in 1994.
She recalled: “That’s the thing, Kurt should be alive and he’s not. That performance is one of those occasions where I don’t even know how to think about that. I remember I was in LA playing a show and I got a call from my then-manager – he was a very dry guy – saying, ‘I’ve got a weird one for you!’ which is not how I would necessarily have said that! It was an incredibly humbling, wild and exciting thing. Afterwards I felt really shaken up – there was so much adrenaline, so much, ‘What just happened?!’”
Vincent is still good friends with Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, who played drums on the tracks ‘Flea’ and ‘Broken Man’ on her latest LP ‘All Born Screaming’.