St. Vincent has never experienced anything like the power of Taylor Swift fans.
The 41-year-old singer, real name Ann Clark, co-wrote the pop megastar's 2019 hit “Cruel Summer,” and admitted she was surprised by how much Swifties embraced and loved the song.
In an interview with Music Week, Vincent said, “Taylor Swift's Cruel Summer was a testament to the incredible power of her incredible fans. They took a song that was on an album way back, that wasn't even a single at the time, and they said, 'No, we love this song. This song is a hit,' and it shot up the charts. It was a really cool thing to see, and I've never experienced anything like that. But I've never really witnessed anything like that in the culture. You could say that Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill was popular and introduced new fans to it, but that's not the same thing. Cruel Summer was the pure power and miracle of fans just loving something.”
Meanwhile, the All Born Screaming singer recalled being “really shaken up” by the “adrenaline” after performing “Lithium” with Nirvana at Nirvana's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2014, in place of late frontman Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide in 1994 aged 27.
She recalls, “Kurt is supposed to be alive, but he's not. That performance was one of those things where I didn't even know what to think. I remember I was playing a show in LA and I got a call from my manager at the time, who was really cold, but he was like, 'I've got something weird for you!' And I would never have said that to him! I was incredibly humbled and wild and excited. Afterwards I was really shaken up. I had so much adrenaline, I was like, 'What just happened?!'”
Vincent remains close friends with Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, who played drums on the songs “Free” and “Broken Man” from her latest album, All Born Screaming.