St. Vincent says 'All Born Screaming' is an album full of tension and release: NPR

“Music has given me my whole life,” St. Vincent says. “It's been hard work, but it's worth it because every night you get to spend 90 minutes with people and go somewhere completely out of this world.”

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Alex da Corte/Bad Little Man

“Music has given me my whole life,” St. Vincent says. “It's been hard work, but it's worth it because every night you get to spend 90 minutes with people and go somewhere completely out of this world.”

Alex da Corte/Bad Little Man

The songwriter, guitarist and singer known as St. Vincent did not name herself after a saint. Instead, she took her stage name from St. Vincent's Hospital in New York, where poet Dylan Thomas died. She says she took the title because she felt it would give her the license to “be bigger” than Anne Clark – her birth name.

And St. Vincent can go big — in her dark lyrics, her sometimes shredding guitar and the way she dresses while performing. “Fortunately, art is a safe place to explore all feelings, all ideas, no matter how dark or complex,” says the three-time Grammy Award winner.

In 2012, St. Vincent was released Love this giant, a duet album with David Byrne. She also co-wrote the song “Cruel Summer” with Taylor Swift and fronted Nirvana at the band's induction ceremony into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014..

St. Vincent describes her latest album, Every boy screams, Out April 26, as an exercise in 'tension and release' – with some moments playing as acoustic 'jump scares'.

“I'm not playing into character,” she says of the album. “It's really a record about life and death and love. That's it. That's all we got.”

We hear St. Vincent's music throughout this interview, and the artist explains her songwriting process. Click the audio link above to get the full experience

Therese Madden and Joel Wolfram produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavey-Nesper, and Lars Gotrich have adapted it for the Web.