Singer-songwriter and performance artist Amanda Palmer tapped into her dedicated fanbase to produce her latest album, Theatre is Evil.

After the former Dresden Dolls member split from her record label, she decided to take a D.I.Y. approach to her music-making. She used crowd-sourced funding platform Kickstarter to call for help raising $100,000 for a new release. Palmer asked and fans answered, with the singer ultimately registering the most successful Kickstarter project yet by raising more than $1.2 million for Theatre is Evil, a studio album with her new band The Grand Theft Orchestra.

Palmer, known for songs and performances full of passion, provocation and theatricality, spoke to CBC's cultural affairs show Q about the album, released earlier this fall, her songwriting and her approach to performing.

"I think artists have to be authentic and I think any artist who's onstage and authentic is kind of by necessity engaging and therefore entertaining. There's nothing more painful than looking at a musician faking it and trying to quote-unquote be theatrical or be entertaining when it's not coming from a real place," she told Q host Jian Ghomeshi.

"I think you just have to be real."