The Wainwright stuff

Meeting Rufus Wainwright is something of a daunting experience, even for those of us who consider ourselves fans. Outspoken and outrageous, he’s very much the angel with the devil’s tongue, and there’s something weird about hearing that supernaturally magical voice spouting venom. Kind of like having a Seraph tell you to fuck off.

But meet him I do at the Electric Picnic, and the amount of wheeling and dealing that goes into organising the right backstage pass to interview Rufus outside his dressing room makes this feel like an audience with the Queen (no pun intended). Sitting in the sun, wearing giant shades and looking, if anything, reserved, I ask him about ‘that’ voice. While he obviously inherited musical genes from his famous parents, Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, I wondered how much of his talent is down to nature and how much is nurture?
“I actually had a very annoying voice after I hit puberty,” he admits in that strange tone that seems at once mocking and knowing. “As I child, it was definitely a natural phenomenon, but then I experienced this Simpson-esque ratification when I hit puberty and my voice dropped three octaves: I suddenly sounded like a cartoon character or like one of the guys from The Little Rascals. That was really devastating for me. I knew that to get my voice back, I would have to really work at it. ‘Cos it’s a bizarre voice, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever heard [laughs]. Some people find my voice quite ugly, which I can understand.”
So did he ever take formal singing lessons?
“I took one singing lesson. But certainly, growing up with the McGarrigles and the Wainwrights, singing was formally forced on us,” he grins. “We were in boot camp, or ‘note camp’.
“But the more you sing, the better you become. Singing is like using any other muscle: you have to toughen it up. This whole thing of saving your voice or not trying something because you might hurt your voice is bullshit: in my experience, the voice is the toughest matter in the world. Think of all the great singers who destroyed everything but their voice.”
Considering the family heritage, how hard was it for him to ‘come out’ as a singer in his own right?
“It was fairly difficult,” he admits, “but compared to a lot of my friends who are also the progeny of musicians, but much bigger stars, like Sean Lennon, Adam Cohen or Chris Stills, my experience was a gravy train. If anything, it was an asset that I could take advantage of and use as a calling card.”
While indicating that his parents’ audience “were the last to come to the table: they’re kind of like folk nazis sometimes”, Rufus eventually won them over and is quick to point out that he still sings with both his parents and his sister Martha, “and we’ve managed to keep it on this balanced level, at the moment”.
Rufus probably feels the need to stress the Wainwrights’ familial harmony due to the fact that it wasn’t always thus. Indeed, when he first emerged as a solo artist, he tended to use press interviews to air the family’s dirty laundry.
“I was too candid in terms of family matters sometimes,” he admits, “mostly with my dad. My dad and I had a lot of unfinished business, and I took the opportunity to use a lot of interview people as therapists and went pretty deep into some issues that have nothing to do with my career, and of course they wrote about it. So he was horrified and we had to arrange some kind of truce. But now, things are much better and then Martha went around and did the same thing, which is kind of hilarious [Martha Wainwright’s song ‘Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole’ was written about their father]. But all power to her, because I think that is an essential step: you kinda have to get burnt to understand how to move ahead.”
In terms of press or music?
“Whether it’s press, music or the music business,” he avows. “I don’t think there’s anyone, except maybe Madonna – who has obviously sacrificed her talent to that god – who hasn’t made any mistakes.”
Rufus admits that these days he’s “somewhat more guarded” with the press than he used to be: “If anything, I’d like to talk about some other issues because sometimes I read my interviews and I feel like I’m a little preachy, only because I did go through this heavy self-realisation time with drugs and alcohol. I’m hoping that now, 'cos I’m at the other end of that, that I can be a little more laissez-faire about everything, so I’m trying...”
So does he still like ‘Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk’ then [the opening track from Poses, which sees Rufus cataloguing a list of things he loves which are bad for him]?
“Yeah, I still love ‘Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk’” he grins slyly, “and I still like young flesh...I’m a cannibal.”
I’m not sure whether he’s joking or not. One thing Rufus has always been upfront about is his sexuality. I wondered if being openly gay hindered his career progression?
“I definitely feel that there were opportunities and nooks that weren’t availed to me because I was so honest about it,” he says. “I’ve had to really stick to my guns in the face of tremendous adversity with that whole subject. Many times, I’ve been fraught with frustration over the subject. But in the end, it’s paid off twenty-fold, only because the fans that I’ve garnered know that there was never any rug pulled over their eyes. What you saw was what you got. This wasn’t a marketing tool. So I think it’s made my fanbase a lot more solid and my reputation as well and I’m happy about that.”
Indeed, the singer feels that going through the “adversity and bigotry” has made him stronger and he’s come to “appreciate all the shit I went through”.
If anything, he’s started to really celebrate his sexuality, particularly with songs like ‘Gay Messiah’ (from his most recent Want Two album).
“Yeah, totally,” he agrees. “But then I was ripped off by Madonna, who crucified herself on stage in her show.
I’ve just done this Disney song for a new animated film [Meet The Robinsons] and one of the main reasons I did it is because I want Madonna’s children to become huge Rufus Wainwright fans and drive her crazy!"
But ‘Gay Messiah’ was initially a joke song?
“That song has had three incarnations,” he admits. “Initially it was a joke. Then, with the election and [US Presidential candidate] John Kerry and all that, it became a bit of a rallying cry. But then, when Bush won, it became a literal prayer, an actual demand to heaven for help.”
A lot of artists have been castigated in the US for anti-Bush sentiments, which were viewed as being anti-American. Was he worried that he’d suffer a similar fate?
“I’ve been booed before,” he admits. “But I went through a lot more with the gay thing. First of all, being gay in America you’re already sequestered into being part of the left. When I came out, and I was very honest about my battles with crystal meth and anonymous sex, it was immediately taken and put on these right-wing websites as an example of what it is to be homosexual – that you become a drug addict and a sex freak. I went through all of that, so now that I’m already a drug addict and a sex freak, I don’t need to worry about pissing off any right wing people, thank God.”
‘Gay Messiah’ is just one of the outstanding songs on Want One and Want Two, Rufus’ companion albums, easily his most ambitious work to date, combining huge pop and ceremony with Latin prayers, massive orchestration and Rodgers and Hammerstein-style showstoppers. Was he not worried that such an eclectic mix would alienate his audience?
“Well, you have to understand that both my first album [Rufus Wainwright] and Poses were failures in Europe and the UK, entirely, and it was really only with Want One that I broke through that glass ceiling."
He’s already started work on the follow-up. Rufus is producing the album himself, with help from the Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant, who he claims brings a real “penchant for pop, a pop sensibility”. He’s not giving too much away about his fifth album, however. When asked to describe the work in progress, he laughs outrageously, calling it “a very loving record. It’s going to be a record that you can have sex to, which is what really matters to me.”