Friday, Jul 25, 2008
Baroque pop auteur Rufus Wainwright on his folkie parents, his years of dissipation, his new "Want One," and his not-so-secret desire to compose 19th century Romantic opera.
Oct 7, 2003 | Seven years ago a demo by Rufus Wainwright found its way into the hands of Van Dyke Parks, a legendary eccentric best known for his collaboration with the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, and for orchestrating songs for Randy Newman, Frank Sinatra and others. The music could not have found a more receptive listener: The songs, the voice and indeed the whole aesthetic harked back to the kind of baroquely orchestrated pop that Parks is famous for. Almost immediately he had secured Wainwright, then 20 years old, a contract with DreamWorks Records. (As Wainwright put it, "Wham, bam, thank you, Van.")
If the story sounds a little too good to be true, it probably is. What I'm leaving out is that Rufus started with two famous, well-connected musician parents, Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, and that it was his father who got Parks the demo. The senior Wainwright acted as the melancholy humorist of the 1960s folk revival and continues to turn out excellent albums, as well as making occasional reputation-reducing appearances on sitcoms. Kate and her sister Anna have built up a cult following performing as the McGarrigle Sisters, making elegant folk music with an almost Victorian sensibility. Their creepy, breathy harmony vocals can be heard, for example, on Nick Cave's 2001 album "And No More Shall We Part." Kate and Loudon's marriage also produced the phenomenally talented Martha Wainwright, whose continued obscurity contradicts any earlier implication of music industry nepotism.
Released in 1998, "Rufus Wainwright" was an instant hit among critics, hipsters and countless enamored high school girls who willfully ignored what Wainwright was taking no pains to hide: his homosexuality. The music was defiantly not of its time, a decadent statement of capital-R Romanticism, combining orchestrated big-band pop and Tin Pan Alley songcraft via 19th century Italian opera. What made it work so beautifully was the absence of self-consciousness, the total lack of irony. Wainwright aimed for, and achieved, a kind of Byronic grandiosity, without lapsing into Liberace-esque camp. He sang in an unabashedly full-throated voice, a brash, declamatory tenor, with the cutting power of a double reed. Two albums later, much of the harshness is gone, the oboe replaced by a deeply resonant viola. It remains one of the most distinctive voices in the pop world.
Wainwright's new album, "Want One," will be followed next spring by "Want Two." Much of the publicity surrounding the record has focused on Wainwright's now-public history of promiscuity and drug abuse. So when he sat down with me for an interview in a cafe in New York's East Village, we both wanted to talk about his music.
What's your touring band going to be for this album?
Ideally I'd like to have, I don't know, the New York Philharmonic. But I really don't know yet. I'll have to see how sales go.
If it weren't for the expense, you'd tour with an orchestra?
Well, not a huge orchestra. But, you know, I saw a David Byrne show once where he had a good little string section. I wouldn't mind that. I'd love to tour with a horn section, just for the sheer fun of it.
Would you consider trying to book a tour in classical venues?
Well, I have a dream. I have a dream! That one day I'd like to do a tour of opera houses.
Björk did that on the tour for "Vespertine." Nothing but opera houses.
All opera houses? That bitch. Sometimes I feel like Björk is the Road Runner and I'm Wile E. Coyote or something. She's just impossible to surpass. Her individual style, and really holding to her guns, and everything being so seamless in terms of the music and the visuals and everything else. She's really an amazing force.
One of the things that's very striking about your songwriting is how little folk influence there is, which is particularly strange given who your parents are. Was this a rebellion against your parents, or have you just never had a taste for folk music?
I think that all songwriting and all music is basically influenced by folk, and when I say "folk," I mean Tuvan throat singers as well. I definitely did grow up in a household awash with banjo licks and Appalachian fiddles and stuff, which in the future would be a sound that I'd love to relax into. The thing that's great about folk music is that it should be easy, easy-breezy. But definitely, my rebellion was to get into opera, and to feign the idea of being a great composer or something. So it was a type of rebellion.
Have your parents influenced you, even though you sound so little like them?
Elements of their music have severely influenced me. My mother has always had in her songwriting and in her approach a distinctly dramatic feel, and a real 19th century sensibility. With my father, it's really his writing that I'm influenced by, with his sense of humor, and the way that his lyrics are really airtight and effective.
Are there piano writers in the pop world who have influenced your music?
Well, the great ones are like John Cale and ... ummm ... John Cale and John Cale. I would say Nina Simone, but she didn't really write her songs. She was more a great arranger. Maybe Laura Nyro too. But no, it's not a common thread at all. It's interesting how the whole idea of an artist playing the piano and singing really started and ended with Schubert, because he was known to sing his own songs. I don't think Wolff sang his own songs. So maybe I'm picking up from a tradition that never really got started.
Have you been influenced much by Randy Newman's early stuff?
I only heard that stuff later, after having worked with Van Dyke Parks. I was always trapped in my classical dream world. I was like Elsa from [the Wagner opera] "Lohengrin." I've since heard him perform and listened to those albums, and they're incredible. I think it's often the case that people don't listen to the songwriters who are most closely related to them.
Nilsson?
Same thing as Randy Newman. I tend to like to listen to stuff, not necessarily that I identify with personally, but that I can sort of steal from. Which is why I listen mostly to classical music, because you can steal so much and no one will notice it.
One more try: Burt Bacharach?
Actually, that is a great influence. For me, Burt Bacharach is in a class all his own. Recently I had dinner with him. We were at the same dinner, but he knew all my music and was a fan of mine, and very, very -- how can I say it? -- personable about it. It was great.
In terms of contemporary pop, what do you like?
I like Chicks on Speed. I actually really love electroclash. On this record, I make a little fun of it, but I'd far rather go to see an electroclash show than go see countless other losers.
Do you listen to Radiohead? Someone walked in while I was playing your new album, and they thought it was Thom Yorke.
I love Radiohead. I went to see them at the Field Day thing, in the rain [at Giants Stadium in New Jersey], and it was worth every drop. It was amazing. They're really the best band around.
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