Rufus Wainwright

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you can find a link to in the show notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect. All right, enjoyed the episode. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. Welcome to Broken Record Today. On the show, he's called the greatest songwriter alive by Elton John no Less. Rufus Wainwright, the writer and performer, has transformed his love of pop, cabaret, and even opera into a series of extraordinary albums. They explore his own life and the world around him, from his sexuality to his famous musical family. Rufus sat down with Bruce Headlam at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, just four days after he premiered his late opera Hadrian in Toronto, and just as he was preparing for a new tour. He showed up at the studio with his guitar, I beat up Gibson Acoustic and a terrible cold. But Rufus with a cold is better than most of us healthy. Before we play his interview with Bruce, I just want you to hear Rufus playing one of his gorgeous songs at the studios piano. Well, I was wonderful, thank you. This first thing, I'll say, what did that song come out of? That song came out of I was living. I was at the time, I was living at the Chelsea Hotel, and I had had you know, it's funny because I went to New York earlier on before my first record. You know, my dad had always louder at the Third you know, he'd always lived in New York. And so I went down there and you know, slummed around and really had a terrible time. Nobody got me. It was at the time that Jeff Buckley was was was on the rise, and and and I'd go to this place, Shenaise in the Lower East Side, and I'd give I gave them my tape three times, they refused it three times, they gave it back to me three times, and uh, and just New York did not embrace me at all. And so I left. And then I ended up coming to Hollywood and and and doing it there and making my first record. Anyways, so then I came back to New York with with having made a record, and and and and being, you know, being well known and sort of the hot new guy on the block. And of course everybody loved me. Everybody wanted to have a piece of me. Everybody, you know. I was suddenly king of the city. And that's when I wrote poses. At that point I went into my New York because I was like, I'm going to have my New York experience. And so I moved into the Chelsea and proceeded to uh debaucherize my existence and and and that song and instagressed Chuck about those two of those two came of that. Are there traces of your I mean, and of course there's traces of your mother in what you do, but her her her musical influences and what you do. Yeah, I mean my mother, Kate would play piano all the time. She would listen to records a lot, and uh and had incredibly high taste for artists. I mean, she loved, of course, you know, all the great blues players like blind Willie Johnson, and she loved the Rolling Stones. She loved Sly of course that we're all obsessed with Debt Dylan. They loved all the Field recordings, you know, the Harry Smith recordings or they'd listened to, you know, Mahler's Fifth Symphony. I mean, they were it was it was a it was a high end music environment. So my mother would play the Goldberg Variations every morning, parts of them, not that, not the most complicated ones, but you know, so there's a lot of Glenn Gould and there was a lot of stuff like that. So so yeah, she was just a fountain of musical curiosity. Okay, did your father's songwriting influence you? Yeah, I mean we saw, you know, my dad. I didn't see a lot of my father growing up. He was touring a lot and didn't He and my mom didn't really get along, so I didn't see him so much, and most but mostly when I saw him, it was in the context of a concert or show, So I saw him on stage. I probably related to him more as a person while watching him perform than as I did as a person or as a father, you know, living And that was not hard to do because his work is so confessional and that's sort of really where he became who he really is, and he it was where I could get a lot of the answers to my questions concerning the family, concerning his his inner thoughts and desires and fears and and so going to see his shows was always a real education on so many levels, whether it was about songwriting or just you know, what was going on in my life. It's not only a musical family, but you're a family that tends to I don't know if you work out your issues, but you certainly address your issues. Yes in song. Yes, what's that? First of all, where does that impulse come from? Well, I mean, arguably it started with my grandfather on my father's side, with loudon when right the second he was a very well known writer for Life Magazine had a column for years called the View from Here, which was incredibly popular in the sixties, you know, and we're and Life Magazine was, you know, the the be all and end all of American culture. So so he and he would write about his kids, and write about his dog, and write about Kennedy, or write about you know, his relationship to you know, the Moonland or something. So so it was that that's that's how that thing was set up. So so on my father's side, with my mom, I think you know, she got into folk music she then and she was obviously quite talented, and she came from a generation of singers too that I'm finding out now though they were more kind of vaudevillian. But I think when she came to, you know, the Philadelphia Folk Festival in the sixties and stuff, you know, and Bob Dylan was around, and it was just it was the thing to do, you know, to really bury your soul and and be truthful and kind of live your life through music. So so all of that kind of collided. It's strange to revisit those songs now, my mother's songs or my father's no, but even your songs at dinner at eight or other songs you've written. You know, you wrote a song to your sister, like your mother being sick. Very personal. Yeah, I mean I've I you know, I singing my songs is kind of my day job. I mean, I go, I have to do shows every month, you know, three or four shows at least, just to maintain my existence. But financially, and I believe me, I do not have the luxury to kind of, you know, pick and choose what to present. I have to go with with what works. And thankfully, you know, over over my the the crest of my career, there have been many periods that I can borrow from, and so I'm constantly going in and out of those worlds. And and there's songs that I've seen. There are many songs I sing now for my first records, and yeah, so it's it's not weird to me. I'll look at good song is a good song, and I'll just you know, and an audience deserves that. Tell me where in my arms came from? Well, that came from I was living in Montreal, Quebec, and uh, you know, I had gone to McGill for two seconds. I was there for about a year and maybe maybe even a year and a half U and I and before that, i'd been in boarding school in upstate New York at Millbrook School, at the Millbrook School. And when I arrived back in Montreal, where I had grown up previously, I was I was really excited to sort of dive into the heady, head or hedonistic i should say, society that that city can offer. And ended up at McGill and was shocked by how boring it was and and you know, uptight and uh full of truly stayed characters. I hate to say it, it it really was. And I can say that now because I work in the classical music world now and with writing operas, so I have a deep appreciation for musicians of that ilk. But at that time in my life, it was just not what I was looking for. I wanted to party my brains out and hang out with you know, the Demi moans. So so I dropped out of McGill and ended up, you know, hanging out a lot on Saint Lawrence Street and going to there was a couple of bars there. One was called the bif Tech and one was called Miami, and I kind of gravitated towards those two. And that was where all the street urchins hung out. And one of them was this boy whose name I can't remember, who you know, I just had this brief, very brief affair with and he ended up sadly committing suicide. Uh and and that song was about him. So it was, yeah, how did it come about musically? Well, I mean, I you know, I grew up. At that point, I was living with my mom and you know, she Kate mcgaragal of the mcgarrigols sisters. In my opinion, aside from being my mom, I think was also one of the greatest talents of her or any other generation in terms of songwriting. I mean, both Kate and my aunt Anna wrote some of the most perfect music of the seventies and eighties and nineties, even and and Kate was very cognizant of my desire to follow in the family footsteps and do music and become a songwriter. So she really impressed upon me that I had to, you know, gather as many experiences as possible. She told me explicitly to never get a job. She said, don't ever get a job. And she ended up giving me an allowance, which was not a lot. It was like it was like ten dollars a week, which, believe it or not, in those days, you could actually, I mean if I was living, if you were living with your parents, you could actually do quite well on ten dollars a week. So I was in that I was allowed to be in that mode and at a very young age. And even though at times I'm sure my mother was horrified by by what I was going through and what I was coming into contact with, I think she always knew deep down that it was a sort of artistic pursuit and that it was as and that as a songwriter, it's kind of where I had to go. Do you write every day? Did you write every day? Then at that point in my life, I was completely ravenous with musical hunger and and would write every day and sometimes spend you know, five or six hours at the piano just just losing myself in it. And uh and that and that had started earlier in boarding school. Uh, where I would just there was a chapel in our school, and I would go there for for a long time. I spend a lot of time in church, not praying, but but we'll sort of praying in a way. So yeah, No, I worked a lot, and uh, yeah, what you have to do? Was it always at the piano in those days. Mostly at the piano, though, though I incorporated the guitar pretty early on, because one of the main things that I knew intrinsically was that I had to perform as much as possible in front of an audience, and not everybody had a piano, so so guitar was a much easier way to kind of move your product along. So I started writing songs on the guitar. Did the did the melody come with the lyric? In may cases, in most in the best cases, that it happened simultaneously. And then you know, the melody often really completes itself holistically without you know, much help, But and then you have to kind of grind away at the lyrics afterwards to kind of keep up. So, yeah, words are much harder than music. You say, the melody completes itself, but you are known for you much longer melody. Yeah, I have the most pop songs. Yeah yeah, Where does that come from? Where does the well, A lot of that comes from my love of opera. I, at the age of thirteen, was well, at the age of twelve, I was a normal kid, vaguely normal. But then at thirteen, I came into contact with this recording of Verdie's Requiem with Leontine Price and you see burling and and after a two hour stint of listening to that from top to bottom, I was utterly you know, changed, and and and and and turned into this seventy five year old opera in front of my horrified parents' faces. And uh and so I but I I and though I And it's interesting because you know, now my operas are produced and and you know, we just premiered Hadrian and with the coec in Toronto, and this was a big, great success, and I have and that's my second opera, so it's it's not a big part of my life. But I knew back then and even that that though you know, whether I wrote one or not, I kind of knew I'd never be an opera singer. But but whether I composed one or not, I definitely had the sense that there were so many interesting tricks and and and sensibilities and structures in areas that I could then incorporate into my own popular material, and that and that, and that I'd sort of discovered this this treasure trove or a Latin's cave that that nobody else knew about, and that I could then you know, translate, and and that was I was right in that case. I mean, you know, nobody once I hit really hit the scene officially, you know, in Los Angeles, uh, with my first album, people really had never heard anything quite like what I had created. I don't give opera the full credit necessarily, but opera was a big component of that. Were there times you were literally translating something you'd heard in an opera to a pop song or is it just more the that kind of things? A few times. But I think it was more just the structure of of of a song where where there should be a kind of climax that occurs. Uh, and then you know a denue maw after that. You know, there's a lot of a lot of my bridges kind of go into these very unusual places and and uh, yeah, it was more that sensibility of of of really the the the the aria, the or the song dominating the listener and making them follow them and not the other way around. You know. It was never a kind of background music. Do you separate writing melodies in your mind when you're writing opera. I don't want to go too far ahead, but there's certainly I'm thinking of maybe the first aria in your first opera in Madonna. Yeah, yeah, that could very much be a pop song that g road before you heard the Requiem. Was there a pop song that that kind of crystallized it for you? I was. I mean, what I also like to point out is that before opera, I was heavily into pop music, and it was a glorious period. You know, from about the age of seven until thirteen, it was you know, the arrhythmics. Cindi Lauper, Prince Tina Turner. I was really into the Thompson Twins, Blondie you know, and stuff. So you know, once in the mid eighties when it started to get a little more or the late eighties, you know, around around you know, I don't want to I don't I don't like to put down people, but you know, like Huey Lewis and the News, which you know, I think in retrospect you kind of look at their stuff and you're like, it was kind of amazing, but it was it got a little heterosecond. It just got a heteronormative at a certain point for me especially, and then and then the whole grunge thing happened, which was simultaneous to my opera phase. And I think, oddly enough, you know, the opera, my opera, my love for opera was a similar kind of desire that a lot of kids had when they got into Kirk Cobain and stuff. It was this desire for you know, a certain darkness that that the world needed at that point. And you said, personally, you were you were around fourteen at that point, Yeah, you'd come out. Well, I'd come out to myself. I mean I hadn't, I hadn't come out to anyone officially, but I knew I was I was. I was. I was engaged in you know, sexual things. I was all an aids. Was was decimating you know, the world around me. And I had to go to boarding school at that point. So what was the appeal of opera at that particular point. Yeah, beyond the music that you loved, that you talked about the well it was, I mean it was it really spoke to the darkness that that that was surrounding me. And uh, you know, I I had sex first when I was around thirteen, around that time, and that I that I started, you know, listening to opera, and I thought for a good ten years that I was going to die. And and honestly and in retrospect, there was a very good chance that could have happened. You know, you know, every pimple, every you know, scrape suddenly was corposed to sarcoma. You know. It was this you know, real trauma that opera thrives off, you know, And so I got a lot of solace from that and a lot of answers, you know, in terms of you know, the bigger questions and you know, and what really matters and you know, the power of love and the power of forgiveness and the power of transcendence, which opera always does. So so I do think also that there are these opera gods, and there's this kind of spiritual realm where opera resides, and that those ghosts kind of chose me as well, like there was that there was like the art form came to me and was like, we want you to uh do our bidding in a very spooky kind of way. Because I've I've I've had experiences like that with opera since then, where it's very very there's a supernatural quality to that music that that I wholly believe in, you know, like like people believe in Jesus Christ or you know, stuff like that, I believe in opera in that way. Do you believe that of other music? Have there been other kinds of music or songs that have changed the way maybe you've written? No, I mean I I I view all other music as as kind of as beautiful and fascinating and and and and and magical, but not not. Opera is like a religion for me that I think, you know, it helped me at that point. It also helped me greatly down the line when I was struggling with drugs and alcohol, and then it also helped me when my mother was dying, and and I'm sure it'll help me, you know, in future disasters. If there's any that will help you get through this interview, you feel free to put it on. That's a song sort of addressed to my daughter Viva, and it's I think it's going to make it on the new record. And she's how old now she's seven and a half. There's a new there's a there's a requirement in my family at this point, but with both Viva and your and my husband who who basically have stated that the rule is I have to have one song about them on each record. So it's it's it's it's my quota. Kind of do you do more than one? Well, I've etten about three three songs about Viva and three about him regardless, but it was Respectable Dive about him that that yes, Respectable Dive is about our relationship for sure. But yeah, but this this latest one is is very it's a short little ditty about about Viva. So our debt are directed towards Viva. Okay, beyond the contractual requirements in your family, Yes, to write about. Yeah, what what prompted the song? Well, you know, I just wanted to write a little something, you know. You know, Viva was born under very unusual circumstances, you know, which which at this point is not unusual. I mean, it's where we're living in this amorphous world. Obviously that's changing so quickly, and and and you know there's the common traditional family construct is shifting, and and Viva is really on the front lines of that, you know, because you know her mother and I aren't together as a couple, and and you know, I'm gay, and and and I have a husband, and she she loves him, and she loves me. So it's just sort of frame that a little bit for her, the explanation of that, and in a very whimsical way. And also because I think it's a it's a fascinating story in a lot of ways. How how how she was brought about. She definitely wanted to She definitely is meant to be here. I can tell you that emphatically, contracts were signed. Well, I mean, I think I think it's more, you know, you really what's fascinating with kids, And I don't think that when parents were in more traditional positions that that they could maybe grasp this as well as parents can now who are now you know, have all these choices, they realize how much it's really the kid that that has made the decision to arrive, you know, because once that person is in your life, it really fits into where you need to be and what you need to be doing, and and how you need to adjust your existence to cater to this new soul. And I think a lot of that was taken for granted when there weren't these other avenues available. And now that there's you know, all these different types of families and and and kids are you know, brought up by all different types of people. It's just the kids, know, you know, they made they made they made this that choice. It's that thing of the kids choosing the parents as opposed to the parents choosing the kid. I think that is very powerfully proven in this era. I have two young kids, and it is incredible how they basically drive the agenda. Yeah, no, they totally. I have amazing faith and young people and and and children of this in this time and and and really feel like in a lot of ways sadly that it's though, you know, though my parents' generation, my generation, I don't know what the hell we're doing. But but my parents' generation was so dominant and is now you know, with Trump obviously kind of hard to knock out. But but the younger generation, the kids, my daughter and and and so forth, they they're going to figure this out. I think I've heard you do a lot of Leonard Cohen songs, and there's a connection to your daughter there. Yes, yes, and he is the grandfather of my daughter. Did you know him in Montreal or I didn't know him in Montreal at all? I mean I knew him in La I didn't know I mean I met Laura once, that the daughter his daughter, when when I was in Montreal, very briefly. But then it was really when I came to California that that was your relationship with him? We know, we had a really interesting relationship. I mean I would in no way pretend to be a good friend of his. We were we were definitely bound by something. I mean, there was there was a kind of acceptance. He had an acceptance of me that I think was very rare, but not at all open either, you know, it wasn't he kind of I don't think he tolerated me necessarily, but but he he knew I was going to stick around, and he he made some room for me, you know, in his world. And then when things you know, picked up, and later on and we you know, Laura and I decided to have a child, he was I think he was very happy about that, and uh sadly, you know, his health declined soon after Viva was born, but they got to spend a lot of time together. You know, they actually kind of all lived together. So, I mean, my my favorite Leonard thing that that impressed me and that I'll always remember him for is that, you know, when my first opera was was was produced, there was a New Yorker that came out New Yorker magazine and there was a big advertisement for it, for the New York City Opera and on one page was Prima Donna and on the other page was a lat of traviata. Now, Leonard had always been you know, I think he liked liked my music, I think, and he appreciated my talent. I think he respected me greatly, but he wasn't at all effusive or you know, he didn't come to my shows or anything like anything like that. But when that New Yorker came out and he saw the two you know, operas one next to each other. He came down and he kind of grabbed me and he says, you know, Rufless, this is really amazing. This is I am so impressed by that. And I could tell deep down that he was that he was, that he was really he was impressed and proud of me, you know, for doing that, because I think it was something that he could have never done, you know, and it was something that he was. It was like a whole other universe that he certainly had a lot of respect for. But that but but that also didn't necessarily, you know, encroach on history. So but he was he was, and that was That was a great comfort to me and a great sort of impetus to continue. Yeah, did he did his songwriting influence yours at all? I mean, I think his I don't know if his style musical style necessarily influenced me too much. I would say, you know, his lyrics are second to none, obviously, and I've often hoped that there might be you know, a glimmer of similarity here and there in some of my lines. I you know that that that that I do think the way I write is completely different. I think he's far superior, uh in that department. But uh, but I but I've always kept him as a as a as a beacon, you know, uh for for in terms of words, uh, someone to you know, put keep in the back of your mind. I do want to talk about one more song, and this is called the sort of Damicles. Yes, yes, tell me about that song. Yeah. Well, I've been hanging out quite a bit with Carrie Fisher before she died and before she went to London. I was at her house and you know, it was it was a nutty period and and she was on her on the phone with her attorney, screaming at him talking about how she felt like the sword of Damocles was over her head. And it kind of I just just resonated that that saying, and that just sort of started rolling around in my in my subconscious and uh and I just started writing this song about about Damocles. And then during the writing of it, I realized that, you know that that's when you know Trump won the election. I hadn't finished it yet, so it was it was one of these kind of there was an ominous quality, you know, to this song. And also, you know, Carrie sadly passed away right before the election or maybe yeah, it was right or maybe it was right after, but it was it was around that period. And so there was this there was just this dark spirit roaming uh that I that my you know, songwriting instincts were picking up on. And it had to do with Dancles. And then I didn't actually know the story. So then I thought, you know, it might be good to actually know what I'm writing about, So I googled Damocles and uh and and learned the story by Cicero, which is actually about you know, a king who is being courted by by one of his subjects, uh, Damcles and and the Damles thing is almost be wonderful to be king. And then you know they switched places mystically and and and Dan mccles is then the king and but he noticed the sword over his head and and and the ideas that with you know, great power comes great responsibility and also great danger. So I so then I finished the song with with having known the actual myth. And and also after you know, Trump had been elect to president, and it's just sort of all fit sadly very well, and what I'll say about Dan mccles though about this song is that it's not only and I think this is important to point out, is that in the song, for instance, at the end of it, I say, you know, I am a tyrant, meaning that you know, when the sword of Dan mcle's falls, it's on all of us, you know, And it's not really and it should fall, it needs to happen, but it's going to really devastate everyone. And I, you know, I think we're just preparing for it right now, but we will hopefully prevail. And that's when I go to the younger generation and I realize that they do seem ready to fight. That was rufus Wayne Wright in conversation with Bruce Headler. Broken Records produced by Meil Label and Jason Gambrell, with help from Bruce Hedler, Pascal, Jacob Smith, Julia Barton, Justin Richmond, Jacob Weisberg, and of course LFA recruit. To hear all of the songs featured in today's episode, check out Broken Record podcast dot com. This show is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. I'm Malcolm Glampa. When I was growing up, my father dubbed our garden cart Rufus. So every time I see Rufus Reynard, I think of the garden cart by the way. Pushkin was the name of our first dog. That's where that comes from.