RUFUS WAINWRIGHT INTERVIEW

“All these poses, such beautiful poses, makes any boy feel as pretty as princes.”

Rufus Wainwright, it seems, is a hard man to get hold of. You’re So Old Street have been struggling for this interview for over a year, with no signs of success until a sudden flurry of phone calls the day after his woefully short set in a crowded Oxford Street HMV leads to a wait for the man himself in the sweaty foyer of a Piccadilly hotel, on a ridiculously hot London day.

Despite the weather (and the fact that we subsequently find out it’s his birthday, so no doubt there are other things he’d rather be doing), Rufus is chatty and friendly, punctuating almost every sentence with an infectious staccato laugh, and instantly putting us at ease with his chuckled embarrassment over automatically unfolding his napkin and spreading it over his lap (“What am I doing that for? I’m not going to eat!”), suggesting that, hell, maybe he’s nervous too! After all, as he admits later, “I’m much more comfortable onstage than I am otherwise.” When we point out that he has been performing for a long time he grins, “Yeah, real life is a new thing!”

A recent resurgence of interest in Rufus has led to numerous interviews in the UK press, both music-orientated and otherwise. By now, if you don’t know about his “gay hell” (© NME - his stint in rehab), his famous family (father Loudon, and mother Kate McGarrigle, just for the record), his often strained relationship with his father (just listen to “Dinner At Eight”) and his love of opera, then you should certainly be ashamed of yourself – and rush out and buy all three of Rufus’s album immediately! So, rather than demand to know when “Want Two” is finally to be released, we decide to ask Rufus a little more about the personal qualities of his work, and his aspirations towards “educated homosexuality”.

Rufus’s most recent album, the lavishly orchestrated “Want One” (released last year, re-released Spring 2004 as part of his record company’s efforts to get their most talented artist the attention he deserves), is noticeably more theatrical than both “Rufus Wainwright” and “Poses”. So, where does this more grandly ambitious style come from, and why hasn’t he exhibited it before?

“I think mainly because…” Rufus ums for a while before replying, “With my second record, Poses, one can definitely hear a question mark as to what direction am I going to go into - there were a lot of threads that could have been followed, whether it’s the work I did with the Propellorheads or Damien Legassick, or beat-orientated or orchestrated – I sort of left it open-ended. But I really felt with this album that due to my own personal… triumph, I would have to say, over certain adversities, I really had to make a statement in one direction only, to represent my sense of confidence that I’d gained because of dealing with personal issues. I wasn’t at all questioning in my own life about what I wanted to do or the direction that I was heading, so that had to be represented in music and so, you know, I went with what I knew best.”

Being theatrical in HMV, photo by Sarah. (2004)

The artwork to “Want One”, with its painting taken from Edward Burne-Jones’s Briar Rose series (now at Buscot Park in North Berkshire), also suggests that the album was intended to take a more artistic direction in general.

“I’m just a big fan, really.” Rufus admits, “And I’ve always, you know, tried to be as hip as possible, but in essence I’m pretty conservative, and just a big old romantic, and I just felt like not trying to hide that. I also felt that there’s so much of an effort by record companies and artists to, you know, get the latest haircut, and have the latest ripped shirt, and I got sick of playing that game. Oh, I still love fashion, but…”

But knights and fairytales are sometimes much more beautiful, right? Is Rufus still in love with them?

“I don’t think it’s so much that I’m in love with them,” Rufus considers, “It’s more that I need them desperately in order to get a sense and a comfort that evil will be banished, goodness will reign. I think we live on such a confused planet right now that fairy-tales have a much deeper meaning because they are so simple.”

Back to art, Rufus recently complained in an interview with Elton John, about the state of gay culture these days – there’s a fabulous history from the late 19th century, with Oscar Wilde and so on, and then back as far Ancient Greece, where there was always a real effort for gay people to express themselves in high art.

“I think definitely in Oscar Wilde’s time, there was a sense that they had a knowledge of the history of art, and a lot of their stuff was influenced by Greek mythology or Roman history, and they felt very much like the carriers of this tradition. And whereas Oscar Wilde looked at mediaeval Europe or something, and Saint Sebastian, I’m looking back at Oscar Wilde, 100 years down the line.” He grins. “I’m just trying to follow in that tradition - of educated homosexuality.”

It’s somewhat infuriating when people dismiss an artist at face value, particularly one as talented as Rufus, and often under what seem like bizarre misconceptions. There is so much more to Rufus’s songs than the often downbeat side, yet I’ve been told to turn his music off in the past because it’s “depressing”, and the NME made a somewhat strange comparison between Rufus and Thom Yorke. Does he see his songs as “miserable”?

“Well, I get in touch with a thread of misery, but I have always found that there’s sort of a glimmer of hope. I’ve been in so many situations where you’re in a bar or at a restaurant or a club where, once the sort of “boom-chk boom-chk” stops and they put on any other kind of music that isn’t utterly pop or utterly dance orientated, there’s utter confusion and distress in the room! People don’t know how to handle it – they immediately have a mini nervous breakdown! And I think that’s just endemic of society right now – they just don’t know how to handle song-writing, because they’ve been so programmed to this formulated stuff.” He pauses for a second. “It’s basically their problem!”

However, a lot of his songs are very personal. “Dinner at Eight”, for example, about his relationship with his father, was obviously quite an emotional song for Rufus to have written, and even moved his mother to tears at one of 2003’s shows at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. But surely, the more often he sings these songs, Rufus must get numbed to the emotion?

“I think that at first it’s very emotional, and then I kind of get over it for a while, but it can strike at any moment. It’s kind of like having a disease in remission – that’s not a very pleasant way to put it, but it can flourish at any time, and often times when you least expect it. But with that one particularly, I do always have the sense when I’ve finished it that I’ve accomplished some sort of sentimental journey.”

Does he ever get nervous, baring his soul in front of an audience like that?

“No, I don’t get nervous – if anything I look forward to having some sort of emotional event occur, because then I can sort of forget that there is an audience there and just lose myself for a little while. I don’t really get too nervous in general with performing. I’ve always had this sort of gust of wind, or gust of confidence that flies up my back end! Whenever I’m walking onstage, I’m sort of transported out there, and I kind of lose all sense of space and time, so I’m fine.”

So, which of his songs would he say is closest to his heart?

“I’ve always loved “Poses” a lot – I’ve always thought that was a really great song that represented a really precise moment in my life where I truly felt young. Right now, on the new record, “I Don’t Know What It Is” was a very useful song – while writing that and after writing it I had a real good sort of sense of what I had to do on a personal level. That song saved my life.”

Is that something that attracts him to other songs, the personal quality? Are there songs by other artists that he feels very close to?

“In terms of song-writing, actual song-writing, I feel more that, if you put it on a chart, there’s no real comparison to the great American song-writers, like the amount of work and the quality of work that was produced by people like Gershwin or Rogers and Hart or Cole Porter, who were just mainly songwriters, they didn’t really sing their own work. I mean, there are great singer-songwriters who I can get into but I really do appreciate people who just wrote songs. Which I don’t do, of course! I think that that is sort of a lost art in a way.”

Now it seems that Rufus is courting a wider audience. He’s always had an intense hardcore of devoted fans and, while everyone wants the world to wake up and “discover” Rufus, there’s bound to be a certain sense of something lost if he gains a much wider popularity. Rufus is optimistic.

“You know, I think that my hardcore core of fans, they’re pretty hopeful of the fact that my music does spread. Due to the nature of the music that I produce, it’s written with a kind of grand scale in mind, and that really can’t be supported without a large fanbase, you know, without selling a certain amount of cds or doing a certain amount of promotion. And I think that my fans are aware of that. I mean, if I was making little records in my basement – which, you know, I’d like to do at some point maybe, just for a change – maybe there’d be more of a kind of guarded sentiment. But I think that what I do is so obviously meant to impress a large group of people that they kind of will understand.”

But, with a larger audience, isn’t there a danger of losing the personal quality which adds so much to his live performances?

“I’ve done a lot of larger venues in the United States, and I remember watching recently a film called “Gimme Shelter”, which was about, you know, the Rolling Stones playing Altamont in ’69 or something, and there was like 2,000 people there or something, and they’re playing and you can hear – I mean, the wonders of technology is that microphones can make it so it can be like they’re in your living room even though there are how many people there are. People’s voices don’t really stand a chance against technology! So I’ve always found it quite easy to connect with an audience on a larger scale – thanks to microphones.”

Rufus also seems to have quite a big following among celebrities – his May show at Lock 17 in Camden saw everyone from musicians (the Pet Shop Boys, Beth Orton) to Hollywood A-list (Kirsten Dunst, Alan Rickman) to British comedians. Kate Winslet professes to be a fan in the latest issue of Mojo, Elton John is a devout admirer and friend… Why is it that Rufus seems to attract far more celebrity fans than any other artist??

“I don’t know what that is!” He exclaims, grinning, “I’m certainly thankful for it – mainly because, you know, I can get free tickets and invited to premieres and stuff! And it is exciting, I have to admit. I think that once you reach a certain level of celebrity, the higher level, it becomes quite small – quite village-like. And certainly being friends with Elton here in England has given me access to a whole network – almost like the court of Elton John, who now are allowed to fawn over me! But it’s interesting because there’s also, there’s Jon Plowman who’s a big fan, who’s the producer of a load of English comedy shows like Ab Fab and The League of Gentlemen, so that explains a lot of the comedy stars. And then in terms of Hollywood – when I lived in Hollywood a couple of years ago and made my first record, I really made a conscious effort to, you know, present myself onto the scene and get noticed. And I guess it worked!”

Speaking of Hollywood, it seems that that’s somewhere Rufus is moving towards. This year sees him performing in Leonardo DiCaprio-starring “The Aviator” (due for release 17th December 2004), and “Heights” with Glenn Close, which, as yet, has no set release date. So, what more can Rufus tell us about his roles?

““The Aviator” and “Heights”…” He ponders, “Well, they’re coming out, you know – and I’m in ‘em! I’m not in them that much-“

More than Ab Fab?

“Yeah, a little more, a little more – we’re getting there!” He laughs, before expanding a little more on the films, “In “The Aviator” I sing a song, and then in “Heights” I have a speaking part, and the part is actually kind of based on me. It was a good experience, because I don’t feel like I took on too much that I couldn’t sort of handle, and I’m happy with the end result. When I went to see the films themselves, I did sort of walk in with this notion that if I didn’t like it then I would never do it again, or I would continue – and I’m continuing! I would say that – I mean, I know it’s such a cliché and it can be so badly done, but I did sort of have this sense of the camera and, unlike me and other people, I had this kind of intimate relationship!”

Spoken like a true performer! Is there ever anything he regrets being linked to – films for which he has been included in the soundtrack (of which there are many!), for instance?

“No, I mean you have to make a living in this business, and it’s expensive, you know, hanging out in London for a couple of weeks, and certainly if you’re into dressing up for shows it gets even worse! I need to do that work, and there’s no question for me that, actors or musicians or whatever – you’ve got to work.”