An Interview with Rufus Wainwright: On Performing, Recording, R-71, and More

Every single day we are confronted with a seemingly endless barrage of choices. Every year on the first Tuesday in November, a few of our choices will have a profound impact on our lives as well as on those around us. On this day, as our grade school civics teachers would remind us, we have the opportunity to shape the world in which we live, but come Wednesday very few among us can claim our choices will be of much concern to those outside our immediate friends, family, and coworkers.

Celebrities, on the other hand, hold the attention of the masses throughout the year. The great majority, it seems, do so with little to add to our lives. Though it never was an unyielding prerequisite, talent and celebrity frequently no longer have all that much to do with one another.

Almost mirroring his throwback predilections for the age of Judy Garland and decadent grandeur, Rufus Wainwright is one such individual whose tremendous talent is, we would argue, worth every ounce of his international celebrity. In between his New York recording sessions, we were able to catch up with Rufus for a phone interview in advance of his performance at Benaroya Hall this Sunday. (Tickets available here. Joan As Police Woman will open.)

Rufus Wainwright- Photo by Alex Lake

Now that you’ve been headlining for just over a decade, what should audiences expect to see now when contrasted with seeing you around the turn of the millennium?

This show is a between-acts extravaganza. Presently, I’m making a record here in New York--a solo, piano voice record, and at the same time I’m also mounting the opera Prima Donna from London in the spring, in Toronto in June, and in Australia. So I’ve got this varied schedule, shall I say in an artistic sense. The shows that I’m doing presently are kind of to pay my rent [laughs]… I gotta go out there and sing for my supper. Also, it’s a very scaled down, intimate voyage through my life as a working musician, a troubadour and as a commenter on the world we live in, in both word and song. It’s also a great chance for me to test some of the new material.

Congrats on the completion of your opera. As you’ve mentioned your career has been a unique and unusual one to date, and people will either love your work or hate it. What do you love most out of your catalogue, if forced to choose?

[Laughs] Well…That’s a hard question. [laughs] I do feel that unfortunately like most pop artists, even though they make incredible records throughout their career or their first record is really great or whatever, I fell into the category of the mysterious second album. Poses, I don’t know if it’s my best album, because of its ethereal quality, which I think really captured the way my life was, a very blissful period when I didn’t really know too much about what I was doing but was very much entrenched in the artistic milieu, the decadent artistic milieu. And that’s something you can’t really capture again. So I think my second album is a very spiritual and mystical album. I don’t know if it’s my best one but there’s definitely something there that I’ll never have again, which is, I guess youth.

You’ve been both a devoted champion of American culture and at times a fierce critic of some of the policies of its governments and beliefs of its people. What words of encouragement can you offer to those disgusted by the passing of Proposition 8 and here in Washington a referendum (R 71) where "Protect Marriage" wingnuts are looking to negate same-sex benefits?

A while ago I had no opinions whatsoever on gay marriage and I wasn’t at all pro or against and didn’t really know much about the subject. I was more concerned about my own personal ego or whatever. But now I’ve had a wonderful boyfriend Jorn, we’re going on five years and we are running into real logistical problems. He’s European, so if I want him to stay in the country, I can’t marry him and give him citizenship, tax benefits, medical stuff. I’m running into actual, gritty issues. It’s frightening. So, it had to come more personally to me. It’s a battle we must win and eventually we will because it’s about evolution and it’s about getting smarter.

Are there memories in particular that stand out when you think about playing Seattle or just memories about Seattle in general?

I remember seeing some very straight but totally homoerotic lumberjacks at four in the morning somewhere. And it was one of the most enthralling visions of my West Coast existence. I always remember Seattle as a very sexy, rough and tumble town.