Listen to Martha Wainwright
The interview has yet to start when Martha Wainwright begins bigging up her
own album. “Have you heard it?” she asks. I nod. “Great, isn’t it? Gets
better and better with every listen.” Wainwright’s new album, the
fantastically titled I Know You’re Married but I’ve Got Feelings Too, truly
is a triumph. Still, it’s a shock to hear her say so. The singer/ songwriter
daughter of folk stars Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle has never
been the self-confident sort – unlike big brother Rufus, an artist with an
ego to match his talent. Soon to turn 32, she didn’t launch her career until
her late twenties for fear of not sharing the musical flair of her famous
family.
That the Wainwright nursing a cold in her British publicist’s office is no
longer the anxious, angry young woman whose 2005 debut album included an
acerbic ode to her father, called Bloody Mother F***ing Asshole, is obvious
from her new set of songs. Death, heartbreak and the horror of war are among
the themes her sensual, swooping vocals get to grips with, but there is also
happiness, humour and, in You Cheated Me, a blend of primetime Pretenders
and Blondie-esque pop. So what changed?
“I grew up,” she giggles, between blowing her nose and playing with her hair,
a tangle of natural blonde and amateurishly applied blue streaks. “For the
first time in my life, I’m confident and content.” The confidence she
credits to spending much of the past three years on tour, her happiness to
her home life – last autumn, she married her producer, Brad Albetta, with
whom she lives in Brooklyn.
“My first album was me navel-gazing,” she admits. “A lot of the songs were
about my family because that was a big issue for me. Now I’m more interested
in people with real problems.” I Know You’re Married . . . tackles war on
Tower, a stripped-down song on which Wainwright’s emotive vocals flutter
through scenes of soldiers on fire and lovers shot dead in the street. Death
closer to home stalks The George Song, about a friend who committed suicide,
and In the Middle of the Night, a spellbinding, country-tinged number
inspired by her mother’s recent battle with cancer. “When my mother heard
it, she was upset because it is so sad. Then I felt bad for making her upset
because I really didn’t want to do that.”
The album, however, is far from a depressing listen. The first single,
Bleeding All over You, is a spectral dissection of love, set to a shuffling
beat and strings; there is a cover of Pink Floyd’s See Emily Play, as well
as Wainwright’s first shot at pop. “With You Cheated Me, I purposely set out
to write a pop song and was finished in 20 minutes,” she laughs. “Then,
having written it so quickly, I couldn’t work out how to sing it. It just
didn’t feel like one of my songs. I considered sending it to someone else.
Madonna, maybe.”
In fact, it’s impossible to imagine anyone else singing Wainwright’s songs.
Her trademark is her distinctive delivery – her voice constantly swoops and
soars, twists and turns and trembles with intensity. Yet she isn’t sure how
long she can keep it up: “I have a very expressive singing style. But it is
definitely destroying my vocal cords. I don’t help by smoking, a horrible
habit I can’t seem to kick. When it came to handing out discipline, Rufus
got the lot.”
Her brother, for whom she started out singing backing vocals, guests on the
album, as do her mother and a couple of cousins. Just how many musical
family members are there? “Ha! Too many,” sniffs Wainwright. “I may have to
murder them one by one. My secret weapon is Lily Larkin, Anna McGarrigle’s
daughter, who has always sung with me. There is my half-sister Lucy Roche,
who has just released a fantastic album, and my dad’s sister Sloan
Wainwright, who is the best out the lot of us. I have another cousin who
recently started up. I try to discourage them, but it’s not working. I guess
none of us is good at anything else.”
Occasionally, Wainwright’s new-found self-confidence slips. From two of the
album’s other guests – the Band’s Garth Hudson and Steely Dan front man
Donald Fagen – she claims to have sought assurance that her songs weren’t
“crap”. “I took advantage of them,” she says. “I called them in when I had
run out of ideas. Basically, I tried to steal some of their musical
brilliance without them noticing.”
A surprising guest is Pete Townshend, who plays guitar on two tracks and
appeared with Wainwright at a gig in London last year. “Pete and his
girlfriend, Rachel Fuller, invited me on their internet show,” recalls
Wainwright. “It was mad. I was in a hotel in London when Rachel called
saying if she sent a cab, could I come to Richmond right away. An hour
later, I was sitting in pyjamas with Pete accompanying me on a song. Why
pyjamas? They bought them for me as a gift. I ducked into the bathroom to
try them on and they were so beautiful, with horses on them, I couldn’t take
them off. I even wear them on stage sometimes.” On stage with her is
Albetta, not only her husband and producer but her bassist too. Albetta
produced her self-financed debut when she couldn’t get a deal and helms most
of the new album. Working so closely, do the pair never argue? “Do we ever
stop?” shrieks Wainwright. “It’s like a firing range most days. During
shows, he makes snide comments underneath his breath. In the studio, he lets
me know he has the power to make me sound good or bad, so I have to
relinquish control. At home? Neither of us is in charge. It’s complete
mayhem.”
The pair married in Canada, where Wainwright grew up, at a ceremony that
sounds more like a gig. “I could have sold tickets,” she roars. “It was
amazing. Emmylou Harris was there, Ed Harcourt, Linda Thompson, Jimmy
Fallon, an American comedian who is also a great singer. All the Wainwrights
performed. My father kicked it all off beautifully. Even I sang at some
point, though apparently I was awful. I’d been drinking a bit by then. The
evening was actually stolen by Brad’s dad, who was a Sinatra-style crooner
in New York. He sang some big standard and everyone was up dancing in
couples.”
If she can, Wainwright will start a family. “I haven’t been pregnant since I
was 18,” she says, “I don’t know if it all still works. I hope so. Would I
want my kids to go into music? I suppose so. I think women pick partners who
have a talent they want in their children, and Brad is extremely musical.
I’m not sure I would bring them on stage, though. I enjoyed it, but not all
kids do. Still, the thought of free backing singers is tempting.”
First, there is the new album to tour, a collection of French songs already in
the pipeline and a second production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s
Seven Deadly Sins with the Royal Ballet, in which Wainwright appeared last
year at Covent Garden. “I fancy myself as a bit of a dancer and I took
ballet as a kid,” she says. “All of a sudden, there I was dancing with prima
ballerinas. To be honest, I spent most of my time getting out their way.”
As with her brother, it’s hard to slot Wainwright into any particular scene,
which is just how she likes it. “I’m happiest feeling a bit out of place,”
she admits. “I love that when I’m in Canada, I feel American. And when I’m
back in Brooklyn, I feel Canadian. I want to be successful, but I’m not sure
I would enjoy a huge amount of fame.”
Still, she fancies some of the perks. “I used to only go out with my friends,”
says Wainwright. “Then, recently, I needed some clothes for a photo shoot,
so I started putting myself out there, going to events. Now I get
invitations all the time and it’s so exciting. I go to gallery openings and
mingle with a very sophisticated set. I wish I’d started sucking up to these
people a lot sooner.”
Nor would she mind the odd person asking for an autograph. “I like to think of
myself as a hipster, but I’m not,” she laughs. “I live in a trendy
neighbourhood called Williamsburg, where you have to put on a fantastic
outfit to go get a cup of coffee. Nobody there has ever recognised me. I go
to this one restaurant round the corner from my house all the time and they
have never once played my album, or asked if I’m Martha Wainwright. I’m
planning on getting a T-shirt made up. It’ll say, ‘Assholes – don’t you know
who I am?’ ”
I Know You’re Married but I’ve Got Feelings Too is released on May 12;
Martha Wainwright’s British tour starts at the Festival Hall, SE1, on May 19
