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Features Merely Martha Thursday, June 05, 2008 Equal parts incorrigible Wainwright and inimitable individual, Martha Wainwright continues to beguile all in her path. By Christopher Hollow
Martha Wainwright Fact File
Born in Canada, May 8, 1976
Daughter of Loudon Wainwright III (‘Dead Skunk In The Middle Of The Road’) and Kate McGarrigle (folk singing sister of Anna).
Sister of Rufus Wainwright (Music’s new most famous queen - Rufus Does Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall).
Marries Brad Albetta in September, 2007 – Emmylou Harris, Linda Thompson, and Ed Harcourt sing at the wedding.
Debut self-titled album released in 2005.
Makes a splash with an ode her father – ‘Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole’.
Just released second album - I Know You’re Married But I Have Feelings Too
Eclectic, it features interpretations of Pink Floyd and the Eurhythmics plus cameos from Pete Townshend and Garth Hudson.
Pink Floyd? Misogynistic.
Her songwriting style? Blood and death and guts and penises.
Babies? I want one.
To spend time with Martha Wainwright is to experience life in a fluster. She’s gregarious, talkative, funny and forthright; speaks in a strong, slow drawl that draws you in.
Sitting in Melbourne’s flash Lindrum Hotel she’s blonde, dressed in a cool black jacket and emerald green scarf and she’s at ease with talking about anything from her famous family, her music, her wants and needs and even her fantasies.
Her family, she admits, is a sit-com that’s not only worth watching but one that most can relate to. “We’re very normal, almost stereotypical, the Wainwright-McGarrigle sit-com, and I think people can identify with that: ‘I’m like Martha, I’m the underdog, the neglected second child.’ ‘I’m like Kate, I’m the good mother.’ ‘I’m like Rufus, the go-get it, ambitious son.’ People recognise a lot of themselves in that, that’s why it’s interesting.”
She regales in a wicked sense of humour - the reason she used several different producers, including her husband, on her new album: “I didn’t want one man to ejaculate all over my record”.
Fantasies? “I would let Miles Davis abuse me. Maybe he’d touch me in a perverse way and I would totally be fine with that.”
And the fact her fans fantasise about her? “My husband often reads about people who want to marry me or have sex with me. He gets upset but I tell him there’s nothing to worry about, it’s the internet!”
Welcome to the world of Martha Wainwright.
The album title reads like a terse Raymond Carver short story. It screams defiance and vulnerability, desperation and bruised hurt. Are you okay? Do you need a hug? “Do I need a hug? Ha, no. I think it’s a funny title. A lot of the songs are intense and desperate and dark as a lot of my songs can be and I just wanted the title to be funny so people can just relax and know that I’m not taking myself too seriously. It’s a phrase from the track ‘Bleeding All Over You’ which is just too menstrual to use as a female artist.”
What’s the big difference from the first album?
“The first album was navel gazing in many ways because I wrote many of the songs as a teenager and in my early twenties but with this album I’m able to look outside myself a bit more and sing about different subjects that are more global but equally upsetting - be it death or war or something like that.”
‘Comin’ Tonight’, the first single, is it about anyone in particular?
“Because of the honest person that I am, I wrote that song a long time ago. Some of it is about Loudon, my dad, which is a subject I’ve written about before. It’s about him visiting me in Montreal, my hometown, as a teenager and coming and staying with friends rather than us.”
You must find yourself taking about your family a lot...
“I’m talking about my family constantly. Luckily I really like them all. The fact of the matter is I’ve stolen their careers in the sense that I picked to do the same thing that they did so I have to put myself in the same boat and start rowing.”
Does that mean you’re competitive?
“I know my parents as parents and also songwriter to songwriter. The strangest thing is I didn’t grow up with my father per se, I mean we spent holidays with him, but we live exactly the same life. I’m an extension of my parents; I’m finally accepting that.”
You look like Angelica Huston...
“That’s really a nice thing to say, it is, it’s very nice. I don’t look exactly like her but there’s something there. I think it’s my big nose. She’s square shouldered which I am too. But she’s thinner than I am.”
You’ve met and worked with a lot of your heroes. Who’s someone you respect you’d still like to meet?
“I would have liked to have met Miles Davis. If it were a living hero I would like to meet Dolly Parton. Beautiful songwriter, beautiful singer.”
What would you have to say to Miles, a very intimidating man?
“I know. I would just let him abuse me and I would totally allow him to abuse me. Maybe he’d touch me in a perverse way and I would totally be fine with that.”
What’s the best thing you’ve read about yourself on the internet?
“Brad often reads back things about people who want to marry me or have sex with me, which is always odd because it’s my husband reading these things. He gets upset but I tell him there’s nothing to worry about, it’s the internet.”
What’s your favourite track off the new record?
“I think ‘Tower Song’ is an interesting song. I like the progression because it’s really different and I had nothing to do with it, production-wise. I left the producer there to do what he wanted and it’s the only example of that happening. It’s also refreshing for me because it’s written in the first person but through somebody else’s eyes. I’m not writing songs to upset people - you better not cross me though.”
You’ve used three different producers on this record, were there tensions?
“When I was looking for a producer I realised that I didn’t want one man, generally they’re older men, to ejaculate all over my record. So I thought I could control the situation by pitting people against one another. So I’m a complete control freak without knowing what I want so it’s a terrible situation to be in. It’s always good to let people do what they’re good at but give them a limited space with it so they can do the best they can.”
Garth Hudson, looks like he’s a man who hides marijuana buds in his beard.
“He’s naturally stoned. He’s naturally on acid. He doesn’t do a lot of drugs from what I can tell. He lives during the night time, he’s nocturnal, along with his wife. So when you want to work with him in the studio they arrive at like two in the morning and get going around four or five. So it’s a strange schedule to keep but it’s kept him very young looking, he’s very sprightly. It’s quite charming really.”
I’m intrigued to know what you found in ‘See Emily Play’?
“Well, I did that song on my mother’s request and suggestion. We learnt the song for a Syd Barrett tribute, I didn’t know it, Joe Boyd, the original producer of the song, asked us to do it and it was important for me to have Kate on the record. I think she tells the other side of the song in many ways, it becomes very feminine because it can strike you as a misogynistic song in some ways because it paints Emily simply. So really it was to show her side of it. It’s a nice song, very English.”
What about the Eurhythmics’ ‘Love Is A Stranger’?
“I think that really shows that I’m a child of the ‘80s and I really wanted to be Annie Lennox when I was young. ‘Sweet Dreams’ came out when I was about nine so that’s my tip of the hat to her.”
‘You Cheated Me’ – great song. I hear it took you ten minutes to write. How easy is it for you to tap into those type of emotions?
“That was my first attempt at writing a love song. I decided not to go to a strange chord and make it about blood and death and guts and penises. So it was my first attempt at writing a pop song. I think maybe it could be interpreted by somebody else, maybe someone could sing it and make some money.”
Like who?
“It could be Britney Spears’ comeback to pull her out of this madness she’s in. ‘Cos she sings good songs. Those Max Martin songs are pretty wild. I’m sending it to her people, whoever they might be. The Devil.”
My earliest memory is...
“Trying to shut my brother up. No, actually, probably joyfully listening to him sing at the top of his lungs. He probably taught me how to speak just to try and compete with him.”
At school I...
“Was popular with the popular kids and the unpopular kids and tried to find a way to bridge that gap. I was well liked for being an eccentric. I think I made the popular kids admit they all do secretly like Leonard Cohen and strange clothing.”
My first relationship was...
“With my girlfriend when we were pre-pubescent. It was a relationship of listening to Cyndi Lauper and stuffing our bras with toilet paper and riding our bikes through the streets.”
My most treasured possession is...
“My husband. It feels good to make that commitment and it does feel like I’ve been given a gift.”
I don’t like talking about...
“Nothing. I like talking about everything. I’m a big talker. I don’t always like talking about my father.”
I wish I had...
“A baby. But I can’t have a baby when you’re about to tour a record because you can’t leave it at home. But maybe one day I will.”
My most humiliating moment was...
“Oh God, daily. I don’t want to tell you my real most humiliating moment but I was caught in a lie, I made something up that I believed happened but didn’t happen, a story to make me seem more interesting, and then I realised I was fudging the truth. Never feels good.”
My happiest moments were...
“I remember really enjoying being in the south of France camping. Kate and Anna [McGarrigle], my mum and my aunt, would do a couple of shows in the summer time folk festivals and then plan some fantastic, fun trip around it. They organised a couple of shows but it was really an excuse to go camping through the south of France and the Camargue. It was what I want to do with my family, it was a great experience.”
At home I cook...
“All the time and in massive quantities. I cook for four and eat it all myself. I make a really good Moussaka.”
My last meal would be...
“I would think that I would want something that wasn’t overly prepared, so maybe a piece of fruit or something. Something that’s a whole food within itself. My last meal would be an apple probably.”
I’m very bad at...
“Folding my clothes and putting them away. I’m very messy so I’m very bad at keeping organised. But I do have a system where if everything is laid out then I know where everything is. So my house is messy but I know that card I got from that photo journalist is in the top drawer underneath the foreign currency.”
If I wasn’t me I’d like to be...
“Marlon Brando. I think that would be fun. He had a lot of sex. He was beautiful and was completely and utterly revered and loved. And then he got fat and ate a lot and that would be fun too.”
When I was a child I wanted to...
“Do exactly what I do now, I wanted to sing and dance. It was a realisation that occurred in high school. I was always good at math, that was my best subject, except I didn’t apply myself and I didn’t get A’s. My math teacher said, ‘what do you wanna do, sing and dance your whole life?’ I’d never thought about it and I went ‘yeah, thank you for helping me make that decision.’ It was a pivotal point.”
The book that changed my life is...
“The first book I read that was more than sixty pages when I was 10 was A Wrinkle In Time [by Madeleine L’Engle]. Although I’m not a big science fiction reader it was a full, imaginary experience.”
It’s not fashionable but I love...
“Massage.”
Friends say that I am...
“Hardheaded, I’m a Taurus and apparently that’s a bad trait to have. Not that I follow astrology extensively but I can see a lot of Taurus in me.”
The song I’d play at my funeral is...
“I’m going to leave that up to the living. I don’t know, I haven’t done enough living to know that answer yet.”
My greatest fear is...
“Being mediocre. I really want to be good at what I do.”
If only I could...
“Play more instruments and I didn’t have a mental block, musically. I can’t retain music theory in any way. My mother is really good at it, she’s a natural, it makes sense to her and I wish I could be more musical.”
The hardest thing I’ve ever done is...
“Being onstage at the Covent Garden doing Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins with the Royal Ballet. It was very hard but it was great but it took a lot of concentration.”
What I don’t find amusing is...
“People who put on a gay accent when they lisp. You know straight guys do that sense of humour and I don’t think it’s funny.”
I’m always being asked...
“What my brother is really like. I’m always happy to answer completely dishonestly.”
Cat or dog?
“Dog, I think, a shaggy dog. I’m not a cat person, I’m not that mysterious.”
At that moment I’m watching...
“I like to watch ballet on television late at night. Old ballet. Last night they had Margot Fonteyn on that great station you have, ABC.”
My worst job was...
“I don’t like doing jingles. I like it when I get the jingle but I don’t like doing the demo. You feel like you’re sucking dick.”
I often wonder...
“Where I am and where I’m going.”
I Know You’re Married But I Have Feelings Too is available through Shock
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