Dreamworks Records Rufus Wainwright is
performing at the Wilshire Ebell Theater Friday.
By Anthony Bromberg
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Take the sounds of Broadway musicals, Wagner operas, hip poetic
imagery lyrics, melodic piano and occasionally guitar lines, lots
of textural sounds and sweet impassioned pop vocals, and that is
some sense of where Rufus Wainwright’s music comes from.
Wainwright burst onto the American scene in 1998 with his
eponymous debut album, and then reaffirmed his status as a critical
darling with the 2001 release of the theme album
“Poses.” He is currently touring in support of a
new reissue of “Poses” with his rendition of the
Beatles’ “Across the Universe” as a bonus track,
which his record company hopes will be his first radio hit. The
tour stops at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre this Friday, March 7.
“I have a great audience out in L.A., I’m really
looking forward to it,” said Wainwright in a phone interview
from Madison, Wisconsin. “I’ve gone through so many
L.A. kind of lives. My first record was there, and my second
record. Also, sometimes when I’m there I’ve really hit
rock bottom in terms of emotional things, and sometimes I’ve
met the most important people in my life there. It’s always
tumultuous.”
The newest addition to Wainwright’s touring repertoire is
the incorporation of the cover songs he has done for soundtracks.
These include “Across the Universe” and the Leonard
Cohen song “Hallelujah” from “Shrek.”
Wainwright believes including these songs makes the set much more
varied.
He has brought the same people out on tour with him as the last
one. This includes his sister, Teddy Thompson, and Butch from the
band the Eels. The theatrical elements of his performance are still
going to be present for these shows as well, but it does not mean
it’s the same old tour.
“It’s been crazy. It’s been nuttier than the
last tour, that’s for sure,” Wainwright said.
“Basically, I’m living in a travelling circus, and some
people come along for the ride, and some people we have to, you
know, throw out of the circus because they can’t do their
flips properly.”
Music is in Wainwright’s blood, so don’t blame him
if his standards for the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle are
high, he was born into it. Besides playing with his mother and
sister on his records, his father is singer-songwriter Loudon
Wainwright III, whose song, “One Man Guy,” Rufus
actually covered on “Poses.” He feels the song is an
American classic and deserves more recognition than it has gotten.
The musical experience has brought him closer to his father as
well.
Wainwright also enjoys the opportunity that music gives him to
make the depressed smile. Even more than pleasing others, or
needing it to be close to his family, music is just an integral
part of Wainwright himself.
“The real reason I’m doing it is because I’m
never ever happier than when I’ve figured out a musical line
or a lyric, and I’m alone at the piano and I’m working
on it. That is utter bliss,” he said.
Wainwright has always enjoyed music, but the type of music he
has listened to didn’t always fit in perfectly with the
people around him. His vocal support and protestations of love for
such styles like opera has caused some people to cite him as
pretentious, but listening to his rich voice says that is not the
case at all.
“When I was around thirteen, fourteen, I was coming to
terms with my sexuality, AIDS was on the scene all of a sudden, I
was pretty depressed and opera and classical music ““ in a lot
of ways, how perhaps grunge or Nirvana touched a lot of
people’s lives in the same way ““ opera and classical
touched my life in that way,” Wainwright said. “I
needed something really intense and really overpowering, and
that’s where I went as opposed to going the rock way, and I
think in a weird way those two paths are more similar than
different.”
Like opera, Wainwright wants his music to reach people on a
level where they can close their eyes, forget about everything
else, and just be taken to a different place. He also likes the
opportunity of not having to use the traditional pop song format
all the time.
According to Wainwright, he’s more interested in a song
having it’s own planet, country and universe rather than just
adhering to pop formulas, although he thinks this often causes his
record company to want to kill him.
From his early days of playing in Canada to the success of his
album and soundtrack songs last year, Wainwright has inspired a
very obsessive fan base. As a public figure he realizes he has to
give up a certain degree of privacy, and even has certain romantic
notions about the Hollywood era when studios directed every detail
in the movie star’s life. And while he’s a fan of that star
lifestyle, he’s not sure he wants to be a pop music star
forever.
“My main goal is to finish my next record by the time
I’m thirty, and then I’ll have three sort-of-pop
records in my twenties. And then who knows, I might give it all up
and write three operas in my thirties, and then paint three
masterpieces in my forties,” Wainwright said.
“I’m not bound to anything at all, and that’s
important. That definitely keeps you alive too, and not frustrated,
to know that you can do other stuff.”
For at least the next year or so, the public will get to see
Wainwright working in music, an area he feels is lacking a lot of
substance right now. Wainwright believes that most music on the
radio is “noise pollution,” and he wouldn’t miss
anything if a lot of that “noise” was illegal to make,
as he feels it’s just “brain gelatin” anyway.
There is hope though. He loves listening to Duke Ellington, Nina
Simone and even the modern Icelandic group Sigur Ros, coming to the
conclusion that there will always be enough good music to survive
off of.
“I feel that there’s definitely a desire for a lot
of people and also a lot of artists to get better, to create, to
have the new rising thing. I don’t know if it’s
happening yet, but it’s pretty much on the verge. I
don’t know what it is though, but I’m going to be a
part of it, whatever it is,” Wainwright laughed.