Rufus Wainwright
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Rufus Wainwright

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Wainwright suggests that things will be a little less theatrical this time around and he focusses on his latest array of baroque pop tunes. “This one is a little more streamlined,” insists Wainwright of the current tour. “I wanted to focus more on the band sound and a tougher attitude that this record (Out Of The Game) toys with. Of course Rufus Wainwright saying tough is a pretty far from tough. We are not going for that very, very lavish baroque thing, but it is still me.

“I really did want to focus on the tightness of the music and the variety of the material because I do songs from the new album and I do a little bit of Judy [Garland] and some of my mother’s material as well and my dad’s stuff,” he continues. “We also have great other artists in the band like Krystal Warren and Teddy Thompson, so I want it to be really about the music. But we seem to be edging into a theatrical sphere as well because people tend to like that, but I just wanted to get the music down first. There should be some fun stuff to see.”

Out Of The Game is a return to the pop medium for Wainwright. Over recent years he has tackled projects that have seen him reinterpret Judy Garland songs, address his mother’s death on a solo piano record, and the writing of the opera Prima Donna. It was ultimately this experience that pushed the artist back to his melodic roots. “When I was writing the opera and doing the solo piano album, I was really entrenched in the classical world on a substantial level,” he says. “On one hand it was a fantastic experience and I learned a lot, but on the other hand it was a very tragic experience because some of the preconceived notions like the castles in the air that I had constructed over the years about classical music about how wonderful and free and accepting it was were shattered. I now have a more realistic approach to that territory. In time it did make me re-evaluate pop music and learn to love it again. Having that freedom of expression and youth and excitement is pretty grand.”

With a return to the pop medium, Wainwright engaged heavy hitting producer Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse, Christina Aguilera) to work on the record. There was some consideration that Ronson may push Wainwright more into the mainstream, but the biggest change for Out Of The Game was that Wainwright handed over the reins to the producer and musicians for the first time in his career. This was as much to do with Wainwright letting go of his dictatorial ways as well as the trust he had in Ronson.

“He knows his recording history and he knows how to play an instrument and he knows how to work a soundboard, so he has the chops,” Wainwright praises. “But then there is this other wave of glamour that he rides in on with both his life, the way he looks and how charming he is. It is pretty formidable when he is in your life working with you because you are completely whisked away into this ‘Ronsonian’ parallel universe and it is very exciting and fun but luckily brief. We only worked together for a month and it was great that it wasn’t longer than that because you don’t want to get too carried away with the beautiful people. And I don’t think that Mark is like that, deep down he is an amazing man and a good friend but we come from different worlds. I have my own fabulous life too to tend to.”

One of the least predictable headlines of the last few years was when it was announced that Wainwright had fathered a child with Leonard Cohen daughter – Lorna Cohen. It was announced on his website that Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen was born on February 2, 2011. “I know that it came out of the blue when it occurred but it has been miraculous and completely fulfilling,” says papa Wainwright. “I am still in shock over how amazing it all is. The other thing that I have to say too is that Martha and I are still on the heels of our mother’s death, and I can only deal with one huge life thing at a time. Although I am having a great time with my daughter I am only now putting my mother’s death in a position in my life, so more will be revealed. She is only a year-and-a-half now so I would be foolish to be making any solid statements now about what it is to be a father. I am still a baby myself anyways.”

The outspoken singer had said that he wasn’t previously a huge supporter of gay marriage, stating he loves the whole “old-school promiscuous Oscar Wilde freak show of what being gay once was”, but that has all changed since he met his current partner Jörn Weisbrodt. The pair recently became engaged. “I would say that I am getting married and I am deeply in love with my fiancé and we are together whenever we can be,” he offers. “There is a rich history of homosexual shenanigans and I don’t think that gay marriage is the same as straight marriage. I don’t know what gay marriage is quite yet because it is all new and it is all being defined. To say that we are going to put it into the same category of what straight people have been doing for the last 2000 years I think that might be a bit naive as well. I do think that it is important to move forward and to discover what it is to become. We still need to create it in a lot of ways.

“I am exciting about my wedding and making the commitment to cherish and love someone and support each other for the rest of our lives. To me that is what the marriage thing is about. It’s about saying that I want to be with you for the rest of my life. And that is something that has never been available for gay people to do that publically and to do that spiritually and to celebrate that. I don’t think that straight people really realise how lacking that is in the gay world and how that affects people.”

BY CHRIS HAVERCROFT