Martha Wainwright Issue #23

The emotionally insightful artist talks about her generation’s conflicts and her EP, Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole

By Amanda Dora Riesman
Published: March 1st, 2005 | 4:16pm

Martha Wainwright comes from a family of folk-music royalty. Her mother, Kate McGarrigle, has performed for many years in a critically acclaimed duo with Wainwright’s aunt, Anna McGarrigle. Wainwright’s father, Loudon Wainwright III, also has had a prolific recording career, and last year her brother Rufus released his fourth major-label record. This year, Martha Wainwright steps out with the January release of a five-song EP, Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole (Rounder), and a full-length self-titled album in April. On a rainy night in January, I sat down for a chat and glass of whiskey with Wainwright in her Brooklyn apartment.

I've been going to your shows for years, but for all the Venus readers who don't live in New York City and don't know that you've been around a while, can you tell us about your development as an artist and bring us up to speed on your career so far?
I moved to New York City from Montreal in 1998, where I'd been living with my mom and my brother for a while, before he moved to L.A. when he got signed. I felt that I needed to get away from Montreal, which was starting to feel like a small town. I was in acting school at the time, but I used to sing a lot of backup and open for Rufus when he started out, and I thought, “Well, I can do music too.” My dad lives in New York, so it seemed like the right place to go and try. When I moved here, I had some label interest and producer interest, but I never said yes to anything because I didn’t feel that I had truly found my voice. I told myself it was going to get better and better, and I might as well wait until I was really ready. I hope that it was smart — it didn’t seem smart to anyone else at the time — but I hope it was smart because that would mean that I am a smart person, and then that would be really great to find that out.

Let’s talk about your EP, BMFA, and its standout, self-titled track.What a powerful song! So raw and unflinchingly honest. How did it come into being?
It came from me feeling like my dad wasn’t taking me seriously as an artist and musician, and it’s a response to that. Often parents don’t take their kids’ musical ambitions seriously. For me, because my parents are musicians, it almost felt like a double judgment — like, are you good enough?
Many of your songs are about relationships or relating to relationships. On your upcoming full-length, I love the line in the song “TV Show” that goes, "Not the way that I don't love you, but the way that I hate myself." It’s so heartwrenchingly insightful.
I’ve just noticed that my relationships with men have really been difficult a lot of the time. And I think that it’s my fault. I wear my emotions on my sleeve all the time. I think I’ve been overly emotional, overly honest about my feelings, and haven’t played the game very well. People like it in song, but they don’t like it behind closed doors.
There's also a distinctly female perspective that comes through in your songs. Lines like "Oh I wish I was born a man so I could learn how to stand up for myself" or "I have no children, I have no husband, I have no reason to live" come to mind.
It’s almost like a 17-year-old girl in her bedroom hugging her pillow. I’m not such a driven woman that music and my career and money are the only things that will keep me going. I think that I need that seal of approval from a man that will be like, “I’ll marry you and I want kids. I want the whole package.”
Which is such a conflict for our generation.
Well, isn’t that the beauty of divorce? I don’t think people should stay together if they are miserable, but that doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t get married or think that it was a good idea at the time.
I love your band. You've built such a good sound with them. What has that process involved?
It’s taken a few runs using different people. Bill [Dobrow, drums] has been there since the beginning, and then Cameron [Greider, guitar] and then Brad [Albetta, bass]. When Brad came in, that was also the point when I decided it was time to shit or get off the pot. It was a maturing I guess, for me, and then finding the right guys.
Do you flesh out the arrangement for the tunes together?
I write the songs on the guitar and then show them to the band. They play along and I’ll say what I like and don’t like, and then over time, having played them so much, they find what they want to do with them. Because I’m not musically trained, I can’t tell people really specifically what I want.
I noticed that you've brought some additional musicians in on the record — a lot of New York players and various family members.
When I first started making the record, the concept was a letting go of these 12 songs that I’d been singing for five years that had never been recorded. And I wanted it to be a representation of that time and the people that I met at that time in New York City. It was like inviting the musical friends that I’d made and doing the songs that we had done together over the last five years to then get on to the next thing.
Have you been particularly influenced by Canadian artists?
Mainly Leonard [Cohen]. And my mom and my aunt. Also, I had a tape of Jane Siberry’s as a kid. I didn’t listen to a lot of anybody except for Leonard when I was 13, and that was the revelation of the lyric and how poetic it can be without being smarmy. And beyond that Nina Simone, which was the deep sadness and the interest in unrequited love, being the loser in love. And then probably Cyndi Lauper, for being such a great singer, and Chrissie Hynde, for playing the guitar and being a rock chick.
What's next on the horizon?
I’ll probably start off more in the United Kingdom, doing a bunch of solo stuff, and then doing the festivals over in Europe. And then eventually go out on the road [in the U.S.] — hopefully in a tour bus and not in a van, but I’ll take either one.