Martha keeps it all in the family

Martha Wainwright’s venerable position in folk-rock royalty is hard to ignore. Daughter of singers Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, sister of gay baroque-pop hero Rufus, her own career seemed predestined before she’d even recorded a song.

Any suggestion by the Wainwright/McGarrigle clan that we should all ignore their family ties and focus on the music is countered by the fact they all write songs about each other -” Wainwright’s own debut single, Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole, was dedicated to her dad (ouch).

But her second album, the fantastically-titled I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too, puts to rest any lingering doubt that Wainwright might live in the shadow of her famous relatives.
Having had the first 28 years of her life to nail her first record, how did she manage to repeat the process with her second?

I was very aware that all the songs needed to be record-worthy, she explained. Sometimes there’s a lot of pressure to put out a second record, so artists are forced to knock something together quickly.

I took my time writing the songs. I wanted to make sure this second record had as much attention given to it as the first. That’s probably something to do with me being a second child, she joked.
Thankfully, Wainwright was free to craft the album without record label interference.

I do have a lot of freedom, not only because I’m not on a major label, but also because I wasn’t a kid when my first record came out, I was 28. All of the smaller labels that I’ve signed with, I’ve never felt that they’ve really wanted to tell me what to do. They don’t have enough money to pay me to tell me what to do.

With difficult second album syndrome successfully averted, Wainwright is now looking to the future.

Now that I have made a second record, I’m actually kind of looking forward to making a third, she laughed. We’ll see. I think it’ll take a while. I write slowly in the sense that I first need to be inspired by something.

The album includes a cover of the Eurythmics’ classic Love Is A Stranger, with Wainwright turning the icy synth pop number into a driving folk song. She also guested on Annie Lennox’s most recent solo album, as part of an all-star female choir on the AIDS awareness anthem, Sing.

I grew up listening to her and trying to emulate her in many ways, Wainwright said.

What she’s trying to do in focusing on women and children is great. Women and children are often the greatest victims of a lot of things, including AIDS, so it was great that Sing was so female-centric.

The anthemic ’80s pop of the Eurythmics may seem an odd influence for a folk-rock singer, but Wainwright said the duo’s knack for writing simple, universal pop songs is something she aspires to.

It is an aim of mine. My songwriting is quite particular, and I’ve always been such a B-side person, but it’s good to get away from that too. When you’re always going for the strangest line or the hardest melody, then that becomes boring too.

The new album, at times, seems like a deliberate effort to write universal pop songs.

I tried to do it with the song You Cheated Me. I wrote it very quickly, the lyrics are sort of simple. Although the lyrics seem to be about a late-night fight, I think what the song’s really about is cheating on yourself with drugs and alcohol.

Perhaps it’s a reference to her brother. Rufus’ struggles with crystal meth have been well documented, with the singer himself speaking openly about his battle to overcome a dangerous addiction to the drug. The siblings have always been close, but Martha said that his addiction took even her by surprise.

I don’t think I was aware of how far it had gone, because I had always hung out with Rufus and been right behind him in a lot of his other drug and alcohol -¦ relationships, she said, choosing her words carefully.

We’d hung out at gay bars and done other kinds of drugs. But crystal meth really took on another meaning, and it was a place that I didn’t follow him into -” obviously, because I think it was really all about the gay world, and his little sister isn’t gonna join him in that.

There was a point where I felt I knew him the least. It was scary. I’m glad he became sober, because for the first time music and other parts of his life were starting to be affected. Rufus is a really smart guy, and it wasn’t worth throwing everything he’d worked so hard for away.