Tisha Nemeth: Your lyrics contain currents of inwardness and introspection. Do you feel that this is essential in the creative process for your lyric writing?

Rufus Wainwright: I definitely utilize that tactic to ease my suffering (laughs) and I am really blown away a lot of the time when I feel like shit and then I can write, feel better, and it's like nothing happened. I do get introspective but I also like to be translatable; some of my lyrics are very outrespective as well in terms of old classical and visual references.

Is writing cathartic?
Yes, I know when a lyric is finished because I do feel a sense of catharsis, and it's an interesting thing because it produces a very specific feeling. Many times I'll finish lyrics and I still feel emotion there, and sometimes even tears; that's when I know it is not finished.

In your process of writing music compositions and lyrics, are you able you to create both simultaneously, or do you start one and then begin the other? Do the two actions interplay within each other, or are they separate?
It's easier to do one first and then the other. The best music is written when you're not actively chasing it, but lyrics are a lot harder, I personally have to really hammer it out. The two processes require different parts of the brain, but it's great if it does happen simultaneously.

I'm fiercely attached to your songs that contain confessionary aspects to them, like Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk, Tower of Learning and Go or Go Ahead, but what's in it for you? Your lyrics propel deeply personal observations into the public arena, and psychologically, how do you protect yourself when doing this?
I have to say that being confessional, we do pay the price for it. Certainly having these personal distresses and then sitting down and putting it in a song, getting it out of your system, and as a result having it leave you, is really amazing - the feeling to just let go. And you do pay a price eventually; people put you in a different category as a different type of human being. It's like the mystery has dissipated, others can see everything inside you. I do feel that way. But the initial reaction, as far as the feeling I get from writing the song, I wouldn't trade that for anything. The downside to it is other people can get anything they need or want from you through your writing; they don't really need you.

Exactly. I also love the derisive humor in your song California; living in L.A. for a while, I could easily relate to it. How did you deal with the city's unending superficiality, and how do you creatively root yourself in an environment like that?
That's a very good question - I stay out of it! The last time I was in Los Angeles, right after I got there, I saw the movie Day of the Locusts for the first time. Have you seen it?

No, but I've heard wild things about it.
It's just all about L.A. in the '30s, and really, L.A. hasn't changed since then, it's still such a feeding frenzy. I can't spend much time there. But I do have a lot of really good friends there, and I respect it too, because it's the reality of the boardroom of Burbank or Beverly Hills where all the executive decisions are made in the entertainment industry. You've just got to respect it. But that's why I live in New York (laughs).

This is a crazy question, but - in the '80s movie Amadeus, Mozart is portrayed as a man who heard his own compositions in his head while he was writing them down. I have to ask: Do you hear your music in your head as you're creating it and writing it?
I definitely hear a lot of orchestrations, and I don't notate it, although I could because I learned how to do that. There's all sorts of stuff going on in my head when I'm in the studio, I hear other classical pieces and maybe it's also me imitating and adapting what I've already heard musically.

How do you strike a balance between the private and solitary act of writing and composing, then publicly performing these very private processes?
That's not a difficult transition for me at all, certainly when I write anything the goal is to write with the public in mind, and I see it as the end result of the process; for me it really fits in. Writing with the public in mind, I think it's a law in terms of song writing, at least. I can't imagine any great American song writer that isn't geared toward and working to be understood by the public and focused on being adopted by the public. That is the goal.

So you're always writing for the audience?
I'm always thinking of my audience and I feel that audiences give feedback. I have learned a lot from them and I have respect for them; I do rely a lot on the audience.

What have you learned recently from your audience?
In terms of my career and my style of music - I've learned that it has taken time to craft a relationship with the audience. I've learned that they really appreciate variety, whether it's me alone playing a piano or with a big band. You also learn when to "bring it down" and when to "hype it up"; in this way you've succeeded in creating something. There's a connection I have with the audience which is very important.

So it's an intuitive relationship...
Yes, I try to hone my songs that can cut through and work with certain audiences.

Which songs cut through?
Foolish Love, Beauty Mark and Dinner at Eight are all really powerful with an audience if people know what the song is about, and then Vibrate is funny. People really like to laugh and cry, and it is a long process working out what audiences will respond to.

In an interview with David Byrne, you mention that your mother reviews your early draft compositions and tells you to tone down the complexity of it.
That was a while back when I'd written Liberty Cabbage...

That song is amazingly hard hitting. Will you play it on this tour?
Yes I will, because it's very timely right now.

Hearing that song was the first time I was introduced to your music; you played it live during an interview on NPR with Terry Gross a while back. I was like, damn - who is this?
That was the first song I wrote, and I wrote a lot of other songs after that which were overwrought and dramatic. My mother laid down the law and said these songs are all over the place, control yourself! In reaction to that, I wrote the song Beauty Mark. However, there definitely are some lost songs in between there...

I'm really wanting to hear those - the full-on, complex, difficult side of your music. I'd love to hear you all over the place like that.
Yeah - thank you.

Will you have your piano on this tour?[ Yes, I have my own; I work on a Yamaha baby grand.

I have to say this - I'm really psyched you're playing again here.
I'm excited because I'm going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

You know, all the tourists go there and the locals blow it off.
Well, they want me to give them something, I think a lyric sheet, but I'm not sure.

Tell me what you know about Cleveland that stands out in your mind.
I know there is Shaker Heights; I've heard it's beautiful.

And I heard you played a show at Oberlin College a few years back...
I did play at Oberlin, the show was booked by my sister - I have another younger sister who went to Oberlin and she organized it. And I played Cleveland on my first tour I think, it was a long time ago, and I can't remember the venue where I played.

Thanks for speaking with us and making it back to Cleveland.

Interview and photo by Tisha Nemeth-Loomis
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