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Striking A Pose
05/23/2001 10:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Rob O'Connor
Rufus Wainwright makes music that's a pleasure to hear. It's full of learned tricks, attitudes, and insights that change with the tempo of the song; vocals that twist unusual phrasings and flirt with notes unforeseen; and instrumental backing that is lush even at its minimal best. But Rufus Wainwright does not find pleasure in the actual recording process.
"It was extremely tough on my own ego. and there were serious moments where I wanted to fire [producer Pierre Marchand] and sue him for how he made me feel," says Wainwright. "But every producer I've worked with, I've always had a stormy relationship with. Making a record with a producer to this point hasn't been a fun experience for me. Those are labor pains."
For his sophomore album Poses, Wainwright opted to work with Marchand, who years ago had worked with his mother Kate McGarrigle and did some nice work on Wainwright's 1998 debut. "One of the things I loved on the last record was 'In My Arms,' which is the song that Pierre produced," explains Wainwright. "Mainly because I thought the voice sounded the best. The one qualm I had with the last record was that the arrangements were more important than the singing. I just wanted to focus on the sound of the voice and singing a lot softer and my falsetto."
With that intent, Wainwright had to go about writing an album's worth of material that would be up to Marchand's demanding standards. "He didn't want to use any of the old songs," says Wainwright. "He also edited some of them. I had to do some serious cutting up, and he was never impressed. He's so emotionally involved and such a perfectionist at what he does that there were very few moments where I could tell if he was satisfied or not. I think he will be in a few months, when it's out and dominating the world. But he's really hard on himself and the artist. But it's a matter of passion, as opposed to being a bitter person."
The pair holed up in a Beverly Hills mansion--Puff Daddy's old house, in fact--and cut the tracks. "With a pool and tennis courts, and it was great," Wainwright admits. "But the studio was in the house, too, and I've since learned that I never really want to do that again, because it's like eating where you sh-t."
Colorful anecdotes aside, Wainwright wrote Poses' eventual title track, and things flowed from there. "That was pretty much the song that was the benchmark of the record. It was the song I think that convinced Pierre that there was something there. It was my first ace."
Wainwright sees Poses as the perfect title for what he's been going through and how he see the world at this point. "It means a lot of things to me. For one, it's 'poser'--just sitting there being kind of vapid, transparent. It's also about, literally, just things I've seen that are very beautiful, too. It is very much about the physicality of life and trying to make sense of it and go through it, and at one point being very seduced by it--by what you see on the surface--and on the other hand watching out not to be destroyed by it. The beauty and the shallowness of that beauty."
The album's allowed Wainwright the chance to work with people that help bring his musical vision to fruition, including bassist Melissa auf Der Maur of Hole and Smashing Pumpkins, singer-songwriter Teddy Thompson (son of Richard Thompson), Eels drummer Butch, and his sister, Martha Wainwright. "We've hit a real point where we just do our best to make the music beautiful together," says Rufus of his work with his sister.
Further in keeping it in the family, Poses also features a cover of "One Man Guy," a song originally recorded by his father, Loudon Wainwright III. "I just knew the words and I always identified with that one, since it encapsulates him so perfectly." Laughs Rufus, "I threatened to take it off the record if I didn't get the house."
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