RULES OF THE HEART
Rufus Wainwright’s new release explores his dark side
Rufus Wainwright has been singing his whole life. But after the pop stylings of 2012’s Out of the Game, the child of two singer-songwriter parents, Kate Mcgarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, found himself needing to scratch other musical itches.
He made forays into opera, retooling his first production Prima Donna in 2015 and debuting Hadrian at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in 2018. In between, the two-time Juno winner released an album of Shakespearean sonnets sung over solo piano and reprised his Grammy-nominated Judy Garland tribute concert in New York and Toronto.
“I highly recommend any artist just stop what they’ve been doing for a long period of time,” says Wainwright, 46. “Try something else for a while.”
Armed with a new set of songs he had written over the last eight years, Wainwright entered the studio with Mitchell Froom, the longtime producer for Randy Newman, with the result of those sessions ending up on Unfollow the Rules.
“It’s a bookend to the first third of my career, and it continues the tradition that was begun by my parents in which I fought to write meaningful songs and challenging harmonies,” Wainwright says from his home in
Los Angeles, where he lives with his husband, Jorn Weisbrodt, and their daughter Viva, whose mother is Lorca Cohen (Leonard’s daughter).
Always inspired, while the coronavirus pandemic has forced him to abandon a planned tour in support of Unfollow the Rules, Wainwright has been using his downtime at home to keep creating. The 12 songs on Unfollow the Rules observe a four-act structure and investigate Wainwright’s past with a mix of uptempo toe-tappers, poppy songs and sombre ballads.
Below, Wainwright speaks about revisiting his pop side, what the second half of his career might look like and when and how he sees live music returning.
Q For people who have been listening to your music over the years, Unfollow the Rules will seem like meeting an old friend. A My journey into the opera world was incredibly fulfilling, but it was a challenge. One of the main pluses of that whole experience was a renewed sense of pride in where I came from, and what I accomplished beforehand and what I was able to do in my day job. I think when I came back into the studio after being away for a bit — with a huge collection of songs — songwriting wasn’t a job anymore, it was a spiritual need. When I came back, I was reignited and excited and I had a sense of perspective, which is the most important thing. Life is all about perspective.
Q Unfollow the Rules seems like a curious title since you are an artist who has never seemed to follow any rules.
A It’s not about being an iconoclast and it’s not about making up your own rules or even defying the rules. It’s actually about turning around and examining the rules. When I say rules, I mean looking at what has brought you to where you are as a person in life. So many of the paths we’ve been on in the last 50 years have seemed so set. But now, of course, all of that is changing dramatically and being re-evaluated.
Q You were 24 when your debut came out. What would young Rufus think of what his career amounted to?
A He’d be pretty shocked. Certainly having a child, being married — those were never, ever concepts he could even conceive of. But in a funny way, artistically, I don’t think I’d be all that surprised. When it came to music, I’ve always worked really hard to make the best music and create the best performances possible and continue the songwriting tradition of my parents.
Q How and when do you see live music returning?
A Prima Donna was supposed to be performed in Sweden in the fall and it’s actually going to happen. They’re going to allow half the people into the theatre and there’s going to be social distancing and so forth. So it looks like in opera-land they’re ready to keep going. In terms of live music, I don’t think it’s going to be the same until there’s a vaccine. Maybe if they can get a good outdoor system going, with masks, maybe it’s possible.