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Coffee with Martha
by Brenda Kahn |
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met Martha Wainwright at the Lotus Club, a coffee bar on the corner
of Stanton and Clinton on New York's Lower East Side. Sister of
Rufus, Daughter of Loudon, Martha is making a name for herself in
the not so pop musical genres of the 21st Century. The young Wainwright
talked with me about her views of the industry, her family, her
music and the future of humanity … |
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WOMANROCK:
Is the self-titled CD, "Martha Wainwright" your first official recording?
MARTHA:
It's not even official. It's not commercial. It's not available
in stores or any distribution.
WOMANROCK:
Are you selling it through the web at all?
MARTHA:
Amazon has it but there's not a huge web push or anything like that.
I sell it at shows ... Mostly at shows.
WOMANROCK:
And you're recording now?
MARTHA:
Yeah. I've paid myself the treat of recording two songs, and I don't
know what will happen with them. Eventually they'll go on a record
or else I'll just hold onto them so I can put them out myself, which
I might end up doing anyways before getting a record deal. Right
now I'm just working on two songs in Brooklyn.
WOMANROCK:
Are you interested in starting your own label?
MARTHA:
I don't think I'm interested particularly in starting my own label.
I don't think I'm a very good business person. And I don't have
the people around me that I think would be the right business people.
If a team of like really fantastic people came over and said, "We
want to start a record company," great, but there needs to be somebody
with some money to do it - maybe a patron or something.
WOMANROCK:
A patron of the arts.
MARTHA:
But I'm not shying away from a big record deal. I mean, I haven't
been offered a huge record deal, but if it's a good opportunity,
if it's not that bad a deal, if I could make some money out of it
and walk away with some, that would be great. I wouldn't want to
make a million dollar record and indebt myself and have them not
promote it and then get dropped or shelved, I mean, that's a fear
too.
WOMANROCK:
Well, your family history is very musical, so I would imagine that
you have a lot of good advice from them …
MARTHA:
I have a lot of people telling me what to do … in the best way and
the most helpful way. So it's good. I've been protected to a good
extent.
WOMANROCK:
Protected, you mean, from making wrong choices that would put you
in a situation that might mess you up down the line?
MARTHA:
Yeah. I mean, I hope I can say that with confidence, you know? I
came here and I didn't go right away and get a record deal, but
I've enjoyed just playing around and getting to know myself better
and my music better, and I think that's worth the gestating period
before putting out a release.
WOMANROCK:
It's important to know a bit about who you are before doing any
kind of deal with a label that's going to try and mold you into
what they want you to be. If you're not sure where you stand to
start out with, you might end up compromising things you don't even
know you're compromising until after the fact.
Martha:
Right. They really want you to describe who you are, like they're
saying, "we're empowering you to be whoever you are." But they're
just trying to get some information. People have a weird way of
talking sometimes, where you get the sense that they're not really
talking about what they're really talking about.
WOMANROCK:
There's a lot of subtext.
MARTHA:
Yes. Which can sometimes be frustrating because it's like, well
I've recorded a lot of songs. And this is what it is. And you're
staring at me, you know? If there's not anything that's moving you
or inspiring you at this very moment and getting you excited, then
we probably shouldn't even be talking.
WOMANROCK:
I feel like the industry has turned around. In a lot of ways they
expect so much of the artist going into a deal ...
MARTHA:
So much strength and backbone and all this stuff.
WOMANROCK:
You're supposed to have a finished record, you know? Just like a
calling card. It wasn't that way ten years ago. They want you to
have a following, a record …
MARTHA:
Well, there's a part of it that I could see would be useful to them
because it's a little bit less work. But also because you're not
a freaky, vulnerable artist person who might be susceptible to,
like, getting hooked on drugs, you're already a business person.
WOMANROCK:
Right. They want you to be savvy.
MARTHA:
See - I've got my filofax. I don't think Jimi Hendrix ran around
with a filofax and cell phone making phone calls, saying, "OK well
I'll be there in an hour." You know what I mean? He'd just have
the notepads for his poetry.
WOMANROCK:
True. Well aside from recording, you've been mainly playing around
town?
MARTHA:
Yeah. And I also - the great thing about my small career is that
I've actually had an opportunity to do quite a bit of touring for
someone who doesn't have a record.
WOMANROCK:
You've toured with your brother, right?
MARTHA:
I've toured with Rufus and I've toured with my family. That allowed
me to meet a lot of people and have them see me play. Cause, you
know, I'd open up or do at least a couple songs in their sets. And
then, because there's sort of a name attached to it, you know -
Martha Wainwright - there's a potential draw, there's some publicity.
People are curious - so I can go out there and play clubs - people
will come.
WOMANROCK:
You'll have to impress them once they're there.
MARTHA:
Yes. Oh yeah. And they don't come in hoards, you know? I've done
a couple of things in Europe that have really been successful. So
that's been great.
WOMANROCK:
What are the positive things about growing up in such a musical
family and then maybe what are the negative things about it?
MARTHA:
Well, I think the positive and the negative are probably really
one and the same. It was a musical environment without being overly
musical. It wasn't the Von Trapp family. No one really showed me
how to play the guitar, you know what I mean? We sang a lot. We
had to learn how to sing harmonies. But we really grew up with our
mom who wasn't that prolific in terms of how much she works in terms
of touring and putting out albums. What was interesting about it
was that at a young age we were exposed to a lot of different interesting,
artistic types of music that weren't on the radio, and I think that
has helped Rufus and I have more than a pop element in our music.
So that's definitely a positive thing. There's no negative side
to that. But in terms of, you know, having them be your parents,
you know, that's a positive and a difficult thing. It gets me some
gigs, but it also -
WOMANROCK:
There's always somebody else's name attached to your name?
MARTHA:
Yeah.
WOMANROCK:
I think it's being presented in a very good way in the press I've
read. Rufus' record is a great record. And that's a whole other
-
MARTHA:
Issue.
WOMANROCK:
Yeah.
MARTHA:
The sister of.
WOMANROCK:
The sister of. The daughter of. It seems like you all have your
own special place in music. And you're doing the work.
MARTHA:
We all have to prove ourselves at the end of the day. People either
like it or don't like it. I mean, there definitely is a pressure
- sometimes you do feel like maybe there are people in the wings
waiting for a fall. Like, "oh the youngest one just sucks!" And
are ready to just pounce on that story, you know? "Couldn't be another
great Wainwright ..."
WOMANROCK:
I don't think that's going to be the case.
MARTHA:
Well, no, it hasn't so far. And I think if I was really shitty,
people would have picked up on it early on. So I'm just going to
keep on doing what I'm doing.
WOMANROCK:
Do you like being on the road?
MARTHA:
Yeah. I really like knowing what I'm doing and having it be focused.
Just singing my songs and being an artist and it goes back to not
doing the business-side of it. And it's always fun and I always
bring people with me that I like.
WOMANROCK:
When did you move to New York?
MARTHA:
Two years ago. I grew up in Montreal. I was born there, so, you
know, I didn't have to worry about the whole green card situation.
My dad lives here. And I went to school here - to high school for
a little bit.
WOMANROCK:
Do you like living here, though, as an adult?
MARTHA:
I think we live in sort of ridiculous times. I don't know if I approve
of our times -
WOMANROCK:
What do you mean?
MARTHA:
I think that New York is a reflection of it. Oh - just the whole
dot com world and over-excess and over-media and the sense of apocalypse
and - that may just be because I've been watching the polar ice-caps
on PBS, so whatever ... you know, you become like "the world is
ending! It's an environmental tragedy."
WOMANROCK:
How fast are they melting?
MARTHA:
They're melting at a rate that's like a thousand times more than
any other ever in history. And all life stems from the polar ice
caps, essentially. But that just may - we might morph into weird
creatures. We might just grow another hand or something.
WOMANROCK:
Some webbed feet?
MARTHA:
Mmmm hmmm.
WOMANROCK:
Hopefully.
MARTHA:
I hope so ... I think we're at a bad time in our evolution as human
beings.
Brenda:
I think the opposite. I think this is an amazing very optimistic
time. I would say more that we're at a turning point. It could go
either way big time. We could go straight into solar power, stop
using oil - we could have a really clean world.
MARTHA:
But people won't take the blame. People want to be in power tomorrow
because they can be. They've seen that and they want it - they're
used to it, they're spoiled. Yeah but this whole culture, this whole
country is based on car culture.
WOMANROCK:
Yeah but cars are going to run on other things.
MARTHA:
Definitely ... It's hard, because I think people that you and I
hang out with are probably pretty environmentally conscious. Or
want to be, but most of this country and the people that run it
are quite conservative. And they're not that interested in change
unless they're threatened. I think everything will change and not
change.
WOMANROCK:
Do you attach politics to your music?
MARTHA:
There's no political references in any of my songs. But I think
that there are things in life that I see that effect me. Political
things that have an influence on how I feel about the world.
WOMANROCK:
One last question. How do you feel about the ROCKRGRL Conference?
Do you feel like it's opening doors for women musicians to be at
a conference that's all female?
MARTHA:
Well I don't know. I'll see. I've never really involved myself in
a lot of all women events. But maybe it'll be great.
Martha Wainwright will be performing at the ROCKRGRL
Music Conference 2000 in Seattle, Thursday, Nov. 2.
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_________________________________
Martha Wainwright's Web site is currently under construction: http://www.marthawainwright.com/ |
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_________________________________
Brenda Kahn
is a New York recording artist and the editor of WOMANROCK.com.
Past notes from the Editor. |
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