Mama's Boy
Rufus Wainwright and his musician mom, Kate McGarrigle, discuss their musical tastes, mothers and sons, and growing up in an eccentric family.
(photos and interview by Melissa Auf der Maur), thank you
From: Bust Magazine, 2002-09-01
Date added: 2002-09-10
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We asked Melissa Auf der Maur, armed with only a camera, a set of questions, and a tape recorder, to spend some time with her old friend Rufus Waingwright and his mother, Kate, of the musical group Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Here's what she brought back.
Rufus, what is your earliest memory of your mother?
I remember I was once about to fall out of a window in New York, and she grabbed me. My earliest memory is definitely that: those hands.
What would you say is her biggest influence on you?
Well, it's definitely not my cleaning sense; that I got from my father. Maybe my sense of compassion and also wrath.
When you guys toured as a family, was it fun?
Yeah, it was alot of fun. We didnt' rehearse that much for shows, so sometimes we had to so some ad-lib shenanigans in order to , you know, keep that sense of show biz.
What's your relationship with your mother like?
I think it's a very typical gay son/mother relationship-we go to the opera together, we go shopping. Thank God I'm gay or we'd be sleeping with each other. [laughs]
You're crazy. [laughs] Was there ever a time in your relationship that was difficult?
Yeah, there have been difficult times. I mean, the one thing about my mother-and I, I think, with most mothers-is that they react pretty much solely with their raw emotions. And often thats the [i]best[/i] way to have someone react. But sometimes it can just get a little confusing.
So it's an ongoing thing, whenever something sensitive happens?
Yeah. It's just whenever your mother yells at you, unfortunately, she's just telling the truth. Which is something you don't always want to hear. [To Kate:] There you go, mother.
Rufus, what was it like being the only male in the house among two other females?
It was fabulous! I was a very doted-on child and definitely didn't have to do the dishes.
Really?
[laughs] But I had to pile all the wood.
Was it difficult to come out to your parents?
Yeah, it was tough. It was very tough. I was about 14 when everything started happening, and I realized it was a bit young for me to formally say anything about it, so I waited until I was 18. And thenit was very difficult. A lot of it was the time period - it was right smack in the middle of the AIDS thin. It took a few years for the to get used to that.
How did you do it?
I was very direct about it. At one point, I basically said, "I'm gay and either you love me or you don't love me." And of course they were like, "We don't love you." [laughs] No; of course they were like, "We love you."
Do you ever want to have children?
Yeah, I think so.
What aspect of parenting would you do the same as your mother? What would you do differently?
Well, what I would do the same as my mother is that I would probably start my kids on a lot of piano lessons when they're really young. The thing I'd do differently than my mother is that I would give them ballet lessons too. [laughs]
Do you think you and your mother influence each other's music?
Yeah, a lot. I grew up in her songs, you know. Seeing it going form the egg to the omelet, as they say.
Do you have different or similar music tastes?
I can get a little more campy, you know, like with Dusty Springfield. My mom tends to a bit of a purist, which is great. She's very into, like, Robert Johnson or Bahamian folk singers. And I can get a little more faggy. [laughs]
Faggy? Okay. Rufus Dufus, explain your fascination with Grey Gardens. What is it about the film that attracts you to it?
I think it's just the idea that insanity is looked upon as something to lock up and stuff-which you probably should because it's so painful-but when you see someone whose brain has sort of hot a hole in it, sometimes what comes out is pretty fascinating. And we're all kind of closer to that than we'd like to believe.
Do you have any advice to sons who would like to have a closer relationship with their mothers?
I was watching Antiques Road Show yesterday and there was an old lady on, like really old. And she had these puppy figurines and like, she could hardly hear or talk because she just loved her little puppy figurines. And I just started to cry because I think, whether you like it or not, when your parents are old and frail, they become very precious. I think you should try to just have a good relationship, because if one of you dies without reconciling things, that can be a bad thing.
So the advice would basically be: just do whatever you can or else the other person will die upset.
Just do it! Do it up. [laughs]
Kate, you were a single mother with two kids, and you had a great career. How did you manage?
Well, I can't say it was a great career, I wish it were greater. See, the way we made time for motherhood, both me and my sister Anna, is that we didn't work very much. Some years we only billed ten times.
When you toured as a family, was it fun?
We only ever toured once as a family. We went to West Virginia to do a radio show, I was a little uneasy because I was travelling on my own with my two kids.
You supported Rufus even when he was younger and told him that as long as he was writing it was OK not to get a job, right?
Well, I don't know what else he could have done. He started writing when he was 16. He would take some money and make some tapes, and sell them at a show. He was pouring the money back in. And he was really responsible.
Did your family and friends support this decision?
Well, most of the people that I know here are teachers, and I;ve seen a lot of people go bananas because I left him do what he wanted to do.
Did you do anything to try and raise Rufus in a feminist manner?
Well, my mother has a house in the country where we ski, and she would make Rufus bring the wood in for the fire and stuff, but I can't really say whether I did. In my family, there were no boys in the house, and I never knew what the function of a boy was in a family, because my father was kind of old, so we just had to do whatever we had to do. We had to bring in the wood, we had to take out the garbage. There was never any delineation of duties in our family.
So how is your relationship with Rufus? Do you think it's a typical mother/son relationship?
I think it's probably a little atypical. He's very much like me, though. I think the two of us really celebrate the eccentric. I come from a very eccentric family. So I think it's something we share.
Was it a surprise to find out Rufus was gay, or did you know?
Well, not really. I mean, he was kinda sensitive, I guess.[laughs]
What kind of mother were you? Were you very strict with your children? And is there anything you would have done differently?
Was I strict? Not terribly. I think I could have put a tad more discipline in their lives, perhaps.
What kind of music did Rufus listen to when he was growing up?
Rufus was born in '73, and we started making out first record in '74, so right away the kind of stuff that he heard was us writing stuff. Endless tapes of ourselves trying to figure out our songs.
Is there any music that the two of you disagree about?
Folk music. He doesn't seem to like it. It's interesting; there's a photograph of me and him and his grandfather, when he wasn't even a year old. He's sitting up and I'm sitting there over him, playing the piano.
It's funny, because when I asked Rufus that question, he talked about what he liked that you didn't.
Oh yeah, the campy stuff. I hate campy stuff. I never liked it. It doesn't do it for me.
Do you have any advice for new mothers?
I don't know what to say. I don't know if you should have kids younger or older. I don't know if you should have one or ten. But I will say that having kids is great. I mean, it kind of makes life worthwhile, just because it's a surprise. They never turn out the way you think they're going to. I mean, it's really something. It's the biggest ego trip you can ever go on. You see yourself reflected in somebody who's 30 years younger than you are.
Do you have any advice to help them through those long years?
I'm very different from mothers nowawdays. I find that [today's] mothers are very good with their kids, and will do anything for them. I don't think it's accepted now that children are allowed to cry. It'll be interesting to see how they turn out. They may turn out to be chronically selfish. That's the one thing I fear: I think that parent's give in to their children's every whim. It may make for confident children. Or it may make for a very selfish generation.
Well, there's something to be said about independence between parents and children, and being overly involved might be unhealthy to some extent.
I mean, I watched a show were the parents gave the children everything. But I think that children are more succesful if they have a chance to help the parents. And I think that's why Rufus has [succeeded], because [his father and I] were divorced, and I think Rufus felt like he was a help to me. And that's important.
Pictures that came along with this article(Taken by Melissa):
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Out Of Our Minds
Auf der Maur