MARTHA WAINWRIGHT>> It's a men's profession, you know, music. But I think a lot of professions
are that way except for maybe nursing and teaching and things like that. So you know,
80% of the people you run into are going to be guys. And I guess I will get annoyed with
being categorized as a female singer/songwriter. But my mom and my aunt. My mom was a musician,
my aunt still is a musician, and folk music, generally speaking, is a little more sort
of democratic. Feels like I would have been a little more famous had I been a guy but
I'm not sure. LUCAS SILVEIRA>> I used to think that too.
LUCAS SILVEIRA>> Your family is obviously very very well known. You're brother is Rufus.
MARTHA WAINWRIGHT>> I know them. LUCAS SILVEIRA>> Yeah, you know them. I don't
know. So being in a family that's so artistic and everybody is so famous as you, do you
ever feel like you guys were competing with each other? Did you ever piss each other
off? MARTHA WAINWRIGHT>> Oh my god of course! That's
so standard. He has kept me on my toes, you know. He's my mentor... As angry as it makes
me. He is my mentor. I've watched him do everything I've wanted to do.
LUCAS SILVEIRA>> Do you prefer being live on a stage or do you prefer being in the studio?
MARTHA WAINWRIGHT>> They're totally different. I think it's more fun to play live. Especially
solo because you're totally more in control in many ways. You can stop the song in the
middle of the song and be like "Oh, I don't want to do that.", or when it's going well,
it's very exciting to have the connection with the audience.
LUCAS SILVEIRA>> So you just released a new album, and this new album is...
MARTHA WAINWRIGHT>> Well no. I didn't just release a new album.
LUCAS SILVEIRA>> It's about to be released. MARTHA WAINWRIGHT>> Well we're just finishing
it. I'm mixing next week, it's very exciting. I did it with Yuka Honda from Cibo Matto.
She produced it. And the last record that I made was a record of kind of lesser known
songs.And what ended up happening was, you know, bigger things happened in my life. I
had a baby at the same time as my mother dying. The baby was born really early and it was
really intense and it was really difficult time, so I started writing all these songs
based on mortality I think, probably more than before. I then i was talking to my husband
and I said "You know, I don't really want to work with a producer producer, I want to
find an artist to produce it." He's like "Mhmm." And I said "I don't think I want to work with
a guy, I think I'd like to work with a woman." And he said "Mhmm, why don't you work with
Yuka Honda?" because we've known each other for years and I thought it was a great idea
and it ended up being super fun. LUCAS SILVEIRA>> So when you say that you
wanted to work with a woman, do you feel that, in your process, that you just want to be
in a place of absolute comfort. MARTHA WAINWRIGHT>> Well yeah. We just sort
of sit around and say "would you like some tea?""You're sounding so great today!""Oh
you look beautiful!""Oh, we can start at any time!""You look beautiful!" would you like
some tea?""Are you hungry?" and it's like totally ridiculous!
LUCAS SILVEIRA>> Do you find that a lot of women in the music industry end up falling
into the same mindset, as in "I don't think I can do this without a man" or "I feel like
I should work with someone who's male because I feel like it's going to get me up here.
People are going to take me seriously." MARTHA WAINWRIGHT>> Yeah, I mean certainly
the beginning, hey, it's like there's this big-shot producer these types of records.
I should be with him. There are some female ones, and the big one who's a songwriter who
works with Pink and Madonna. Linda Perry. And I asked Linda Perry if she would produce
y record and she passed because she probably did not here the hit that was going to make
it a million dollars. LUCAS SILVEIRA>> All right, thanks Martha.
It's been a pleasure. MARTHA WAINWRIGHT>> Great. Great. Thank you.
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