Martha Wainwright returns to Australia to perform a series of shows and promote her new album Come Home To Mama. The album was produced by Yuka Honda in Sean Lennon’s studio. In 2009 Martha became a mother. In 2010 she lost her own mother. Come Home To Mama is an evocative work and a highlight of her career to date. Sean Sennett chatted to Martha, on the line, from her home in Brooklyn. Martha first toured Australia in 2006. This time around Martha will perform with a three piece backing band. 

TOM: I understand, at the heart of the show, will be the material recorded for Come Home To Mama.

Martha: I want to play all of the new record because there’s only ten songs on the record,” explains the Canadian singer. “That’s really the new material and that’s really what I want to draw the most attention to. Those are the songs that , we are doing mostly. But of course that’s only ten songs and in a show you have about 17 or 18. Then we will branch out into older material and our standards: I like to keep it somewhat open.

TOM: With the current record, did you meet Yuka first or did you know Sean Lennon? How did you come to work in that studio?

Martha: I’ve known Yuka for almost 15 years, if I remember correctly. And Sean I met around the same time. Sean and Yuka became friends and when Sean’s first record came out that Yuka produced, that was around the time it was when his second record came out or something. So they did a together and there’s always been a lot of camaraderie between us and we have the same musical tastes. Of course before that, in the mid ’90s, mid to late — I knew Yuka from Cibo Matto, and was a big fan. They were really popular here.

I knew who she was and we’ve been sort of fans of each other and friends ever since, and we never really got to work together because what we do is quite different. But for this album I had really strong want to work with a woman and an artist rather than just a producer. And it was actually my husband Brad’s suggestion to work with her.

Brad and I normally make records together but we elected not to this time because we didn’t do so much with my mother’s death and having a kid and owning a house. So we’d kill each other. So it was his idea, and I also knew that I wanted some keyboards and this other worldly sound that I thought these songs could handle. So I put a great deal of trust in Yuka and was certainly not disappointed.

TOM: I was wondering, is your writing process a case of using very simple demos on an acoustic guitar or piano and giving the producer very sparse things to work with or do you have very formal ideas of what you like?

Martha: I write all these songs on the guitar by myself. I thinking particular in this time and this case having an infant and a new house and having just lost my mother, I wrote these songs under that veil or whatever. I gave them to her and said sort of my work was done.

I will sing them and perform them as well as I can. But I knew that she would sit there for hours and hours because she engineers everything by herself and that she would have ideas and add elements and do  programming. Of course I was there to listen to it and say I like this and I don’t like that. But I really put it in her hands.

TOM: Was the record recorded quickly?

Martha: No it took about a year because we were working in Sean’s living room where she works, and they’re a very productive household, let’s say. It’s sort of like The Factory but in a brownstone version rather than in a loft. It’s about ten people living there who are all artists and wild and people are doing photo shoots, and making movies. It’s around the clock ….

We would have to block out we’re going to need the studio on Tuesday and Thursday and work around other peoples’ things. But it was fun to be able to do it in a house and to just sort of have that kind of freedom. And of course for me it probably saved me a great deal of money too.

TOM: Speaking of relationships and the loss of your mother, obviously she was a very towering figure in your life. I saw you guys perform together, an extraordinary talent. Recording “Proserpina,” that was obviously a song that you knew your mother had written towards the end of her life. Did you always intend to record it for your record?

Martha: She wrote it in the last couple of months of her life. You can sort of tell that she’s sort of aware of what the future holds for her. I feel in the song it has that kind of almost religious and mythical kind of tone to it. I actually recorded this version of it that is on the record a couple of months after she died, just to do it because I wanted to be closer to her. I was a period where I was almost in disbelief. I felt if I sing this, if I close my eyes, maybe she will appear.

I put it aside, and I also didn’t want anybody else to do it. I was selfish about it. I felt that two people had heard it when she did it at Royal Albert Hall and I think everyone was very aware of how powerful it was. I didn’t want somebody to record it, and I wanted to sort of own it and become her in that moment, and become closer to her or something.

Then I put it aside. About halfway through the process of making the album which started about a year later, I mentioned it to Yuka, knowing that I would want to put a song of Kate’s on my record, but I didn’t know which one. Then we heard it and we both agreed the subject matter was sort of perfect and the idea of Persephone — the story of Persephone being … life and death and rebirth … which I try to express in my songs in a very kind of humanistic, salty way.

Then I added the primal screams, you know, added a few things to make it blend a little bit better with the rest of the album. But then it just sort of became the centrepiece of the record and an important part.

TOM: After Australia where do you go to?

Martha: We rush back to New York and [brother] Rufus and I are going to do a show at BAM Brooklyn Academy of Music the day after I get back from Australia so I don’t know what kind of state I’ll be in. It’s really what I think a lot of people would really like us to do, and certainly what our mom wanted us to do, which was to do shows together as equal parts. Though of course he’s more famous than I am in most places in the world, but I said I can do the same amount of songs as you. So we’re going to do a lot of our own material and some of Kate’s material, and then some other stuff. And try and draw attention to this film we’ve produced and of course start in to a certain extent, about Kate and her death and her songs.  Singing the Songs that Say I Love You was directed, it’s a concert film of people singing Kate’s songs, not so much Kate and Anna’s songs but primarily Kate’s songs. People like Nora Jones, Antony Hegart, Rufus and I, Emmylou Harris, which is a mixed content … a bunch of great artists. And then some of us talking and being interviewed about the end of her life and the last moments of her life  and things like that. It’s directed by a woman named Lian Lunson who is an Australian who did the film I’m Your Man, the Leonard Cohen film, which is why we were all in Australia in 2006

So it’s interesting things really do come full circle. So we will be continuing to draw attention to that film. And also I think in many ways close up a chapter. Rufus and I spent the last two years commemorating and paying tribute and remembrance to Kate and we’ve done some concerts. In Montreal we’re going to inaugurate a square and her gravestone will be laid this summer. I think although we will continue to sing her songs and try and raise money for her foundation, I think in many ways it’s sort of an end to that era, and time now to let it go in a way, and be more free.

Come Home To Mama is out now.

Martha Wainwright plays:

 Martha Wainwright Australian Tour 2013

Friday 31st May                        The Tivoli                                                             Brisbane,QLD

Saturday 1st June                        Byron Theatre                                                 Byron Bay, NSW

Sunday 2nd June                        Byron Theatre                                                Byron Bay, NSW

Thursday 6th June                        Opera House                                                            Sydney, NSW

Saturday 8th June                        Lizotte’s                                                            Newcastle, NSW

Sunday 9th June                        Lizotte’s                                                            Newcastle, NSW

Thursday 13th June                        Dark Mofo – Theatre Royal                        Hobart, TAS

Friday 14th June                        Melbourne Recital Centre                         Melbourne, VIC

Saturday 15th June                        Melbourne Recital Centre                         Melbourne, VIC

Sunday 16th June                        Memorial Hall                                                 Leongatha, VIC

Thursday 20th June     Dunstan Playhouse Theatre     Adelaide Cabaret Festival, SA

Saturday 22nd June                        Astor Theatre                                                 Perth, WA