And Then We Do It Again Rufus
Liam Benzvi. Photo by Sam Penn.
Liam Benzvi began recording his first album during winter 2020'south quarantine, a time when venue closures and lockdowns turned musicians of every echelon back into bedroom mirror-and-hairbrush singers. It was during this time that Benzvi approached Rufus Wainwright on Cameo, a video sharing site that allows users to asking personalized videos from their music idols. Benzvi paid $eighty to connect with Wainwright, and an unlikely friendship arose when the aspiring musician took a risk and sent the Grammy-nominated artist his demo. Those rough cuts have since blossomed into Benzvi's debut record, Acts of Service, out this calendar week . To marker the occasion, the two continued over FaceTime, Benzvi from New York and Wainwright from London, to discuss the origins of their relationship. —TONIANN FERNANDEZ
———
LIAM BENZVI: So, we met on Cameo.
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: Yes.
BENZVI: I wanted you to hear my vocal and the merely way I could get information technology to y'all was if I paid $eighty to get you to talk to me.
WAINWRIGHT: To be honest, the Cameo matter was worrisome at the start. It was all kind of new territory. I've been doing it for nearly a year. It's actually very—I wouldn't say fulfilling—but it is touching at times, there's something very gentle about it really, because yous are bringing a lot of happiness to people. But I will say that when you reached out to me, y'all were the but one who had—
BENZVI: The audacity.
WAINWRIGHT: Yeah, the audacity was remarkable. But when I listened to the songs and got your vibe, I thought, okay, this kid is interesting. And I love the videos.
BENZVI: Thank you, I can't believe y'all watched them.
WAINWRIGHT: I don't recommend everybody sending me their demos, though. Simply it is dainty to know what the young people are doing and get a sense of that.
BENZVI: Well I've e'er been inspired past you. The style you balance music and theatricality. And your voice is extraordinary.
WAINWRIGHT: That'south very sweetness, you're making me blush. I always knew that what I did was really bizarre and unique, for better or for worse.
BENZVI: "Gay Messiah" was the vocal that really got me hooked. You were very authentically yourself, and I just felt inspired.
WAINWRIGHT: There was i guy named John Boskovich, he wrote "Without You I'thousand Goose egg" with Sandra Bernhard, which was a really seminal matter for me. I admired him. He was gay, out, crazy, an artist. I ended upward coming together him and he told me, "you know, Rufus, the main thing is just don't e'er change. Don't ever change. But continue doing exactly what you're doing." And that really stuck with me. Thankfully I did non alter. Yous just have to be pure and exist your authentic self, which is oft not the case in music at the moment.
BENZVI: I experience like you accept to label yourself in such a concise mode these days. Whether information technology's in your bio, or on your socials or any. Sometimes I'm merely like, what isn't corny? Musician? Do I say vocaliser? And ignore the songwriter part of myself?
WAINWRIGHT: It is hard to figure out. I always used singer/songwriter. These titles, they're difficult. I've always divided my creative career into iii sections. One is that I'm a composer, y'all know, operas and stuff similar that. Another one is a songwriter. That's very different. And then the third is a vocaliser. They're all very different, just they're all in that location. They're virtually unrelated sometimes. And they all have to be developed in dissimilar hothouses. I just got nominated for a Grammy. I didn't win information technology, but that experience made me think about how there is no singer/songwriter category.
BENZVI: It'southward truthful, and there should be. Merely then again, who cares.
WAINWRIGHT: Exactly.
BENZVI: I experience like I have this weird humor and I try to utilize it in serious songs.
WAINWRIGHT: It'southward all about the lyrics. I do actually like your lyrics. That line about the cigarettes—"Nobody wants to bum my cigarette"—That really stood out to me. Information technology'due south whimsical, even so it's cutting. Tell me about your song "Hiccup."
BENZVI: I wanted to write this driving, visceral vocal almost a blip, a little coordinate of adrenaline. And the rest of the lyrics are abstract images that middle around that weird blip. And I recollect It's mostly almost the melody for me, especially the fade out at the end. I'm such a sap. At the end of the song I feel like, "Oh, this is the part where I get swept off my anxiety!"
WAINWRIGHT: I definitely hear the Cocteau Twins. It gives me that same contemplative, romantic feeling.
BENZVI: I love the Cocteau Twins. When I was 16, I had an older boyfriend who would heed to them a lot. He had a very typical stoner psych tape collection but then in that location was the large live Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall vinyl smack in the center.
WAINWRIGHT: That'due south wonderful.
BENZVI: That's how I started listening to your music. Y'all were my cover king for a while. Your Joni [Mitchell] stuff is incredible.
WAINWRIGHT: That's been a real journeying. The affair for me with Joni is that I was never immune to listen to her as a child, because my female parent couldn't stand her. She had expert reasons and bad reasons. I grew up with an incredibly powerful mother, but that'southward another story. My husband grew upward in Federal republic of germany, then he hadn't grown up listening to Joni either. Later on, when he became a fan, we embarked on a journey through her music together. I learned a lot of her songs for the starting time time through singing them.
BENZVI: Oh, wow. I grew up in a very Joni-axial household. Practise you love the Cocteau Twins even though you can't understand the lyrics?
WAINWRIGHT: Sometimes it takes a few listens to understand. I had a friend who was obsessed with the Cocteau Twins. My friend Lily of the Valley. We used to hang out in the Lower East Side in the '90s. It was a really magical time, merely it was intense too. Their music brings me back.
Photo courtesy of Rufus Wainwright.
BENZVI: What was the well-nigh intense matter that happened?
WAINWRIGHT: A few deaths hither and there, O.D.s…simply New York was changing a lot, you know, with Giuliani. It was right before nine/11. There was a real decadence in New York right before that occurred. Information technology was a actually fascinating place to exist. This bubble of morbid apprehension.
BENZVI: Yes. I feel like the city might exist in for a renaissance. It feels like a lot of people are coming back, from L.A., or wherever. Maybe anybody would rather be lonely together.
WAINWRIGHT: I had a very distinct period living in New York when I went out a lot, but I didn't know anybody. A lot of your songs feel like that. They put me in the middle of a crowded room where I've never felt more than alone.
BENZVI: Oh my god, yes. I'grand always writing from someone else'southward perspective, about what I think they think of me. Is that the superego or the id? I still don't know.
WAINWRIGHT: Perchance that'south why it reminds me so much of New York. When I made my album Poses , I was writing a lot most what was going to happen in the future, there was a little bit of a clairvoyant quality.
BENZVI: I tin can totally imagine you seeing the future in that album, all the visions of grandeur.
WAINWRIGHT: Perchance this record says something well-nigh what y'all're about to embark upon…Tell me almost the process of making it.
Liam Benzvi. Photo by Sam Penn.
BENZVI: It was generally conceived on the piano and the guitar. I tried to use this time to get ameliorate at my instruments. I've often felt like I don't have the musical vocabulary to access the spaces inhabited past the people I really adore. I've always had this sort of imposter syndrome in that regard. I wanted to claiming that feeling, so in making this record I really focused on that.
WAINWRIGHT: Oh, imposter syndrome. I call back that'south always the example. In that location'south this double-edged sword: on one manus, thinking that y'all belong at the meridian of the heap, and on the other, thinking that you lot don't know enough. It tin feel like you'll never exist understood. I come from a musical family, so I had that training early on.
BENZVI: You lot released an album during the pandemic. Was that weird? You were really resourceful.
WAINWRIGHT: Well the album, Unfollow the Rules , was ready. I have the philosophy that yous have to keep working no matter what, and that every state of affairs is a test which you must conquer. I also think information technology'due south very of import to be at home in club to process the world.
BENZVI: I thrive in my hermit state.
WAINWRIGHT: In some ways, not to go anywhere is like a dream come true.
BENZVI: Just I am excited to play for a crowd. I take this new band.
WAINWRIGHT: Will you let me know when you're going to play New York? Or LA?
BENZVI: Yep, definitely. What are y'all doing today?
WAINWRIGHT: Today, I'm working on the musical hither in London, which I should go back to. This has been really great.
BENZVI: Information technology's been surreal. Thank you.
———
Source: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/liam-benzvi-sent-rufus-wainwright-his-demo-on-cameo
0 Response to "And Then We Do It Again Rufus"
Post a Comment