Rufus Wainwright
I am always writing; if you want to survive in this business, you need to keep working, keep creating and never stop the output.
I'm a big fan of the Pre-Raphaelites. Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, and I realised recently that my music is Pre-Raphaelite in a certain way, in that it reinvents an older era and romanticises it, puts it in this gilded frame.
I believe a lot of our lives are spent asleep, and what I've been trying to do is hold on to those moments when a little spark cuts through the fog and nudges you.
Crazy as it sounds, I'm a believer in destiny and serendipity, and I have had cosmic experiences all my life. Something told me I was meant for greater stuff. And look, I've had a baby! And I've written an opera!
My parents were serious working musicians, but they were not stars - not like pop stars that you have now. They had to make a living and that meant touring, working hard, going on the road - and we were roped in.
When I'm in the classical world, I really treat it as exactly classical and I don't try and spruce it up or jazz it up or make it easier for the masses.
I like to make the mundane fabulous whenever I can.
I'm your knight in shining armor. I'm here to save you from Linkin Park.
I've developed into quite a swan. I'm one of those people that will probably look better and better as I get older until I drop dead of beauty.
I may not lead the most dramatic life, but in my brain it's 'War and Peace' everyday.
Everything I do, I feel is genius. Whether it is or it isn't.
Why be in music, why write songs, if you can't use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life? I believe a lot of our lives are spent asleep, and what I've been trying to do is hold on to those moments when a little spark cuts through the fog and nudges you.
It seems like the older I get, the more unreal the world becomes.
I'm very fit on tour. I try to eat well, try to sleep. But it's still rock n' roll.
I should write a musical. That is probably one of the final areas that I should pay attention to, because it does kind of involve everything. It's got theatre, it's got young, pretty people... And it's got money!
When it came to using elements of your personal life in your work, my mother was the master, or the mistress. There were three or four songs she wrote about my father - songs about failed love.
I've been thinking of trying my hand at rap. I've been recording snippets on my BlackBerry.
You know the question: 'How do you get to Carnegie Hall?' Answer: 'Practise?' Well, in my case, I got there by not practising. I didn't finish my music degree. And when I got into the pop world, I decided not to conform because I figured that the point of being an artist was that you shouldn't be like anyone else.
I think my mother, more than anyone, knew the importance of inspiration. If it was occurring, you had to use it.
Once illness strikes, you realize there's not a lot of time for you to do what you really need to do. And there's no time like the present.
I've had my ups and downs, and I definitely have a sense - in America, especially - that once you've made your mark and gotten your Rolling Stone piece and your Grammy nomination, that they're on to the next piece of meat, and they don't necessarily like to follow the twists and turns of an artistic career.
I definitely have a Luddite's approach to what's going on. I find that as I get older, I get stupider.
For me, the iPhone is harder than reading Faust.
My dad and I have always been somewhat competitive.
I think I've done a pretty fantastic job, but of course I want to sell millions of records.
I bemoan the fact that all my famous friends have places in St. Bart's and I have to go to Montauk.
You get to a certain age, and you feel the need to reward yourself just for existing.
I want to carve out a serious period of time to focus on the next opera without any distractions. And to do that you need money.
In the music business, to survive for so long, you have to be able to cut off from your emotions sometimes. And being a father, you're faced with that situation. I know that my father was, with me. I understand why he had to be distant, because to rip yourself away, time after time, is almost more devastating.
I came out of the closet very young, and I had to cut my teeth pretty fast.
I'm hyper light-sensitive and must sleep in the equivalent of a sealed tomb.
I do not consider myself a guitar player. My father is a guitar player - I'm not.
The artist who gave me the most inspiration and direction, especially as a singer - and I absolutely consider myself a singer, 100 percent - is Nina Simone. She's my ultimate pianist-singer-type person.
That will to love is very powerful. But it doesn't always win.
'Prima Donna' is my kind of love song to opera but it's not the full experience.
There is this church that I go to a lot in New York. I'm not religious but I love lighting candles and stuff. I find it useful.
I think everybody identified at a pretty young age that I was fairly entranced with myself. And that I had to be tempered.
I've paid the price; I definitely have a reputation that precedes me, and there is a camp that plots my demise. But then again... it's funner that way.
I'm not born again, I'm not Kabbalah, God forbid, but I did have an experience hitting 30 that I needed to lean on something that assured me that everything is going to be okay. I had to regain a lot of my belief in fairy tales, in happy endings.
I like to sing to Verdi, I like singing to Sibelius, and Mahler maybe.
I could always escape into this demi-monde of homosexuality, which I feel really indebted to. It stopped me being a 'mummy's boy.'
My mother and father could not handle even me being gay. We never talked about it, really.
I would love to have a number one hit. The truth is if I don't get one, I'll be fine, but at the same time, the truth is that I'm dying for one, as well.
I have an ounce of Lady Gaga's full-bodied ambition.
I am undefinable. I don't fit into any particular category.
I have this horrible, horrible habit of going on YouTube and checking out comments about what I do.
I'll be honest, I worry sometimes about what I've done. I have tied my whole person to my art and, whatever it takes to get that hook, I will go there and do it.
One of the main destructive forces within our family has been these runaway egos. I think if you look at any show business family, that struggle exists.
Looking back, one of the things I love most about my mom was that she never, ever relented. She stuck to her guns right up until the end. She wasn't abusive, but she was never that thrilled that I was gay.