Martha Wainwright on Snow Patrol, fond memories of Ireland, and that song about her dad
Martha Wainwright is at Cork Opera House on June 9. Picture: Gaëlle Leroyer
The music industry was in a weird place when singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright released her self-titled debut album in the spring of 2005. The internet had unleashed a wave of digital piracy that posed an existential threat to the business’s profit model of flogging overpriced CDs at a vast markup. In a panic, labels were slashing their budgets. If you were a young artist looking for a record deal – as Wainwright was at the time – the outlook was grim.
“How I understood that best was my mother and my aunt had been signed to a major label when they started out. And were supported by labels to develop their career.” says Wainwright – part of a rich music dynasty that includes her aunt and mother, aka Quebec folk duo the McGarrigle Sisters, her songwriter father Loudon Wainwright III and her older brother Rufus who, a year previous to Martha had put out his Want opus and was at that time being loudly heralded as the future of music by Elton John.
