Martha Wainwright

Martha Wainwright

Born in Montreal, lives in Brooklyn. Daughter of folk legends Loudon Wainwright and Kate McGarrigle, sister of Rufus. Her self-titled debut is an exploration of emotion, revealing a complex songwriter beneath a lull of guitar.

Describe Martha Wainwright. It's an overview of a young woman's life through her twenties. I started writing the songs a while back, some of them I've been playing for years and I felt that it was important to get them on a record.

Describe your relationship to your art. I'm defined by what I do, and what I do is defined by who I am. I'm a very personal songwriter, instead of looking around me and describing what I see, I have a tendency to describe what I'm feeling inside. But I try to express the things that have gone on in my life in an interesting way. I try to be poetic, and have each phrase be important. I have the opportunity to tell people how I feel, so I would rather take the time to craft it. I took a long time to write these songs-sometimes too long, and I worry I'm not prolific enough.

When did you first pick up the guitar? Actually quite late. My dad gave me a guitar when I was 13, but I wasn't interested because I was a teenager, and I tried to push away everything my parents gave me. It was four or five years later that my brother was doing these shows in Montreal and he asked me to come and sing backup. They were very cool, and well attended; it was kind of an underground thing. And I sang backup for him and I kinda fell in love with the applause and the attention. So I dusted that guitar off and went into a room and wrote two or three songs in a row, and I enjoyed it.

Do you remember your first song? I still perform it. It's called the "Lexi Song." When I first sat down to write a song, I knew I was opening up a Pandora's Box. Because if I wasn't any good at it, it would mean that I was the one in the family that was talentless. But it was actually quite good.

What have you learned of the artist's struggle to survive? To be a musician, you have to have a certain amount of ego. Maybe even an unrealistic ego to keep getting up on stage and think people find you interesting. But you have to keep that in check. There's a part of me that thinks that I'm good and there's another part of me that thinks I'm crap.

Martha Wainwright is playing at Joe's Pub on Tues., April 12. 425 Lafayette St. (betw. E. 4th St. & Astor Pl.), 212-539-8778; 9:30, $12.