A CRUISE around the Caribbean sounds like a dream come true for many, but throw in the Wainwright family and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience for some.
Speaking from her home in cold Montreal, having wrapped up a tour of the wintery UK, Martha Wainwright said she was preparing to hit the warmer waters of the Caribbean Sea.
“I think it’s weird because I’ve never done it but I guess people do it all the time – it’s a music cruise,” the singer-songwriter and musician said.
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READ NOW“So all these musicians and artists get on a boat and all these fans buy tickets and then you play gigs every night.
“My whole family are going – the Wainwrights – along with other artists too, but we’re going as a pack so that’ll be really great.
“Apparently these things are quite popular.”
Wainwright said she had worked with her sister Lucy Wainwright Roche to put the show together and proposed the family – including brother Rufus Wainwright, father Loudon Wainwright III and aunt Sloan Wainwright – “do it as a group”.
When Wainwright returns home, she will have little downtime before she brings her tour to Australia.
She said her album Goodnight City, released in November, was a first for her because it featured songs written by others as well as original works.
“This was the first time I’d asked other songwriters to participate,” she said.
“I was worried after having my second child that I wasn’t going to have enough time to write a record.
“It was a way to think of a next project for me without the pressure of having to come up with 14 or 15 songs to fill a whole record.
“So we asked friends and family to write songs with me in mind.
“It’s been four years since my last solo record.”
The Goodnight City Tour kicks off at Astor Theatre on March 8 and if Wainwright is feeling as creative as she was on the UK leg, punters should be on the look out for some customised merchandise.
“I was worried about not selling it and having to carry it around with me, so every night I started taking out three, four, five shirts and cutting them up and painting on them and writing on them and doing stencils and sewing buttons and embroidering just so they were personalised and then I signed them,” she said.
She said she would “probably” do the same in Australia.
THE ESSENTIALS
Martha Wainwright – Goodnight City Tour
Support act: Oh Pep!
When: March 8
Where: Astor Theatre (18+)
Tickets: www.astortheatreperth.com