It was my honor and delight to moderate a live-streamed chat with musical polymath Rufus Wainwright on TalkShopLive about his new album, Dream Requiem. During the nearly hour-long conversation, which took place on Jan. 30, he opened up about this unique orchestral project and answered fans’ real-time questions about his artistic process.

But he also shared fond, wild memories of his friend, collaborator, and fellow recovering addict, Marianne Faithfull, who had died at age 78 earlier that day.

“I had such an interesting relationship with her, because we met at a really crazy time. We met when I was so wrapped up in my addiction and I was just partying all the time,” said Wainwright, who became addicted to crystal meth in the early 2000s. “I was hanging out with Ryan Adams in New York and the Strokes and people like Natasha Lyonne. It was a very heady, New York, crazy time. And [Faithfull] appeared in that scene and she was also going through it as well — one of her stints, shall we say. And we just kind of hooked in on that level. And it was just very decadent and it was dark in a way, but it was also a hell of a lot of fun. So, I don’t regret it in any way.

“Then I had to get my act together, and then we kind of met then in another way,” continued the now-sober Wainwright, who collaborated with Faithfull on her Easy Come, Easy Go track “Children of Stone” in 2008. “And then also we worked together artistically. And then I did go see her when she was in her home in London, a retirement home — I went to visit her one day with Courtney Love. So, just imagine: Courtney Love, Marianne Faithfull, and me in an old person’s home, together! That will be written about. And it was always so much fun.”

Click here to purchase Dream Requiem with an insert autographed by Rufus Wainwright on TalkShopLive; click here to read more quote highlights from our interview; and watch our full TalkShopLive conversation in the video at the top of this page.