In January 2010, folk legend Kate McGarrigle, beloved mother of singer-songwriters Rufus and Martha Wainwright, passed away at age 63 from a rare form of cancer called sarcoma. She gave her last public performance, alongside her children, at a historic Royal Albert Hall charity event just six weeks before her death. (“All of the atoms just rallied” when she was onstage, Rufus remembers.) And when Kate’s adoring family gathered to sing around her hospice bed in her final days, there was, as Rufus recalls, a ”famous moment where suddenly she broke out of the coma and she was there with us. … She woke up and she was present for about five seconds, kind of mouthing along to the song.”

Kate’s death understandably had a profound effect on Rufus.”For anybody whose mother is dying, the best advice that was given to me is that your mother gives birth to you twice — once when you’re born, and once when she dies,” he muses. In the years since, he and Martha have carried on their mother’s legacy, not only in their own critically acclaimed musical careers, but also through the Kate McGarrigle Fund. Having witnessed firsthand how music-making was so therapeutic for their mother, the Wainwrights’ charity has helped musicians facing aggressive cancers record their own songs and preserve their own legacies. “There is definitely some kind of life-giving force that music can give to us,” says Rufus. “I think for anybody struggling with cancer, just any moment you can have where you feel health and you feel power and you feel inspiration is just so, so valuable.”

And now, on Dec. 6, Rufus and Martha will play their annual Hooray for the Holidays benefit show — for the first time in Los Angeles since 2012, at the famous Saban Theatre. Net proceeds will go directly to Folk Cancer: The Kate McGarrigle Project, the siblings’ collaboration with Cancer Can Rock which offers musicians the opportunity to create, express, and record their music during a very unsettling time. The show will be a family affair, with appearances by Rufus and Martha’s singer-songwriter father, Loudon Wainwright III, and their half-sister, Lucy Wainwright Roche; other special guests will include the mother/daughter duo of Annie and Lola Lennox, fellow second-generation musicians Beck and Chris Stills, Lucy Dacus, Jake Wesley Rogers, and more.

“My mother always loved Christmas,” Rufus says fondly. Below, he opens up about his mother’s legacy and final days, becoming a parent himself, the evolution of his relationship with Martha, the healing power of music, and what Kate McGarrigle would think the state of the world in 2025.

LYNDSANITY: Happy holidays! Please tell me about Cancer Can Rock, in conjunction with the Kate McGarrigle Project, and why it is important for you to do this.

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: My sister Martha and I, our mother Kate McGarrigle was a great musician. She and her sister Anna were one of the preeminent folk duos of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and made some of the best records ever made — I think, anyways. So, music was sort of the center of our lives, of our family’s life. And growing up, and we started doing these Christmas shows at a certain point, because my mother always loved Christmas. And so that was kind of going along swimmingly, but then unfortunately, my mother was diagnosed with a very bad form of cancer. It was a sarcoma, a very rare form, which is never good, and the outlook was not positive.

At that point, my mom, who knew that pretty much that she didn’t have much time left, decided to really shift the focus of these Christmas shows and have more of a charity base to them. We started raising money for sarcoma research, and she really used that as a way to just get her mind off of what was happening in her life. We did that for about three years as her health declined, and they were amazing concerts. In fact, her last one was in London at the Royal Albert Hall, and it was packed. All these special guests like Boy George and Neil Tennant and Brian Eno — everybody was there. So, her last concert was at the Royal Albert Hall, and that was a great way to go.

That was not long before she passed, correct? She was pretty much performing until the end?

Yeah, that was the [December] before she died. She sang up until the end. Music was such a kind of powerful tool for her to both forget about what was going on and also face what was happening. She was able to do both of that at the same time. And she wrote this amazing song actually called “Prosperina,” which is the myth of Persephone, which we still sing at every Christmas show; Martha has an amazing version of on one of her albums. Anyway, after she died, my sister Martha and I decided to keep up that work of raising money for [cancer] research.

We felt at a certain point that we would really love to do something where we could see the results immediately, and something that our mother Kate would’ve really loved, so we came up with the idea of creating these grants — $10,000, let’s say — to musicians who are struggling with very serious cancer. Just give them a little bit of money so that they can go into the studio and just take some time off from their care and focus on their art, which is their true passion. … Lo and behold, this wonderful organization, Cancer Can Rock, got in touch with us. And I looked at their mandate and I realized that they were doing exactly what we wanted to do. … So, we got in touch with them, and it’s just a really beautiful voyage since.

I’m trying to phrase this question away that won’t sound like corny or cliché or too Hallmark-y, but do you think that music heals, or can be medicine? You talk about how your mother was singing almost up until the end. I don’t know if you have any theories if that maybe prolonged her life, or could that music and performing could prolong the lives of people who are seriously ill.

All I can say is — and this pertains to that concert at the Royal Albert Hall — is we were backstage, and my mother was actually most of the time lying on the couch with a pile of coats on top of her. She was just so sick and so cold. But she wanted to be there. And then she’d kind of get up and do makeup to go out, because she would sing periodically throughout the evening, and when she went out, she suddenly was imbued with a certain life force. All of the atoms in her body just rallied! And then she walked offstage and she looked totally healthy and great, for about 10 minutes. And then, she was exhausted again.

But there is definitely some kind of life-giving force that music can give to us. Whether we have to pay the price for it, I don’t know. But I think for anybody struggling with cancer, just any moment you can have where you feel health and you feel power and you feel inspiration is just so, so valuable. It’s also very meaningful, because as I said, it’s also a way for a cancer [patient] — and I can’t talk to this personally, I just saw my mother go through it — to process what’s happening and what might happen in the end. So, it’s deep.

(photo: Miranda-Penn-Turin)

I hope you don’t mind me asking about this, but I did read, I think an interview you did with The Guardian that you sang with your mother in the hospital when at the end. Do you mind me asking about that?

It wasn’t actually in the hospital; it was in our home. She died at home. But yes. I think for the last few days or about the last week, she didn’t want to hear any music.

Really?

Yeah, yeah. I think at that point it was a little too emotional for her. She wanted silence, which I get. It was mostly about being silent, which is the ultimate music in certain ways, one can argue — true silence. So, she wanted silence at the very end. But then once she went into a coma, everybody gathered around. Even Emmylou Harris came up from Nashville, and my dad came up, and we all sang for about a day around her. I will say that was probably mostly for us, but it was incredibly powerful. I don’t know… I think she was deserving of that type of drama! My mother was that type of figure.

Were there specific songs that you recall singing?

Yeah. One of the most amazing things that happened… we sang a whole bunch of things, and I would play opera recordings that we loved and different things, but there was one song, which is an old French folk song that she sang to me. I sang it to our daughter, and it’s probably gone back hundreds of years, maybe even like a thousand. We started singing it, and then it was that famous moment where suddenly she broke out of the coma and she was there with us. She didn’t sing the lyrics, but she woke up and she was present for about five seconds, kind of mouthing along to the song. And then she departed again. So, it did bring her out for a couple of seconds, then she was off on her journey.

What an amazing story. Thank you for sharing that with me. I’ve noticed in your own recent work you’ve been singing more about family and marriage. How does that mindset tie into what you’re doing with Cancer Can Rock?

I’ve always written about my life, for better or for worse. In fact, one of my favorite kind of experiences of late is that I’ve really gotten into Randy Newman, and I didn’t know that none of his songs are about him! They’re all fabricated, they’re all pretend situations, and I was just bowled over, like, “You mean I don’t have to write about myself all the time?” [laughs] But whatever, I took that road. And yes, my life at the moment is really family-based. My husband and I have a 13-year-old daughter, and I’m also continuing a tradition. I mean, my mother and father did the same thing: They wrote about us.

Yes, your dad wrote quite a famous song about you and your mom!

Yeah, “Rufus Is a Tit Man.” [laughs] So, we’re just kind of also continuing a tradition. It’s just our destiny, I guess.

Obviously, your daughter Viva [whose mother is Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard] has musical lineage on both sides. Do you see her following a musical path? Is she musically inclined?

Yes, she has a beautiful voice, and she’s curious. I tend to not want to push her in any direction. I think for anybody in our family, it’s a lot of pressure too, so I just want her to enjoy her childhood. But yeah, she has a beautiful voice, so when she wants to, it’s all there.

I’ve interviewed various second-generation musicians over years, and I do actually remember Dhani Harrison telling me when he told his father George that he wanted to go into music, his dad was like, “No! Be a lawyer!” Obviously, fame and the arts can be a hard career choice, but it can also be a hard road if you’re following the footsteps of famous parents.

Well, I was very fortunate because my parents, though they were quite well-known and certainly respected, I never had to deal with that level of fame of the Beatles, or even with Leonard Cohen and stuff, which Viva has to deal with a bit. I was blessed with not having to deal with that; I could see that being very difficult. But that being said, if you need to do it, you need to do it. And that is what dictates the path with music: You have no choice in the matter. So, you just have to go for it, if it tells you to.

So, if Viva does say one day, “I want to go into music,” you won’t be like, “No, become a doctor”?

No, no. I would support her all the way and I’d be totally into it. Actually, that’s what I’m used to.

Am I correct in the timeline, that Viva’s birth was not long after Kate passed?

She was born about a year after my mom died. So yeah, there was a transfer of some sort in the ether. … That whole period in general around my mother’s death was a very mystical time, and obviously heartbreaking and dark and so forth, but also magical in a lot of ways. For anybody whose mother is dying, the best advice that was given to me is that your mother gives birth to you twice — once when you’re born, and once when she dies. And it really was that kind of full-blown experience, where it was this whole new world with opening up, for better or for worse. So, I actually cherished that time deeply, deeply, and feel so fortunate that I was able to be around for it as well.

Your most recent album, released in January 2025, is the live recording of your classical production Dream Requiem, which is less personal and family-oriented than some of your other work. Can you tell me a bit about that? I know you wrote it during the pandemic.

As well as doing pop music and stuff, I’m now, I guess a classical composer as well. I mean, I’ve written composed two operas and some other works, but this is my Requiem Mass, which it’s a complete classical piece, and I’m very excited about it because wrote it mostly during COVID and it really came out galloping. Whether it was like pent-up, latent Catholicism, I don’t know, or the fires in California at a certain point, and of course just the state of the world in general. Just that whole Latin death-mask thing was really speaking to me, whether it was redemption or damnation or hellfire or heaven. So, it has that, and then of course, within that, there’s this poem called Darkness by Byron, and that poem specifically talks about ecological destruction. It was a poem that was written in I think 1815 after this insane volcano had erupted in Asia, and the whole world was dark for a year, and nobody knew what was happening. Everybody thought the world was ending. And in fact, it was the year that Frankenstein was written and so forth, so it was kind of a Gothic year. And so that poem is about, what if everything was would crumble? And sadly, we’re now faced with that possibility. Whether it’s that or just the state of the world in general with wars and stuff, this piece is engaged in that battle. I think we are in a time where we just have to face a lot of this stuff. And so, yeah, come hear it, because it’s talking about what’s happening.

Do you feel like it resonates even more now than when you wrote it a few years ago?

Well, not to be spooky about it, and it’s not being spooky at all, but just so much of that text is about the Middle East. It’s all Israel and Zion and stuff going on there. And when you just see these images coming out of that part of the world, and we’re just still fighting over all that crap, it’s just whether you like it or not, it’s still so central to our existence as human beings. I personally kind of hate it, but you can’t run away from it. And so, this is sort of taking some of that spirit and trying to make it into something more, I wouldn’t say necessarily uplifting, but something more transformative. … As an artist, I do feel very strongly that these dark times are good for the arts. Your creative powers become more both in tune, and also needed. You can see that there’s great movies coming out now and some really interesting music, I don’t know, I go to the arts to salvage the world.

What do you think your mother think of the state of the world right now?

That’s a very interesting question; I haven’t thought about that. She would definitely look more into the kind of psyche of the world and maybe even the United States, in the sense that there’s just an insanity that we’re still grappling with. And my mother was a little crazy too. I don’t think she would’ve been a Trump supporter or anything like that at all — she’s very Canadian, and she would’ve been very levelheaded on that level. But nonetheless, she liked a good dramatic time as well. So, I don’t think she would be depressed, but I think she would also be kind of up for the fight, shall we say.

Do you feel like your music that you put out in the next few years will lean more towards the political, not the personal?

Well, I really do think that Dream Requiem is going to be an important touchstone artistically for this era. I sound really, whatever, arrogant, maybe saying that, but it came so fast, and I just felt like this conduit that was delivering this piece of music from somewhere else. And just so many people have been wanting to do it, and it’s going to so many places, so just the timing of it seems too good to be true. So, I am going to be really riding on that train for this. And in the meantime, I just wouldn’t want to make a pop record. At some point I’d like to get into the studio and just kind of translate some of this into my own songwriting, and I don’t know what that’ll be like, but I’m excited to do that. And that’s just to escape the world and so forth.

Meryl Streep played the narrator on the Dream Requiem Paris recording. How did Jane Fonda become involved in the L.A. production that took place this year at Walt Disney Hall?

I told her about it at a cocktail party, and after I said, “I think we’re bringing it to Disney Hall,” she went, “I’m doing it.” She just immediately said, “I’m doing it.” And I was like, “OK, we’re set.

Wow! Is there anything else you want to talk about regarding Cancer Can Rock?

We’re just very excited to work with Cancer Can Rock and create Folk Cancer, my sister Martha and I. It’s very important for us also to work together — then we see each other more, because she lives in Canada. There’s just a special magic when her and I, especially together honoring our mother’s memory, and so I think people will get a kick out of it.

Am I correct in recalling that maybe, at least at one time, you and Martha had some kind of friction?

When my career first started, there was a lot of jealousy from both sides. I think she was jealous of my success and so forth, but I was certainly jealous of her rock ‘n’ roll attitude and her punk-rock spirit. She was more Brooklyn; I was more Manhattan! We straightened things out over the years, but really when our mother died, that cemented our love for each other.

To purchase tickets for Hooray for the Holidays, click here. Watch Rufus speak about the origins of the Folk Cancer project, which launched on Giving Tuesday last year, in the video at the top of this page.

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.

Rufus Wainwright performs at the Last Weekend Kickoff L.A., presented by Swing Left at the Palace Theatre on Nov. 1 in Los Angeles. (Photo: Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)

“Dear Mr. President: This ancient story from the 4th century reminds me of you. Love, Rufus.” So reads the cold open of “Sword of Damocles,” the new political music video by venerable American-Canadian singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright.

The colorful, conceptual clip — starring Emmy-winner Darren Criss as a buffoonish pretender to the throne who usurps power from a more competent leader played by Wainwright — is based on an old folktale in which Damocles, a sycophantic courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, is granted the opportunity to switch places with Dionysius and be king for a day. But then, during a royal banquet, Damocles notices a sword suspended above him by a single horse hair. He realizes that the life of a ruler “isn’t all crowns and cheeseburgers,” as he had assumed — and he begs to leave and return to his life as a commoner.

Darren Criss in Rufus Wainwright’s “Sword of Damocles” video. (Photo: Aserkh Music)

In the song “Sword of Damocles,” inspired by the current tumultuous political climate, Wainwright claims history is repeating itself, with Donald Trump in the Damocles role.

“This is my artistic response to what I see currently transpiring within the American government and how its collapse is affecting every aspect of existence for us all. … The famed, ancient expression ‘Sword of Damocles’ is a parable of impending doom of and to those in positions of power,” Wainwright explains in a statement. “This timeless tale points out the hard fact that with great power, comes great responsibility, and for all concerned, great danger.”

“Sword of Damocles” is the latest bold statement in the two-decade career of 45-year-old Wainwright (son of legendary folk singers Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III), which has included nine studio albums, two original operas, various theatrical and dance productions, and his current “All These Poses” 20th anniversary concert tour. Yahoo Entertainment caught up with him about the message of “Sword of Damocles,” his hopes and fears for the future, his own #MeToo story and whether musicians (or the “Hollywood elite”) have a duty to be politically outspoken.

Yahoo Entertainment: Can you explain a bit about why the tale of Damocles reminds you of Trump?

Rufus Wainwright: Well, I wanted to be pretty open-ended about that. It’s not so much that I think Trump is Damocles, or is a king, or anything like that. It’s more the situation that the myth engenders. I feel that we are all living in this moment. Basically, the fox is in the henhouse, and there’s going be hell to pay, I think, for everyone. The sword is hanging over all of our heads, and we are all both the king and Damocles. It’s more this impending doom that Damocles discovers in the myth that we are now discovering on so many levels. I think of Trump more now as an illustration or incarnation of that pending chaos. It’s not the most positive outlook, but I think nonetheless it’s good to face the facts and be a warrior for good.

I know you wrote this song leading up to the midterms. With some of the results that came from the midterms, is your outlook a little more positive now?

Yes, I will say that one of the few shreds of hope that I’ve held onto is actually the old-fashioned attitude that the Founding Fathers were brilliant and created a really unique document with the Constitution. I think that when you look at the midterms, when you look at the American system compared to others, it’s hopeful. It does give a certain amount of hope. I’m satisfied with the midterm results… It’s nice to see that the pendulum is starting to at least, you know, stop. It hasn’t swung all the other way but maybe it’s stopped. That’s a good way of putting it.

Do you feel that musical artists or celebrities, particularly in the current climate we’re in, have a duty or an obligation to speak out? Because some people are of the mindset of “We don’t care what musicians think. Stay out of politics!”

That whole attitude of artists shouldn’t say anything political, I don’t know where the hell that comes from. The only person who I can think about who expressed that and kind of stood by that was Pat Boone or something. He’s really up there in terms of excellence! [laughs] I think all great artists have had a political gene, whether it’s for good or for bad. Whenever someone makes that argument, it’s just nonsensical, because there’s just no way to be an artist and not be affected by what’s going on in the world around you. It’s not like we live in a bell jar or something. I just don’t comprehend that argument.

But sometimes I do wonder if artists or celebrities can make a difference when they speak out — or if it has a backlash effect. I look to the 2016 election, when there were a lot of huge artists, like Katy Perry and Beyoncé, stumping for Hillary Clinton, but we all saw how things turned out.

I guess there is a certain amount of backlash, but I think that’s too easy of an equation. It’s not the celebrities that drove people away. It’s because certain people are racist and sexist, and were acting on that impulse. America is a really f***ed-up country. I think it’s a bit of a scapegoat when celebrities are blamed. I did a lot of those rallies and I was up onstage with Barbra Streisand and Jane Fonda and stuff, and I can see how people might get jealous of the fabulous lives that we get to lead in show business, because it is a great existence. But they’re going hate us anyway, no matter what we do. So you might as well be yourself.

So how did you get Darren Criss involved in the “Sword of Damocles” video? He’s having a real moment right now, having just won the Emmy for The Assassination of Gianni Versace. 

I met him through Alan Cumming. And, OK, here is another reason why Middle America will hate me [laughs]: Alan Cumming rented out a section of Disney World, the water park, for his 50th birthday, and that’s where I got to meet Darren. Both of us met in very skimpy bathing suits, on a waterslide. He professed his great love for my work, and every time I run into him subsequently, he’s always so enthusiastic about music and stuff. So I contacted him and he didn’t hesitate. He wanted to do it right away, so. Now, it so happens to be coinciding with his meteoric rise to fame, so some god is smiling upon us.

Since we’re sort of talking about Hollywood, when I saw you kick off your “All These Poses” tour at L.A.’s Orpheum Theater to celebrate the 20th anniversary of your debut album, you talked onstage about how when you were first making your way, you had difficulty finding acceptance in the business. But L.A., with all of its weirdness, was the city that welcomed you. Tell me about that.

I was born in upstate New York, then I grew up in Canada and my father lived in Manhattan. I had a good three or four college tries in New York City with my music where I would try to play all the clubs and stuff, and it really didn’t work. I was too exotic a flower for that rough ‘n’ tumble downtown world! It was really when I went to Los Angeles [that my career took off]. Being signed by DreamWorks Records certainly helped! But I kind of fell right into this psychedelic, orchestral, dandy-ish sort of tradition that California has always been more comfortable with — people like Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and, of my era, Jon Brion, Elliott Smith and so forth.

DreamWorks no longer exists as a label, and it seems like the ’90s was a much more fertile time for artist development. You had the luxury to work on your debut album for a very long time, almost two years. A new artist would never get that chance now.

Well, I think even at the time I was aware, and everybody was aware, that that was the end of the ride for that approach. Whether I was working with Lenny Waronker or Mo Ostin and being able to demo at Ocean Way Studios for a year, we all knew that I was the end of an era [of extravagant record label spending]. … A lot of people felt like I was too privileged, so it became a little bit of a blemish that I had to contend with, especially when I went to Europe. Which I later conquered! Europe finally came to its senses. [laughs] I remember being keenly being aware of this, that I was in the last train of this express.

In the 20 years since your first album — between downloads, both illegal and legal, and of course, streaming — it’s hard for any new artist, even if they are connected or from a background of privilege, to get those chances.

I was very fortunate to have this opportunity, but I never, ever relied on it. This comes from living with my mother and my father and seeing my father’s career. They really had to struggle [as musicians] for many, many years. They weren’t successful by many accounts in the industry. I just thought that it all boiled down to what you can do as a singer-songwriter in a room with 50 people and milk money. I always maintained this deep sense of brute survival. I was never seduced by the luxuries surrounding me. And I owe it to that kind of plain view that I’m still around today. In terms of today, I still think that’s the best attitude to take. You are only as good as your last show, and it’s really about entertaining a crowd of people, in that moment, in that one place, that will determine your fate.

Obviously, you come from a musical family, and I know your 7-year-old daughter Viva’s mother [Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard Cohen] descends from that as well. Has your daughter shown any signs of being musically inclined? Would you encourage her to go into music?

I don’t press it. She does have a very beautiful voice. On one hand, I want to be encouraging, but I also have to be mindful that it’s a treacherous path and that it should be something that she really wants to do, fundamentally, and we’ll see if she does or not.

But if she does want to pursue music professionally someday, you won’t say, “No! Go to med school instead!”

No, but I’ll be very honest about how hard it is and so forth. But look, it’s not as hard as med school.

Back on the subject of the political climate, I know it’s a cliché, but a lot of people do think that in dark times the best art and music emerges. I wonder if you agree with that, or if you’re seeing a renaissance currently.

Well, I want to believe that. The darkest times are yet to come, so there’s still hope! [laughs]

That’s one way of looking at it!

I will say that what’s being downloaded, what’s being streamed, what you see on Saturday Night Live, what you hear on the radio, it’s not particularly challenging. But I do think that it does go dark before sunrise.

I know you’ve gone through your own personal struggles. Do you find that your best music comes from your darkest personal periods?

Well, yes. But life is full of such darkness. I was listening to some other albums of mine the other day because I was in this retrospective mode, and certainly Songs for Lulu, which was around my mother’s death, was a very dark period. And then the trials and tribulations of bringing up a teenager [in the coming years], I’m sure that’ll be fun. And then, your body falls apart. So there’s gonna be lots of great songs! [laughs]

Referring to your other personal struggles, I know that you were sexually assaulted when you were 14. In the #MeToo era, some men have come forward about their experiences being assaulted, although it’s mostly women. You were open about it in interviews long ago. Were any of the recent #MeToo stories triggering for you? What are your general thoughts?

I did “Me Too” at one point, early on in the discussion, when it first started, and I felt good about having put that forth. But I had talked about it earlier on in my career. I will say that at this juncture of the whole discussion, I am more concerned about women’s rights in general. I think, for instance, that passage of that law in Ohio that makes it illegal to have an abortion if the fetus has a heartbeat, all that kind of stuff, is so frightening to me. And certainly after the elections with how people really turned on Hillary — in a very disgusting way, in many cases — was very discouraging. So I’d say before anything, I’m a feminist. Of course, the #MeToo movement is involved in that, but I think that concern for women’s rights is more where I put the pressure right now.

What is your No. 1 concern about the world right now?

Right now, above even the women’s issues, I would say it’s the environment, hands down. … The environmental situation affects everybody. Rich. Poor. Gay. Straight. Man. Woman. Child. And I think if it’s framed properly and everybody is emboldened, it could be the great equalizer of our era — to fight for the survival of the planet.

I know “Sword of Damocles” won’t be on your next full-length album, but will that album be affected by what’s going on in the world politically?

I don’t know how political my next album is, really. I’m working with the amazing producer Mitchell Froom in Santa Monica, and we’re having a ball. I do feel that, at least, musically and career-wise, I would like to start focusing on my craft as a “survivor” — I’m not going to say “elder statesman” just yet.

This article originally ran on Yahoo Music.