MusicMaker
It’s all in the family
CATHY BECKER After three years teaching elementary school, LucyWainwright Roche realized she missed the touring she had done with her musician parents. Lucy Wainwright Roche embraces musical pedigree after pursuing a different path BY MOIRA E. MCLAUGHLIN Despite her famous lineage, LucyWainwright
Roche didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a musician like her older half-brother, Rufus Wainwright, or her father, Loudon Wainwright III, or her mother, Suzzy Roche, or her aunts or her half-sister. “I felt crowded in by everyone else doing
[music],” Roche says from herhomein Brooklyn. While she was growing up, her parents were in and out of town touring, and in the summer she would often join one of them. Yet she didn’t really pick up the guitar until her 20s. “I was really always into listening to music,
but I was really shy, so I wasn’t into singing in front of people onstage. That was not something I wanted,” she says. “I felt this need to domyown thing.”
When Rufus Wainwright’s debut album was
released tomuchattention in 1998, Roche was in high school in New York. It was then that she decided to become a teacher. “I don’t want to have anything to do with [music],” Roche recalls thinking. So she didn’t—for a while. Roche, 29, majored in creative writing at
Oberlin College and received a master’s degree in education. But after three years of teaching elementary-age children, she began longing for the life of a musician on the road. “I thinkmy life was so saturated with touring
as a kid that I couldn’t imagine that I would need to do it also [as an adult]. But then suddenly I found [I was] doing this other thing which I also loved, but I didn’t have any [touring in]my life. . . . I missed it.” So about three years ago, Roche began writing
songs and touring, much of the time with her mother, who is part of the folk trio of sisters the Roches, or with her half-brother. She plays the guitar and sings and, in 2007, released “8 Songs,” an E.P. of simple, stripped-down songs that showcase her bell-like soprano and lilting melo- dies. She continued that delicate style on two follow-ups, “8 More” and “Lucy,” her first full- length album, which was released in October. Since Roche releases her records herself, she
doesn’t feel pressure to write or perform in a certain way. “Certainly in my own head I notice what is
going on around me in the world, and you end up putting those same restrictions on yourself,” she says. “But I think trying to avoid that as much as possible is good. . . . I think everybody’s best shot is to be as true to themselves as they can be. . . . “I think it’s possible that I will end up in a
place where I am playing with a band, but it will probably never be a rock band. I don’t really think that’s what I do best.” Even though Roche’s music can be melan-
choly, her shows are lighthearted and fun. She likes to banter with the audience, sometimes even forgoing a song or two on her set list to
chat.The rare nights when the crowd is less than
interested, she says, are “incredibly isolating. I think being in a room full of people when you’re not able to have a successful exchange is almost more lonely than being totally alone.” For Roche, it’s all about that successful
exchange—whether she is onstage or in a room full of second- and third-graders. Performing, she says, “is a similar job in a way
[to teaching] because the point is to communi- cate. When you’re teaching you have a school year to sufficiently connect and communicate with the people who you’re given, and as a performer you have a set length to do that. So it’s kind of the same thing only on a much quicker, smaller, faster turn-around scale.” Family members occasionally come to Roche’s
shows, but she prefers playing for strangers. She does, however, like to tour with family. “What could be better than spending time with your family and getting paid for it?” she says. There is a certain amount of pressure that
comes with her family name, but Roche figures most of that is in her head. And although she might fantasize about using a pseudonym, for the most part being part of such a storied musical heritage is all right with her. “It is a choice to run with the pack when
everyone’s doing the same thing, and at times you think, ‘Wow, I could just be doing something that’s just completely separate from my family,’ and there are times when I feel that way, but most of the time, it’s a good thing.”
mclaughlinme@washpost.com
“What could be better than spending time with your family and getting paid for it?”
—Lucy Wainwright Roche
LUCY WAINWRIGHT ROCHE
Appearing with the Roches on Friday at the Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. Show starts at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $35. 703-549-7500.
www.birchmere.com.
5 EZ
The Download: For a sampling of Lucy Wainwright Roche’s music, check out:
From “Lucy”:
“Early Train” “TheWorst Part” “October” “Mercury News”
the washington post friday, december 17, 2010 l
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