by JOHN CUSTODIO

Here's how Rufus Wainwright introduced "Harvester of Hearts" at his concert in Northampton two weeks ago: "This is the first song I wrote on the new record. I wanted to seduce this guy, so I played this song for him. We were at different ends of my couch at first, but by the end of the song we'd met in the middle."

The audience ate it up. Delighting in the romance of it all, they cooed and gushed one long "Awwww" in unison - at which point Rufus, without missing a beat, added, "And then I asked him to rim me." Clearly the man hasn't lost his outrageous sense of humour, sensationalized reports of his descent into gay hell notwithstanding.

Still, he has changed. His new album, Want One, reflects the new, post-rehab, more serious Rufus. The sound is still "poperatic" (or, as he likes to say these days, "baroque 'n' roll") but the mood and lyrics are decidedly pensive and wistful. In "Go Or Go Ahead," which he says he wrote coming down from crystal meth, he asks, "What has happened to love?" In "Oh What a World," he laments that he's "Always travelling, but not in love."

Mirror: Not too long ago, you were singing a more hedonistic tune, "Instant Pleasure." You sang, "I don't want somebody to love me, just give me sex whenever I want it." What's happened to you, man?

Rufus Wainwright: Well, I'm getting up there in terms of youth. I'm getting very young! I'm 30. It's about time I get married and have grandchildren.

M: So let me ask you the question you pose in your new album's title track. Will you settle for love?

RW: Of course I would, and by that I mean that I would take love on its own terms, the good and the bad.

M: You got a lot of flack for saying, in a recent New York Times article, that your ordeal with drugs was like being in "gay hell." Addiction is hellish, we all know that, but what's gay about it?

RW: Not everybody goes there, of course, and it definitely has to do with the kind of person you are and how you relate to drugs, but I stand by what I said in that article - gay life has its hellish side. The drug abuse, the basest kinds of sexual pleasure - I mean, it's great in some ways, that world of hedonistic pleasure, and it was historically an important part of the gay experience, but it's easier these days to get lost there, especially with the powerful, powerful drugs people are doing.

M: Of all the drugs to get hooked on, why this one? It's so, as one catty queen put it, "low rent."

RW: Crystal meth? It's extremely low rent. It costs nothing and keeps you high for the longest time. It's also extremely popular. What can I say? Drugs are drugs. At a certain point, it doesn't really matter - you'll take pretty much anything.

Up for a fight

M: The new album's title track includes the lyrics, "I don't want to be John Lennon or Leonard Cohen." Why not?

RW: I think for the longest time I really did want to be them. I had this idea in my head that that way lay happiness - record sales, fame, Rolls Royces. I've since had a better look at that world - I know Leonard, and I've hung out with Sean Lennon - and I think once you actually get there, you realize they're just as miserable as you are, and that none of the trappings of success do a thing for your soul.

M: You've heard the news about Elliott Smith? [Two days prior to this interview, Smith, who recorded on the same label as Wainwright, committed suicide. The two singer-songwriters were often compared.]

RW: It's an awful, horrible tragedy, and yet another example of the ravages of drugs. Only in a Shakespeare play, or on serious, heavy-duty drugs like heroin and crack, could you possibly stab yourself in the chest. His death means a lot to me on a lot of different levels, because whether it's him, Jeff Buckley or Kurt Cobain, male singer-songwriters seem to be particularly vulnerable.

M: How do you mean?

RW: If you're a serious artist, you have to fight tooth and nail in this industry.

M: You feel like you have to fight?

RW: Yeah, but I'm a fighter. I enjoy fighting. I wouldn't have it any other way.

With Martha Wainwright at le Spectrum on Thursday and Friday, Nov. 27-28, 8pm, $29.50

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