Rufus Wainwright [ tickets ]'s orchestral maneuvers are of a different era, certainly not to be confused with most of his fellow 30-something singer/songwriters.

The son of folk icons Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle grew up in Montreal, and took up piano at the age of six. By 13 he was touring with his mother, and a year later was up for the Juno (the Canadian GRAMMY) as Most Promising Young Artist, and for the Genie (the Canadian Oscar) for Best Song in a Film for "I'm A Runnin."

Wainwright's third album, the September-released "Want One" (Dreamworks), continues the elaborate musical explorations and noteworthy collaborations of 2001's "Poses" and his 1998 self-titled debut. Where the debut featured contributions from esteemed composer-musicologist Van Dyke Parks, and "Poses" included Pierre Marchand (Sarah McLachlan) and composer Damian le Gassick, "Want One" was produced by Marius deVries, known for his work with Bjork, Massive Attack, Madonna, and David Bowie.

Wainwright spoke with liveDaily via telephone while preparing for his current tour.

liveDaily: Who were your early musical influences?

Rufus Wainwright: My first love of music was Al Jolson, when I was very young. Then I saw "The Wizard of Oz" and got into musicals, like "Annie" and stuff like that. I was a card-carrying musical fanatic. When I'd visit my father in New York, he would take me to all the shows. And at the same time I was getting into the new wave music: the Eurythmics, Thompson Twins, Men Without Hats, Prince. And actually, when you consider the musical climate today, the early '80s were pretty amazing, because you had so many different types of artists. Then, around the age of 13 or 14, I had this sort of religious experience with opera, and it's dictated my musical tastes up until today. My main love is opera--it's almost like the Yankees.

And you were 13 or 14 when you went on tour with your mother (the MaGarrigle Sisters and Family). When did music turn into something you wanted to do with your life?

The thing I remember mainly was that we did a lot of folk festivals in the summer. We'd do the Edmonton or Winnipeg Folk Festival, or in London we'd do Cambridge or Leeds. And I just remember that, yeah, to be out there on stage in the middle of a summer day with 25,000 people, it was awe-inspiring for a young person.

"Want One" is very introspective lyrically, particularly songs like "11:11." When did you write that one?

The first half of that song was actually written before Sept. 11. The line "woke up this morning and something was burning," that was written after, but the whole previous part was written before. It is interesting, when you listen--there's sort of a premonition of doom, I think, in that song. It was written at a very uneasy time in general, both for me and the world. I really do believe that one could smell that disaster coming. I have a distinct memory of the uneasiness before Sept. 11. The prophetic nature of that song, and life in general, is (in retrospect) quite powerful.

"Vicious World" is angry and pointed in its lyrics, but is actually more subtle, and sad, in its instrumentation. How did you come to play the keyboard part on a Fender Rhodes instead of a piano?

When the part is played on the piano it sounds different--there are lots of arpeggios and different movements going on. But then we recorded it on a Kurtzweil keyboard with a piano sound, and then we started playing with different sounds and ended up with a Fender Rhodes sound--and it just became this whole other beast. It became a lot softer.

"Dinner at Eight," about your relationship with your father, is very powerful. How long ago did you actually write it?

That I wrote a long time ago, after my first record, after I had my first experience with the press. My father and I had done an article together for a joint piece for Rolling Stone. There was a photographer there and he was taking pictures of us for a couple hours, and then finally near the end he was like, "Did you guys actually touch each other?" And then that night we just got into a massive fight about it. For a long time I didn't want to release the song--things that I had said were really inappropriate and quite cutting, but on the other hand he would react pretty ferociously as well.

Things are more smoothed out now.

Oh, a lot better now. I think we figured out after a couple years that we need each other to age gracefully.