It’s after 1:00 a.m. at rock-world fixture Cherry Vanilla’s Hollywood apartment, and singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright is showing off a new ring, a large silver piece studded with a thin diamond cross. “Elton gave it to me, after the show,” Wainwright announces enthusiastically. “I was, like, This is for me?”

At UCLA’s Royce Hall earlier in the evening, Wainwright took the stage, singing “Greek Song” in a duet with Elton John, a self-confessed longtime fan. Sporting flip-fl ops and a colorful sash, Wainwright belted out his brand of folk-tinged, operatic rock ballads for over two hours. He performed “Natasha,” about his former roommate, actress Natasha Lyonne and “Gay Messiah,” a new number addressing religion and homosexuality. At one point, a large, sparkly brooch got in the way of Wainwright’s acoustic guitar strap. A guy in black raced on stage to help him, but Wainwright self-consciously joked, “I don’t need a roadie to help me with my goddamn brooch!”

Earlier that morning, Wainwright was in an introspective mood. Lounging on the patio of Mel’s Diner (his choice), picking at a cheese and chili-stuffed omelet, Wainwright pondered the state of gays in America. “If Bush wins the next election, I don’t know if I want to live in the United States,” he ruminated. “I’ve come to that conclusion, especially after all these constitutional amendments and the blatant idiocy and treachery that the [administration] promotes. I’m seriously considering selling my [New York] apartment if he wins. I would move to a village in France. I speak French. I was thinking about hanging in the countryside there and starting to write my opera.”

When he appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live the night before, Wainwright wore a mariachi costume and sang “Gay Messiah,” which includes the lyrics: “He will then be reborn from 1970s porn / Wearing tube socks with style and such an innocent smile / Better pray for your sins, better pray for your sins / Cause the gay messiah’s coming / He will fall from the star, Studio 54 / And appear on the sand of Fire Island shore,” and includes a line about “being baptized in come.”

“I was testing the boundaries of free speech,” he explains. “Bringing together the politics of Christ and homosexuality and making it into one song. In the main religions, homosexuality is not addressed. It’s not there. That’s where I come in; not that I want to add anything to the Bible.” Wainwright pauses dramatically, throws his head back and unleashes a loud laugh. “Or maybe I do.”

Want One, Wainwright’s most recent album, was written while he was living in New York in 2002, sharing space with friends Natasha Lyonne, designer Ben Cho and musician Melissa auf der Maur, who played with Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins. “A lot happened to me while I was there,” Wainwright recollects. “It was crazy…walking out into the backyard and seeing Chloë Sevigny sunning herself…Pink dropping by at four in the morning. It was very underground Hollywood. I arrived there thinking this would be my big summer of love and excitement and it went in the other direction. I had to pick up the pieces in the end,” he explains, alluding to his recent stint in rehab.

Wainwright was the first artist to sign to DreamWorks’ record label, a time he describes as “living in the ivory tower.” He made his self-titled debut (1998) and the follow-up, Poses (2001), at DreamWorks. Friend Michael Caviadas, an actor and DJ, explains Wainwright’s musical evolution: “I was listening to the song “Go Or Go Ahead” on Want One, and when I first heard it, I was thinking back to Poses and all of us hanging out together. Poses had a fascination with debauchery and people falling through the cracks. But on Want One, Rufus is wrestling with larger issues. It’s a turning point. To me, “Go Or Go Ahead” symbolizes that change, of growing up. It’s been amazing to watch Rufus’ transformation, when you hit 30 and go through that life change.”

During the release of Want One, Wainwright switched from DreamWorks to Interscope, a label that also represents No Doubt, Sting and Black Eyed Peas. “It was scary in the beginning, but it’s going remarkably well.” After he finishes touring with Want One, Wainwright plans to distribute tracks he recorded for Want Two. “I’m going to release Want Two in sections, four or five songs at a time. There are some definite political statements and some apocalyptic material, which I’m going to release before the election, to get that out of my system—and into yours.” In a move that reveals the music industry’s current state of flux, Wainwright plans to release those recordings on EPs with Interscope and as mp3s on the Internet.

Wainwright grew up in Montreal with one sister, Martha. His parents, Loudon Wainwright and Kate McGarrigle, are both musicians. At 14, he came out of the closet—to himself. “I was raped that summer,” Wainwright confesses without blinking. “I went to London and I met this guy, who was around 25. He brought me to the park and raped me. I got out of it, sort of, by pretending to be epileptic.” Wainwright laughs at the idea but, turning serious, adds, “A little bit of rape goes a long way.”

Wainwright longed to get away from home, so he went to boarding school in Millbrook, New York, where he was the school’s art-music-drama star. When he told his parents he was gay, they were confused and upset. “Neither of my parents knew how to deal with the fact that I was gay at all…with [the climate at the time of] AIDS, being gay meant you were going to die. It was a death sentence.”

After McGill College, Wainwright moved to New York. He worked three jobs and would frequent nightclubs like Jackie 60 alone. “No one would talk to me,” he moans. “I remember one time, I smoked a joint and passed out in the middle of the dance floor, and these drag queens took me outside. I was wearing this Yohji Yamamoto suit with a scarf. I looked like a Golden Girl. I was not a sexy young person. I was peculiar.” Frustrated, Wainwright returned to Montreal and wrote music. By the time he came back to New York, he was an underground star, performing in small clubs and attracting a devout following. “Everyone was at my feet,” he boasts with a hoot. “That was fabulous, and I wasn’t vindictive at all.”

Before he signed a recording contract, Wainwright was upfront about his sexual orientation. “Some camps said that I should not mention it in interviews, or say that I’m bisexual. I didn’t pay any attention to it. I remember as a teenager watching Boy George, and until he said he was gay at that press conference, I didn’t think he was. Unless you actually say it, people don’t believe it.”

Wainwright complains that the gay community has yet to embrace his quirky sensibility and musical style. “I have a hard time with gay people sometimes. That’s been a hard nut to crack. They’re either really into it or totally just into DJs and the club scene and working out. My music goes to a place they just don’t want to go.” Wainwright wonders whether he would have been more successful had he stayed in the closet. “Perhaps I would have garnered a lot more fame and fortune. But on the other hand, you pay for that. Being gay has protected me from massive doses of fame. I haven’t been thrown to the wolves. In the end, I’m happy.”

“A lot of straight kids really dig the fact that I’m very open about being gay,” Wainwright notes. “Girls really like me. Girls always want to have my baby. I do want to have a baby someday, but first things first.” Wainwright still has to write his opera and he’d like to make a record in French and work again with his mother, who played the banjo and accordion on Want One. He’s never collaborated with his father, explaining that they “like to keep our camps separate.”

On the road, Wainwright is trying to finish Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. He draws and paints and is anxious to get back to New York, where he recently bought a “closet-sized” apartment on Gramercy Park. “I want this coffee table that’s also a fish tank—and Biedermeier chairs. My life in New York is very centered around my new apartment.” Wainwright is excited about getting back to recording some new songs. “Whenever I’m in the studio, I bliss out. I turn into Diana Ross,” he mentions, with mock seriousness. “I have an afro that appears. Once you walk into the studio, you’re in another place.”

These days, Wainwright seems as torn between worlds as ever: underground, yet on the verge of the mainstream, “The Gay Musician” who’s better-known by straight music aficionados than by the run-of-the-mill circuit queen, having survived his gay salad days but not yet settled into status-quo gay complacency.

“I’m extremely lonely,” he whispers, looking off at the parade of cars on Sunset Boulevard. “I’m not seeing anyone now. Having been a pretty hardcore gay for a few years, hanging out at The Cock—which is fun—I can’t operate in that world today. But if anyone wants to arrive on my doorstep on a horse with a suit of armor,” he adds in the vein of the longing that runs through so many of his songs, “well, that would be fabulous.”