Keyboards, Weezer, and opening for Alanis Morissette: Maya Rudolph’s forgotten music career
Maya Rudolph‘s career as one of the best members of Saturday Night Live, is a foundational part of pop culture, let alone her own resume. Alongside an impressive TV and film career, she has another passion. When she’s not performing sketches or acting in comedies like Bridesmaids, you might find her making music.
It’s something that many people seem unaware of, even though Rudolph’s mother was none other than Minnie Riperton. When you’re born into a family as talented as that – Riperton was known for her whistle register, which she famously used on the hit song ‘Lovin’ You’ – you’re going to absorb some musical talent.
These days, you can find Rudolph fronting a Prince cover band, aptly called Princess, with her college friend Gretchen Lieberum. Putting a female spin on the artist’s classic hits, Rudolph has paid tribute to Prince with many fantastic performances of his songs, which she has loved since she was a teenager.
“I remember dancing in socks, on the rug and on the bed. It was just the jammiest, funkiest, most exciting, interesting… I’d just never really heard that before. I fell in love with Prince when I saw Purple Rain, the movie. That’s really what cracked it wide open,” she once told NPR.
Even Prince was a fan of the cover band, which they formed back in 2011. If you’ve got the the purple master’s seal of approval, then you’re sorted. So, Rudolph might have Princess on the back burner whenever she wants to whip out her musical skills, but it’s not like she’s new to this.
Back in the 1990s, she appeared in the band the Rentals, which was formed by Matt Sharp following his departure from Weezer. She played keyboard and performed backing vocals for a few years, and during this time she embarked on various tours, which included a support slot for Alanis Morissette.
Here, she became friends with Morissette’s then drummer Taylor Hawkins, later a member of the Foo Fighters, who she called the “funniest” and “coolest.” Rudolph revealed in an interview with CBC, “Alanis was a lovely host. We spent Thanksgiving together as band families. She was very gracious. And we did a lot of hacky-sacking with her and her band.”
She continued, “Getting to be their opening act for a month was fascinating and fun, and they were sweet.”
Before that, though, she was the drummer in a slacker rock band called That Dog, which featured Anna Waronker in the lead, who went on to marry Steven Shane McDonald from the Melvins. I think you could draw an ever-intertwining web between people in the music industry.
There was never going to be another lifestyle for Rudolph, who grew up immersed in the world of music and touring. She told the New Yorker, “My brother and I used to go on the road all the time with my parents, so that wasn’t lost on me, that that world existed. It was normalised, and yet we knew it was exciting. You know it’s not normal to lose your tooth in Lake Tahoe and wake up with a chip from the casino from the tooth fairy. We’d get to stay in hotels and order French fries.”
