June 07, 2005
Publication title: CanWest News, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Vancouver
Writer: Unknown
A musical snapshot
As songbird Sarah McLachlan winds down her world tour, could a second baby be on her future playlist? An interview with the ethereal West Coast artist.
VANCOUVER – It is no stretch to picture Sarah McLachlan barefoot at home, surrounded by incense and yoga mats and a Labrador retriever cross with a name like Sam.
The West Coast artist’s name conjures many things: ethereal vocals, doe-eyed inner peace, an earthy-lifestyle champion, forthright rebel, and a serenely private, widely adored, hippie folk-pop star.
This is our image of the 37-year-old McLachlan, who eight years ago married her drummer Ash Sood and three years ago gave birth to a daughter named India. And this is why it’s a little jarring to hear McLachlan, of all people, describe her three-year-old making requests like a Paris Hilton Mini Me.
“She’s really precocious,” says McLachlan. “She said to me, `Mommy, could you please phone the concierge and ask if there’s a swimming pool at this hotel?’ I’m like, `Oh God. Time to get off the road,’ ” she laughs. “Yikes.”‘
The little girl is growing up surrounded by roadies and tour staff, and few children, which worries McLachlan a little.
“She’s taken to it like a fish to water, she loves it, loves the attention. She’s got a bevy of doting adults surrounding her all the time. The thing is, she is shy around kids because she needs to be socialized with other children. But we’ll be home for the summer and she’s going into pre-school in the fall.”
First, McLachlan finishes up the final stretch of her more than year-long touring schedule in Vancouver on June 12. The tour was supposed to finish in Sydney, Australia, where she is calling from for our phone interview, but she was sick for six weeks with laryngitis and sinusitis and the delay meant a revised tour schedule.
Prior to Sydney, McLachlan had been in her hometown of Halifax. She hadn’t been home for a visit in eight years, so it was a powerfully nostalgic one.
“This one woman came up to me and put a picture in front of me and it was my best friend Susan from age zero to 7 when I lived out in the boonies,” says McLachlan. “It was us at four years old, holding these kittens. It was one thing after another. All day long, severe nostalgia. And it was a beautiful day, really nice, because I have a lot of good memories of Halifax but also a lot of not-so-good memories the feelings of wanting to get out, wanting to escape, which everybody feels about their hometown.”
As her fans already know, McLachlan left Halifax around 1988 to pursue a recording career with the founders of the then-tiny Vancouver based label, Nettwerk Records. In Halifax, she fronted a new wave band, but Nettwerk saw her as a solo act, and she emerged with her debut album, Touch. With each successive record, Solace, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Surfacing, McLachlan’s fanbase in North America and England grew, and by the late `90s, she’d earned three Grammys.
More than a year ago, Sarah McLachlan released her fifth record. In November of 2003, after six years without a studio album, and two and a half years out of the public eye, she was re-introducing herself to the world with Afterglow her first release since 1997’s eight-times-platinum Surfacing (containing hits Building a Mystery, Sweet Surrender, Adia and Angel).
In that between-time, McLachlan had become the lightning rod for post-modern feminism as the brains behind all-girl touring summer festival Lilith Fair, she’d received the Order of Canada, her mother had died, her daughter India had been born.
As a result, Afterglow marks a transitional phase in the singer’s life, both personal and professional. In the six years between albums, the music scene had changed a lot since Lilith Fair ladies like Natalie Merchant and Paula Cole had drawn two million people through festival gates. Punk and R & B-inspired artists like Avril Lavigne, Gwen Stefani, Beyoncee and Pink have stepped up to the plate. It seems like it’s the boys these days who keep McLachlan company in the heavenly vocals department, with Jack Johnson, Damien Rice and Josh Rouse keeping it earthy and real.
As well, Afterglow is the finish of her five-record deal with the Nettwerk label, even though McLachlan has no desire to go elsewhere.
“No one’s ever offered and I’ve never been interested,” she says. “I love Nettwerk Records. We’ve kind of grown up together. In saying that, my deal is now up and I have no plans to go anywhere else. So I think we’re just going to figure out a new method.”
In the meantime, she has recorded a duet and video with Robbie Robertson for her World On Fire song (to be used by TNT’s Into the West TV program this summer), and she also appears July 2 at Bob Geldof’s new version of Live Aid (Live 8), in Philadelphia, one of five cities holding the event that day.
McLachlan, who would have been 17 during the original Live Aid charity concert for Ethiopian relief, sees a more aware generation out there.
“Back then, as a young teenager, I was so self involved,” she says. “Kids these days, teenagers, are so much more aware of their world around them than we were. I don’t know about you, but those kind of things weren’t at the forefront, at least not in my household.”
On the personal front, she’s talked about trying to have a second child soon, of India’s need for a sibling. But McLachlan is as passionate about her career as she is about motherhood.
“I’m still selfish, and I still have my desire to try to do both. And it is a big challenge. I had a lot of trepidation about figuring out how to manage both of them, and you know, do I feel a lot of guilt? Sure, there are some days I feel, `What am I doing this for? it’s killing me.’ But you know, the next day comes along and we have a really good day.
“I love playing music, I love playing live, the benefits still outweigh the bad things.”
