June 29, 2014

Publication title: stltoday.com, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Unknown
Writer: Kevin C. Johnson

Sarah McLachlan tells more of her own stories on new album

Singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan was allowed to cheat a little on her latest album, “Shine On.”

She took a break from her longtime producer Pierre Marchand, with whom she worked on songs “Building a Mystery,” “Possession,” “Angel” and “I Will Remember You” and collaborated instead with Bob Rock and Vincent Jones.

“I like getting to cheat,” said McLachlan, 46. “After you’re in a relationship with someone for so long, it’s fun to try someone else. It was great. I was with Marchand for so many years.”

But she was afraid of bringing that idea to Marchand.

“I didn’t know how he would feel,” she said. “And then he suggested it. That was a freeing thing for me.” But the two ended up working together on some “Shine On” tracks because she says there were songs on the album that needed his touch.

Going into “Shine On,” McLachlan had no particular notion of what she wanted the album to be.

“I let the music take it where it wants to go. I do that with each record,” she said. “I write from such an emotional point of view, mining those feelings where I’m revealing something about myself to myself. That’s very cathartic for me.”

Songs were built out of personal experiences, so she was able to tell stories in a more direct manner.

In the past when she has written music, she says, she’d draw from not only her own experiences but those of others and bring them together as one.

“I liked to create a parallel universe because I felt the stories weren’t strong enough on their own,” she said. “But I felt these (stories) were strong enough to stand on their own.”

One of those songs from “Shine On” is “Song for My Father,” which addresses the death in 2010 of her father.

“There’s lots of sadness and loss around my dad,” she said. “He was a great guy, and I wanted to honor that. The song speaks to who he was and continues to be in his absence.”

She says she and her family took her father’s ashes to the Pacific Northwest and released them into the water. After everyone else went to sleep, McLachlan returned to the water, stripped down and “swam around him. It was so sad but freeing. It was the final letting go.”

The album, which also features the song “In Your Shoes,” was a tough one to make, she says, although not any more difficult than 2010’s “The Laws Of Illusion,” her first release after her split with her husband.

But the making of “Shine On” did distract her from other parts of her life, including her two daughters and the Sarah McLachlan School of Music in Vancouver.

She also changed her management and record labels. “You need to shake things up sometimes,” she said. “There’s so many complacencies and patterns in life. I wanted to break them, just change everything.

“Writing on this record is the aftermath of that. How do I redefine myself. Is this as good as it gets, or do I have the ability to change it?”

The “Shine On” tour will be crowd pleaser. “I’m gonna play lots of songs from the new record and a lot of the older songs fans know and love, the songs everyone wants to hear,” she said. “I’m working on this living room experience where it’s like I never leave my house. I’m bringing my living room on tour.”