August, 2004

Publication title: Flare, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Unknown
Writer: Buffy Childerhose

Back and better than ever

She’s performed around the globe, been on Oprah, and has eight Junos and three Grammys at her Vancouver home, but Sarah McLachlan insists that she’s still like most other working moms. “It’s been challenging for me to strike a balance [between career and family],” she says with a muffled voice, her famous vocal chords hampered by a cold that’s been dogging her for days.

Sniffles aside, McLachlan has fared pretty well walking her tightrope. Her latest release, Afterglow (Nettwerk), snagged a Grammy nomination and two Junos and has gone platinum several times over. This, her fifth full-length studio album, is the fruit of a difficult time for McLachlan; in the six years since the release of her Grammy-winning album Surfacing, she faced both the death of her mother and the birth of her daughter, India.

“The same time I was nauseous from morning sickness, my mother was nauseous from chemotherapy,” says McLachlan quietly. “I got to see the huge cycle of life being played out right in front of my eyes.”

Yet this new album is no page torn from McLachlan’s journal. She suspects that what she felt during those watershed years may not even be visible in these songs. That said, McLachlan’s not quite sure what Afterglow is about. “I don’t analyze. I do what I do and it’s very instinctual,” she says. “I don’t set any specific goals for myself. I simply move forward with the goal of moving forward.”

These days, McLachlan is moving forward on a tour bus. The 36-year-old is back on the road and learning all about balance. Touring is grueling enough, she says, but “it’s challenging with a kid. I have to prioritize my time more carefully and be more disciplined because, otherwise, I don’t get anything done.”

But the advantages of touring with her two-year-old and her husband/drummer, Ashwin Sood, far outweigh the challenges. “People in the band and [the crew] will be out late drinking and come down to the hotel lobby in the morning all grumpy and India will run up to them and say ‘Hi!’ and they’ll just burst into a huge smile. She brings so much levity and joy into everybody’s life.”

To hear McLachlan tell it, fame’s spotlight reveals little; it’s India who is the real source of illumination in her life. “It’s amazing to me, [her] joy and exuberance toward the simplest things.”