Interview with Sarah McLachlan
by Lesley Goldberg
April 28, 2010
It's been seven long years since Sarah McLachlan released Afterglow, her last full-length studio album of original material and 11 years since Lilith Fair closed up shop.
But all that is changing this summer as both McLachlan and Lilith Fair mark their triumphant return. Laws of Illusion, McLachlan's sixth all-original album, bows June 15 — and the singer-songwriter who founded the "celebration of women" hits the road with Lilith Fair 2.0 less than two weeks later to support the record with artists including Brandi Carlile, Kelly Clarkson, Queen Latifah, Rihanna, Tegan and Sara and the Indigo Girls, among others.
AfterEllen.com caught up with McLachlan to talk about Lilith Fair, Laws of Illusion and why sexual orientation "doesn't matter."
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AfterEllen.com: It’s been seven-plus years since you’ve recorded an album of all original material, and you’ve historically taken a few years off between albums. Is there a specific reason for that?
Sarah McLachlan: Yeah. Mostly it's because I had kids. I wasn't a prolific writer by any stretch of the imagination before that and having children really slows down the process because, well, they're the most exquisite distraction there is. I was really lucky that I got to take big chunks of time off to be a mom.
AE: How is Laws of Illusion different than Afterglow?
SM: I don't know; I haven't really thought about comparing the two. There's a lot of light and darkness on this record, and there's a sort of real raw energy to this record that I haven't felt before. The process in which we recorded it was a lot quicker. We recorded it live off-the-floor stuff, which is sort of a bunch of musicians in a room, here are the songs, here are the chords, go, record.
We did six songs in five days that way; the bulk of the songs. That was really exciting and fun and just kept it fresh with a different kind of energy. The past couple records have been a week in Montreal and then my producer coming to Vancouver. So lots of slowly building up songs a lot quicker.
AE: Where does the album title come from?
SM: I was thinking about illusions and loss, which are a lot of the themes of the record, but it just seemed a little too depressing! (Laughs.) When I told it to my producer, he was like, "Did you say 'loss' or 'laws' of illusion?" And I was like, "Oh, I like that!" And then I was thinking about laws of illusion.
I like the fact that it doesn't make any sense — it's all about the fantasies that a lot of us buy into about how your life is going to play out and you're going to meet that person and get married and have kids or what ever your path is. Then all of the sudden, it's no longer in front of you. That whole big chunk of your life that you sort of had checked that off and went, "OK, that's settled." It defines you. It defined me to a large degree and I sort of had to go and pick up the pieces and figure out who I was at that point. The process of figuring that out was making this record.
AE: “Loving You Is Easy” is the first single. Is that autobiographical?
SM: Oh yeah. (Laughs.) They all are, but there's also lots of creative license in all these songs because life just isn't that interesting most of the time (laughs.) And you have to create a bit of a story.
Yeah, "Loving You Is Easy" is sort of my first foray into the possibility of a new relationship; that sort of delirious and heady feeling of lust and passion that ensues and that sort of "Wow, I didn't know I'd ever be feeling this again — great!"
AE: How has songwriting and getting back into the studio helped you deal with the break-up of your marriage?
SM: Well, it's been a big part of it. Music and writing has always been the biggest way I can express myself and sort through the things that are going on in my life. So it's been very cathartic.
AE: Switching to Lilith Fair, what sort of impact do you think Lilith Fair has had on female musicians since it first launched in 1996?
SM: I'd like to think that we created a sense of community that didn't really exist before for a lot of women musicians and a lot of those friendships continued and we dispelled a lot of myths within the industry about not being able to put two women on the same bill, not being able to play two women back-to-back on the radio because people won't come, or people won't listen. But guess what, they sure do! And they came, and they listened and they loved it.
We created something I think that took on a life of its own; it was so much bigger than the sum of its parts. The idea of bringing that back again and growing that legacy and the fact that we have a wealth o f new musicians now that we can add to that and that we have the sort of momentum behind us of people sort of remembering, "Wow, that was great." I'm very excited about the possibilities.
AE: What about on the music industry as a whole?
SM: That's kind of hard to answer without really tooting my own horn. I'd like to think that it helped a lot of artists — it gave a lot of them a platform that was larger than the one they would have had if they were playing on their own, certainly. Again, I think it really helped the industry recognize that women were a powerful force and we make great music.
It's interesting, too, because one of the things that I sort of felt when Lilith finished in 1999, I think music is very cyclical and it seemed like the door swung shut on the singer-songwriter. That was sort of when Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync were becoming so huge and that sort of prefab bubblegum pop was just taking over everything. That was a little bit disheartening — even though I'm a closet Backstreet Boys fan (laughs), a few songs anyway. But again, the sense of community it created with the artists, the fact that it was incredibly successful, the industry had to take notice of that and recognize the power that women had.
AE: Do you have plans to tour solo once Lilith Fair has concluded?
SM: I don't yet and I don't know if I will because my girls are in school and the older one is in Grade 2 going into Grade 3 and she really needs routine and I don't think she'd do very well. A lot of people take their kids on the road and have a tutor, but she needs to be home and I can't leave her. I think it's going to be touring in the summer for me — and one-offs for a while.
AE: What do you think about your huge lesbian following? You're somewhat of an icon within the community.
SM: Am I? Why?
AE: A lot of readers identify with your music and Lilith Fair has just become such a part of the lesbian cultural landscape.
SM: That's one of the greatest gifts about music — whether you're gay or straight, it's just so fantastic to hear that something I helped to create has a positive impact in a stranger's life. That's such a gift for me.
Maybe selfish isn't the right word but it's kind of a selfish thing that I do make my music — I don't do it to please anyone else, I do it to please myself. And that I can give that out to the world and have it affect people in any kind of way, much less a profound kind of way is the biggest compliment to me. And it makes me feel connected to people. Again, music has a gift like that —whether it's art or photography or a great movie, or a song, you hear it, you see it, and you're instantly moved. It resonates something within you and that is that connection we all crave — to ourselves, to each other.
This world we live in now is so defined by fast-food culture and quick time snippets and sound bites. We're all texting each other as opposed to speaking to each other and I think art is so incredibly important for that very thing of just grounding us, reminding us of our own fragility and beauty.
AE: A lot of people are curious how you would label yourself: gay, straight or bisexual. Care to touch on that?
SM: I'm not big on labels. I don't think about people as gay or straight; I think about them as human beings. Sexual orientation doesn't matter. It's about love, feeling love and giving love.
Sarah McLachlan's new single, "Loving You is Easy" will be released on May 4, and the album, The Laws of Illusion, drops on June 15.
