Fateful is how Sarah McLachlan describes the night of her first performance as a member of a high school rock band. On that night, she fell in love with the joy of making music for a happy, appreciative audience—and Mark Jowatt, soon to be head of Artists and Repertoire for Nettwerk Records, fell in love with young Sarah’s voice. She declined his offer to travel to Vancouver to record a demo, deciding (at her mum’s insistence) to complete high-school and pursue her dreams of attending art school; but Sarah’s unforgettable voice had made a lasting impression. Two years later, Nettwerk offered a five-record contract and at the age of 19, Sarah recorded her first album, Touch. Her second album, Solace, came in 1991. She completed a world tour in 1994 in support of her third highly acclaimed and best selling album, Fumbling Toward Ecstacy.

In conversation, Sarah is as outspoken as she is introspective, and her personality is as down-to-earth as her singing voice is angelic. Muse spoke to Sarah for our premier issue cover story as she waited to catch a flight to Germany from the East Coast.

Was performing on stage and being in the spotlight something you once dreamed about?
I think when I was seventeen, the first time I was up on stage and I was singing and I looked down and people were smiling and dancing… that is probably one of the highlights of my life. I remember that so vividly. And so I do love being up onstage and I love that adulation. I do. (laughing) I’d be stupid to say I didn’t. But at the same time, typically I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want to be able to take that hat off when I walk off stage and just be me again. It doesn’t work like that, and that’s been the wildest thing and the hardest thing to deal with. The more people who know me, or know my music, the less time I have to myself.

When you first started writing songs, were you surprised and impressed at what you could do? Did you say to yourself, “Wow, that’s really good!”?
I think I was more impressed when other people liked them. Because I was still in the place of really needing to be told I was OK. The songs were a part of me, so if the songs were OK, then I was OK, and I needed that. I still do to a certain degree, although now I know much more whether they’re good or not on my own.

Do you practice your chops on the guitar?
Ahh, chops… I don’t really have any chops! (laughs) I have my favorite voicings that I tend to go back to all the time if you can call those chops. I don’t really practice, I just play all the time.

I guess that is practice. And songwriting is such a craft in itself.
Yeah, that’s pretty separate from it. Although— it is and it isn’t. For me, songwriting is just completely instinctual. I just pick up an instrument and go. I’ll play and hum and sing, and things either come out or they don’t.

The album Fumbling Toward Ecstacy is so confident. The songs are very conversational, as though you were talking to a friend or writing a letter.
Well, they’re definitely strong conversations with myself. I think the albums have progressed in the sense that I’ve gotten to know myself a lot better. I think the songs will become stronger because the songs are me. The songs are about me trying to figure out myself to a large degree. Even if it’s putting myself into someone else’s shoes to portray a character, if I’m talking about a situation completely outside of myself, it’s how do I see this emotionally or how does this affect me. Am I saying something really tragic or funny or whatever. You relate everything to your own life first and foremost and then as you’’re dissecting it, you’’re trying to figure it out and relate it to your own past knowledge and understanding or lack of understanding.

I think it’s ironic that the album is called “Fumbling” because there is a real noticeable sense of confidence in everything. Even in the quality of the melodies.
Well, for me the whole album was about losing control; by learning so much control that I could completely lose myself and not be afraid. A lot of the time making the record was spent talking about the head-space that we were in and discussing ideas and just trying to be really strong and happy.
When something was bothering us, we’d work through that before we started writing or recording, because we recorded everything basically, whatever came out. Often the first things that came out were the things that ended up on the record, whether it’s the first try at electric guitar or first piano take or first vocal take. In many instances, it’s the first dummy track. So it’s a real learning process for me to let go of editing myself, to let go of pre-thinking what I was doing, or listening to something for the wrong reasons versus the right reasons, and questioning that. So for that, there were a lot of mistakes that were made, but the mistakes were what made it great. You know, I wasn’t being a perfectionist anymore. I think a lot of art is done that way. In photography or whatever… you did the wrong film stop or whatever and the most beautiful picture in the world comes out of that mistake that you thought would be a total disaster.

Is the song sequence on the album something that you talked over with your producer Pierre Marchand?
Yeah. We made a lot of tapes, and did a lot of sequencing experiments, and played through them all to see what fit best. With Pierre and me it’s quite a strong collaborative effort from the beginning. You know, I write the basics of the songs, but I go in with him and they take shape.

You ended the album Solace with “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” It’s such a bright uplifting note.
Yeah, that wasn’t my idea.

Really?
Well, actually, putting it on the end of the record was my idea. Arista wanted it somewhere smack in the middle of the record. I recorded it for another reason altogether as part of a Donovan compilation, but they thought the record needed something hopeful… (laughs) so we compromised and I put it at the end. But I don’t think it makes much sense on the record personally.

It does stand alone in a way.
Yeah, I didn’t like it for that reason, but that’s just my own personal thing of wanting the record to be “this is what it is.” Yeah, it’s depressing, a lot of it, but…

The brightest song on the new album, “Ice Cream,” certainly comes before some pretty heavy songs that leave you feeling a certain way.
Yeah, because “Hold On” is one of the heaviest in my mind, and I had to counterbalance it by putting “Ice Cream” in there. I figured, “Ah, I gotta ease up a little there momentarily”. (laughs) But even “Ice Cream” has its pensive chorus. Like, “this is really amazing, but if we fuck it up, there’s a lot of hell to pay.”

This interview is for the December issue of Muse. Can you think of a particularly fond memory at Christmastime, either at home or out on the road in an exotic place?
Well, I’ve always managed to go home at Christmas. That’s really more important to my Mum and Dad than it is to me. I’m not really so much into Christmas, although the older I get the more I’m starting to enjoy it again. It’s just so fuckin’ commercialized. You know, everybody’s uptight because they don’t really want to buy presents for everybody but they have to because it’s Christmas—I hate all that bullshit. I buy presents for people when I see something I like, and I give it to them when I get it. People don’t get presents on their birthdays, they get them when I buy them. Or make something, which is even better. But, I’m starting to enjoy it more and one of the nicest things is getting to see my family and all my old friends because they come back to Halifax. We manage to reunite at Christmas, so for that, it’s quite nice. I guess I’’m getting older and I’m getting more nostalgic about it. About friends, about keeping connections going when there’s a desire to.

What is Christmas like in Nova Scotia?
Cold! (laughs) Hopefully, there will be snow. The last couple of years there’s been rain on Christmas, but three years ago there was a beautiful snowstorm. We have a great big huge park on the ocean and one of my friends and I went down to the water and built a huge, huge snow-woman. A big fat snow goddess, and that was really fun. My first female snowperson. (laughs) And she was beautiful, she was huge! She was about six feet tall and five feet in diameter—a huge thing like a big, big deity. A big icon goddess thing. But hey, one interesting thing, I got confirmed: I’m going to the Vatican to sing for the Pope at Christmas [Christmas 1994].

Wow!
Yeah, pretty freaky huh?

That’s amazing. I never knew the Pope was into popular music.
It’s a Christmas special, and all sorts of people are doing it. I think Sting is doing it too, and I’m basically just singing a Christmas song with a symphony. And hey, I’d love to sing with a symphony. I never have, so there’s one bonus. And I get to check out Rome on someone else’s coin. I get to check out the Vatican and see things that are really amazing… It’s Christmas, it’s the Pope, it’s Rome: I’m sure there’s gonna be paparazzi everywhere (laughs).

There’ll be fantastic acoustics too, unless it’s outdoors.
I’’m sure it’s going to be in some glorious cathedral. It’s pretty chilly in Rome for Christmas, so I don’t think it will be outdoors. I’m leaving today for Munich and not coming back ’til December 27th to Vancouver. I’m going to be in Munich tomorrow and I haven’t given it a thought yet. I’m just going to be there all of a sudden and go, “Oh my God, culture shock!” I’m not very good at pre-thinking. I just do things.

I don’t think thinking too much is a good idea.
No, and I do, I think way too much and it rarely gets me anywhere.

You seem really good at jumping into things with both feet.
Yeah, but I’ve got to find a balance. Still working on the balance.

© 1995 Muse Magazine

All rights reserved. Redistribution for profit prohibited. Copies must include this notice.