Interview with Sarah McLachlan

By
on

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.