Having sold millions of records, started Lilith Fair and had a baby, some people might have decided they'd done enough to call it a day - but Sarah McLachlan is coming back for more, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.
Sitting cross-legged in a suite in a sumptuous London hotel, and looking fresh despite her jet lag, Sarah McLachlan comes across as the epitome of efficiency. Clearly not one for flouncing around or throwing tantrums, the Canadian singer-songwriter greets the inquisitive music press courteously: attentive, questioning, open to suggestion yet firmly of her own mind.
The night before, at the Garrick Theatre in the West End, she had entertained the corporate suits of BMG, her record label, and some more bedraggled media and record-store people. Through her stage presence, unaffected demeanour, crystal-clear voice and several gorgeous songs, McLachlan reintroduced herself to this part of the world after seven years away.
Not that she's been missing in action; in 1997, the year she released her previous studio album, Surfacing, McLachlan founded Lilith Fair, the immensely successful female touring festival that for three years played the all-male Lollapalooza and Horde events at their own game and won.
"It started out as a simple idea," she says. "I wanted to do some summer shows back in the mid-90s, and when I looked at the touring summer festivals I realised they were completely male-dominated, despite the fact there was a wealth of female acts doing great business. So I thought, let's do something ourselves, put on a really good show with different acts each night - unlike the male-oriented festivals, which pretty much stuck to the same acts each show."
Initial scepticism was soon transformed into wide-eyed pleasure when promoters realised how much money could be made.
"I don't want to toot my own horn by saying Lilith Fair changed the world - I'm far too cynical for that - but I do think there were a lot of antiquated attitudes within the music industry towards women. There was so much cynicism from the off: people saying you couldn't put two women on the same bill, that you couldn't play two female artists back to back on the radio because it upset people. Now isn't that the most stupid thing you've ever heard?
"I suppose I lived in a bit of a bubble up to that point, because I never thought things like that were actual issues. But when I heard things like that it made me think hard about changing people's attitudes. Lilith Fair was successful - and why not? We had some great artists, so of course it worked. Besides, the public don't give a shit about how many women are on the bill of a music festival; they just wanted to hear good music. The press, however, jumped on it like it was a crazy new phenomenon, as if it was shocking stuff!"
Born in Nova Scotia in 1968, McLachlan might have an air of privilege about her, but she has surely given back as much as she has received. After college she started performing on the Canadian folk scene, releasing her début album, Touch, in 1988. Through subsequent records - besides Surfacing, 1991's Solace and 1993's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy - she has minted a wealth of achievements in her music and life, selling 25 million records, winning three Grammy Awards and regularly contributing to charitable organisations and to her own Vancouver-based outreach music programme, which provides free music education to students at music-free schools in the inner city.
"I had the luxury of taking private lessons as a child as well as having lessons in school," she recalls, "and I feel that every child should have the same opportunity. Besides, I've made lots of money from my success, which is an amazing benefit from having a job you love. The fact that I'm a musician has given me a lot of freedom in my life; it's taught me a lot and opened my eyes to many things. My success is a good platform from which to give back, so I try and be active in a social way, not necessarily through my music but as a direct result from the success of my music. I'm horribly ignorant of the way of most politics, so I'm more socially minded. I guess I just like to be involved."
Music, says McLachlan, connects her to an emotional place within herself. "When I hear songs that move me, it makes me think about why, how, what, my own life and so on. It's all progress and growth. I feel that music saved me when I was growing up. I was an awkward child, I didn't fit in anywhere, and music was the one thing I had that I knew I was good at. That kept me going in a lot of ways. If other kids have the same experience through my outreach music programme then that'd be great. Music tends to be the refuge for the alienated; well, art, music or sport. It's wherever you end up finding acceptance. I found it through music and art."
McLachlan's new album, Afterglow, operates on the if-it-ain't-broke-don't fix-it principle, blending the singer's earthy hippyisms with her solid sense of business. It brims with textured, almost manicured production values (by Daniel Lanois's protégé Pierre Marchand) and some of the best-sung melody lines you'll hear this side of the latest Dido record, which means it's earmarked as a no-risk certified seller for people who like that kind of thing.
Her career was interrupted by her involvement with Lilith Fair and the birth of her daughter. Edging herself back into the star-making machinery of the music industry was, she says, initially quite scary. "But I know the game and what it's all about. The scariest part was realising how much more difficult it was getting back into the game the longer I was out of it." She considered retirment, in order to look after her daughter, but she gradually realised that juggling motherhood with a career wasn't impossible. "Essentially, a musician and singer-songwriter is what I am. Besides, what else do I know how to do?"
It's refreshing, McLachlan says, for someone as famous as she is to walk down a street in London and not be recognised; her success in North America doesn't afford her such a right. "I love my anonymity. That's been part of the reticence in coming back - getting back into the machine, with my face getting recognised more and more. For the most part it's fine."
She considers herself lucky that her career advanced gradually. "I worry for the people out there who are massively famous at the age of 19 or 20. If that had happened to me I'm sure I would have been a complete mess. I don't know if people have the coping skills to fully deal with that level of fame; you're not even a complete person yet at that age.
"Because my career progressed slowly I got a chance to get used to the weirdness of fame. The pros far outweigh the cons, I think, which is why I continue to do it. Besides, fame is not something I buy into or am interested in. I don't live in LA and I wouldn't want to; I wouldn't want to be that close to the weirdness. I keep my life very separate from that."
She freely admits she is far removed from the conscious provocation of bubblegum pop. "It's not my cup of tea, but there's merit in it and I can understand its appeal. That particular part of pop music is extremely image-conscious, which I'm not. I just do my music and look how I look on any given day, and that's the end of it."
Afterglow is on Arista