Ten years after her last Australian tour, Sarah McLachlan is coming back for more. The three time Grammy winner has just released her 8th studio album, ‘Shine on’. McLachlan caught up with OUTinPerth to talk about the new album, some of her musical inspirations and making change in the music industry.
McLachlan said that ‘Shine On’ is a very personal album, citing some big life changes as writing inspiration.
“I went through a lot of big changes in my life, I’m 46 now and lost my dad a couple of years ago, got divorced, changed my management label of 24 years so you know, just a lot of things shifted around in my life.
“I had to figure out who I was and how I wanted the rest of my life to look and I guess a lot of that went into the writing of this record because for me it’s very cathartic and an opportunity to sort through some of the noise in my head and get it out.”
McLachlan said she allowed herself more creative freedom with ‘Shine On’ than in her previous albums.
“It’s very freeing to be able to not edit myself and just let the songs go in the direction they wanted to and lyrically in particular I didn’t feel like I had to edit myself, I just had what I thought was a strong story to tell and though it wasn’t easy to write, it was easy to be very honest about everything.”
The singer has also been taking a fresh direction creatively by involving some new producers with the album.
“There were some songs that I felt had more of a raw energy and I felt I wanted to have someone produce those songs that I knew could bring that energy to it. I worked with Bob Rock for a couple of songs and that was great. But I also knew that Pierre [Marchand], who I’ve worked with for years, some of the songs, he was the only guy for them so we ended up having a sort of mix of different people.”
Although ‘Shine On’ is a personal album, it’s by no means an entirely autobiographical work. McLachlan said she found inspiration for the song ‘In Your Shoes’ on the news.
“It actually started off being about bullying and I was having a hard time finishing it because I was trying to tell my own story and it didn’t seem strong enough and then the story of Malala Yousafi, who was shot in the head for speaking out against the Taliban about girls being educated came on the news and I just thought she was a really amazing role model and that someone so inspiring to stand up against these people despite all the danger and just to be so strong in one’s values at 15 years old, because that’s how old she was at the time. I just thought she was an amazing, amazing human being and her story sort of inspired us being able to finish the song.”
McLachlan has long been an advocate for women speaking out for equality. In 1997 she founded the ‘Lillith Fair’, a travelling music festival devoted to female musicians. McLachlan was inspired to create the festival after she wanted to have musician Paula Cole open for her on tour, only to be told that audiences didn’t want to see two female musicians back to back.
“I just thought, let’s just get a bunch of these great women, all of whom I’ve worked with or wanted to work with and enjoy their music together and let’s do a couple of shows in a row. I guess what happened is a bunch of promoters, when we told them said ‘You can’t do that. You can’t have women open up for you, you can’t put two women back to back on the radio. People don’t want that. It’s too much.’ So of course, I listened to that and thought ‘These people are idiots. They don’t know what they’re talking about. What’s that got to do with anything but good music?’ So off we went and we worked with some promoters who were willing to take that risk and it was one of the biggest touring festivals of the 90s.”
When asked if she enjoys proving people wrong, McLachlan laughed.
“Yeah, absolutely. If I think they’re being idiots, then damn straight. You know, I just thought it was a really stupid sexist attitude. And it turns out –well, obviously I knew I was right- but it turns out I wasn’t the only one that thought that, because like I said, it was very successful.”
It’s been 17 years since the first touring Lillith Fair. Has McLachlan observed a change in the music industry since then? “As far as equality? No. No I don’t.” she said.
“Do I think the world is changing? I think it’s happening very slowly but it is changing and there are moves in the right direction for sure. I think there’s still great inequality between the sexes in most jobs but we are now starting to see more CEOs, CFOs, women, in those positions, in big companies, which is great. So it’s slowly shifting but the music industry is still an old boys’ club for sure. Oh yeah. But if you have enough power you can push your ideas through. I think that’s certainly what I’ve always done.
“Luckily, within the music industry there’s lots of different avenues to pursue different kinds of successes. I’ve been extremely lucky that I’ve had the successes that I’ve had and I’ve worked with a lot of really great people, men and women, and so I haven’t had that much bad experience. I’ve had some bad experiences in that regard but not continuous, you know? I’ve been able to work around them and push through.”
Tickets for Sarah McLachlan’s Australian tour go on sale on Friday October 17th from LiveNation.
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