is finally wrapping up in B.C. Supreme Court today.Darryl Neudorf is suing McLachlan and Nettwerk productions
for song-writing credit, copyright infringement. and a share of royalties and co-production credit on McLachlan's 1988 debut album, Touch.
The former drummer with the band 54-40 is credited on the album for "pre-production co-ordination and production assistance."
Arguments are expected to last five days, with the judge's ruling
to be handed down in the next few months. McLachlan's manager, Terry McBride, says the Lilith Fair diva is too busy to attend the case wrap up, but she wasn't too busy to sit down with MusicMania Team to
discuss her latest CD, Mirrorball, and her last Lilith tour as she looks forward to taking some time off in 2000.
MusicMania: Sarah, what does a Mirrorball do to you?
Sarah McLachlan: Well, it makes me feel very, very dreamy and romantic. There's something about singing when the mirrorball is on you --the lighting is beautiful, the circular thing... it's very hypnotic.
MusicMania: It also says get ready for something beautiful doesn't it? Because there's this great feeling of anticipation about it especially if you're out looking at someone who is beautiful
that you know is looking at you. Do you use it in your show?
McLachlan:
Yes. I had to beg my lighting director. He was like ugh...mirror balls are tacky, they're '70s disco and I said no, they're beautiful trust me, so he very begrudgingly gave me five. It's so beautiful and magical to sing with this thing rolling around.
MusicMania: We listened to your album and the first track of the album which is Building a Mystery, there's a point where you sing that line about the beautiful screwed up man. And you throw
that line out toward your audience and there's such a connection with your audience at that moment. There's kind of a recognition there though isn't there. What is that?
McLachlan:
I don't know. It's not just the women screaming either. I think it's a universal phrase, I say "beautiful %&*!! man" but I think that speaks to everyone in some point of their lives. I think we all wear masks and we try to be something we're not at some point in our lives and the whole process of discovery. They love it when I swear too.
MusicMania: I guess it's a rock and roll moment then as well.
McLachlan: It's a very rock and roll moment I could kick my feet up as well.
MusicMania: When you were
talking about Lilith last year you talked about empathy a lot. But there's also a sense beyond empathy that she's singing about me. And that's something you've always been able to do in your music. I think
of it as the completion to the song. The song is incomplete until the listener, the person who you are singing it to adds their own experience.
McLachlan:
Yeah. You have to have to make an emotional connection to a song to feel anything from it. For me, the art or the craft of creating a song is when the listener takes their interpretation from it.
People are asking me all the time: 'What does the song mean to you?' But me, I always say: 'What does it mean to you?' That's what's important. Plus I'm not going to tell you what it means to me
more than I already have because that's my thing, that's for me I have to hold something dear to myself.
MusicMania: But you sweat blood over it don't you.
McLachlan:
I do and that's just the way it is for me. I wish it was easier but it's not and that's part of the craft, the neurosis, the worry and the fear of oh my god I'm never going to write another song. That happens to me every time and I think that's just part of the process.
MusicMania: So you think you have to be neurotic to write?
McLachlan: It sure has worked that way in the past. I don't know I'm having a hard time writing but I think that's
because there's construction workers all day every day.
MusicMania: Oh, it's not because you're blissfully happy because you're married now and everything.
McLachlan:
That has something but that's inspired me a lot but in a different way.
MusicMania: I'm thinking about how John Lennon took five years off and just disappeared inside the house and
baked bread and just blissed out. Do you understand that? Or are you enough of a compulsive artist that you would need to be out there either creating or performing or something. I suppose you can do other
things because you draw and stuff.
McLachlan:
I have a lot of creative outlets and I think I'm lucky that way. Music is an important huge part of my life, but it's not everything. I think that's important. You need balance in your life. I have music but I love to cook, I have drawing and painting and I want kids and that'll take me down a whole different path that I haven't been before and that's going to change my life in a lot of great ways.
MusicMania: But the life that you have now... When people look at the things you have accomplished in what the 11 years of your career, we can place you pretty much at the top of your
game right now. If you leave the game now for a hiatis or for a sabbatical or to have kids can you
come back and resume the position that you're in?
McLachlan: I don't think I could
resume the exact same position, I couldn't hope to do that. I do feel like over the past 11 years I've really hard to build a solid fan base and I feel like if I do go away for a couple of years it'll be
okay, everyone won't forget about me. I'm sure some will but that's okay and I do sort of feel that I'm at the height of my career but I've always felt that with every record.
I sold 50,000 of
my first record and I was completely floored by that. With each record I've managed to sell more records and gain a wide fan base and each time it's been a shock and a thrill.
MusicMania: No one can
call you an overnight sensation that's for sure.
McLachlan: Oh they've tried.
MusicMania: But do you think your career would have been different if you had enormous success with the
first album?
McLachlan:
Oh, I think I would have been a different person. I'm terrified of the thought now, if I had been a huge success from the beginning, because my head wasn't screwed on straight enough. The little success that I did have threw me for a loop and it took me a while to process it and figure out my place within it.
MusicMania: The court case you were involved in last year was front page news in Canada of course a lot of songwriters think regardless of the outcome because we're still waiting for the
judgement on this --it's going to change the way people write songs, what do you think?
McLachlan:
I'm very scared of that. I mean, one of the biggest issues I felt is that their concept of if you're in the same room with a person when they're writing a song and you say that sounds good, you should get songwriting credit, I vehemently disagree with that and I hope none of that stuff comes through because it's going to make songwriters not work together and it's going to screw everything up, so.
MusicMania: It's going to make a very solitudinous process, huh?
McLachlan: Absolutely and I can't think in my wildest dream can think that was true, so.
MusicMania: It was four years I
think for you between Fumbling and Surfacing, right - the last two studio albums?
McLachlan:
Yeah pretty much. I was two and a half years on the road with Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and then I ended up taking six neurotic months off. I was like I have to be writing, I have to be writing but I could not write and I didn't give myself the time to not write and just be.
MusicMania: Did you feel guilty?
McLachlan:
Horribly guilty and a lot of pressure too because I felt like I had to get my next record out right away because I was on the brink of something so there was a lot of pressure and most of it was self imposed.
MusicMania: You told Chatelaine magazine 'I think I'm becoming my mother.' What does that mean?
McLachlan:
I think we all do to a certain degree. It's funny, all the things that made me mad when I was growing up, things she said to me or force upon me and I think now when I become a mother I going to do the exact same thing.
MusicMania: You're taking the year 2000 off aren't you?
McLachlan: Yes
MusicMania: What are you doing New Year's Eve?
McLachlan:
Probably the same thing I always do --hanging out with my family and friends playing silly games.
MusicMania: Sarah McLachlan you have a great 1999 and a terrific summer.
McLachlan: Thank you.
