(JAM!) (12/26/03)

By Jon Cook

Edited By Michael Bennett

VANCOUVER, CANADA - Six years between albums is a long time, but it's not like Sarah McLachlan was on vacation.

During the interim the Vancouver-based songstress, who turns 36 next month, got married, finished touring for both "Surfacing" and Lilith Fair, lost her mother to cancer and gave birth to her daughter shortly thereafter.

With all that on her plate, it's no wonder the recording of her new album "Afterglow" took so long.

The musical world McLachlan returned to had also experienced dramatic changes, with the demise of girl and boy bands and the industry-wide tailspin of record sales.

So was McLachlan at all concerned about launching a long-overdue record in this unstable environment?

"No," is the new mother's emphatic reply.

"Obviously I'm going to lose a number of fans, because the longer you're gone the more people forget about you who weren't rabid fans."

"But most of my rabid fans absolutely would go out and buy my record, because they're the same kind of music fans I am."

"The people I love I'll go out and buy their record as soon as it comes out without waiting to hear it on the radio, or waiting to hear from other people whether it's any good."

Judging from "Afterglow's" first seven weeks on the charts, it's like McLachlan never left.

The new album debuted at No. 1 and has continued to rack up sales, already selling 280,100 copies in Canada.

That's an even better start than "Surfacing," which has sold more than a million copies in that country alone.

"Afterglow" is also faring well south of the Canadian border, where it debuted in second on the Billboard music charts, selling more than 360,000 in its first week.

That kind of clout is normally reserved for Canadian music icons like Celine Dion or Shania Twain.

While admitting to being pleasantly surprised by "Afterglow's" success, McLachlan feels it's deserved.

"I've worked really really hard to promote it and put it out there for everybody to see," she says while performing her latest round of media interviews poolside with her 20-month-old daughter, India, at a swanky Los Angeles hotel.

"The concern more was that the longer I'm out of the market, the more work I'd have to do to get back into it."

Work that has been complicated by a recent bout of laryngitis and the incessant attention India demands.

McLachlan has hired a Montessori school teacher to be India's full-time nanny, but still feels the need to be by her daughter's side as much as possible.

"It's the quandary of every working mother and it's no different for me," says McLachlan, who nevertheless admits to having it easier than most regular moms.

"She's my No. 1 priority and every decision I make is based on how it's going to affect her, so I've been really careful in planning all the promotion and stuff so I can get up with her in the morning and put her to bed at night and have a chunk of time in the afternoon with her."

That leaves little time for song writing, which proved to be a challenge for McLachlan on this record.

"I used to go and live in the woods for months and months to focus enough to write, because I'm a very distracted person," admits McLachlan, taking a break from her interview to giggle at her daughter's facial expressions.

"Now I have this amazing distraction in my life and I decided I'm not going to go away and live in the woods, I'm just going to try to write this record at home which is probably why it took two and a half years to finish."

McLachlan also had to take a sabbatical to care for her mother, who died five months prior to India's birth.

Ironically, the singer doesn't broach her mother's passing on any of "Afterglow's" 10 tracks.

However the record's tortured lyrics and forlorn sound stands in sharp contrast to McLachlan's current happy-go-lucky state.

"I'm basically a pretty happy person, but at the same time I've had a lot of shitty things happen to me and I've had a lot of friends who have had a lot of shitty things happen to them," she confesses.

"A lot of this stuff on this album didn't start out being autobiographical, but part of me always ends up on all of them, because I only have my own things to draw from in the end."

What's most surprising is that McLachlan managed to write just 10 tracks over the last six years, despite the enormity of personal material she had to draw from and that outside of the first single "Fallen," there is little else that resembles a bona fide hit.

"It was the first song we wrote for the record and it was the only song that resembled a single for many months," McLachlan sheepishly confides.

"Basically all the songs that are on this record are all the songs that I wrote. There were no extras."

"It's not easy writing and I don't throw away a lot of stuff."

McLachlan, herself a fan of bands like Talk Talk and Spirit Of Eden, insists "Afterglow" is best served "really loud, in a dark room and with lots of red wine."

For fans eager to hear the new tunes live, McLachlan has yet to announce any tour dates.

She will of course get to all the big Canadian cities, hitting Toronto sometime in "mid-August."

Outside that about all the singer is conceding is that she will likely play to "scaled-down arenas and a few sheds."

While India's welfare comes first before any tour, McLachlan insists her daughter is fine with flying and sleeping in strange hotels beds.

"She takes to it like a house on fire."

"She's having a great time running up and down the hallways of the hotels and she loves pushing elevator buttons," says McLachlan, trying to play down the rock-star nature of her child's life.

"I know there's nothing normal about this, but by the time she hits school age we're staying home."

"She needs to have consistency at that age and she needs to be socialized with other children."

McLachlan is unclear about just how that will affect her music career, but has proved with "Afterglow" that she can sustain major changes and emerge from it stronger than ever.

Copyright 2003-2008 JAM!/Internet Music Media. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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