Q&A: Sarah McLachlan on playing jazz festivals, memories of the Tragically Hip

TORONTO – Sarah McLachlan wouldn’t consider herself a jazz musician by any stretch of the imagination, so she wants fans to know what to expect at her upcoming jazz festival gigs.

“I’m not going to be playing any jazz — let’s be clear on that,” the Lilith Fair founder says in a phone call from her Vancouver home.

It’s a point worth clarifying as more pop singers take slots at some of Canada’s prominent jazz festivals.

“My assumption is that jazz fest and folk fests are trying to branch out and diversify,” she suggests.

McLachlan would know the challenges of the music festival business. She launched one of the most influential fests of the 1990s only to see Lilith Fair stumble in ticket sales during an attempted resurrection a few years ago.

McLachlan talked to The Canadian Press about the perils of the festival circuit, choosing a setlist, and singing backup vocals on a Tragically Hip song.

She will play the TD Toronto Jazz Festival on Friday and fests in Ottawa on Saturday and Vancouver on Monday.

CP: Your fans might be surprised you’re making the rounds at some of Canada’s big jazz festivals. If it’s not jazz you’ll be playing, what can they expect?

McLachlan: I am going to have a lean, mean four-piece (band). I think it’s a 90 minute set — or something like that — so I’m just going to be doing all the songs that I hope everybody wants to hear. I’ve got a new song (called “The Long Goodbye”), I might perform that.

CP: So you’re sticking to the McLachlan we know — but does a jazz festival influence which songs you choose to play?

McLachlan: Not really. I’m looking at the emotional arc of the show musically and that’s sort of how I put the show together. I think of the songs as stories and postcards of my life. Because I write from such an emotional point of view … you don’t want to have too many really sad songs plunked together because it’s too damn depressing. So, like life, I try to create a balance of happy and sad.

CP: The Tragically Hip is mounting what’s widely expected to be their final tour this summer as lead singer Gord Downie faces incurable brain cancer. What was your response when you heard the news?

McLachlan: Obviously it’s heartbreaking. He’s iconic, the band’s iconic. I know his family actually and from that perspective it’s very difficult.

CP: You worked with the Hip on an alternate version of their song “Emergency,” which didn’t appear on 1994’s “Day For Night,” but turned up a few years later on the “30 Hour Famine” fundraiser for world hunger. What was it like working with them?

McLachlan: I spent a day with (Gord) and the band … I did backup (vocals). It was an experiment. I think even while we were doing it we were like, “Ehh, I don’t know if this is going to work, but sure we’ll try it. Why not?”

CP: Lilith Fair started 19 years ago this summer. Shortly after the festival was relaunched in 2010 you said the concept was no longer relevant. Do you see a space for a female-centric music festival these days?

McLachlan: I haven’t really given it any thought. A lot of the women artists who are successful right now are so wildly successful they’re selling out arenas on their own. Perhaps their management doesn’t think they need to be part of a festival because they’re not going to make as much money doing it.

CP: It’s hard to ignore that some festival lineups this summer are short on female performers — especially female-led acts.

McLachlan: That was the way it was back then too. There are a lot of possible reasons for that. When we were putting on Lilith it was incredibly challenging getting the artists we wanted — and we asked everybody — in their busy summer schedule to take a week or two out of it and come and do a festival…. Then there’s the money involved. It’s a lot of bloody work!

— This interview has been edited and condensed.

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