Transcript of Sarah McLachlan

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Good Hang. Very excited about our guest today. It is the one, the only, Sarah McLachlin. I mean, so many hits. Such an incredible singer. Started Lilith Fair, created a music school. I mean, she's just awesome and talented and nice and funny. And Sarah and I are going to talk about a lot of things. We're going to talk about growing up in Canada and whether those lakes ever get warm. The answer is no. We're going to talk about Lilith Fair, what it took to start it and make it and keep it going. We're going to talk about her new music, making music with her daughters and being a woman in the world today. So many good things. Also, I should let you know at one point, I have a coughing fit, and it is really embarrassing. And Sarah is so cool about it because, of course, she is. She's the coolest. So thank you, Sarah. Before we get started, we always like to ask people that know our guests to give us a question and talk well behind their back. And we have a great one today. Also, just an incredible musical artist in her own right.

Would love to get her in here to talk about stuff. The one, the only, the multi-grammy award-winning Sheryl Crow, everybody. Sheryl? This episode of Good Hang is presented by Uber Eats. Big news, Aldi is now on Uber Eats, and you get 20% off your first grocery order with code new Aldi 26. So whether your fridge is empty and you're too tired to shop, or you just ran out of essential ingredients in the middle of meal prep, don't worry. Fill your fridge in just a few taps and get 20% off your first Aldi order on Uber Eats. For orders over $60, you can save up to $20. Ends February 28, 2026. Terms apply. See App for details.

Amy. Oh, my God. I can't believe I'm talking to you. I can't tell you. In fact, it's funny. Are we on? Yeah, we're on. Well, I'll just tell you. I texted Adam Scott. I was driving home from visiting my parents in Missouri, a three and a half a hard drive. And my mom's not making memories anymore, so it's always a hard drive back. And I listened to you and Adam on the way back, and I laughed, literally, off and on the whole way. It was the greatest gift ever.

Great. Oh, Did you say you texted Adam?

I did.

I texted him right after that.

Wait, are you guys friends? I didn't know that.

Well, actually, it's funny. We were married in a past life. No, I met I'm on the Kansas City, The Big Slick.

Oh, yeah. That fundraiser they do every year.

It's the funnest thing ever. And I'm from Missouri, so I edged my way in there. And I met him through that. And oh, my God, he and Paul Rudd. And I mean, It's all your people, but it's so much fun.

Oh, Sheryl, that means a lot. I love you. Where are we talking to you from?

I'm in Nashville. I'm in, technically, the sunroom, but it's pouring here. I mean, it's literally Nashville is like the rainforest now.

Well, I always associate you with Austin, but you're out of Austin into Nashville.

Yeah. I moved, actually, I moved from Austin to Nashville. I was engaged, got diagnosed with breast cancer, split up, moved to Nashville, basically, and had LASIK surgery, most importantly, all in the process of three weeks.

You know what? This just leads me to my... It's not even a question. It's just an observation. Just women are amazing. I mean, I can't... It's just like everyone should be saying this every day. The things you just listed would take any man down.

You just pick it up and Keep on moving.

Well, we're talking to Sarah McGlachlin today, and I had the pleasure of watching the Lilith Fair doc. Two things. One, that whole experience to me feels like just a great version of what we're talking about, which is creativity for creativity's sake, like watching artists try to find the fun part.

Yes.

But it also That reminded me of how cool you are, Sheryl Crow. Every single time you come on stage, I'm like, God, look at Sheryl's outfit. Look at her hair. Anyway- No, go on.

I have time. No, I'm kidding. That is so nice. I will tell you, that tour was not like anything I've experienced. And the whole thing came about as such a strange... Lollapalooza was happening. And every time... I can remember calling my agent and saying, Can I get some women on a bill? I'd love to tour with Amy Mann. And every time it would be like, Yeah, people won't buy tickets to see two women on a bill, particularly men. Men won't. And around that time, Sarah had this crazy idea, and she wound up calling me, and I was just, God, it's just a perfect time for it. All that to say is that what we took out on the stage was it was defiance, but it was also like community. It was a little bit of a gentle, fuck you to the norms.

The fact that, yeah, there were quite a few gay women in the audience, but there were as many families and as many heterosexual couples and as many men.

I mean, it was totally everything. So it defied what all the agents and the promoters were saying, like you're just going to wind up with an audience full of women, and they're not the ones that buy tickets. And she really defied that in her beautiful genteel, gipsy way, and she brought everybody along with it. It felt like we were taking a party out on the stage, and hopefully people did feel like they were included. I had a brilliant conversation with Brandi Carlyle about it, and her being in the audience as a young girl and wanting to do what we were up there doing. And there's such beautiful power in that. It really was not like anything else that I've ever been a part of.

I always ask my my guess, a question from someone that knows them well. And is there a question you have for Sarah that you think I should ask her?

I mean, one of the things I always think is interesting. Well, two things. What would she be doing if she wasn't doing music? Because it's so much a part of her. I mean, she has her own school. But I think about that. I was a school teacher, so I'm always like, well, if it doesn't... I still say this. If it doesn't work out, I'll go back to teaching school.

If it doesn't work out. If it doesn't work out, yeah. Okay. So I'll ask Sarah about that. That's a great question. Anything else?

Yeah. This is something that I just find interesting with people who wind up making it. Ask Sarah if she just always knew she was going to make it. Does she just know she was going to be doing what she's doing? Because I don't think I ever knew I was going to be doing this until I was maybe eight years in.

Great question. Sheryl Crowe, I love you. Thank you so much for doing this.

I love you, too.

This episode is brought to you by Subaru. For me, going the extra mile means taking the long way home. If you're going to grab snacks and the 10-minute trip turns into a two-hour journey, suddenly you're on a new street, then your ice cream is melted in the back, and we've solved the meaning of life. But luckily, in my Subaru Hybrid, that's right, I have one and I love it, that extra mile is built right in with longer range and better fuel efficiency than ever before. The Subaru Forester Hybrid and the Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid. Great cars. I have them both. Love goes the extra mile. Visit subaru. Com/hybrid to learn more. Sarah McGlacklin is here. I just had a major coughing fit before we started.

It's good to get it out beforehand.

It made me think about, what do you do when you're singing and you have to cough?

Yeah, that's tricky. What do you do? Well, you cough and you just... It's one of those. The show has to go on, but you're like, I'm just going to need a moment and pack and take a drink and go. I can't blame that one on menopause. That's a whole lot. I can, but not that one.

Have you ever thrown up on stage?

No. Almost.

I have a fear of that.

Almost. Oh, shit. Yeah. I was doing the tree lighting at Rockefeller. We were doing a Christmas show. I was freshly pregnant and was just heinously ill, just green 24/7. I remember being... It's very public and you're doing this, your sound check and everybody's watching and I'm just looking in the corner. Okay, there's a poinsette over there. I'm just like, Where's a quiet corner that I can go hurl? Oh, in front of everybody.

Oh, the glamor. There's so many things to talk about today. I'm thrilled that you're here. When we talk about the guests that we want to have on the show and your name came up, we thought, We were like, that would be a dream.

Well, thank you.

Let's start by going back because you grew up in Canada. We started this interview with me apologizing and saying, Sorry, sorry, sorry, which does sound very Canadian.

Very Canadian.

I love a Canadian. They're the best. They're so nice. Are they as friendly as people think they are?

Generally speaking, yeah.

Why do you think that is?

I don't know. We are. I mean, there's assholes everywhere, But generally, I think we're polite, for one thing. That's for sure. I think by nature, there's a certain thing you uphold of just being civil and polite to everybody.

I know. There's a Canadian attitude that's really lovely to be around, which is basically, and I think a lot of it has to do with the weather, which is basically you can either choose to complain or you can get on Yeah, it's true.

There's certainly a solid amount of suck it up butter cup. Yeah. You just don't get anywhere by complaining. No. Also, Irish parents is like, Don't go think in your anything special.

Oh, big time. That's very Boston, too. Just don't fall in love with yourself. We're here to drag you back down.

Because we're going to humble you every step of the way if you do.

You grew up in Canada, and when did you realize Because you had this gift. You knew that music was going to be part of your life forever. Do you remember the feeling when you were young that you knew, I think I'm good at this, or I think I really want to do this? What was it?

Grade 7, Variety Show. I have to preface this with saying, I was really bullied. I was terribly unpopular, and this was my opportunity for redemption. I'm going to prove myself to my community. I got up there and I sang The Gambler by Kenny Rogers on Acoustic guitar.

You got to know when to hold them? You got to know when to hold them.

No when to fall them. No when to walk away. No when to run.

It makes sense that a seventh-grade girl would relate to that.

No, I just loved Kenny Rogers anyway. Oh, same. So I got up there to sing this song, and I got about halfway through it, and the mic stopped working.

Oh, God.

And so my moment, my triumphant moment was dashed because everybody said, Oh, that wasn't really you singing. The tape player must have turned off. They refused to acknowledge that it was me singing, but I knew. I felt good about it, and I felt even better about it that they refused to believe it was actually me, and they thought it was a recorded version of something that obviously sounded a little more professional.

You're in Canada. You're a young person who's realizing, I have something special. Who are you listening to at the time?

When I was really young, other than Kenny Rogers, it was Simon O'Garfinkel, Kat Stevens, John Bayes, Joni Mitchell.

Then you're learning how to play how?

When I was four, I wanted to be John Bayes. My mom got me ukulalele, and I started taking lessons I lived in a little subdivision. Up the street, there was a little old lady who taught ukulalele. I walked up there every week and took lessons. Then when we moved into the city when I was seven, I started with the Royal Conservatory of Music, which was classical music was, at the time, the only legitimate way to learn an instrument. I took classical guitar for 12 years, took classical piano for six years, I took voice for four years. It was a fantastic foundation to learn how to play the instrument, but it was never really my jam.

Okay, so then you're listening to all these incredible singer-songwriters, and you decide you want to be a singer-songwriter, and you get a record deal at 19?

Yeah.

How did that happen?

The very first band that I was in when I was 17, the October Game, we played a gig at the Dalhous University sub-ballroom, and we opened up for a band called MOVE, and they were on a small independent label in Vancouver. The guitar player, singer of the band heard me sing, and it was like, We want you to come out to Vancouver and join our band. I'm like, Cool.

I'm 17. That sounds great.

I ran home to my mom and dad who promptly said, Are you effing crazy? Not a chance. You're going to finish high school. I I was still listening to them at that time, smartly. I squiged by high school and then started going to the art college there. I was working at a place called Club Flamengo, and Terry McBride, the President of the label, came with their band, Skinny Puppy, Which was this industrial... Do you remember Skinny Puppy?

Yeah, I remember Skinny Puppy.

Yeah, blood and guts and mud and gore. Anyway, so- Very different than your music, Skinny Puppy. A little bit different. Yeah, a little bit different. He came and I remember so Clearly, I was playing Quicksilver, my favorite pinball game, and I was working on my high score, and he's like, Hey, I want to talk to you. I'm like, Yeah, give me a minute. I love it. Waited till I finished, and he took me out to his Plush Blue Velvet tour bus and sat me down at the kitchen table and put a contract for me. He said, We want to offer you a five-record deal. Whoa. I was like, Yeah, sure. What do you really want? Does anybody know I'm here?

Yeah, there's too much plush in here.

But no, he was serious. Originally, they wanted me to come out to Vancouver and work with a bunch of other network bands. Then when I got out there, they're like, All these other network bands hadn't been asked? I'm like, We're not going to work with this punk kid. She's got no track record. She hasn't written anything. No, never mind. But I was already there. At that point, they were like, Well, let's just see what you come up with. I just started writing to the best of my ability. I mean, obviously, I had, as I said, a great foundation of understanding music and theory. I had done deep dives into my favorite artist, which at the time were Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. Don't give up. Don't give up. Sorry. No, it's good. I hear you. I feel you. I just fake it till you make it. I just made my first record in about a year and started touring and toured and toured and toured, and then just went from there.

That's the thing that I think sometimes we're tough on ourselves when we look and look at our naivete about things and think like, Oh, we didn't know what we were doing. But there's such a freedom when you're young about not knowing what's around the corner. Sometimes it's better to not know.

Ignorance is bliss.

Yes, sometimes that's true. If you knew how important your decisions were, that if you went left rather than right, it would change your whole life, you'd never take a step.

You'd be living in fear, constant fear, and constant uncertainty. You're right. Just that dumb and green. Yeah, totally. Just like the world is your oyster, and all these possibilities feel endless.

Do you remember your first time you ever heard anything that you'd ever written on the radio? Yeah.

Where were you? I was in a taxi cab with my first publicist, Tony, on our way to Toronto to do our very first promotional tour for the record, and Vox came on the radio, and the two of us looked each other and just started screaming.

You did not know what was going to be on.

Taxi driver was like, What the hell is going on? I said, That's me. That's me on the radio. He's like, Sure. I'm going, No, no, no. We got out and we pulled out the albums that we were bringing with us to sign for the record or for the radio station. He's like, Can I have a picture with you? That's so cool.

Yeah, suddenly he wants a picture.

Yeah, but it just felt like validation Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. How is it that this is already happening? It all felt so surreal up until that moment. I mean, honestly, there were still many surreal moments after that.

Well, you had so many hits throughout your career. I was listening to your music all morning and your new record, which is great. It's so hard to... I imagine that songs, just like any piece of art, they just have a life of their own. They take all these journeys. They bloom, they come back, they mean something different the next time around. Some of them you think, Oh, these are going to be the ones that are going to really go, and they don't, or others that you think, This is the one that's the one that everyone's always singing back to me. You have so many hits and so many songs. Does songs feel that way to you, your songs, that they have their own life and journey that is out of your control?

Absolutely. I mean, music is... Art is so subjective, right? It's like you see something, you hear something, you read something, and it resonates with you or it doesn't. And you then, in part, you put your own story into it. And then that's where you draw inspiration from. That's how it affects you. So The coolest thing is when people come up to me and say, Oh, my God, this song you created, or the song you wrote, has helped me in this way. I brought it with me on my trip. I've met so many people who went through high school with my music or went to university. Really pivotal times and huge changes in their worlds, losing a parent, losing a child. All these stories about what it means to other people are beautiful and cool to know that there's something I've created has made some impact in someone's life and been there with them on a beautiful journey, a tough journey, and somehow helped them in some way.

I mean, you've been like a Cyrano for so many people because they've used your music to tell someone how they feel about them. We came up in the era of mixtapes and putting music together. It was such a big deal to hand someone over a bunch of music that you picked for them. It was always like this.

Now, here's my playlist.

Yeah, exactly. It was basically like, this is how I feel about you. It was like, I can't tell you, but I'm going to have you listen. There was always coded language and what we put together for people. So many of your songs and your music did that for people. They allowed people to feel through you. There's so many hits. Is there a song that became bigger than... That still is surprising to you, that it had the journey it had?

Well, I suppose that would be Angel. Yeah. And that was one of those... It very seldom happens as a songwriter that something happens quickly and easily for me. It's like music is flowing all the time, but lyrics are really hard work. It's like extracting blood from a stone often for me. I'm super ADD, so trying to... It's like, give me any distraction when I'm trying to do something that is hard and challenging in the sense of trying to focus. But Angel felt like I was just a vessel, and it just came through me in two days, and it was done. I remember thinking at the end of when I first put out Surfacing, the rest of this album is crap, but Angel is solid. Obviously, I had no perspective. Now, in Pine Side, I'm like, Yeah, there was actually some good songs in there.

Yeah, a few.

But that's that mindset when you've just worked and worked and worked at something and you don't have any perspective. That angel has had such a life of its and has done so many things. As I said, talking about how it's helped people through individual tough situations. So many stories of my mother played this when she was passing and really helped us. The SPCA, obviously.

Well, you raised $30 million.

Well, that was within the first year, I think. So who knows what has happened since.

Do people assume that you... Do people assume you're constantly fostering and adopting animals? Because you must get that protected on you.

You would not believe the... And also just 10 or 20 letters a week about people sending me all their rescues, or I'm doing this charity, I'm working with this. Can you help? It took on such a life of its own. I remember I was doing a food bank charity gig in New York eight years later, and they said, Can you please not play Angel? Because it's so synonymous with this other charity. There's going to be some brand confusion. I'm like, Fuck God, are you serious?

Is it true that I Will Remember You was a B-side? That that song was in a film?

Yeah, it was Brothers of MacMullen. It was Ed Burns' directorial debut. That's right.

That's one of the many monster hits. How many number one? How many hits have you had?

I shouldn't know this. You're asking the wrong people. I suppose I should know this, too. I don't.

Hold on. We're going to look it up. I don't have a clue. I'm going to laugh. You know what I want to do? I want to brand about you.

I don't think I have any number one hits. I'm so sick of it.

We're always like, Oh, I don't even know. We should know.

No, this is embarrassing. I don't know either.

No, it's totally normal. Actually, it's why you're a normal person who doesn't look at their hits, but I'm going to look at your hits right now. Okay? I'm going to read them right now. Sarah, can you handle this? This is very American. Where do you find this information? Not very Canadian. Where do you find this information? Well, I just wrote Sarah McGlacklin hits.

You're consulting the Oracle?

Okay. Building a mystery, sweet surrender, possession, better broken, ice cream.

Oh, yeah.

Angel, Vox. We talked about Vox, heard it on the radio. Into the fire, elsewhere, fall McGlucklin, fumbling toward ecstasy, adia, possession, sweet surrender, building... Everybody listening right now is having this moment of like, because they're remembering. Monster hit, Sarah. Hitmaker. Thanks.

Sorry.

I'm just going to brag for you. Okay, so then you leave Canada, you're in a band. Sorry, you're making music. Are you in a band at that point? No, you're just making music under your... It's never Sarah McLachlin and the...

You mean when I got signed? Yeah. Yeah, no, that was the other tricky bit of that when they came and offered me that deal, my band. We hadn't been together for about a year because they had gone off to school, so we'd split up, but still, they knew about it and they were like, What do you say? I'm like, Oh.

You're like, Well.

I had this beautiful, this excited moment that I was like, I think they just want me. Yeah. Yeah, that's always been a bit of a tough moment, too.

Now you start to tour. How old are you when you asked Paula Cole to open for you?

21, maybe. Wow. 22? Yeah.

Why did you ask Paula?

Because I loved her. I loved her music.

How did you find out about her music?

I think it was just radio. I was listening and watching what else was going on out there and discovered her. I was like, oh, my God, what an incredible voice. She was so powerful. I love her lyrics and love the melodies. I was like, when does she want to come sing?

What I love about the Lilithair doc, which is on Hulu, is that it talks about the slow process of realizing there's a way to work. There's a way to choose how to work. It's very relatable, I think, for a lot of women who, if they're lucky enough, get an opportunity to figure out, is there a way I like to work that I could figure out? That's the dream. Yeah. You asked Paula to join as an opening act, and you two realized, this is fun. This is actually fun. Yeah.

Well, back then, all my crew were men. My band were men. I had a female backup singer, but it was just us and this sea of men who I adored and loved. They were my and they were a wonderful bunch of people. But having Paula there was just this breath of fresh air for me and this awareness of like, we need each other. This is a weird industry. It's isolating. We make music alone. It's just really nice to have her around. It was great to connect with her. Oh, my God. I saw her at a TIFF. She showed up. I didn't even know she was coming. We both burst into tears. I was like, Oh, my God. That's so nice.

That's so sweet. It's wild to me, but there are people that don't really understand what Lilith Fair was. For people who don't, they should watch this doc, certainly. But in a nutshell, How do you describe it to people who have never heard of it or didn't get a chance to go see it?

It was a celebration of much of the great music that was being made by women in the late '90s. It was basically that. That was the simple origin story. Then we were told we couldn't do it because you shouldn't put more than two women on a stage together. You certainly can't play two women back to back on radio. I had felt that. I had seen that and witnessed it time and time again, and I just never understood or liked the competitive nature of it. I didn't think music should be put into those pigeon holes. I didn't think we as artists should be. I certainly didn't notice it happening with men, and that pissed me off as well. So though It didn't start out as a political statement. It became that. When I was told, You can't do that. I'm like, Oh, yeah, that doesn't work for me. It just put a fire under me to prove them wrong.

Because people were saying, There's just no way anyone's going to pay this money to see all these women performing like this.

Yeah, how insulting. We proved our point in 1996 and then went, Oh, my gosh, this was so amazing and so fun. Let's do a full tour next summer. That was the at which just like, Oh, yeah, no, you can't do that. So funny.

Really? Really. It was still, You just can't do it because we won't sell tickets?

Yeah. Promoters would not take any risk. They were like, You can't do that. I was like, Well, we just did. We just sold out 15,000 people. They were like, Well, that's a one-off. That's an anomaly.

They're like, This isn't going to last.

It's not going to last. That was just a little blip, a little fad or a little trend. I'm like, No, we can do this. Again, back to that naivety of just, yeah, going, What are you talking about? No, we're going to do this. There's no guarantees that we took all the risk.

By taking the risk, did you make more money because you took the risk?

Yes. Do you know what I mean?

That's good. It's like you had some control.

We had some control. We had a ton of control. We raised over $7 million for local and national charities over the three years as well, which was just amazing. No kidding. People don't...

Again, I can't stress enough to watch the doc. But on top of everything else you were doing, I think what was so incredible about Lilith Fair is it really did feel like a fair. It was there were people walking around, there were booths everywhere, there was fundraising constantly, there was backstage, everyone was hanging out, all the women were bringing their kids on tour. It was like a utopian version of what it would look like if women were in charge of most of the systems of how to work. It looked and it still looks like this ideal way in which to be part of a community and still feel like you're an individual. You had a lot of artists who were very, very different on that tour, and yet they still all wanted to hang out with each other. They took care of each other. You gave health insurance to crew who often never had it on tour.

Yeah, they never had it before. That's unheard of in the industry. Yeah, I mean, listen, it was just an extension of the way I live my life. Again, looking at what it is, how it is as an artist, as a band member, a crew member coming into someone else's environment. How would I want to be treated? How would I want to be made to feel? I want to feel respected and taken care of. And that was just the MO. It's like, we're going to take care of everybody. We're going to make sure everybody feels good, respected. This is a safe space. This is fun. You're all going to get fed really well. I'll never forget, crew came in first day of new artists, and they're always super grumpy. I've had that experience going to a festival where it's like, are we even going to get a sound check? Are we going to get fed? It's going to be a long day. By the end of the day, everybody's happy, everybody's smiling. They're like, okay, this is going to be great. That is the environment that I wanted to create for everybody there. It's like, this is an extension of me, of my hospitality, of my ethos.

Yes. This is how you want to work. Be respectful. Treat everybody the way you want to be treated yourself. Just live and let live. Let people be and let's just... I know, it sounds very woo-woo and utopian. I still like that, though.

I mean, I just- I mean, too, man.

It's like, why does that- Why can't we all just get along? Why do we have to keep?

Also, why do we have to say these things and then apologize for how earnest? Because like you- It's hopeful.

We need to stay hopeful.

It is hopeful. That was the thing about the doc is that what I felt was No one can get anything exactly right. What was really wonderful about what I felt like you were doing was constantly pivoting, taking feedback, and adjusting. There was a lot of adjustments you made. What were some of the things that when you were making that fair in second or third year, you realized, Oh, we have to adjust here? Yeah.

The big adjustment was very early on, which was White Chick folk fest. I knew that was coming, and I agreed with that. I was frustrated by it because we asked everybody, we asked all these different artists from all different genres of music. But to be fair, their management teams would look at the lineup so far and go, I'm not sure where the place is for my artists in this. In my head, my naive head, I'm like, I listen to all different kinds of music. I know that most of my friends who are fans of music, they don't listen to just one genre. It just depends on their mood. They Why are we being so minimizing and looking at our fans and going, Oh, they can't handle this. Of course, they can handle it. They want it. They're hungry for it. To create that opportunity for all of us to showcase our unique talents, which is, again, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. But it was a struggle to get a lot of Black and Brown artists for sure. I don't know where my place is on this tour. Sure.

They want to see how it does. They want to see if it's real.

The success of the first year then allowed us way more latitude and way more freedom to go, Hey, go back and push and say, Look, this is a really great opportunity for your artist to expand their fan base. In the second year, we also realized there was an opportunity, again, to how do you expand your fingerprint in a community after you leave, not only giving a dollar of every ticket sale to a local women's shelter, but having a stage four local artists in every market. Just creating those opportunities, tons of tabling of various local organizations, women's organizations, local and national. Just raising awareness, creating the space where there's open dialog about all these things. Yeah.

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The women that came through that festival, I mean, Pretty diverse and dynamic.

So good.

Can we talk about them just for a second? Yeah. Okay, so we've got Paula, we've got Sean. Incredible.

We've got Sheryl Crow. Yeah. Erika Badu, Michelle Indeocello, Queen Latifah.

Missy Elliott. Missy Elliott. First time ever on tour. I know.

That was a coup.

How did you get Missy?

Well, you'd have to ask Marty that. I mean, he was Yeah, that was above my pay grade. But somehow he got missy, and that was awesome.

I mean, that footage of her coming out on stage in the giant when she wore that big... The big garbage bag. When she used to do the big garbage bag stuff with all the inflatable stuff in that style. She's incredible and such an incredible producer.

You saw the entire audience instantly stood up and was like, Oh, okay, wow, what is this? This is so much fun.

What about you had the Indigo Girls join?

The Indigo Girls were such an amazing anchor for me. They came on early on and got everybody feeling comfortable at singing together. I was still a good Canadian. I was afraid to ask. I really wanted to sing with everybody, but I didn't quite know how to do it. It's funny watching the doc, Jules said it exactly the same way. It's like, I didn't know I was allowed to do that. They're like, Oh, no. Why isn't everybody singing together? I'm like, Oh, we can do that? She's like, Yeah, let's just go do it. They opened up this huge opportunity for all of us to really feel a whole different connection. That's when things really took off.

I also love what they say in the doc. The Indigo Girls are basically like, You need some openly gay girls here to teach you how to party. You had Pat Benatar. Yes.

Emmy Lou Harris. Emmy Lou Harris. Bonnie Raid.

Shaneid O'Connor.

Yeah. I mean- That was the part in the document. I've seen so many iterations of this over the But I cry every time.

Tell me why.

Well, because she's gone and she was such a gift. What was she like? She was really shy at the beginning, but wow did she open up. She was a little shit as well. She was super playful, like a jokester, prankster. We had so much fun together. Then to get to sing with her, it's like being in the presence of a goddess, basically, when she opens up her mouth starts to sing, it's just it's otherworldly. I got to be part of that. I got to sing with her a number of nights. That was pretty magical. Then just getting to watch that. All these moments that were so powerful and important to me and watching myself grow up on screen. Not a lot of humans get to have a gift like that given to them where it's like, this is such a powerful and important time in my life that has been so succinctly and beautifully captured. Yeah. So yeah, watching that, she's gone now. It's so sad.

So sad. She's such an incredible talent.

Yeah. She suffered even back then. She was really misunderstood. Yeah. It was tough.

Tracy Chapman, another beautiful artist who I love in the documentary, you talk about how she was the one, one of many people that everyone came out and watched. Yeah.

Every night, she just talk about grace. Yeah. Just this quiet, graceful present. She was very shy, too. It was hard to draw her.

It's always so funny that people who are performing, it's things we learn over and over again, obviously. But we're reminded that people who are performers are not necessarily extroverts.

She's such an introvert.

Who's the most introverted? Who's the most introverted on that tour and who is the most extroverted?

Tracy is probably the most and extroverted. Maybe Sheryl. Me, I was pretty extroverted. Actually, okay, I mean, Amy and Emily, for sure. Because they were just loud. They were loud and proud. Let's have fun. They brought that really, like they said, this really geeky fan energy.

You talked about Amy Lou Harris, Bonnie Rae, Chrissy Hind. I don't know if you feel this way, but I know I do because I grew up in a generation where I feel like women my age right now are working together all the time and feeling really good about that and loving that experience. When you meet someone who's maybe 10 years older than you, they just haven't had that experience very much. I've been on many sets where women in their mid-60s have said, Oh, I've never been on a set with this many women. Well, yeah.

They grew up at a time where In whatever industry we were in, we were being offered a tiny sliver of the pie, and we were in competition with each other in every element, like it or not. And think about what they came up against as they were coming up in the world. That was even, I would argue, more toxic and more marginalizing towards women. You just had to deal with... Those were the social norms then. You walk into a radio station and get your ass grabbed.

Fucking hell.

Or just knowing that that may happen or just the comments.

I think I brought it out. Yeah.

Well, because it was normalized. Totally. You suck it up and you keep going because, well, if you make a stink about it, then you're pushed out even further into the margins. Totally, you're dragged. Yeah. You're hanging out in a room full of boys. If you want to be in that room, you need to toe the line. It was the same thing. I was thinking about that. Like Anne powers is in the documentary. Love Anne powers. Yeah. I didn't like Anne powers back then because she ripped the shit out of us. No kidding. I'm like, Are you kidding me?

You're a woman. She claims it, right? She did. She's like, I didn't get it. She's like, I saw it.

She couldn't have, though, because she was in a room full of guys. She was a single woman female critic. I forgive her because I understand now. I didn't at the time. I'm like, How could you be doing this? But the room that she was in was her male counterparts. If she spoke appreciatively or in reverence to what we were doing, she would have been ostracized and left at.

Yeah, we all suffered. We all suffered in our 20s, in the '90s, with deep internalized misogyny that we didn't even know we had in an attempt to assimilate. We were like, I want to be in the room. I want to figure out how to work the system. And without even knowing, I'm going to buy into a system that I don't believe in, and that's actually hurting me. What I love about Anne Power, who's a journalist in the film who owns up to the fact that she wrote about how she wasn't getting Lilith Fair, and it wasn't for her. She realizes much later on that she was grappling with her own sense of trying to fit in. I mean, Lilith Fair got teased.

Oh, it ridiculed.

Did you care about that at the time? How did you- Yeah.

Yeah. How did it feel? It was hurtful. It was annoying. But I just kept going back to the fact that, well, you obviously haven't come. Yes. And seen it and felt it, because if you had, you'd think differently. So I just was like, well, you can have your opinion, but I'm having the time of my life. No kidding. And I don't want to go- You're missing out. Sorry.

Yes, that's right. And I loved how you guys did press conferences in every city that you went to. It was so painful. Did you ever think about not doing them?

No, because there were two elements to There was one to the press wanted access. We understood that that was part of the beast that you have to feed. The beautiful thing is at the end of the press conference, we got to give attention to a local woman's shelter. To raise awareness for the issues that they were dealing with and to show that we were, and not to be self- congratulatory, but to show that we were giving money to this and to raise awareness for it. I tell you, it felt so good to have that cherry at the end of this, typically annoying and demeaning and dumb press conference where I just got besieged every day with, Why? Why do you hate men? Why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you doing that? You're too much of this. You're not enough of that. Very typical. Don't be too pretty. Don't be too loud. Or you're too quiet. You can't win. That was that thing that I hadn't experienced until I was in this quiet, radical movement that we were doing of just basically being ourselves and celebrating each other and celebrating the success that we were all having and appreciating that and lifting each other up.

Again, why is that so radical? Why is that so threatening? It was shocking. Yeah. The press conferences were painful, but they were also an important thing to do.

I mean, you handled those conferences from what I saw really, really well. For the most part, yeah. You really did. Was it hard sometimes to be running the while you were in it? Because everybody else gets to come in and have a good time.

I wasn't running it. Dan Fraser was running it. I mean, he had a hell of a job.

You're the... To your point, you have- I'm the face of it for sure. You have to worry about stuff like... It's like having the house party, right?

Yeah, there were a ton of day-to-day decisions that had to be made. There were a ton of fires that had to be put out. Someone didn't show up. Someone slept with someone else. There was just fun. Then they were like, someone was angry and hurt or someone said something that hurt someone's feelings and you had to deal with it. Hr.

Was there an HR? Me.

Me and Dan, there was no freaking HR. We were just like, Okay, shit.

Totally.

You just changed it. How did we manage this?

You put on a blazer and you were like, Okay, let's talk.

It was Julie, the Cruise director. Totally. Saying hi to everybody, making sure everybody felt good, writing letters to every new artist. It was like 100 and some artists in one year. It was this constant flow of meeting new people and making sure everybody was great. Then putting out the fires of the day or just being involved in all these little decisions that we had to make on a daily basis. Yeah, it was exhausting and all-encompassing. But again, the gift at the end was like, I got to watch all these artists. I got to perform with all these artists.

Okay, so we do this thing on the pod where we ask people who know our guests to speak well behind their back and to give me a question to ask them. So we talked to Sheryl Crow this morning. Oh, my gosh. I know. And it was so fun. It was so fun to talk to her about those times and you guys performing together. I was saying to her, it will never get old watching you all be each other's fans. You're an artist and you're also a fan, and she's such an incredible talent. She wanted me to ask you two questions, which I thought were really interesting questions to ask. They're opposite, but also feel like they're in the same world. One is, if you were not making music, did you ever think of what else you would do?

Ever so briefly, because I don't know what else I would do. I don't know if I'm either a hairdresser or a jewelry designer. Which honestly, I still do both. Do you design jewelry? Yeah, just really simple stuff. Two Christmases ago, I made 30 necklaces for all my friends, and I'm crafty. You're a crafter. I need something to do with my hands or there in my mouth.

Yeah. It's not healthy. I love that. Okay. That makes sense. A hairdresser, too, because you like touching people's hair. Yeah.

I was a dance mom for years, so I got to do all these fun- For your daughters?

Yeah. Are you good at a blow? Do a good blowout?

I do a pretty good blowout. Yeah. Do you blow out your own hair? I like the French braids and the- Oh, you can do the intricate stuff?

Yeah.

Well done. Yeah.

Okay. That was one question. Then the other question was, did you have a sense... Did you know deep down... People ask this question from a lot of artists, but was there some part of you that knew that you were going to make it, that you were going to be famous? Was Sheryl's question, but was there a part of you that sensed that or knew that?

No. No, I can honestly say no. Mostly because I didn't even know what that meant. I did not know what that looked like. I did not come from a culture of celebrity, of looking at famous people and hoping to achieve that. My thing was, I want to do something that makes me feel good. It was so naive and so simple. But it's pure. And pure. Again, this blissful time in the world where we could just figure it out, figure out as we go. There were so many more opportunities to just to fumble around and try and figure it out. I just feel like even both my daughters, there was just so much pressure to decide What university to go to? You have to make a decision about the whole trajectory of your life. I'm like, Oh, my God. Half my friends in my 50s still don't have a clue what they're doing. I just got really, really lucky that I had this path that I got offered the golden ticket at 19. I was like, Well, this will be fun. I'll go do this. My dad said, Listen, if this doesn't work out, the art college is always going to be there, but this will not.

You got to try it. Of course, I wanted to, but yeah, I didn't... It's funny. In my yearbook, someone wrote, Destined to become a Famous Rockstar, which is hilarious. I'm just like, Ha, ha, ha, yeah. But we didn't know what that even looked like. I know. I know.

That's Barry Wuh-Wuh.

I know.

Destined to become a famous rock star. Somebody knew. Yeah.

I guess it's combo of both those things. Other people can see things that you can't see, too, often, right? Yeah.

You You talk about your daughters, too, and I love the beautiful aspect that your daughter sings on this record with you.

Yeah, that was a great full circle moment for me. Why? Well, because they both have beautiful voices. They won't sing around me, and I guess because I sing, and that's often the case with kids, they try and go the opposite. But we cannot deny they both have beautiful voices. But the song in particular, One in a Long Line, it's the last song I wrote, and I think it was this looking what's going on in the world and the erosion of women's rights, not only here, but all over the world. Thinking about, what do I need to say? I feel like now is not the time to be silent or complacent. I've always tread that line carefully and not been political, but I'm like, I have to say something about this. I'm so frustrated and angry and scared. I have two daughters, and they're going into the world. We need to speak loudly about the things that we believe in, even even though I was afraid to. I've always used music as my vehicle for expression. That song, to have both my daughters sing on that with me just felt really powerful.

Yeah, that's so cool. What was it like being in the studio with each other, the stud?

Well, we actually weren't. It was in my daughter's bedroom on my iPhone because- Perfect. Yeah, it was at the... I wrote that song right at the end of the record, and Will was actually mixing the rest of the record and trying to organize my kids. There was a bit of convincing to get him to do it the first place. They'll say, I'll do it next week, mom. I'm like, Okay, we're mixing the record. Will needs these tracks now. We just actually sat in the bedroom with my eldest, and she sang it. She just put headphones on it. Oh, wow. Iphone are amazing for that now. Then Tasha, my little one, went down into the studio. She wouldn't let me near her when she did it.

Yeah, I was wondering if they would let you watch. No.

But my 23-year-old, just earnest, full voice, saying right in front of me, so uninhibited. It was so beautiful. Again, this is deeply more powerful because of the challenges and the struggles that we've been through for so many years as mother and first-born daughter. Yeah. Because it was tough.

What have you been learning about being the mother of daughters? But what was tough about it?

There's so many things I could say about that. I wish I knew what I know now to be able to go back without feeling regret.

What would you say to yourself knowing what you know now?

I would have been softer on her in a different way. I was a hard ass. It's funny because I thought so clearly in my own mind that I was being the antithesis of my mother. I looked at the way she parented and I thought, I'm going to do everything completely different. Then her words come spewing out of your mouth in a moment of anger and frustration. You're like, Oh, my God, I can't believe I did that. She was undiagnosed. We thought she had ADHD. When things got hard, this wall would go up, and she'd just rage and be so frustrated. I looked at that and going, How do I help you with this? How do we move past this? Because the world out there is scary and big, and you have to have some grit, and you have to do hard things so that you know you can. I was tough. What we didn't realize is that it was actually anxiety. All this came out, we did family systems counseling. Peeling back all those layers of the onion, the way I was communicating to her was just making her feel shitty about herself instead of building her up, which was completely the opposite of what I thought I was doing.

I had to eat a lot of humble pie and take stock and go, Hey, look, I want a relationship with my kid, so I need to learn how to communicate differently with her. In doing so, she also got to take some responsibility for the way she was reacting and recognizing that that's not where I was coming from. Anyway, it was a long process, but it was and powerful. We have such an open, loving relationship now because of that.

It's so great, Sarah, that you talk about this. I just have to say because it's the way that women help each other constantly is to just break free from the narrative that we are getting everything right as mothers. It's a joke. It's such a joke, but it's really hard. It's the last frontier.

We all live in constant judgment. Absolutely. It's like, you watch people look at you out of the corner of the eye when you let your kid cry in the grocery store floor. That's right. It's like, oh, my God, corral that kid, you're a bad parent because you're doing this or you're doing that or not doing this. It's like, again, just constant judgment.

Constant judgment and pressure and the most coming from within on ourselves. For sure. And anytime we share any version of that out loud or just even in our friend group? You just feel this feeling that everyone wants to say like...

That's an exhale.

Yes, me too. I'm feeling that too. It's wild how we still do this to ourselves over and over. I mean, we get it done to us, of course, too. But we do it to ourself. There's a siren right there coming to pick us up because we're such bad moms.

It's the same thing with menopause. There was no conversation about it. Just all the changes that we go through. Thank goodness, I love social media for that now because there are so many platforms that women are now talking about this and doctors are finally paying attention to the hundreds of thousands of women who suffered and who went through all sorts of shit. The doctor is just like, Hey, it's just a thing. Just suck it up.

Yeah. It's like, Is my frozen shoulder because of menopause? Doctors are like, We'll never know.

I'm like, You don't want to look it up? No one's going to put any money towards research on that.

Yeah, they're like, Huh, maybe.

Oh, If Men Could Bleed. Things would be very, very different.

That would be a good heavy metal band name. If men could bleed. A double bills. If men could bleed and skinny puppy. That's perfect. Okay, I got a few rapid fire for you. Okay. First of all, what's your sleep routine? I love to ask people this. Do you love to sleep?

I love to sleep. Are you good at sleeping? Yes, I'm good at sleeping now that I'm on estrogen and progesterine. Totally makes it make a big drift. Because it went to shit. That's when I went into menopause. Yeah.

Do you take any sleep? Do you take anything to go to sleep? No. What's your ritual to go to sleep?

Well, you know what? Red light therapy has been my friend.

Hold on. Talk to me about it.

I have.

I don't know about that.

I I have a massage table, and I basically have this six-foot long panel of red light, especially because when I'm skate skiing three hours a day, as I was doing a lot, your body needs... Your muscles need to...

Wait, I'm hearing you say for the first Skate skiing?

Yeah, it's like cross country. There's classic, which is in the Grooves, and skate is on the Corderoy. You know biathlon in the Olympics?

You just said four words, I don't know. Grooves and Corderoy. Are you on ice skates?

No, it's classic. It's like cross country skiing. It's on these little matchsticks. Okay. They're long, like cross country skates. But instead of being in the two- You just said skates again.

So you're on skates or skis?

They're skate skis. What they are is a very narrow, long- We don't have those here. You do. We do not. I have been to Colorado. I don't know how many years in a row skate skiing. So you do. It's a big thing. That's incredible. It's so fun. I love being outdoors. I love nature. I would be outside all the time if I could. It just gets a little too cold. But to be able to be for four hours outside in the snow, in the mountains. Yes. Incredible. Just finding frozen lakes and going on. It's magical. The coolest part about where I live is it can take my dogs.

That's awesome. Yeah.

Doing a lot of that. Anyway, back to... You skate skiing. I exhaust myself if I can. That's right. Climbing hills or jumping in lakes, whatever. That's why she looks so great. Scape ski. Usually, I spend 15 minutes before I go to bed just lying under this light because it just calms your central nervous system down. It's just a red light. It's red light, yeah. Red light therapy. Yeah, For red. You heal faster. I'm serious. I get one of these red lights. Yeah, so I do that. Not every night, but most nights. I don't really have much of a ritual. I try to stop drinking water around five o'clock, so I don't have to get up in the middle of the night and pee. Oh, yeah. So front load as best as my abilities. But you know, I usually go to bed around 9: 00.

Oh, that's what I'm talking about. That's it. 9: 00 PM, that is a winner's.

That's a winner's time. I mean, honestly, 10: 00 is probably a little more realistic, but I try to go to bed at 9: 00, especially in the winter. Shut it down.

There's nothing good that happens after 10: 00.

Not much. Not especially when you have to get up at 6: 00.

Shut it down. Go to bed at 9: 00. Wake up at 6: 00. Feel like a hero.

Give me eight hours of solid sleep.

I am so much less an asshole. My dream is to eat dinner at 6: 30 and then walk right into the bedroom.

The early bird special. I try and eat around 5: 00, 5: 30, and then just start to put her down.

Shut her down. Okay, rapid fire. Here we go. Who do you predict is going to be your Spotify rapt this year? Who are the musicians you're listening to the most on your...

If we were- Phoebe Bridgers.

The best.

Or Boyd genius or a combination of the two.

Who would definitely be on a current version of Lilith Fair if there existed one. Top of the bill. In some ways, Boyd genius is the parent of all that.

You got three amazing musicians, singer-songwriters, independently unique and beautiful, all choosing to come together to be a powerhouse trio. It's awesome.

Yes. Best Canadian city.

I'm going to get in trouble. Vancouver.

What's the best thing about being Canadian and not American?

That is so baiting.

Sorry. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Forget it. Forget Got it. Health care. Yeah, health care. Surfing or paddleboarding? Surfing. So you surf? Yeah.

I've been surfing since I was 30.

Then you were on SNL, and Rudy Giuliani was the host.

Oh, my God. I remember that.

So It was Sarah McLachlin and Rudy Giuliani back again in 1997. Yeah. What do you remember about your experience? Was that the only time you were on SNL? I feel maybe like I was on twice, but I'm not Sure.

Honestly, what I remember is Anna Gangster and like, based it in blood doing that. I don't know if that was really Rudy Giuliani.

Were you on the show when Anna did the Lilith?

Not the Lilith one, no. But based it in blood, which was the Thanksgiving song. I got to participate in that.

Wait, you were in that? I was in it. Yeah. Okay, this is really interesting. Anna used to play a character on SNL called Cinder Calhoun. Yes. Cinder Calhoun. Who was a very earnest, like- Singer songwriter. Progressive singer songwriter. She sang a song called Baste It In Blood. Let's watch it. Anna is such a good singer. Oh my God. This is so good. I remember this. Oh my God. This is so good. Well, I'm so grateful that you came here. You are always ahead of your time, and I can't wait to see what you do next. And congrats on all the good things that are happening now. And it means a lot that you came by. So thank you so much.

Happy to be here.

Wow. Thank you so much, Sarah McGlachlin. You are so cool and interesting and so fun to talk to. It really took me down memory lane there. For this Polar Plunge, I just wanted to remind everybody how badass Pat Benatar is. That's all. Just how amazing her voice is and how great of an artist she is. Like Sarah, has just always been this woman making music on her own terms. She was, I Probably, Pat Benatar and New Edition were the first two concerts I saw when I was in middle school. I saw Pat Benatar at the Orpheum in Boston in... I don't know. I think maybe I was a freshman in high school. And her husband, Neil Graldo, lead guitarist, still together. So anyway, that's all. Just using this time to say, Pat, if you're listening, I love you. Please come on the show. And everybody else listening, here's to all the great music we had growing up and all the great music we have now and all the great music yet to come. Music will save us. Okay, bye. You've been listening to Good Hang. The executive producers for this show are Bill Simmons, Jenna Weis-Burman, and me, Amy Poehler.

The show is produced by The Ringer and Paperkite. For The Ringer, production by Jack Wilson, Kat Spillane, Kaya McMahon, and Elea Zanaris. For Paperkite, production by Sam Green, Lovelle, and Jenna Weis-Burman. Original music by Amy Miles. All I ever wanted was a really good hang.