For nearly a decade, Saran McLachlan took a break from making music and instead was busy fundraising for the not-for-profit Sarah McLachlan School of Music, which provides free music education and mentorship to underserved children and youth facing barriers to music education access in three Canadian cities. Along with being a mom of two teenage girls, it was enough to occupy her time.
But in 2024, McLachlan rediscovered her love of making music after connecting with the production duo of Tony Berg and Will MacLellan — a notable turn considering she had partnered with producer Pierre Marchand beginning with her 1991 album “Solace” right on through her previous release, 2016’s “Wonderland.”
“I had a meeting with a gentleman named Tony Berg and instantly formed a great connection with him,” McLachlan explained. “I went to L.A. for a week to work with him and Will MacLellan, who is a Canadian. We kind of ended up falling madly in love and just creating this bond where the two of them just completely reignited this passion (in me) for being in the studio for that creation and collaboration. It was just an incredible experience.”
That session led to completing McLachlan’s current album, the 2025 release, “Better Broken.”
And while McLachlan, a native of Nova Scotia, enjoyed doing that initial one-week sessions with Berg and MacLellan, she felt some residual guilt over not working with Marchand and had to resolve that issue before fully embracing her new partnership with Berg and MacLellan.
“I took a bit of time to think about how I wanted to do the record,” she said. “I worked for years with Pierre Marchand. We had an incredible relationship and did a lot of great records together. But I thought at the time that this might be my last record, and if it was, I owed it to myself to step out, challenge myself, get out of my comfort zone and work with somebody new. I felt like I was cheating on Pierre until we had a conversation about it. He gave me his blessing and said he totally understood, so that kind of set me free to pursue this new (producing) relationship.”
McLachlan, 58, also felt some initial trepidation over tackling what she thought might end up being her last album. She said the issue wasn’t that she thought she might be too old to release new albums, but “more about whether people even make records anymore.”
But the genuine chemistry she found with the Berg/MacLellan production team reignited her creative passions.
“Just the idea of starting felt challenging because it had been so long,” McLachlan said. “I’m fully aware of the wheels of the great machine building back up, so when you’re away 11 years, it takes a lot of work to get back into the game, which is not my favorite part. The older I get, the more of a homebody I become.
“Making a record equates leaving,” she added with a laugh. “I think that was one of the things that held me back for a while. But it was just so joyful to be in the studio again and to be working with incredible musicians and incredible minds. Every day brought new experiences, new sounds and new ideas. It was so creative and so collaborative. I loved how every day I’d come home exhausted after 12 hours and be so excited about getting into the studio the next day.”
McLachlan also gushed about Berg’s “ADD personality” that not only found him turning the Canadian singer-songwriter onto the music of cult folky Judee Sill (McLachlan covered Sill’s “The Kiss” on “Better Broken”) but bringing a number of guest musicians into the project, including MUNA’s Katie and Wendy Melvoin (the latter famously a former member of Prince and the Revolution). Along with Berg’s connection with the guitarist, the relationship between McLachlan and Wendy Melvoin was earlier cemented when the latter thanked the former for her song “Angel,” which was about Melvoin’s late brother Jonathan.
“I met Wendy a couple of years ago,” McLachlan said. “Brandi Carlile was doing a Joni Jam at The Gorge (Amphitheatre in Washington state) and she had brought all these musicians together. She introduced me to Wendy. Wendy took me aside that day and said she just wanted to tell me the song I wrote, ‘Angel,’ was incredibly healing for her family. I had not made the connection. In that moment, she said that was her brother that I wrote that song about him. We were both weeping. We had this really intense bonding moment. As it turns out, she’s one of Tony’s best friends.”
With McLachlan fully back in creative mode, she’s ready to reconnect with a devoted fanbase she’s cultivated since she dropped her 1988 debut “Touch.” It’s a relationship she cherishes so much that she reached out on social media to gauge what expectations might be for her “Better Broken” tour.
“I believe in giving my audience the show they want, so I’m going to do my best to make those things work,” McLachlan said. “Obviously I am going to be doing a bunch of ‘Better Broken’ stuff, but I’m fully aware that my fans want to hear the old stuff, too. I went on Instagram and asked them what they wanted to hear. Across the board I got ‘Vox’ and ‘The Path of Thorns (Terms)’ (off of) the first and second records, so we’re working those up. I haven’t played those songs in maybe 20 years. My set lists are going to be a real mix of old and very new. There is not a lot of (the 2014 album) ‘Shine On.’ There is not a lot of (2010’s) ‘Laws of Illusion.’ It’s sort of the really old stuff and the really new stuff.”
As for the future, McLachlan admits the new way of working in one-week studio spurts with Berg could very well be the template going forward, particularly given how much she’s gotten out of it on an emotional and creative level.
“When we get together and record, it’s super intense for a week,” McLachlan explained. “What’s good about that is you get to step away from it and have some space, distance and perspective. Then you come back to some things and instantly realize something needs more work. Or this other thing we cast off early on is actually really great and we need to focus on that. I love working that way and I think we would do that again. It works really well for both of our ADD brains.”