I recall reading this one before but couldn't find it on the board. It's slightly dated but features some great quotes.
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[img:1216973563]http://www.herenb.com/moncton/issues/0213/art/cover.jpg[/img:1216973563]Here
Volume 2, Issue 13
Mar. 31 - Apr. 7, 2005
By Eric Lewis
http://www.herenb.com/moncton/issues/0213/cover.html


Going her own way
A bit eccentric, a tad opinionated, Sarah Slean brings her widely respected cabaret pop to New Brunswick


"I was thinking that the music industry was just full of bullshit," Slean admits. "My struggle was with nobility � is this a noble life?"

While Sarah Slean has proven herself as a musician and an artist, her acting career is getting off to somewhat rocky start. Black Widow, a movie she appeared in, is due out in the fall, and she's a little scared.

"I watched the rough cut, and I was trembling," she says with a laugh, in a call mid-tour from North Bay, Ont. "Please don't release this - I'm terrible!" she wants to tell the movie producers.

Slean says she has a new respect for actors now, and she knows where she is comfortable. "I'm a musician," she says.

While we wait for the movie, we can see Slean in her element - on the stage.

She'll be performing in Fredericton on Wednesday, April 6, at The Cellar, and in Moncton on Thursday, April 7, at the Manhattan.

She's promoting her second major label album, Day One, which was released last year and was nominated for a Juno award for Adult Alternative Album of the Year.

The new album went off in a slightly different direction than her first big release, Night Bugs.

Slean says it was a conscious decision; she was becoming "more solid with rhythm" on Day One. The piano, a "dense harmonic instrument" she says, took a back seat on occasion to beats and atmosphere. The album still sounds like Slean though; her jazzy cabaret-pop just has a more contemporary feel. She says it wasn't difficult to put the piano aside because she didn't drop it completely.

The album was written in a cabin in the woods, where Slean lived for four months. She was getting away from her day job. "I was thinking that the music industry was just full of bullshit," she admits, with still a hint of frustration in her voice. Slean needed a break, but the intent wasn't to write music. "But that's where I wrote most of the new album." She says she came out of the cabin feeling much better about herself and her career. "My struggle was with nobility - is this a noble life?" She says sometimes getting away into your own space allows "the hot rocks in your skull to cool down." It takes away your layers and "the crap you put on yourself" and leaves the raw you.

"And all the raw me wanted to do was play piano," she admits.

With her struggle over, Slean returned to the studio to record Day One. She still feels the pressure of the music business, but she seems to be okay with it, at least for the moment. She felt the pressure of the business from early on, from when she was first signed to Warner Music. Slean, a classically trained pianist with a flair for writing dramatic, almost epic pop songs with cabaret-style vocals, felt pressure from the label to write hits.

"There's no time to do things that you're mildly ashamed of," she says is her oft-repeated message to her record label. And if they tried to force her to change, "I would just walk away, and I think they know that." She has a reputation for being a bit eccentric, something she admits. She has mentioned in past interviews a few names of characters she sometimes becomes. "Emily" is the performer in Slean, the character that allows her to get on stage and perform for audiences because "I consider myself kind of a librarian type".

Her current tour has taken Slean to Europe where touring is "night and day" different than in Canada. "There isn't the infrastructure for culture that there is in Europe," she explains.

Touring itself is a weird beast. "The rootlessness is weird," Slean says, noting that her suitcase is currently her home. The upside is the "constant newness everywhere".

It's on the road when Slean finds time to create her art work, another of her passions, some of which is displayed on her website, www.sarahslean.com.
"There are acres of empty time on the road," she says. But perhaps carrying art tools around just makes more sense than trying to write songs from the road.

"It's hard to haul my piano upstairs into the hotel room." Sarah Slean and Justin Rutledge will be playing at The Cellar on the UNB campus in Fredericton on Wednesday, April 6. Tickets are $8 and are available at The Cellar and at Back Street Records. Slean will be playing The Manhattan in Moncton on Thursday, April 7.

Tickets for the Moncton show are $17.50 in advance, $20.00 day of show, and are available at Frank's in Champlain Place Mall and at The Manhattan.

great article!