Eye for the Future Magazine interview
By Christopher Reeles

Spiritual Quest

After recently speaking with Loreena McKennitt, many things stood out in my mind.  She's an excellent conversationalist, a clever businessperson, and a woman of great depth who is both spiritually and creatively developed.

I've had the opportunity to listen to her latest CD The Book of Secrets, and it's magnificent.  I'm quite impressed with Loreena McKennitt's abilities, and proudly own some of her past CD's including The Visit and The Mask and Mirror, which were produced under her own record label Quinlan Road.  Her other CD's include Elemental, To Drive the Cold Winter Away, Parallel Dreams and A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season.

I'm pleased to say that the interview I had with Ms McKennitt only grazes the tip of what I discovered to be a very talented woman.

(EFTF - Eye for the Future)

EFTF: What was it like when you were trying to produce your first album?

McKennitt: In 1985, I had been working at the theatre in Stratford, Ontario on different shows.  But when I got interested in Celtic Music, I also found out that I wasn't going to be invited back to work at the theatre.  So, I had to focus on how I wanted music to be part of my future life.  I recognized  that having your own recording was a very important vehicle to having a musical career.  As a result, my first CD, Elemental, was conceived and created.

EFTF: From what I know, most musicians don't deal with the business side of the work.  What is it like to be part-artist and part-businessperson?

McKennitt:  It's a bit like Jekyll and Hyde.  There are certain kinds of skills you bring to both.  And of those skills, having good instincts is crucial; if developing your instincts can be considered a skill.  I also like to create circumstances where my mind is not crowded with a lot of practical and pragmatic details.  I like to be in a mode of reading things or working in a foreign environment where you're more vulnerable, more innocent and, therefore, more impressionable.  This has more of an impact on your creativity than if you're at home in a predictable environment.  It's not to say that you can't be creative at home.  Many people are. But for myself, being at home means being at the office.  One of the fundamental things I have learned since starting out in 1985 is that, as an artist, you can either take control of your destiny or you can wait to have it thrust  upon you.  And I've never felt comfortable with that.  So, I wanted to reduce the amount of fate in my life and taught myself in a very organic way about budgets, timelines, producing recordings, concerts and tours, and dealing with retail, marketing and advertising.  So, by the time I joined forces with the Warner Group in 1991, I already understood a lot about how these interrelated exercises operated, which also made me more sympathetic for what the record company was up against when they launch a new recording.

EFTF:  So, is working the business second nature to you now?

McKennitt:  It has come to the point where it's just a skill.  My CDs are released in over 40 countries around the world, yet it isn't top commercial, radio kind of stuff.  I have two offices and 10 full time employees who work for me.  So, on any given day, I could be working with Warner Spain, Warner Italy, Warner Australia, Warner Turkey.  I have spent the past few months preparing promotional tools and packages as well as press kits in a dozen languages - it goes on and on.  I am the key quarterback, not only for my company, but also for Warner.

EFTF:  Where did you get the title for you new CD The Book of Secrets?

McKennitt:  It Actually came from an academic book, 'The Book of Secrets', I had been studying on science, the secrets of nature, and a history of science through the stages of alchemy.  Alchemy is interesting and important because it doesn't just deal with the physical sciences but other sciences as well.  Early in the research of any of my recordings, I try to land upon a title that, in a representational kind of way, allows the musical pieces within to resonate.  It's almost like identifying the roof before the building.  It's a curious way of assembling things, but it's almost like keeping an eye on the roof while constructing the supportive pillars.  

EFTF: Does it give you a stronger sense of freedom having started Quinlan Road from the ground up? 

McKennitt:  There's certainly more of a security of confidence in knowing that I've built an infrastructure where I haven't put all my eggs in one basket - as in the Warner basket.  Now, I have a mailing list, mail order and other smaller distribution arrangements for my previous three titles.  And , at the same time, I try to utilize the Warner structure for what it is best set up to do.  But there's also no question that if you ask anybody who has their own business, even if it's the corner store proprietor, you're strapped to the mast.  There's always things to be done and always thins that could be done better.  And you're there trying to do it all.   

EFTF:  But don't you also find an enjoyment in having your own business rather than working under someone else's own structure or timetable?  

McKennitt:  Oh definitely.  At the end of the day, your the one in control.  I have certain criteria and priorities that do not always serve the objective of maximizing the number of units sold.  That criteria has to do with the integrity of the music or touring at a particular venue.  And when you have your own business, you can set the priorities as well as the criteria.  

EFTF: Is there a particular message that you try to deliver in your CDs? 

McKennitt:  I don't think so.  It's important to understand that I really consider my recordings a testament to my own path of exploration.  I use the vehicle of my career, or musical talent, to explore different themes and subjects in which I have long had a great interest.  And I'm fortunate enough that this same vehicle can be encapsulated into a format that can also be the means to my survival.  It would be erroneous for anybody to think that I'm an authority on anything, or I have a message to give.  There are things that I feel I'm learning for myself, and I weave those into my work.  For the most part, however, I hope that my recordings are a catalyst for people to think about things in a different way.  

EFTF:  When I listen to your music, I feel moved and spiritually touched.  It creates within me a feeling of longing to be at one with myself.  The feeling is both haunting and fulfilling at the same time.  Do you believe that your music touches everyone as deeply?  

McKennitt:  It's not for me to say.  I try to create music on themes and subjects which are interesting to me.  But I can look at the evidence.  I receive a lot of faxes, letters and phone calls from a number of people which indicates that many are emotionally and spiritually touched by my music.  I would like to think, however, that I am this clever or sophisticated to touch people in this way, but my responsibility is for keeping the machine tuned up; the machine is my talent.  Part of that mysterious force of creativity is that there are greater thing which shine through you.  You are not the initiator, but rather the originator. 

EFTF: What touches you most when you're creating your music?

McKennitt: It's very hard to say.  I've produced my own kind of litmus test.  For instance, I fell that I have a very developed sense within myself of what works and what doesn't.  And I can be quite brutal when I listen to some of it.  But even if it was the greatest music in the world, I can only listen to it for a certain time and then it loses its charm.  Even though I'm also the person that has created it, I'm still subject to its charms.  It sounds very bizarre to describe.  But one of the litmus tests is whether or not I feel the need to hear that music again several times over the next few days.  After that it becomes much more of a crap shoot.

EFTF:  In life, what are you thinking before you begin composing a record?

McKennitt:  Jeepers, I feel like I'm thinking about it all of the time.  And whether it's good or bad, I have been endowed with this insatiable curiosity that is always causing me to think, to analyze and to figure thins out.  It's like I can't leave life, history or the world alone.  I've got to be figuring it out, all of the time.  And I would say it's severe enough that, at times, it feels like an affliction. 

EFTF: But how do you prepare yourself before you create your music?

McKennitt:  Well, for my music, there are so many subjects that I feel quite passionately about.  So, what I do is start organizing the information, start reading different kinds of books and, if I can travel somewhere, I start gathering different kinds of experiences and impressions.  And inevitably, with all of that, you're led onto a number of tangents you never expected which cause you to think in other different ways.  It's kind of like a detective's exercise.  This is a little off topic but we are a culmination of our collective histories, and there is truly more to bind us together than should be tearing us apart.  We should not be falsely led into conflict on the basis of religious or national boundaries, or even cultural differences.  But we must dispel the notion that people have fatal differences on these grounds.  It all stems out of ignorance. 

EFTF:  As my final question, this issue of Eye for the Future magazine focuses on Secret Wishes.  What is your secret wish?

McKennitt:  My secret wish is for people to discover the goodness within themselves, the goodness that will allow each of us to cohabitate in a more enriching and harmonious way.