Sarah McLachlan on American Idol, Her Kids and Why She's Happier Than You Think

Find out why the Grammy winner wouldn't have been auditioning for Simon Cowell if there was an AI back in the day

Sarah McLachlan may have sold a gazillion or so records over the years, but what if American Idol was around when she first started out? Would she have auditioned for the show?

Probably not…

"I would have failed dismally," McLachlan recently told me during a recent trip to Los Angeles to promote her new album, Laws of Illusion, out today. "It's too much pressure. I would never have put myself in that situation in the first place. I just wouldn't have felt comfortable doing it."

Even though it's been seven years since the release of McLachlan's last album of original material, Afterglow, it's not like she hasn't been busy.

On top of projects like a holiday album, Wintersong, and performing at the Olympics, McLachlan is now a single mom. She and her drummer husband Ashwin Sood announced they separated in September 2008 after eleven years of marriage. They have two daughters, eight-year-old India and Taja, who turns three on June 22.

Back at home in her native Canada, McLachlan says her kitchen serves as her office. She likes it that way because she gets to be with her kids.

"At one my point, my eldest said, ‘God, all these songs, I'm so sick of them. They all sound the same,'" McLachlan said with a laugh. "It's because, of course, I'm listening to one song 50 times!…Quite frankly as far as they're concerned, I'm mommy and this Sarah McLachlan thing is just an annoyance."

Even so, the girls are already showing they've got music in their blood. "They both love music," McLachlan said. "I think maybe my younger one's a little more musically inclined, but my older one, she's an incredible dancer. They've both got a great sense of rhythm."

They'll be joining mom on the road any day now for the relaunch of her Lilith Fair music tour. And the music video for her new album's first single, "Loving You Is Easy," debuted just last week. Proudly describing the song as an "effervescent piece of fluff," McLachlan said, "People always think, ‘Oh, Sarah McLachlan—dark, dour and depressing or sad and down. But I'm generally pretty happy. I mean I have my pity party days, too, but I'm a pretty up person."