McLachlan, Hubby Call It Quits

Thu., Sep. 11, 2008 9:01 AM PDT by Josh Grossberg

Vince Bucci/Getty Images

Sarah McLachlan is apparently fumbling towards singlehood.

The 40-year-old Canadian songbird and drummer-hubby Ashwin Sood have announced they have split after 11 years together.

McLachlan broke the news to Billboard while promoting her new greatest hits package.

"I'm separating from my husband, so these are the songs about that," McLachlan told the trade, getting in a plug for the two new tunes gracing the compilation, "U Want Me 2" and "Don't Give Up on Us."

Closer: The Best of Sarah McLachlan drops Oct. 7 from Arista Records as both a single-disc and a two-CD edition.

The pair tied the knot back in 1997, when McLachlan was flying high with her fourth studio album, Surfacing, which sold 8 million copies and netted four Grammys.

Following that success, she went on to found the top-grossing Lilith Fair Festival, which featured all-estrogen acts, before stepping away from the spotlight and taking a five-year hiatus.

During that time, McLachlan and Sood took up residence in Vancouver and had two children, India Ann Sushil, now 6, and 14-month-old Taja Summer.

Although she acknowledged the pair's marital troubles were "pretty gross," the singer-songwriter offered no explanation for the breakup.

"I wasn't planning on saying anything," McLachlan added, "but it's gonna come out at some point. I haven't said anything about it because I've been terrified to, but I figure...there's no good time to say it, so I just said it."

As for the new tracks, she likened "U Want Me 2" to the confusion and hesitation couples feel when "there's no communication or closure, everything's still up in the air and there's a lot of anger and sadness."

"It's sort of that working through 'How do we move forward...with some dignity and grace,' " she said.

"Don't Give Up" is McLachlan's plea for reconciliation.

The singer, who cowrote the songs with her longtime collaborator, Pierre Marchand, is expected to make a series of TV appearances after which she plans to return to the studio to commence work on a new album for release within the next two years.