“Don’t mind my voice,” Sarah Smith rasps over the phone, “I’ve got a bit of a thing going on.”
Sitting in her pyjamas and slippers at her London, Ont. home, the singer/songwriter explains she is battling a sore throat. Even though she’s going on tour in two days, however, she isn’t concerned.
Even when she can barely speak, she can always sing. “It’s like a different level,” she says.
Smith has been in the game for a long time now—“I’m not a young chick,” she says with a chuckle—and while her success over the past 15 years makes sense when you hear her music, it’s surprising when you consider her past.
She grew up on a farm, for the most part living a “really sheltered” childhood—so much so that she said the idea of playing music for a living never even entered her mind.
“I didn’t know you could have a career playing music, I just had no idea,” she says.
So what did she do i
nstead? Joined the army, of course. Smith acknowledges it seems like a weird choice today, but at the time the free education the military offered appealed to her, and since she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, enlisting seemed like a sensible choice.
Of course, that didn’t last long.
“Halfway through my first year somebody told me I could make a living playing music and that was it—that was all I needed to hear,” she says.
So she went to her commander, told him she wanted out, and a little while later she left with an honourable discharge.
Soon after, Smith found herself under the tutelage of Canadian bluesman Bill Durst, who “pulled me right into the scene,” and gave her a two-year crash course on how to be an entertainer.
Over the next decade or so Smith built up a loyal fan base, in large part thanks to her time with the band The Joys.
A couple of years ago she struck out on her own as a solo artist, where her uplifting and joyous songs have continued to gain her a reputation.
“The coolest thing about being a [musician] is you get to touch people’s lives … and you have the power to change the world. That’s pretty much what keeps me going. Just the fact that I’m doing something to make the world better,” she said.
“I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and every day I wake up so excited. Every day offers something new and exciting. It’s a really adrenaline-rushy kind of life,” she says.
That rush will continue for Smith as she kicks off a western Canadian tour this week. She says she can’t wait to dive back into the touring life and bring tracks from her new album The Journey to her fans.
“Let the whirlwind begin,” she said.
