Sophie B. Hawkins first met Paula Cole back in 1995, when they were guests on a TV special called VH1 Duets. Both were up-and-comers, magnetic performers and songwriters who were there to sing with Melissa Etheridge. But they saw something in each other, too.

“We have the same vibe: these northeastern… stalwarts,” Hawkins recalls. “I love her music so much. We couldn’t be more different in style, playing and writing, but yet we really enjoy each other as artists.”

“She's an electric performer,” Cole says of Hawkins. “She channels Robert Plant, but she doesn't have ego. I always loved her, since [that VH1 meeting]. We clicked.”

Now, years later, the pair are touring Canada together, including a stop at The Arden. You might know Hawkins best for “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover”, or Cole for “I Don’t Want To Wait”, which found life as the theme song to Dawson’s Creek. Or one of countless other songs, as both have been creating powerful, resonant music for decades.

Part of Cole’s career has recently been illuminated on film: she’s a key figure in Lilith Fair: Building A Mystery, a new documentary about the legendary ‘90s music festival. Meanwhile, her first album of entirely original music in almost a decade, Lo, arrived last year.

The album came unexpectedly, she notes. Cole was going to record with singer-songwriters Jason Isbell and John Paul White, and had to bring something to the table.

“[Isbell’s] writing is so good that I was a little nervous to go into the studio to collaborate,” she recalls.

What she brought turned into “Mother, Son, and Holy Ghost”, which was released as a stand-alone single—and also energized her writing process. Her own songs kept coming and the resulting album, Lo, finds vibrancy in its honesty and immediacy.

Cole notes it was recorded in as few takes as possible, to capture the energy of a band in a room together.

“When you repeat, repeat, repeat, ‘take thirty-three’... all the life is just sucked out it,” Cole says.

Hawkins is also revisiting the past, albeit in a different way: she’s celebrating the release of Whaler Re-Emerging, a reinterpretation of her classic 1994 album Whaler.

“I got to sit down at the piano and basically visit myself at that time,” She says, of re-recording those songs. “In a way, it's more alive than looking in a photo album and reliving a picture, because a song you have to sing and play and re-experience.”

In revisiting those songs, what stands out to Hawkins is her early drive to be creating—and her gratitude to continue doing so.

“The beauty of the ideal is still true,” she says. “What I wanted to be was an artist. Actually, what I wanted to be was a song—that was my first goal when I was nine years old. I wanted to be the song without knowing what that would entail. And then the long journey of becoming a musician, and finally being ready to write songs and so forth. … So what's beautiful about going into my work is that it's proven itself. It’s lasted. I see how grateful I am that I stuck with my original intuition, which is simple and as non-descript as it sounds: I want to be the song. That is what happened to me, and that's how I'm still living. It’s an incredible ideal, and it's worked.”

Article written by Paul Blinov

Sophie B. Hawkins and Paula Cole play The Arden on Saturday, October 25th at 7:30pm. Tickets can be purchased at the Arden box office or online.

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