In case you’re under the delusion that singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb’s career peaked with her winsome hit “Stay (I Missed You)” from the Reality Bites soundtrack back in the early ’90s, well, let’s just say she’s been far busier than you. In the last year alone she’s had her own show on the Food Network (Dweezil and Lisa, with fellow musician Dweezil Zappa), released a children’s CD (Catch the Moon), and still managed to find time to record a brand-new album, The Way It Really Is.

The Varsity had a chance to chat with Lisa about art, food, and the business of making music prior to her show tonight at the El Mocambo.

The Varsity: Tell us a bit about recording your new album, The Way It Really Is?

Lisa Loeb: Half of it was very acoustic and very intimate, sort of what you’d get in a live performance. I think part of it was to match up with – it sounds kind of strange, but to match up with the personality and the energy that is on my television show – I had a Food Network television show earlier in the year and I liked the idea of the feeling of the show matching up somewhat with the feeling of the record.

I was in the middle of touring and making a TV show and doing a bunch of other projects, including a children’s record, so I would record a little bit and then leave to do these other projects and I’d come back into the studio having listened to what I’d already done. In some cases when you’re just in the studio, you don’t have time to get perspective, you get too focused on details. I think it gave me more perspective to accept things that I would normally not accept, and I think that actually makes [the album] easier to connect to as a listener.

V: Is it hard to capture the spontaneity of the live show?

LL: That’s the thing-I’ve been recording since I was 14 years old, and I’ve just been through a lot of those experiences, and I found that in the most recent process, we were able to accomplish that live energy. It’s not sloppy or anything, but it’s real, and that’s what I was trying to do.

V: What gave you the idea to do a cooking show?

LL: Well, I had an album called Cake and Pie, and as part of the promotion for that, we invited my friend Mark Tarbell, who’s a chef from Phoenix, Arizona, to come up on stage and do a pie-making demo. It was sort of selfish, because when you are busy promoting a record, you don’t have time to do anything except the basics, so it was a way to work on pie crust (laughs) and do something thematic.

So we were doing this, and in the United States, the record company wasn’t really interested in supporting the idea, although the fans loved it and they got to have pie samples. It was really fun, so we went straight to Food Network and when they found out how much we were obsessed with food and cooking and watching their shows on TV, and learning more about cooking, visiting new restaurants and going our old favourite restaurants on the road, they thought it would be interesting if we did our own show for the network.

We created a ten-episode series for them where we did exactly that – we learned from chefs so other people could learn through us, and we visited some of our old favourite restaurants on the road and discovered new places as well.

V: You mention an unsupportive label-what made you switch over to roots label Zoe/Rounder (also home to Canadian girls-with-guitars Sarah Harmer and Kathleen Edwards)?

LL: Actually, the Canadian branch of Universal is fantastic, and Zoe/Rounder works with the same Canadian company, so I’m really excited to be working with them again. But in the States, it just seemed the focus has been taken away from the music and placed on the marketing… Or not even-there wasn’t a lot of focus unless you sell tons and tons of records.

With a company like Rounder, I think the first and main priority is the music, and then figuring out how to sell it. I’m always really interested in the business of music-I don’t think you can be a professional musician without the music business – but it is nice to just have a different culture there than you do at a major label.

You really have to have a business backing to be able to be a professional musician. There are a lot of people involved in getting records out, a lot of people involved in marketing a record, making sure the records are in stores… You don’t just make music and then expect people to hear it. That’s impossible. Even with the Internet, you have to let people know that your record is actually out and being sold.

V: You’ve had a very diverse career, with the acting (including roles in the TV shows Cupid, The Drew Carey Show, and The Chris Isaak Show and the movie House on Haunted Hill), TV show, children’s book/CD… Has that always been your plan, or did it just work out that way?

LL: I’ve always been really interested in doing a lot of different things – acting, voiceovers, communicating with people in different ways… Just following my hobbies and my interests, and sometimes they’re more public and sometimes they’re more private. It’s exciting to actually be able to do that. Ten years ago when I was starting out professionally-I’d been playing since I was a kid-but it was less accepted in the media for people to be able to do a lot of different types of things. Now it’s more accepted and it’s almost expected, I think. It’s nice to be able to not only have that freedom in my real life, but also in the commercial world, to do whatever I want to do.

Sometimes when you’re wrapped up in the commercial music world, although I don’t let it influence the kind of music I’m making, sometimes it can get into your mind that each album is very, very precious, it’s kind of a special thing. Each album is a very special project, but it’s one of many things that’s gonna happen over many years. It’s not the one thing. I actually think that puts less pressure on it and in turn, makes it better. I think art is better when there’s less focus on it, in some way, when you’re actually making it. I think it’s easier to express yourself. Creative expression is easier when you feel freedom to do that.

V: How do you think your singing and songwriting have matured or changed over the years?

LL: If you listen to my music a lot, I think you’d notice a subtle change. If you don’t listen to my music a lot, it’ll probably sound the same, because I always like to base songs on being able to play them either on piano or guitar, and I work from there. There are still a lot of songs about relationships. I feel that I’ve added on to that-I write a little more about human nature, I write a little more about the way I see life. You have to not let life pass you by. You have to actually try and make an effort in life.

I feel like the vocals and the performances express the songs a little bit differently. They seem a little more intimate to me, but I don’t know if that’s a thing somebody else would notice. I’m also a little more interested in telling a story than I was in the past, and hopefully that’s working.

V: There are probably people that still remember you only for “Stay” – how do you feel about that?

LL: It’s actually a really great feeling, knowing there’s a song that millions of people know. It always amazes me, and it’s always really exciting to be able to play that song anywhere in the world and have most people recognize it. It’s such a rare situation to be in. It has enabled me to travel all over the world and play music. It’s kind of the best of all worlds, being able to have the commercial success that’s opened me up to a much larger fanbase, but still be able to make the music that I love to make.

Lisa Loeb plays tonight at the El Mocambo (464 Spadina Ave.). Tickets are $12 at the door.