of The Daily Times Staff

Adult contemporary artist Sophie B. Hawkins may no longer be affiliated with the Sony record label, but don't weep for her.

She's doing just fine.

``You might not be able to hear me, because I'm on the beach, here in Hawaii,'' she said this week during a phone interview, waves crashing and gulls crying in the background. ``I have a house here. This is vacation, but I haven't managed to get away from work yet.''

Any sort of envy is understandable, and she giggles at the desire to swap places. Not that a reporter could fill her shoes -- after all, the pressure that accompanies her forthcoming release, ``Wilderness,'' must be enormous. After all, it's the first album she's made on her own, without the backing of Sony and the major label imprint stamped on the record.

But for Hawkins, such pressure is a welcome change from the stress that went along with her relationship with Sony.

``I was so confused and mystified,'' she said, discussing how Sony wanted to pair her with songwriters she didn't want to work with after her last album, 1999's ``Timbre.'' ``I didn't understand why Sony wanted me to write with people when I had such huge hits myself. All I could think was, `Why?' I mean, I'd rather be checking coats again than writing with people I didn't want to.''

The pressure from Sony was even more puzzling given Hawkins' track record. Her 1992 debut album, ``Tongues and Tails,'' went gold, earned her a Grammy nomination and propelled a single, ``Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover,'' into the Top Five. Her second album, ``Whaler,'' delivered the single ``As I Lay Me Down,'' which charted in Billboard for 67 weeks and helped make that record gold as well.

But in the wake of ``Timbre,'' the record label pushed her to collaborate with other songwriters. Even the memory of those troublesome days gets her fired up.

``They're all about numbers and stock shares, and I understand that and am totally fine with that,'' she said. ``But it's my art, and whether it's good or not or people like it or not, I'll continue to do it. I listen to great songwriters, and they do it for the love of the song, not for the money.

``I don't want to ever, ever do anything for that. It pisses me off, because I think the love of money has created the most unhappiness among humanity. It's destroying people. I mean, there's so much money in this country, yet there are so many veterans who don't have places to sleep. I'm just shocked that there's anything more important to people than taking care of each other.''

Not that she lost a great deal when she left Sony. The label only gave total support to her first album, she said. After that, she got used to carrying her own instruments and fending for herself. She's always maintained a home studio, in which she recorded elaborate demos for her recording sessions even when she was signed to Sony, and it was with a vision in mind that she began working on ``Wilderness.''

``With `Wilderness,' I had really gotten the confidence that only came from breaking with Sony and touring my ass off,'' she said. ``In confidence, you can make more mistakes and let things go easier. I've become much less controlling, and as a result, the album was really an unconscious effort on my part.

``That's the way I work -- I have a picture in my mind about how I want to explore each project. It's a challenge. I have this picture and I just go -- like looking at a picture of the Himalayas, and a climber just looks at them and just goes. He's on a different mountain each day, and once he's on top, he finds it wasn't anything like how he truly thought it was going to be.''

Whether ``Wilderness'' yields another hit like ``Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover,'' only time will tell -- all Hawkins knows is that she can't make it happen.

``I didn't make it happen then, even though I think it's a phenomenal song,'' she said. ``I never thought, `I'm going to write a great song.' It's just something that happened after writing so many mediocre songs. And I can't make it happen now, but if a song ever strikes humanity like `Damn' did, I will be so blessed.''

Already, she's looking ahead to her next project. She's written and recorded some songs, and as is par for the course with her, she already has an idea in mind about how she wants the record to turn out.

``I see something that is as clean and powerful as diving into the ocean,'' she said, holding the phone out toward the waves for emphasis. ``I think I want to be able to record the intricacies of my emotions and do more, like the ocean. I want to get more into nuances, and make more of them, so they feel more powerful.

``As a musician, I feel I need to go there more with tone changes and slight shifts that really make a huge difference. That's what I'm going for -- something understated yet powerful. I want to draw that power from another place.''