Saturday, October 18, 1997 By MIKE ROSS --

Sass Jordan says she has an appalling little secret: "It's way more fun to be a grown-up than to be a kid."

The 35-year-old singer came to this conclusion the hard way - through a series of horrible relationships, bad timing, poor luck and varied music business crap that has overshadowed and squandered her incredible talent.

They don't call her the white Tina Turner for nothing.

If you're curious for dirt, don't ask. Suffice to say that this gutsy Montreal singer has always poured her heart out on her albums. For example, the critically acclaimed (read: flop at the record store) Rats was a potent, visceral representation of where Jordan's head was at in 1994.

"I was furious ... very angry ... rage on a stick," she gropes for the right word to describe the memory.

"Mature" is probably not the best word to describe Jordan's latest album, Present, but it's the result of a much healthier, calmer frame of mind. She's now happily married, expecting her first child in January and has moved from the urban jungle of Los Angeles to a "small country town in Canada." Not too many heroin-addicted former boyfriends to contend with there.

During an interview yesterday - where she seemed in great spirits, mimicking everyone from a Jewish grandmother to a black soul sister - she compares songwriting to "exorcising demons."

Rats took care of most of them.

"That having been done, this record is more about coming back up from the blackest, darkest moments of my life so far," she says.

"I was surrounded by negative types of people, negative energies that were very difficult to cope with. I always say in retrospect, though, that this doesn't happen by accident. I think you are responsible for the kind of people that you choose to spend your time with. Emotionally and career-wise, everything got all messed up and mixed up and got really confusing and dark. And then there came a point where that was enough and it was time to move on.

"Do What I Can, the new single, was the first song I wrote for this record, and it really summarizes the whole thing."

Fans of Jordan's previous work - generally pounded out in a full-out rock assault that evokes more Janis Joplin than Tina Turner - may be dismayed with Present. It's more reflective, not as overt and spiked with some experimental new sounds, at least to Jordan - those same trendy drum loops everyone and their dog is using these days. So what, says Sass. She just likes to dabble.

"I've never, ever been an innovator or somebody who came up with the new ideas at all," she says. "It's never even been a goal. I'm just interested in being able to communicate to as many people as I can at a time. I have stuff to say. I know when I was listening to music as a fan, it made me feel great to know that there was someone, especially somebody I'd admired, that felt the same way I felt, that I wasn't this alien monster. And that's really what I do it for."

Jordan may finally get her wish. Present is a strong - and accessible - enough album to put her to the next level, even to the one occupied by Alanis Morissette. The difference this time is that Jordan is ready for success.

"Now I could handle it," she says.

That must be because she's "grown up" now.