Creative Loafing
October 3-9, 2001
Added Oct 25, 2001
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Creative Loafing
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There is a Tori article/interview in the October 3-9, 2001 issue of Creative Loafing, a weekly publication in Charlotte, NC Thanks to Kim Corpening and Kimmie for sending this to me. You can read it at the Creative Loafing web site (which has a photo) or below. Strange Little Girl Tori Amos' new album is not quite what you'd expect from the
ivory-tinkling, Kate Bush-esque chanteuse who recorded the emotionally
stripped, piano-heavy favorites Little Earthquakes, Under the Pink and
Boys for Pele.
Titled Strange Little Girls, the album features Amos performing 12 songs
written by male artists, told through the perspectives of a female
character "inhabiting" the song. Included are songs by Lou Reed ("New
Age"), Eminem ("'97 Bonnie & Clyde," told from the point of view of a
murdered mother near death), Depeche Mode ("Enjoy the Silence"), Slayer
("Raining Blood") and the Beatles ("Happiness is a Warm Gun").
Photographer Thomas Schenk's photography adorns the CD, featuring 12
photos of Tori dressed up in character. Amos says she wanted to talk
about men-"how men see women, how men see themselves, and how the view
changes depending on where you're standing."
Consenting to a rare interview, Amos described by phone her motives for
the new album.
CL: When did the idea of Strange Little Girls come to you, or is it an
idea you had for a while?
Tori Amos: Sometimes it's not just one idea that makes you pick up the
gauntlet and see a project home. There were quite a few different ideas
that we were working on almost at the same time, and the first idea that
hit me was finding this place where the men were the mothers. Right when
I had my little girl, my male friends would want to talk to me about
what it was like to carry a life inside you, what it was like to be a
human house on heels. They would want to know about the feeling of being
a host organism. I thought of a place where the men would be the
mothers. And that started to take my being a song mother as somewhere
similar to being a human mother, having given birth now. I think some of
them would be good host organisms-if they could put the vodka and smokes
down for 10 minutes. I'm just being funny, but you know what I mean. I
don't know if the physicality of it all really would work. But I think
the heart, in some of them, was in the right place.
CL: How did you go about picking the songs?
Tori Amos: Well, it became clear that if I were gonna do this, I really
had to have some men involved. Because if you're going to dissect them,
you need to have them as your control group, and as your research group.
So they started offering up a lot of insight, because the premise that
came to me and stuck, and still stands, is how a man says something and
what a woman hears. That kind of intrigued me and it drew me in. But
first, I had to know how a man says something and what man hears.
Sometimes it wasn't that extreme, sometimes it was, but it was always
different-the pictures were different. And some of the songs that made
the men feel compassion, I hadn't been exposed to that before. So it
became multi-layered. Each song had its own birth certificate, if you
know what I mean. Whoever brought the song in had stories that were
intertwined with it, and that affected how I selected the songs.
CL: Were any of the artists wary at first?
Tori Amos: No, I didn't get their permission until the 11th of the 11th
of the 11th hour. I didn't approach them because I know song law, and I
know the protocol, and to go to them at first presupposed that I don't
know the protocol, and I do. It's not about them agreeing with me-that's
not what I'm doing! They were the song mothers, and I had a relationship
with their daughters. I certainly don't get along with all of the
mothers of (these songs).
CL: Along those same lines, have you gotten any feedback from anybody on
the album?
Tori Amos: Slayer sent T-shirts, which is always nice. (laughs)
CL: One the songs were picked, did you work them out by yourself first?
Musically, how you were going to approach it?
Tori Amos: Every song is different-that's why it takes me a while
sometimes in a studio to find it. And I always have a great team in
there. Not only was there the research group, the "laboratory of men,"
as they were finally called, there was the whole music group, with the
sound guys, the musicians and myself. Your job as a producer is to pull
in a team that is right for a project. And all songs and concepts have
bloodlines, whether they have been realized or not by another version.
"Heart of Gold" became about bullion. Which was spurred on by the fact
that the guys that had brought this song in had very cute little stories
about when the song came out and how they wanted a woman with a heart of
gold who would understand when they went around the world backpacking
with their guy friends. And if they met up with other women that they
would "have to investigate it" but that it didn't mean they didn't love
them. And my head is cocking and cocking itself until I'm just going,
"You're out of your mind. You want a doormat, you don't want a heart of
gold." And they would say "That's not really fair." And I said, "OK,
goodbye, thank you for your input, next." So that was like, OK, fine,
the gals in this song feel very differently and they don't need a man
right now. They're looking for a way to hold some of these men
accountable. We go back to the word "power." That is misused power,
which is a fundamental, core frequency on this record.
CL: I read in the press materials that each show might have a different
influence, each show based on one of the characters from the record.
Tori Amos: I hadn't had my morning coffee when I came up with that one.
We'll see-I have to be honest, it's changing now that I'm in rehearsals.
What's working is very apparent, and what's not is also very apparent.
We'll see if the production team gets the artwork together-on the sonic
side, we've got it together and I can only deliver in a show what I
think is working. I can't be held hostage to my own ideas that aren't
panning out.
CL: I read that you said before that your own songs are like
friends-some you hold dear to you forever, while others you've slowly
grown apart from. What would you call these songs?
Tori Amos: Definitely friends; I've made some great friends. In some
ways, I feel like I'm their mother.
You can also find a review of the Strange Little girls album in this issue. In a column called "Music Menu" by Tim Davis, Samir Shukla and Co., they state: Tori Amos Here's another righteous babe doing musical things right. The chanteuse takes a decidedly feminine twist and throws her loyal fans a curve ball on the new record "Strange Little Girls" (Atlantic). She covers tunes written and performed by males and reinterprets them from the femme perspective. The Beatles, Lloyd Cole and Velvet Underground are among those covered. Her sinister version of Slayer's "Raining Blood" will make those speed rockers dive for cover. This is her most rocking and adventurous record to date, and it's a much needed kick in the gonads of muscle flexing rockers/rappers. A message to Eminem: "Get your thumb out of yer ass, listen to what a chick can so to one of your 'songs,' and weep, you wanker." With Rufus Wainwright. Thursday, Ovens Auditorium. -- SS |
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Please give me feedback, comments, or suggestions about A Dent In The Tori Amos Net Universe. Email me (Mikewhy) at mikewhy@iglou.com |
