Alex Bennett Morning Show (US, radio) KITS, San Francisco (105.3 FM)
August 30, 1994
Tori Amos interview and live performance
songs: Cloud on My Tongue (cut from recording), Honey, Landslide
transcript
Tori Amos: Ok, ok, ok. You know, ok. I like this one, it's called Cloud on My Tongue.
Tori performs Cloud on My Tongue.
[applause]
Alex: Wow. Thank you so much for coming by today, Tori.
Tori: Thanks, Alex. Thanks, everybody.
Alex: Tori Amos, her album is Under the Pink. And it's available at only the finest record stores, which is every record store in the land. You're really incredible, Tori.
Tori: Thanks, Alex.
Alex: I'm just absolutely blown away.
Tori: Ok. I'm just gonna say hi to some people as they walk out. Is that ok?
Alex: Oh, that's fine, that's fine.
Tori: Ok.
Alex: We'll take care of what business we have to do. And if you stick around for a few minutes, we got the piano here, I'll do a couple a numbers.
...
Alex: I feel so honored, I'm using Tori Amos's microphone. I'm feeling kinda wet. So um...
[laughter]
Chris: You sound kinda reedy.
Alex: Thank you, thank you. Uh, she was wonderful, by the way. It's a great new album.
...
Alex: In a few moments -- they're setting up, now -- Tori Amos will be performing live right here on our program. They're setting up her piano right now. It would be so much easier if she'd just learn the guitar...
...
Alex: Our next guest will be appearing at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts on the 30th and on the 31st she'll be -- and the first of September -- she'll be at the Orpheum Theatre here in San Francisco, I guess. And then at the Luther Burbank Center on the 8th and on the 9th she'll be at the Sacramento Community Theatre and at the [?] Auditorium on the 10th... Please welcome Tori Amos. Hello, Tori.
[applause]
Alex: Things are going pretty good, huh?
Tori: Doesn't suck.
[laughter]
Alex: I mean, you're doing all the big shows, now. Letterman, you know, just gettin' out there. And when you first came here, you know, you were just kinda like, you had kinda a cult following, and now you're getting that big national following you wanted. Or do you want it?
Tori: Well, it's good to play your music and have people come. It's really simple, you know.
Alex: Yeah.
Tori: You play your music, play what you want, people come to see you, you don't have to play Freebird.
[laughter]
Alex: Have you ever like, woken up one morning and gone, "God, it's happened"? I mean, you always dream about, you know, the day comes, you have albums out and people want you on their TV shows, and then all of a sudden one day it has happened, but it doesn't exactly sink in.
Tori: It sinks in when you're doing an interview with a horrible journalist from one of the biggies -- you know, one of the biggies.
Alex: You mean like Rolling Stone?
Tori: Maybe.
[laughter]
Tori: But you won't know who I'm talking about 'cause I did like, three/four interviews you'll see over the next six months. I've done like three/four things. And sometimes you just go, "Ok, this is what I thought I wanted to do, but I'd really rather be eating pizza right now." You know, there are moments when you go, "You know, how do you run into such confused, bitter people?" Do you know?
[laughter]
Alex: Yeah, I know what you're talking about, exactly.
Tori: And it's like, sometimes people think because you play music that they have a license to just be nasty.
Alex: Well, you're talking about the critics, aren't you?
Tori: No, I'm...
Alex: And the rock reporters.
Tori: More, reporters, yeah.
Alex: You see, the trouble with them is, they're all jealous, 'cause they wish they were.
Tori: Or I think they wish they were writing novels. I think a lot of them wish they were writing their own work, really.
Alex: Yeah.
Tori: And because they're not, I think sometimes they try and find -- oh, did we just cut everything off?
Alex: We just lost her, what?
Chris: She's right there.
Alex: Oh. No, we lost her on the audio. What happened, what happened here? Can you still hear yourself?
Tori: Can you hear me out there?
Alex: I can't hear anything.
Tori: I can't hear anything.
Alex: My headphones are screwed.
Tori: The girl with the great hat says everything's ok.
Chris: Lori Thompson, everybody.
[applause]
Tori: Thanks, Chris.
Alex: Yeah, but I'm not picking up anything in my earphones.
Tori: Hello, hello, hello.
Alex: She's still talking, I'm still talking, but I can't hear anything through my earphones.
Chris: Nobody panic.
[laughter]
Alex: What happened, did I hit something? All of a sudden all our monitors went off, here. Hmm. Oh, I see what it is. There we go. Tori Amos, ladies and gentlemen.
[applause]
Alex: Hey, let's put that on our blooper reel. So anyway... critics are a strange lot. And the rock writers are a strange lot, you know.
Tori: Hey, it's like, some of them are ok. But when you asked me, "are there those moments" -- the moments are, when you're just -- it's not when you're performing live because you're just, you're doing what you always did, since you were a kid.
Alex: Here's what you do -- you get a guy like the set-up guy here, and what you do with him is you give him a cue, like if you pull down your ear, he has to say, "Sorry, we have to go, now." So when you're being interviewed by one of these douche-bags, you just, you know, you pull on your ear and he goes, "Uh! Sorry, there's been an emergency," and you know, you get out of there.
Tori: Most of these interviews are on the phone, Alex. So...
Alex: "Sorry, I can't hear you any longer! There seems to be a bad connection, here!"
Chris: Call waiting.
[laughter]
Alex: Call-waiting, right. Um, but it's a great job, right?
Tori: No complaints as far as the music-side. I mean, it's really challenging because you're in a position to put your stuff out there.
Alex: Now, you promised to do Freebird for us this morning.
[laughter]
Tori: Nnnn...
Alex: I don't think so. What are you gonna do for us?
Tori: I'm gonna do a song that's on a b-side. Mainly because I haven't woken up yet, and it's in a low register.
[laughter]
Tori: Ok...
Tori performs Honey.
[applause]
Alex: Yeah. Tori Amos! Tori's gonna do one more number for us, but why don't we take a break here and let you drink some water there and get yourself together and we'll be right back.
Alex: Chris Hobbes is with us, but more importantly... Tori Amos is with us. And I, of course, am Jean Nelson. Anyway, uh, this is very interesting, I was talking with Tori during the break, about your voice and that there are certain things you have to work up to, with your voice. In other words, there are certain registers and so on that you sing in better in the morning than you would in the afternoon.
Tori: There are certain songs that I'll record in the morning. It's like, I'll drag the engineers out of the bed and go, "Ok, we're recording."
Alex: Are they all in the bed with you? I mean, what...
Tori: Well...
[laughter]
Alex: It sounded that way, I'm sorry.
Tori: It depends what we ate the night before. If it's good spaghetti, that changes everything. Spaghetti is the ticket to my heart. Totally. But the thing is, in the morning, I recorded something at 5:30 in the morning -- Strtange Fruit, Billie Holiday -- for a British import. And the reason is because I needed, I needed that [Tori sings] Southern leaves, bear strange fruit. You have to have a certain quality to your voice.
Alex: Gives that reedy sound.
Tori: Yeah, that I can't get umm, later on in the afternoon. But there are things I can't record in the mornings. So the live performance is really geared upon, what can you come out and do and what do you need to build up to.
Alex: Now, if you don't have that same reedy quality at night that you would have in the morning, how do you accomplish it at night, 'cause that's when most of the concerts are?
Tori: Um, it's never gonna sound the same, it just won't.
Alex: It never will sound the same.
Tori: No, but, you know...
Alex: So we're getting a rare treat, here.
Tori: Well, I think so.
Chris: [laughs]
Alex: I think so.
Tori: It's the morning sound.
Alex: We're getting your morning voice.
Tori: Yeah.
Alex: Could we hear it again?
Tori: Yeah, this is um, one of my favorite songs, actually. It was written by Stevie Nicks such a long, long time ago. And I, I play it when I'm sad and it makes me feel better.
Tori performs Landslide.
[applause]
Alex: Wow. Tori Amos, ladies and gentlemen. Always great to have you drop by, Tori.
Tori: Thanks, Alex.
Alex: Thank you so much for getting that voice going this time of the morning.
Tori: Ok.
Alex: Tori Amos...
[transcribed by jason/yessaid]
t o r i p h o r i a tori amos digital archive yessaid.com
