Tori Amos - Interviews Archive

Q (UK)
May 1995

Tori and Drugs

The first drug I took was pot. I was 12. I guess that seems young, but this was a different time. We're talking 1974-75. Led Zeppelin were kicking! It was a different time!

When I was 12, I was smoking weed at a friend's house and my father came to pick me up early. And we'd smoked so much. I'm like reeking. I lied my ass off. I told him my friend and her brother had been doing stuff. But not me.

Then we had to go out to dinner with someone from the local church and his son. Halfway through, the son, who was about 18, took me to one side and said, "You are sooo stoned." Still, I got away with it.

The drug which had a big effect on me was ayahuasca. It comes from a vine in the Amazon and you ingest it. You know that stuff they take in The Emerald Forest? It's like that. I was hanging around with some medicine women and they suggested I try it.

I was very lucid, but felt like I was walking around Fantasia, having a conversation with myself. It isn't like acid. It's more emotional, more mental. But it can grab you by the balls and just shove you up against the wall. I've been in a room with a woman who was literally trying to bite her own arm off. And this lasted for 15 hours. I wasn't scared -- just scared that I'd make a fool of myself.

The funny thing was, I kept laughing and laughing, rather than sitting in the corner being intense. Then every so often, I'd say, "I'm in a really rough patch." And one of the medicine women would come over and reassure me that everything was going to be alright. But it would keep on getting deeper.

In the end, though, it was an educational experience. I learnt a lot about myself. I haven't taken it in a couple of years now. You can only really do it once in a blue moon. But the wild thing is that sometimes I only have to smell something and I'm right back there again, high as a kite. It just happens.

I'm really into moderation. Too much of anything will harm you in the end. Too much sugar. Too much pasta. I'm into drugs as a teaching tool, which is why I only take hallucinogenics. I mean, it's not like I've never done cocaine, but, on the whole, if I can't see dancing elephants then I'm not interested.

original article

[scan by Sakre Heinze]

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