Tori Amos - Interviews Archive

The Site (US, TV)
on MSNBC
July 15, 1996

Tori Amos interview about the internet

Q: The fans can find you anywhere on the internet. People can all reach each other. People in Australia can talk to your fans in Cuba, who can talk to your fans in the United States. What do you think of that kind of ability with the technology to do that?

A: Um... what they tell me, anyway, usually before a soundcheck, um, there are usually a few people outside hanging out and they inform me what's going on. They kind of let me know, um, that world because I don't know this world that much. And it seems like, um, they're people that would've never, obviously never met each other. And a lot of times, what they tell me is, it starts off talking about the music and then it kind of becomes a relationship that has nothing to do with me anymore. That's kind of fun.

I don't know how to turn a computer on. That is not my arena. If you put me in a piano shop, then I'm really at home. I'm very comfortable there. You gotta kinda giggle. I think it's fun that if I write songs that make people want to talk, then I'm doing what I always wanted to do as a writer. I always wanted to make myself think. I always kinda wanted to, you know, go, "Okay, hang on a minute. What am I not seeing here? I know you're here. He's there. He's there. I know certain obvious things, but what am I missing? What am I not being told here? What am I not telling you? What is the mystery here?" And I usually think there's a mystery to every person and to every conversation. There's always a subtext and I'm fascinated with the subtext, so I try and write about it.

I really love to be involved in, um, projects that people kind of shake their head at. It's just great being a pioneer, isn't it? Everybody, I think, would like to be a pioneer. Whether you're, um, you know, just along for the ride because you're going to places that... that haven't been charted before. So, in a sense, the whole concept of "what is a pirate?" what is that whole, um, I don't know, lifestyle that we don't think they, there is anymore. Well, it is, but it's on these little boxes. This is where, everybody talks about the new frontier.

Q: Where do you think, with the technology going as it is, in 5 years, Tori Amos's stage show. Same as it is now? You out there with your piano and your band or totally different?

A: Oh, I don't know. I always, I do have a feeling that, um, in five years the whole media will change because, think about it, there's going to be some kid in Philly or something that, um, has his own radio station that's playing music that maybe a million people want to hear. And I don't know how it would happen but he or she, uh, has rigged it up so you plug your computer into your car and it's all audio and you can hear what this kid, I don't know, maybe even sixteen years old... their vision. And I do think that it's gonna create other markets. So that's why I think the internet will be a powerful place, 'cause you're gonna get not what the religious right or the, or the left decide because somebody's bought them, you know, whatever. You get the real thing.

[transcribed by Franco Franus]

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