Tori Amos - Interviews Archive

WFNX, Boston (US, radio)
WFNX, Boston (101.7 FM)
December 3, 1999

Tori Amos interview

[Tori arrives at 5:00pm]

Cruz: Now what is this material that your dress is made out of?

Tori: Umm...

Cruz: What is that?

Tori: Do you know? I don't know material. It's just got wooly little flowers on it.

Cruz: It's cool. It's very cool. I had to tell you though when I saw the, I guess it was like, the posters and the artwork that came out for the new record, when your hair was straight and really dark it was like Oh, My God, this is like the most amazing photo I had ever seen of you. It was awesome. I almost flew to England and sat outside your window and threw little rocks at the window, but I decided that would be embarassing.

Tori: Well, hairdressers ... I have to tell you though, hairdressers and make-up people they earn their wage. Let's put it this way. [laughs]

Cruz: No, no, no. Actually, they are pretty good. I should look into using some of them myself because I...

Tori: I don't know. Do you have gel? What's going on?

Cruz: There's a little bit of gel.

Tori: I think that's good.

Cruz: Mostly my hair just stands up, you know? It doesn't do a real, it doesn't lay down like it's supposed to so it's sort of just sticking out in every direction.

Tori: Guys are doing that a lot these days. Their doing that Cameron [she pronounces it like: Camerahhn, so cute] Diaz look where your hair is standing up.

Cruz: Like in the front there?

Tori: Yeah.

Cruz: That works. I'll do that if you want.

Tori: Yeah...

Cruz: For you I'll cut my hair any way you want.

Tori: I think she achieved it in a different way than you, but, hey.

Cruz: Yeah. That's probably true.

Tori: But whatever works.

Cruz: We'll do some behind the scenes investigations and you know, maybe some rehearsal and see what we can come up with. Tori, tonight's event is so special for us. Just to go into the background of this a little bit. After you agreed to do this evening's performance we gave away a very limited number of tickets to this and then on World AIDS Day, on Wednesday, starting at the beginning of the day at 6 am we auctioned off a pair of tickets each hour. It was from 6 am to 6 pm. The total amount of money we raised was over 32,000 dollars which is more than we raised in our World AIDS Day Auction. Actually, it's more than we raised ever in any of the World AIDS Day auctions that we've done over the past several years. In the past we've done, you know, we've auctioned off memorabilia and different items and things which have been very cool, but this allowed us to set a new record for us and lotta, lotta people to get involved and I wanna say two things. First of all - Thank you so much because we wouldn't have been able to do this if you hadn't agreed to do the performance this evening. And then secondly - Your fans are out of control... I mean they are in... And I mean that in the best possible way. People were so excited about this and got so involved and helped us raise a lot of money. It's just an awesome thing.

Tori: Well, I have to say that, although I know that AIDS isn't solely a gay issue, some of my friends who are gay have gone through this and since I was 13, working in gay bars, I have been touched by so many gay men and gay women. And I was actually taught how to dress by gay men and how to give blow jobs by gay men, so ...

Cruz: I'm guessing to, to the subject that they would be absolute experts on, so.

Tori: Yeah. They're good at that. And in my heart, it's just important that people think about the artistic wonderfullness that we've gotten from the gay community and that, you know, we are so much richer because of these wonderful friends.

Cruz: Absolutely. All the money that was raised in the auction in the auction on Wednesday will benefit the AIDS Action Committee, which is based in here in Boston and they do some amazing work all over the New England area and they're a great group. And then in addition to that the people who are here tonight, we haven't talked about this on the air tonight, but we do have some memorabilia here and the people who are gonna be attending are gonna have a chance to do some silent auction bidding on some different ... framed lithographs and autographed CD's and some other items and things like that, so ...

Tori: Goodies ... Goodies.

Cruz: Yeah, some goodies. So it's gonna be special. We're also broadcasting the ... We kept this a very limited thing because we wanted it to be very private and very special, but we also will be broadcasting on the FNX radio network tonight and all over the world at FNX radio.com so this is just such a special thing - for you to allow us to do this. Do you wanna give anybody any insite into what your thinking of for the performance tonight?

Tori: Well, I've selected everything special for tonight so ... we'll leave it at that.

Cruz: Okay. That's fair enough. Now we're gonna talk some during the actual performance itself.

Tori: Okay.

Cruz: I have some music questions I wanna ask you.

Tori: Okay.

Cruz: And I think we're gonna let the audience maybe ask some questions as well if that's all right. But one of the things I wanted to make sure that I did with you was someone made me aware that there's a group of people who actually compile a list of different foods that you've mentioned in interviews. And so I wanted to see if, today, if I could get you to mention a food that you've never mentioned before and we can add one to the list.

Tori: Okay [she seems amused by this].

Cruz: Apparently, if my understanding is correct, they call it "The Food List" and fans refer to and they just keep this running tally. Which is cool. A cool fan thing to do. So I thought, let's think of a food you've never mentioned in an interview before and we'll add it to the list, officially.

Tori: Okay. Will you ask me when I'm at the piano? Cuz I, can, I gotta think about it.

Cruz: Wanna do that? Sure, yeah, okay. Good. You think about that. We'll get to that later on.

Tori: I'm food obsessed so I ...

Cruz: Are you?

Tori: Oh, yeah. Are you kidding? Love it.

Cruz: I'm a bit of a food person myself.

Tori: Oh, yeah. That's why I hafta just ...

Cruz: Now do you do any special dietary things like, you know, not combining your carbs and your proteins or any of those kinda things?

Tori: Ay, ay, ay. Sometimes. But then, but I cheat cuz there are just certain things I kinda pretend are not on my plate and I go "Well, you know, who's gonna know?"

Cruz: Who's gonna know? Who's watching?

Tori: That I have a little bit of that cheese on there and then my friend Vicky says it doesn't work like that.

Cruz: Yeah, well.

Tori: I can't cheat. But I really go with just things that are done well. If something's done well then I'm there. Whether it's a egg salad sandwich. I'm really into gourmet sandwiches, making them. I was making them for the band on the bus because ...

Cruz: Usually the artist doesn't make the food for the band.

Tori: Well, I know, but I get jumpy after a show. I've all this energy and plus the sandwich makers at that time of night: they're sleepy!

Cruz: Yes. Late at night.

Tori: And so they don't get the right portions of mayonnaise and horse radish and what ever you've got going.

Cruz: Right.

Tori: And they don't use rocket [sic]. Arrugalah [sic] here, I guess you say.

Cruz: Arrugalah. Do they call that rocket?

Tori: In England. Yeah.

Cruz: In England. Really? Wow.

Tori: Yeah. Rocket.

Cruz: That's cool.

Tori: They use just like limp lettuce and that's just no good.

Cruz: It's like the stuff that's left over from earlier in the day I suppose.

Tori: Yeah. And I can't really ask the sandwich maker, cuz there are like 5 chefs, to get all that right because he's more interested in snowboarding.

Cruz: Mhmm.

Tori: And so, you know what I mean? I'd wreck his life.

Cruz: I understand completely.

Tori: So I just make the sandwiches.

Cruz: Well, that's cool.

Tori: So I'm gonna think of something.

Cruz: Okay you think of something. And then at some point, you know, either this trip through New England or next, I definitely, I'll ...

Tori: No. Give me 2 hours.

Cruz: No, but I'm saying, this time your through or next time, I want to eat one of your sandwiches.

Tori: He wants to eat one of my sandwiches. Joel, tell him my san ...

Joel: You have no idea.

Cruz: He says I have no idea. Are they good?

Joel: Amazing.

Cruz: Amazing?

Joel: It's way past good.

Cruz: Way past good? Very good.

Tori: haha

Cruz: Can I be on the list for a sandwich?

Tori: Hurry. Yeah.

Cruz: Fair enough. All right, Tori, I'm gonna let you go because I know you wanted to spend a few moments before we get ready for the performance to meet with the people who made the donations, who were involved.

Tori: Absolutely.

Cruz: Thanks for spending a couple of minutes and think about the food question. And then we wanna talk some music questions also during the performance tonight. Okay?

Tori: Yeah, but food first then music.

Cruz: Food first then music?

Tori: Priorities.

Cruz: Priorities are important. Okay. Thank you very much. Tori Amos on the FNX radio network. It's Cruz in the afternoon and we will be, once again, broadcasting tonight's performance all over the FNX radio network and world wide at FNX radio.com and our scheduled start time is just about one hour from now. So you have that to look forward to. Back with more from Tori Amos about an hour from now. We're live at The Modern on Landsdowne Street in Boston. This is the FNX radio network.

[transcribed by Tracy Streimish]

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