Tori Amos - Interviews Archive

MSN (US, www)
live online chat
October 25, 2002

live online chat with Tori Amos

DishDiva says: Intro: Welcome to MSN Live. This afternoon's event is sponsored by UDate.com where thousands of singles are waiting to meet you online!

DishDiva says: This afternoon we are pleased to welcome recording artist, Tori Amos to MSN Live whose brand new album is called "Scarlet's Walk." Get to know Tori all over again and find out what makes this artist so special.

DishDiva says: Hi Tori, thanks for being here. Welcome to MSN. We have so many questions here from your fans, so let's get started.

Tori_Amos_Live says: I never use any exclamation points, so don't expect to see any tonight. And Hi to everyone.

DishDiva says: Tori, tell us a little about the release and what it means to you.

Tori_Amos_Live says: It's been a few years since I put out an original work, as most of you know. On the eve of release it's sort of like right before you go in to give birth, that is if you're going in to have a scheduled C-section. I'm just getting to know the girls.

Tori_Amos_Live says: Lately I've been working with them, as well as introducing them to the older girls.

Meliruth440 in Onstage3 asks: Many artists, including you, will go on location to produce an album (ie Under the Pink = New Mexico). Go anywhere for Scarlets Walk?

Tori_Amos_Live says: Well I guess Cornwall, England is on location. I can be looked at as a stationary bus. It's our home recording studio, but there's nothing home about the recording studio.

Tori_Amos_Live says: It's in a 300 year old barn and yet when you walk in you would think you are at Mission Control. So the feeling of the place is very in the middle of nowhere. You can see the stars, it's very very very hard for the record company to get there.

Tori_Amos_Live says: And yet it was built having been in a lot of recording studios around the world, to take the best and put it into this one.

Tori_Amos_Live says: Peter Gabriel told me to do it years ago and I listened to him, it's the best advice I've ever been given. But I had to have a tech team to do it, I have to have that team on site all the time. It's not like a home recording studio, it demands a lot of

Tori_Amos_Live says: technical (hospital people) (laughs).

Tori_Amos_Live says: We have a lot of hospital people on site. (laughs)

Flamingo_Snake in Onstage3 asks: Where did you get the idea for the leg-people in the Scarlet's Walk video? (And by the way, I found that really funny, and lovelly, and great !!! )

Tori_Amos_Live says: Sanji, the director, he's directed Mary J's video "No More Lies." Sanji heard the song and said he had an idea and we got together and I think he was thinking about the idea that the album is called "Scarlet's Walk" which made him think of what it

Tori_Amos_Live says: physically takes to have a true walk. And I think he was thinking about not quite a fairy tale. So not quite a fairy tale would be people who are not "perfect." Most of us have things that we don't feel great about. Most of us don't feel like we're the

Tori_Amos_Live says: story book prince or princess, but we deserve a fairy tale, kind of, sort of, don't we? So he approached it with that spirit, knowing over the years I've talked of different aspects of the soul and one's self. So he translated it into the physical.

Tori_Amos_Live says: Working with him was an absolute joy and the leg lady and the arm man and with Adriene Brody, who was the head.

ActonLeigh77 in Onstage3 asks: Tori, how would you compare this album to "Little Earthquakes"?

Tori_Amos_Live says: In some ways, I think the approach is similar, the recordings are very organic. I was going for sort of a classic 70's sound on this one. Mainly because it's a road trip story and I wanted it to sound like the movie "The Getaway." So for something to

Tori_Amos_Live says: sound like a visual. Manuel Alvarez Bravo, these were my visuals. There were others, Tracy Moffet "Scared for Life" series which was done more recently in the 90's but it's a retrospecive of the 70's. And Diane Arbus. So I was working off of how to

Tori_Amos_Live says: achieve this visual sonically. "Little Earthquakes" was much about the singer/songwriter approach of the 60's and 70's so if there's a sonic similarity, that's your thread. The songs are structurally motivated by classic song writing elements.

Tori_Amos_Live says: If you go look at these photographers and their works, you'll know what I was aiming for. Technically the standards had to be high to achieve this.

Tori_Amos_Live says: All the compressors effects units, microphones, aren't anything you get at Target, if you see what I mean. So basically what I'm saying is it was all hand crafted. "Rumors" is a sonic reference. The old old Pink Floyd records are sonic references. Some songs

Tori_Amos_Live says: hold the test of time...

Tori_Amos_Live says: There are many many more, we could go on and on. It would be best for the engineers to have a chat with everyone that is interested with the technical side because they know all about that. I would bring in blueprints and just ask how to achieve it. Then

Tori_Amos_Live says: proceeded to drive everyone insane for 9 months. But in the end, it seemed quite happily insane.

hark_trhjfesdgfd in Onstage5 asks: All of your albums seem to have a theme, all beautiful in very different ways...What elements, or theme of personal growth does "Scarlet's Walk" possess?

Tori_Amos_Live says: I think moving from woman in trouble to woman who is searching, is a pretty solid character. Scarlet is a charater and she's weaving and changing direction, but she's solid. She moves like liquid, but she's a solid creature. I think I was ready to move

Tori_Amos_Live says: from troubled soul and loss being at the center to nurturing being at the center. Maybe becoming a mother makes you realize that there are other people that are a lot more in need than you are. And I think being a good mom is really a good thing to

Tori_Amos_Live says: achieve. I haven't achieved it yet, I'm in my baby stage of being a mommy. It puts you in a different place on the medicine wheel. If you look at the medicine wheel like South, East, West, and you enter the South as a child, then move to the West as a

Tori_Amos_Live says: young woman or young man, and become this woman and man you had hoped you had become (some days are better than others) then there's a point you will have to move to the North and that can be a harsh teacher because the next generation may be in more need

Tori_Amos_Live says: than you. You can't be the generation in crisis forever. Some people find it hard to hand that over because that means you are getting older and you must acknowledge it. We look at old as a negative. If you do your work on the medicine wheel, then when

Tori_Amos_Live says: you're ready to move to the North, you carry a torch inside you and you become a different force than you were in your 20's. I think being a mother propelled me into this place because I HAD to put another generation first, my daughter being that teacher.

Fairydust330 in Onstage5 asks: Has your daughter been one of the influences behind this album?

Tori_Amos_Live says: I think she is even when I don't know that she is. I think that Scarlet's search, for what she believes in, is imparitive if she is going to be any good as a lighthouse for the next generation. Then the next generation will have to go take their journey

Tori_Amos_Live says: and become a lighthouse for the generation after them. That's how it works, or what happens is that a generation fails to pass the tourch and that's when upheaval happens on a mass scale. That's when wars take place.

Tori_Amos_Live says: On such a scale that is deeply troubling to even think about. But we must think about it. So yes. My little girl has made me think of my responsibilty. Scarlet was a thread before she was a color. Any woman can be Scarlet, she bleeds, any man can be a man

Tori_Amos_Live says: in this story, there are quite a few, take your pick. America takes a part, personified in Scarlet.

anasazi200x in Onstage1 asks: Do you feel the album covers reflect a "growing up" or "maturing" process?

Tori_Amos_Live says: The album covers are very much about a collaboration with the albums theme, the photographer, the team I pull together to try and bring the sound to the visual side.

Tori_Amos_Live says: And with a team of people, sometimes your original idea gets expanded upon and you don't know your cover until you're looking at the stills coming back to you. I knew when we were on the road in Montana that something was afoot, and so could everybody

Tori_Amos_Live says: else on location.

WhenWeDied in Onstage5 asks: How do you plan to integrate both the "organic" sounding new songs and the richly produced songs of Venus and Choirgirl in the setlists of the upcoming tour?

Tori_Amos_Live says: Well I think about it all the time. Again I'm working with a sonic team of people and talking about it all the time. I think that when you put songs out there with a group of people you respect, you usually have another perspective. Sometimes I think

Tori_Amos_Live says: about these things and I say either, I don't agree... or what a dinglebrain I am, you're right...

Tori_Amos_Live says: So the theme of this tour is a thread, because that's what Scarlet is. I'm touring on Scarlet's Walk now. If we go into my body map and what that would look like, that would contain all the songs because that's part of my personal map. If I'm going to be

Tori_Amos_Live says: touring on Scarlet's Walk I must integrate my personal map with what she's taught me, and shown me and taken me through. Obviously I've walked this with Scarlet.

Tori_Amos_Live says: So what people need to be aware of is the set lists will be about threads, and it might be hard to or challenging, to determine what that thread is. It might be a word, it might be musical, but I'm sitting with a team of people looking for that thread,

Tori_Amos_Live says: Nobodies sleeping during this one.

Tori_Amos_Live says: The computers are up, things are logged in different catagories for different reasons. So we'll see. There will be a beginning and then things will shift and move. The goal now is to get a working set list, then we can start playing. But that's the theme,

Tori_Amos_Live says: the theme is the thread and how that takes you from one song to another or one rhythmic idea to another or one geographical reference to another.

DishDiva says: That's all the time we have for today. Tori, from your fans and all of us here at MSN Live, best of luck with "Scarlet's Walk."

Tori_Amos_Live says: I know that sometimes just the day to day side of things in life can be a drag, but it's good knowing there are other people out there that dream like you do, love music, are searching. And for me it's just nice to know that you all are there. Whether

Tori_Amos_Live says: you'

Tori_Amos_Live says: you're able to show up on this tour or not, it's just good knowing you're there. So take care of yourself and make yourself something really yummy. See you when you can. With Love, Tori.

DishDiva says: This afternoon's event was sponsored by UDate.com where thousands of singles are waiting to meet you online!

DishDiva says: Thanks for coming everyone!

DishDiva says: Tori had a great time...those were *GREAT* questions....

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