Tori Amos - Piece by Piece

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Random House press release
December 2004

Tori Amos: Piece by Piece
A Portrait of the Artist In Her Own Words
by Tori Amos and Ann Powers

To be released February 8, 2005.

An intimate, eye-opening look inside the life of one of the most unique and adored performers of contemporary rock music.

From her critically acclaimed 1992 debut Little Earthquakes to the recent smash Scarlet's Walk, Tori Amos has been a formidable force in contemporary music, with one of the most dedicated fan bases around. In Tori Amos: Piece by Piece, the singer herself takes readers beyond the mere facts, explaining the specifics of her creative process - how her songs go from ideas and melodies to recordings and passionately performed concert pieces. Written with acclaimed music journalist Ann Powers, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a firsthand account of the most intricate and intimate details of Amos's life as both a private individual and a very public performing musician. In passionate and informative prose, Amos explains how her songs come to her and how she records and then performs them for audiences everywhere, all the while connecting with listeners all over the world and maintaining her own family life (which includes raising a young daughter). But it is also about how Amos uses her music as a medium to express her unique and fascinating personal history; in short, we see the pieces that make up - as Amos puts it - "the woman we call Tori."

With photos taken especially for this book by the acclaimed photographer Loren Haynes, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a rare treat for both fans and non-fans alike, an inside look at what it's really like being one of the figureheads of contemporary female music.

TORI AMOS has sold over twelve million albums worldwide. She divides her time between North Cornwall, England, and West Palm Beach, Florida.

ANN POWERS is the senior curator for the Experience Music Project in Seattle. For several years she was also a music critic for The New York Times and The Village Voice. She is the author of Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America (Simon and Schuster, 2000).

An excerpt from the introduction:

I choose to fight my battles through my music . . . I was born a feminist. And then at age five, when my strict Christian grandmother punished me, I realized, I'm not penetrating here. I'm just pissing people off. So I had to find another way to penetrate. I had to redefine what that word means. That word now is really about an opening, an entering into a separate space. And after the first phase of my life, I realized that it was okay to enter that space without having to be invaded . . . I like the idea of just being able to be inside. Not using penetration as a violent word. The idea of being able to find keys . . . music, using keys to get into a space that we couldn't before . . .

Now, backstage at an undisclosed arena where the sweat of athletes is still perfuming my makeshift dressing room, my many conversations with Ann Powers have begun . . .

"You come from the journalist side. I come from the artist side. It can become offensive. I’m sure from your side as well as from mine."

"Well, it's true everyone expects us to be enemies. And in some ways we are. My job is interpretation. Yours is art, which often benefits from mystery . . ."

Ann and I decided to strip our roles back to basics. We are both women born feminists in the 1960s. We are both married. We are both mothers. We are both in the music industry. Traditionally we are enemies. But for this project to be effective, I had to allow Ann to expose Tori Amos. And Tori Amos's inner circle. And me.

[See also: Photos from the Piece by Piece book-signing tour]

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