Tori Amos: Piece by Piece

by Amos, Tori

  TORI:

  I'm in Germany.

  It's January 23, 2003.

  The people are marching.

  Exhilarated that they have joined to march, angry that we may go to war. Angry at the potential destruction. Angry at the leaders who are okay with this. Americans in Germany are being asked some very feet-to-the-fire questions. Flags are burning. If as a performer you are to be in tune with Source, you must realize that Source is not American, Source is not German, Source is not African, Source is not even British. You cannot take on everyone's political beliefs—either side. But you can cut through the smoke screens. You can cut through to the unsaid, the said, the mixed feelings, and walk through the caves behind the Intellect of those in the audience. You as the performer have this unique opportunity to go behind the heart. Behind the heart where a spark has taken root. This root has grown into an internal revolution that resists and questions those who are misusing power.

  I play in a short while. The set list tonight has not yet been decided.

  I know she is here and she is not alone. She is making her way toward me. She always gives me a moment to adjust to her coming. I breathe, knowing my container must expand. She is hard to hold and balance. One of the trickier ones because she holds the polar opposites. Creation. Destruction.

  Welcome to Kali.

  Welcome to Hamburg.

  CHELSEA LAIRD:

  Watching Tori go from “Promotion Tori”—having conversations with journalists, getting done what we have to get done, seeing the fans backstage, in between meeting up with Tash—to “Sound Check Tori” is a process. A daily process. You begin to see a transformation occurring. It's about plugging in. There is a process she must go through. Early mornings are spent exploring set list options, late mornings at radio stations or on the phone with journalists, to early afternoons at meet and greets. By the time she walks out onstage for sound check, none of that matters, none of it exists anymore. It happens quickly; she's got precious few moments to plug in and find the electricity that will hold a stage for the rest of the night.

  CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN TORI AND ANN:

  Years ago I would lock myself away for a couple of hours before showtime so as to be in a state. A calm frenzy. The state of Fuck Off and We Are One. A state where no one could pull me off my course. This comes in handy when you're doing things like big radio shows and big festival shows. I've done radio shows where I'm exposed to other performers and their process, and what would occur was that these artists would walk out onstage to 20,000 people projecting the same aura (or nonaura, depending on the artist) that works for them in a studio setting. When you're in the studio you are solely in communion with the song without having to consider including an audience. You don't have to commune with an audience or commune with anyone else when you're in the studio. And you know what? That can work. You can make a great record. But when you walk out of that studio the grid changes. This is where it gets tricky. But kinda basic. If you don't want to relate or commune with an audience, stay home. Do the studio thing. Be a Radio Star.

  Imagine being this performer: you strut out and within seconds lose your stage to 20,000 people who are ignoring you. Twenty-thousand people who are turning on you because, surely, you can't possibly be this pid-dly-diddly presence compared to what they felt when you were jumping out of their radio into their car—but, woops. You are. Help. You the performer then might say from the stage, “Come on, can you keep it down?” or “Shhhh” … Okay, folks, this is not good. This would be a Yikes—all bad, painful. This is called getting your Radio Star Ass Kicked.

  Now let's go backstage again at this radio show, where you see performers already in their zone. It's as if you are watching them walk down that red carpet at the Grammys. They are walking around in their performance selves because that works for them. You have no idea how they do laundry. Sometimes I fantasize backstage about how people do their laundry. Woolite? Mixed-color loads? Do they fold? Do they press? Do they Shout it out? And the thing that kills me—do their whites come out dingy? This you will not know with some performers backstage because they are in their iconic selves and icons don't do laundry. I've walked around in my performance self before, because it's a sure thing. Meaning, it's a huge protection device—like having twenty Trojans in your pocket. I have even stepped into my performance self, strategically, for self-preservation, before I've left the hotel. If there is a lot of paranoia and passive-aggressive mind games on the menu, it is a way to stay in your center and not take on any other performers’ hangups. Hangups and freaked-out psycho issues can leak backstage like fluids at an orgy—a bit graphic, but you get the point. Festivals or radio shows can be the heavyweight championships of arrogantly detached clusterfucks. So you are thinking, I can rise above this, and your ego may think it can. But if you've been thrown off your center, your ego will run for the ladies’ room so fast, and then you'll be thrown onstage so fast, reaching for your John Thomas, needing it to rise, and realizing you don't have dick. You see, you are surrounded by a group of people who have partly made a career by seducing the world into focusing on them, as the center, for the thirty minutes they are onstage—or if not on “them” specifically, then on their message … me included. Now are you clear enough not to get seduced yourself? Depends on the day.

  Now let's go backstage again at this radio show. There is a nod. A smile. A blow-off. It's all going on. Then in catering I find myself talking to some guy who is a dad, and because we both have daughters, we are comparing notes. In that moment he's a dad, in that moment he's a friend. We are people again. Not somebody else's projected whatever. Not even our own projected whatever. I watch him take the stage, and bam. The dad has become Apollo. Since we'd spoken, his transformation, which took only about twenty minutes, had taken place. He took his private moment to do whatever it is he does to achieve this synchronicity It seemed to me that his real self, whom I had met, was walking with his performer self. They know each other and that is always inspiring to watch. I was watching not just an Icon, but a Dad, who can access the performer and transform both into one being. Hard to do. But it can be done.

  I don't think that many performers necessarily want to see their audience empowered. I think a lot of performers, no different from priests, need the hierarchy. Modern, celebrity-driven entertainment turns the stage into an altar, and so many celebrities refuse to be removed from those altars once they manage to ascend. They will not be taken down— the Goddess is offended … As a storyteller in the old tradition, you held an important place at the circle. Your position was fluid, not necessarily permanent, but it demanded that you respected the others witnessing your performance as much as they respected you.

  All storytellers, all troubadours worth their salt knew their myths. To conjure another image …

  The party invitations have gone out for this reality archetype TV show (without the TV) and told through the eyes of the Bard. I'm hoping that everyone will RSVP. Muhammad, Zeus, Lucifer, Josephine. They are all on the list. As I'm sitting at my piano, in the piano bar somewhere in the galaxy, I look out and see them in the crowd. The Archetypes have all arrived. Josephine fighting for a seat next to Cleopatra. Freyja, surrounded by her cats, hand on her necklace, head thrown back in the air with a throaty giggle, as Aphrodite brings her up to date on her latest sexploits. Pele letting her hair down and chalking her cue, knocking some balls back into the net with Isis. And through all this, like Sam in Casablanca, I sit at the piano, never stopping, listening and watching the songs get ready for the show. It's as if I'm an observer of this scene, no different from when I observe an audience at a show, but I'm not sure those in the audience are aware of the Archetypes they carry. We all carry them. These Archetypes are not only embodied by the songs, but they run through all of our lives, just in different amounts. Similar to baking—the ingredients in a cake will be similar from a lemon pound to a chocolate cake. Both have sugar, both have flour: clearly there are similarities here. The difference is
the lemon, the chocolate, a few others. In songs, some will share ingredients / archetypes, but then there will be a few twists that make the songs different. Sometimes it's just the measurement of the sugar—how much Aphrodite a song might have.

  ANN:Balancing conscious effort with the need to let the songs overtake and guide her, Amos becomes a paradox: a conscious oracle. Every act of divination requires tools, and Amos's voice as the public knows it arises only in the presence of her beloved Bösendorfer.

  Isis, the Egyptian goddess of fertility

  MARK HAWLEY:

  Tori hardly ever sings when she's not playing the piano. Her sense of rhythm is so much better when she's playing, it seems. Most people couldn't even manage to play and sing at the same time, but she depends on it. And I think people will be surprised to hear her play the Hammond B3 organ. The last thing you expect visually when you hear it is a small redhead playing this big, fat, soulful organ.

  JON EVANS:

  She's a really, really strong player. She has a really wide depth of range, just dynamically, and she knows the instrument really well. With some pianists, you feel like if they weren't watching all the time they wouldn't nail it, they're just not very sure. But with Tori, it's as if she's made for the instrument in a certain sort of way. There's some sort of spatial relationship between her brain and her body and the piano—everything's always right there. She rarely makes a mistake, even when she's doing something that's not rehearsed or if she's improvising.

  ANN: For many years, Amos needed only her piano to carry out her enlightening enchantments. Yet a real musician craves two things: companionship and challenge. Amos eventually exhausted the possibilities of solo performance. She had always experimented in the studio and wanted to widen the musical possibilities of her live show. She worked through several approaches before settling on her current setup: a jazz-style trio that rocks like a thunderstorm.

  CONVERSATION BETWEEN TORI AND ANN:

  People say that when you're touring you have no time and no space. Actually, I do have space. The stage is my space. With Matt and Jon, it becomes our space, our music space, which is sacred space. Those two are in that sacred space with me. That's when they're free, too. Nobody can call them. If there's an argument going on with friends, family, whomever, they cannot get to those two guys. It's impossible. We're in a sacred space up there. That's why we're so close.

  MARK HAWLEY:

  I think Tori can, without trying to, make a musician very nervous. A lot of pop musicians play by ear—they don't even read music. Because of her training, Tori's got her theory down. She can tell a musician exactly what notes he played right after he played it, and she can tell him what notes she wants him to play Jon is very accommodating, but he's also very sure of his abilities. Tori doesn't faze him at all. He's on her level, and there aren't that many people in pop on that level these days.

  TORI:

  To play with Jon and Matt means chops, chops, chops. Gotta get 'em up … Fingering. Practice. Fingering. Left hand. Shake booty. Right hand. Plié. Left hand. Shake booty. Right hand. Start again. Let's face it: artists who dictate their musicians’ parts aren't utilizing them well. Especially someone like Matt who has played on so many records. Because I promise you, he will come up with something they can't. This is his life. You don't need to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to figure out that if Matt Chamberlain walks in the room, you don't tell him, hit the snare on two and four. He'll come up with something that they couldn't in a million years think up. Do I honestly think that if you give me a piece of clay I'm going to give you a Rodin? I have no illusions: I am not Camille Claudel. As a musician I have no illusions—I am not a drummer, I am not a bass player. It always puts me in a fit of giggles when an artist tells a musician what to contribute without even hearing what the musician is moved to play In order for there to be improvisation onstage, you cannot keep such a tight leash on your musicians or they won't be able to be spontaneous. In order to do this, however, you must be able to keep up with them. Which brings me back to chops, chops, chops, practice, practice, practice.

  MATT CHAMBERLAIN:

  Tori's the only person I'll tour with, unless it's some really bizarre and cool project or my own band. I hate to tour. It's usually a boring drag. With Tori, though … she's so strong and musical, it's different. You feel like a better musician after being with the tour.

  The way we've been touring lately, it's a traditional trio—piano, bass, and drum. It's not unique in jazz; it's unique in rock or pop. We don't even have a rhythm guitar, so all the melodic information is coming from Tori. I don't really contribute to the melody; I contribute more to the color. I'm like the context and texture person, who helps determine whether a song is going to be earthy, light and ethereal, funky, or rock. Jon gets to do a lot of stuff that a bass player doesn't often get to do— he gets to play chords and other melodies besides just the bass line, because there are a lot of guitar parts he's trying to cover at the same time. The fact that the instrumentation is so limited and you have to make it work makes the experience unique. There's a lot of room for everybody. I don't need to just play a basic backbeat; I can add a few things here and there. The structure forces you to play to fill up the sound. But then, a lot of times it's great just to be really minimal because we can be. There's so much space.

  JON EVANS:

  I think it's really good for us to be playing without a guitarist. For me there's a lot more to play, and I just like that sparer sound itself. There's more opportunity just to hear everything that's going on. Guitar takes a lot of room, especially Steve Caton, who worked with Tori for many years. He added so much—it was a really big part of the sound. He used a lot of orchestral effects that really filled up the whole sound. It was like a blanket. It was really beautiful, but you take that away and there's a lot more opportunity for subtle colors to come out instead of a big color.

  CONVERSATION BETWEEN TORI AND ANN:

  The other keyboards bring in another tone, to add dimension to the piano. The piano does a lot of things, but there are things that a Rhodes does, that these old Hammond organs do, that are great. Like a Stevie Wonder influence. And I believe in incorporating that. Even if it's simultaneously one hand on one—the piano—and one hand on the other—the organs— which is kind of my thing. I've been developing that, straddling the piano bench in the middle like a horse and playing on both sides. It's quite challenging, but it also brings the male and female together, because to me the piano represents the feminine and the organs represent the masculine. It is the hieros gamos (sacred marriage) of the two that makes me feel as if I'm the link in the middle of this love affair. Like Hermes, sending messages back and forth between two passionate lovers who can only touch each other through a human.

  JON EVANS:

  She's very much a part of the rhythm section. It's not about bass and drums and then this thing that happens on top. Ultimately she doesn't even need us to be there; she's done it all her life by herself, you know. She has bass lines and she has inner voicings and she has melodies, all on her piano, and they all work in a certain way and they create a rhythm. It's really about making all that happen at the same time.

  Tori has a heavy left hand; she knows it, and that's something that we've had to work out since day one. There are some times when she's just pounding away in my zone. That's fine. The piano goes higher and lower than I can. I'll just find a line that's rhythmically contrapuntal, or I might just completely get out of her range and do something totally guitar-oriented, because she's doing a full-on bass line. Or I might do exactly what she's doing, just to reinforce it. There are tons of different options, and there are no rules. She's never saying, “Do this;” it's just more like, “This is what I'm doing, so you figure it out.”

  MATT CHAMBERLAIN:

  Just the drums can really change a song in concert. If she plays a song like “God” live, it's totally different. On Under the Pink, “God” has all electronic drums. Live, it can become way
funkier, an almost improvisational thing. And she'll work off that. She reacts to the rhythmic choices I make as if it were a jazz gig. I've played with the jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, and he's like that, too. Most jazz musicians are always reacting to the other players. Tori does that, but within a pop song. We'll be playing a song we've played a million times, “Girl” or something like that, and I'll just add an extra little tom thing and she'll do something different on the piano. Or “Cornflake Girl”—the last part is a piano solo, which for her is sort of prearranged, it's all worked out, but I can react to it in whichever way I want. And then she'll change it a little bit, too, in response to me. You can always get a reaction out of her. She'll smile and go, “Yeah!” And do something interesting. I react to her lyrics or her vocal rhythms, too. Her vocals make you do bizarre drum phrasings that you wouldn't normally think of, but somehow it works because it's part of the music.

  I just find different things every time we play a song. She likes that, which is great for us. With bandleaders who like to write parts and don't encourage people to improvise, it's a drag, because you want to react to it and you're not allowed. I feel completely satisfied at the end of a gig. I feel I've played some music. I don't feel I'm up there just bam bam bam, chopping wood, which is what drummers mostly get to do at pop gigs. It's a satisfying musical experience.