Tori Amos: Piece by Piece

by Amos, Tori

  After the Strange Little Girls tour in 2001 and the Afghanistan War, after having the medicine woman come backstage, she spoke to me about how as Americans we have a true mother. That mother is “she who we call America.” This medicine woman said to me, an hour before showtime, “Do you feel that the soul of our land is in the right hands?” I was saddened and quiet. Then she said to me, “Would you turn over your physical mother to those who are in control of she who we call America?” I said, “Well, of course not.” She looked at me with piercing eyes, despite her humble appearance. “Then how can you turn over your spiritual mother so that they have made Miss America Misrepresented so that she has been pimped out for the gain of those who can gain from her?” She changed the tone of her voice. Without moving she rose up like a pillar and seemed to speak for all the ancestors from ages past. “We, the caretakers of she who you call America, are giving you a key to the healing of this land. A generation must rise. That generation can be from two to one hundred and two. But this generation of which I speak must form a bond. They have an opportunity to have an intimate relationship with the soul of this land. The European Americans, the African Americans, the Latin Americans, the Asian Americans, and the Middle Eastern Americans must now become caretakers of their Spiritual Mother, or they will be takers of their Spiritual Mother. Caretakers or Takers—you're either one or the other. If the masses keep taking and not caretaking, then your grandchildren will have very little to nurture them. The songs will be coming to you and others who have heard the beating of our drums—you will need to listen. You must find your own relationship with your true Spiritual Mother. Your loyalty should not be to anyone who claims power over the land at any given time, whose intentions can change on a whim, depending if they've been seduced by power and what it brings. You must see the signs, even in yourself, dear one.”

  Scarlet's Walk was a tour that brought all of us a little bit closer to the realization that the land has a spirit and She is alive. Our buses rolled from California to the New York islands, from the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters; this land was made for you and me … to take care of. Our buses rolled from Glasgow to Frankfurt and everywhere in between through the Scarlet tour, as the drums of war raged louder and louder. By March 20, 2003, we had played through protests and vigils and in cities that were hostile to Americans, and yet we played. We played in towns that could see only vengeance even though they purported to be Christian. We played nights when people would light candles and weep for those going overseas. We played for those who still believed that a peace could be struck.

  The furor over the Dixie Chicks, when Natalie Maines made supposedly anti-Bush comments onstage that basically blackballed the group, made it clear that by the time we rolled into Texas I would have to acknowledge what had become a huge issue. So I played Fleetwood Mac's “Landslide,” not just in honor of the Dixie Chicks but to affirm freedom of speech. But I made sure that I did my own cover of “Dixie Land” before I did “Landslide” that night in Dallas, because being a southern-born woman, I wanted to make it clear that Dixie could not be about censorship, whether you're from Dixieland or a Dixie Chick—and if you break it down, every woman south of the Mason-Dixon line is a Dixie Chick. So the real point I was making was that a woman from Dixie has the right to speak her mind, no different from a politician from Maine having the right to speak his mind without the threat of being blackballed.

  Every night, through all of this, the old Apache woman, singing through me to start the show, always had her say:

  In our hand an old old old thread

  Trail of Blood and Amens

  Greed is the gift for the sons

  of the sons Hear this prayer of the wampum

  This is the tie that will bind us

  CHELSEA LAIRD:

  We begin every show with a preshow ritual. It starts in the dressing room: there is always sage burning, then everyone gathers and we all go out to the side of the stage together. The particular approach she chose to begin each show on Scarlet's tour emerged on the promotional tour for the release of Scarlet's Walk. She wanted to create this metaphorical fire, as you've heard her talk about. We brought sage with us—it would be Tori and I, Andy Solomon, and Jenni Clarke, who used to do hair and makeup. For promotion there was only us, just the four of us, naturally becoming the four directions (although technically it's six because of Father Sky and Mother Earth which we always acknowledged).

  She'd say the prayer before every show. She was working off a Southwestern Medicine Wheel ritual by entering through the south (as opposed to the Lakota, who enter through the east), then going to the west, to the north, to the east. We each represented a direction and an element of animal medicine—for example, the eagle, the mountain lion, the wolf, or the dolphin, to name a few. It would change every night depending on what animal medicine was needed to assist in bringing the songs forth. We'd smudge each other individually with sage in order to clear and release anything from the day—business, bitching, etc. Then she would end the prayer and walk out onstage. I think she always insisted on starting each show this way as a means of focusing everyone. No matter what had happened to anyone that day, this was the way we could all be drawn back down to the ground, onto the stage, and into the show that night. A real method of focus for those on- and offstage.

  When we went on the full tour, others needed to be included. In the very beginning Tash wasn't around for the nightly ritual; it was past her bedtime. She and Tori would say goodbye in the dressing room. As the tour continued, Tash became curious and wanted to see what was going on out there. When she started joining us the ritual evolved to include a song like “Ring-a-Ring-a-Rosy” Then we do our own prayer, calling forth the four directions. There's always more than four of us now. You may have three people holding the south, two the west, three the north, and two the east, and we all commit to holding our own direction and all that goes along with that (the animal medicine that each direction is carrying for the night, which Tori has usually figured out because of the show's narrative and what native tribe is close by—what their clan animals are. She has books and books on this stuff; it takes up most of her bus. But all of us include Father Sky and Mother Earth; male and female essence balanced. Still, we make our circle to contain the spirit of the Four Directions, that ancient way of creating a sacred space, as the old Apache woman sings “wampum prayer.”

  ANN: A rock star casting the Four Directions—it sounds pretentious and self-serving. In fact, it's a practical move. For Amos, whose life has been so heavily marked by religion, ceremony draws a line between the chaos of life on tour and the order of performance, which must be defined before it can become open and free.

  TORI:

  If I close my eyes, then I know where I truly am. I am on some kind of precipice. I'm on a rock that seems to go up and up and up or down and down and down. I'm not sure what world I'm in because around me there is this beautiful darkness. It is everywhere. I can see exploding suns in the distance and I can see quiet suns just there, twinkling. And I hear the voices of the daughters pull me into this beautiful darkness that has light in it, but it's not as if it's what I'm used to on earth. As I stand on this precipice with toes barefoot over the rock, I want to dive. I want to dive into this beautiful darkness where everything exists for me at this time. I hear the crowd in the distance, stirring, restless. I hear voices around me, back in the other world. The world called New York or Paris. Or Red Rocks or Seattle. And I know that they are calling for a show, some kind of experience, they want to take a journey. Part of my mind understands this, but I really don't see them: I see them like a slow-motion film. It's present, but it's almost as if I'm watching a film of it. What isn't a film and what feels real is that my toes, my feet, are standing on this rock, this precipice, and the songs are calling me to join them. I can see a few of them below me, above me, around me, and they are immense. They are these light creatures, and, as you get closer, you begin to hear their song. I want to go i
nto these … I don't want to call them structures because they are completed. It's as if I could walk into color. As if I could walk into paints, as I would see on shelves as a little girl, but it's more like a paint box the size of Saturn.

  When I was lonely in London I would try to find art shops and find all the chalks and the paints, and I would (if I had the money in my pocket, because I didn't have a checkbook back then in London) buy these chalks and paints, although I can't draw or paint. I would look at them and write songs and sing to them, and see if they would come alive in a song … and then maybe, just maybe, I could walk into this world of combined color in lonely Londontown. Worlds that are made of shapes I've never seen—granted, I'm no geometric whiz—and in colors that I have never seen combined before. And that is what pulls you in—when you are standing there on that precipice, that rock, and you know you must dive; you must dive in order for the restless out there to take the journey that they want, and, let's be honest, the journey that I want to take, the journey the rest of the musicians want to take. Then I must dive off that precipice and let go of this world. I must leave it behind yet still be in it. Only I am in it as a musician playing—but I'm playing / translating these song creatures that are definitely from another dimension.

  They live and exist, but their house isn't off Melrose somewhere—that would be The Bridge Entertainment Group. Their home isn't off the coast of Cornwall somewhere—that would be Martian Engineering, where we record. Their house isn't what you and I know of as a house. Their house exists I guess when I look up at the sky, when I'm walking in Cornwall with my Welly boots on, all bundled up in one of Mark's big Diesel jackets. Then I look up and sometimes I wonder; is that where they are or can I not see where they are? Can I not see the galaxy they come from? If I had something that could travel the speed of light I wouldn't know how to find them. They find me and I'm taken to their realm. It's almost as if I couldn't find them any other way. So when I play I'm able to return to this place of peace, this place of male and female balanced. The opposites balanced—they have me to take in the harmonization of tone that changes the inside of my body, my mind, and my heart. It is showtime. And I jump. And I jump off the precipice. And there is no bungee cord.

  ANN: Beyond the players visible onstage, others collaborate. Mark Hawley translates the sound the trio makes for the audience; his role is highly visible, behind the big board in the middle of whatever room the group occupies. Yet few know of the other players involved in turning Amos's concerts into rituals— Marcel van Limbeek, the man behind her own monitor, and Dan Boland, who creates the stage set and lighting environment.

  MARCEL VAN LIMBEEK:

  I'm right in line with Tori. This is her personal mix, what she hears as she's performing. Mark's doing essentially the same thing out in the crowd, for the audience. Tori's mix is coming to her through a surround-sound setup. She has four speakers, two speakers on either side of her, and with that she gets her own voice in stereo. A normal monitor would just give her one vocal, and it would be static. I'm adding effects, reverbs, whatever suits the song, basically. Every song has its own sounds and its own needs. I'm also doing a few things Mark doesn't do, to guide Tori's singing a bit. She's obsessed. with good-sounding audio. She calls it her “audio porno,” which I find hilarious, but she's dead serious about it—maybe that comes from her classical roots, but give her shit audio and she'll give you an eyeroll as if you are a primitive, barbaric, piece-of-shit engineer. She'll say, “Uncut diamonds, sounds that can be rough and raw—that can all have its place on a record. Intentional distortion has its place, yada yada yada, but shit audio is not counterculture, Marcel, it's just shit audio.”

  Mark and I created this setup so that Tori could have an onstage sound that was much closer than usual to what the audience could hear. For me it's become a very highly personalized, beautiful thing. Mark is dealing with much more, such different issues. He has to cope with the sounds of different rooms, different environments. I have my own little world with Tori. She has all these people helping her on tour—Duncan, Chelsea, whoever—but onstage it's just her and me. It's as close as a sound technician could come to being a member of the band.

  DAN BOLAND:

  The environment I'll create just sort of drives itself, really. I listen to the songs a bunch of times and I'll just start putting stuff up and painting the picture with light and think, Well, that doesn't work or Maybe it should be this, and then eventually it sort of comes to me. And it takes a while sometimes, but it happens. It starts with listening to the album itself. And talking to Tori. In the case of Scarlet, there's a thread—it's a story of travel, and it's how everything kind of threads together and weaves together. And from there I draw what I call a visual concept. In this case we tried to represent the idea of how everything is always in motion and at the same time we're all standing still. That relates to the painted backdrop of mountains that we had. If you're ever driving along in a car in the Southwest, you'll notice that you've always got mountains on your left. And then Scarlet's in the background, the Earth Mother always overlooking everything.

  I look to the songs for inspiration. With “Wednesday,” for example, the line that stuck in my head was “Stop for a coffee.” My idea is, somebody just sitting there listening to the things people say at a coffee shop, and there are overhanging trees and a warm autumn kind of feeling. Sometimes it's the name of a song that will trigger an idea, like “Pandora's Aquarium.” For that song, I tried to create a water backdrop flowing along. With “wampum prayer,” the idea that came from Tori is that we celebrate the eternal flame. So the song, and that tour, opened with only a red flame, as if we're all sitting around the fire and breathing it all in.

  ANN: The degradation of archetypes within contemporary society has made serving Dionysus a sloppy affair for many. Taking this familiar god seriously is also a risk; humans have gone so far in exploring their indulgences that the idea of liberation as an experience that awakens the soul can seem like little more than a romantic dream. Exploring the Dionysian realm onstage, Amos has come to discover that modern-day liberation comes from rediscovering limits: the hard work of musical virtuosity, the sensitivity required by collaboration, and the self-awareness that leads an artist to realize she is a mere attendant, and not the embodiment, of the divine.

  CHELSEA LAIRD:

  It's how she walks out there every night, however she might have felt earlier in the day or whatever events, good or bad, that may have occurred. By working off various archetypes, she can actually be that person that I think everybody needs her to be. It's not necessarily who she is day in and day out. You can't tour for an entire year at a time and have that person onstage—the one giving of herself for the sake of everyone that has come to the table—be the same person you eat breakfast with. It's not going to be. I think it's how she maintains this level of energy and intensity. She can do this day in and day out, year after year, because she can be somebody else onstage and feed off that energy, no different from what anyone in the audience is doing. Then a split second later she can walk offstage knowing that she's left that person out there, she's Natashya's mommy now, there is a joy for her in that. That other person onstage is this mosaic (yes, Tori and her alter ego are both in there somewhere), but this mosaic is formed of all these archetypes she pulls from, which is pretty much any that she can get her hands on, from any culture, male or female. When we're speaking about performance even Tori will sometimes refer to herself in the third person, and the combined strength of Tori and the archetypes she pulls from are what garners such a powerful reaction.

  TORI:

  The hum of the bus is what makes me know that I'm home for the night. I can make anywhere home—well, almost anywhere—if I put my mind to it. When you're on the road, the bus is your home. Days off in hotel rooms can be like rendezvous nests, a little getaway. I look at the hotels as a holiday from the bus. But as with any vacation, I always return home. When we come offstage, sometimes Matt and Jon an
d I do running races through the back of the arena because we are so high and unbelievably amped—we are recharged yet completely spent all at the same time. There is no problem that we couldn't solve in that moment. As we bask in the sweetness with our heart still pounding and our body languid, we begin to come down. It's a soft comedown, not a harsh one like when you do Ecstasy; instead you're ready to curl up in your bunk. We all head to our separate dressing rooms. With a quick makeup touch-up, my performance dress still intact, we welcome back all the after-show guests despite the ticking of the clock, reminding us that we don't have long to get to the next town. Jen has the shower steaming, and I've taken off the dress and high heels, waving them goodbye until tomorrow, knowing that they won't sleep tonight. They'll be dancing with the other high heels in the wardrobe cases. I truly believe that my shoes have their own independent sublife when they are all together, alone in their cases. Getting into the shower, I use my favorite soap. Then I put on my bus clothes (very important note: bus clothes are a very personal thing and the definition of bus clothes is different from crew member to crew member). I don't wear PJs just in case the bus has to stop suddenly and I have to be ready to jump in a car and go wherever I have to go. I usually dress in something comfortable—cargo pants, a T-shirt, Adidas, and a zippy. I sleep in that. I probably shouldn't know this, but I have heard that one of the girls on the band bus won't go to sleep without her fuzzy blue bear slippers and one of the guys on the sound bus sleeps naked but must have his socks on, which I don't think get washed but once a week. I think it's causing a bit of an issue on that bus resulting in extreme and desperate behavior, such as sock-napping and ransom notes. So when I get on the bus, in my bus clothes, I sit down at the little table that I always sit at—usually Mr. Joel sits across from me—and Dunc has whipped up some succulent after-show magic. Before the show he and I will have discussed the menu, so I will have selected the perfect wine to complement the Dunc's Diner Infusion Experience. Dunc sits down and we share his idea of what real food is. At that point, feeling a bit like Goldilocks and the three bears (although naturally it was all low-carb), I know I have a few good hours before I have to get up to do morning promotion. With that, I trundle back into my bunk and prepare for Natashya night duty. In that hour on the bus, I've reentered my body as mom, wife, and friend. And the person who can plug in and do that “thing” onstage has gone back to wherever she goes— and I know I will see her again by showtime tomorrow evening.