From rdt-owner  Tue Nov  3 04:52:06 1992
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 92 10:49:03 +0100
From: Ulrich Grepel <uli@lionheart.robin.de>
Subject: Visions-interview English translation

Hi all,

I finally managed to steal enough time to translate the interview that appeared
in the September 1992 issue of the German 'Vision - Crossover-Magazin'. The
little "drawing" is "Tori Amos" with a single big O instead of the two o's in
the original form of the name.

Any errors due to the translation from German to English are mine and are
too obscure to be found by Ilka (who reviewed the translation, thank you!).

At least this interview (and it's comments) show that Tori is not totally 
ignored in Germany, but unfortunately the magazine is and - even more un-luck -
the magazine normally has quite a different musical taste. The other bands with
articles about them in the September issue are 'Gwar', 'Fugazi', 'Screaming
Trees', 'Rollins' Band', 'MC 900 ft Jesus', 'Ministry', 'Suicidal Tendencies',
'Helmet' and others. None of them was (and is) known to me, but the articles
are speaking volumes...

If anyone out there on this list has a NeXT computer, I have a version with a 
better layout. It resembles the original layout in the visions magazine, 
including color, excluding photos. You will need NeXTSTEP 3.0 to use this. If 
anyone is interested, email me.

Uli
-
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grace, Feeling & Passion

              ___
             /   \
           T|ri Am|s
             \___/


If you review the last years, you will realize that only a few albums were 
extraordinary and moving at the same time. But even here "Little Earthquakes" 
takes a special position. Never before has an artist managed to present beauty 
and grace, feeling and dismay nearly as intensely as Tori Amos. And live, the 
American woman living in London has proved in her March tour that concerts 
can be more than just concerts. With an incredible intensity the red-haired 
beauty captivated her audience, let them fall into a doze wherefrom you were
released after the concert - into the raw reality. The environment disappeared,
you only saw a woman and her piano, you witnessed an extraordinary event. And
after the announcement was made that she would come back to Germany for three
concerts in June, this interview took place in Frankfurt. An interview that
turned three adults into very young teenagers who let their CD be signed and
who were enchanted by an elve-like being. And we experienced those little
earthquakes, too.

Many people assumed that "Little Earthquakes" is your debut, but there is 
another album, published under the band name "Y Kant Tori Read". What about 
that?

"Do you know the cover? (it shows Tori as a metal amazon, comparable to Lee 
Aaron's "Metal Queen" cover) I wish that the LP would sound the way the cover 
looks. The record is just not heavy. It doesn't have a clear statement. I mean,
when someone plays Thrash Metal, then that has a point of view. And even if
this thrash consists of nothing but noise, that has a point of view. That
should be the point of every publication. Take a clear position, if you want to
make noise, do it, if you only want to be cute, that's also o.k. But at the
time the album was created, I was not able to take a clear position. If I had
to take a position, I would have had to have it out with myself, but I was much
too busy to suppress things like the rape. I could not sing about it. Only in
August last year I was able to write "Me and A Gun", before it was simply
impossible. When we started to record the album five years ago, the rape

        "One day they tell you how wonderful your record is,
         and when the sales figures failed to materialize,
         the same thing suddenly is shit."

only happened one year before. The record was published and died four years 
ago. By the way, the drummer of the band was Matt Sotrum, Joe Ciccarelli (among
others Pat Benatar) and I really liked his productions, but just before the
recordings the band split up, we took studio musicians and so the songs lost
their direction. I believe that the record has its moments, but I tried too
much to be everybody's girl, because I was not able to listen to myself. You
just have to be strong and not only pretending. It is simple to play a tough
chick, but it is really boring and, above all, it is sad, because it shows a
deep uncertainity, and when you are uncertain, you can not be strong."

In "Girl" you use the same subject. You sing about a girl that wants to please 
everyone. Is the song an experience you made yourself?

"(smiling) Unfortunately the whole record is about self-experiences, comparable
to the shedding of a snake. When I was thirteen, I believed in fairies and
other spiritual things, was sunk in my own world of imagination, believed in
the unseen world, what I still do today. But over the time I started to feel
like a nitwit. I mean, when you smoke dope, it might be normal, but like this?
You sit in your English lesson and you are talking to a fairy. The people did
not want to understand that, and when you are 13, you don't want to be

        "You can be a bigmouth without having anything
         to say. At that time I definitely only had the wish to
         be an in-chick."

faced with a pityful smile all the time. So I began to destroy the part in me 
that is actually creative. Instead, I became very cynical, disguised myself to 
become popular, to be loved by everyone. But actually that was nothing else 
than a game of hide-and-seek. You can be a bigmouth without having anything to 
say. At that time, I definitely only had the wish to be an in-chick. Today I 
know that you should have your own thoughts and that you have to stick to your 
point of view. Today I accept that not all people like me, that's all right. 
Just before I listened again to some of the songs I wrote at that time, and it 
was very interesting. There were some really good ideas in the song, not in the
lyrics, after all, aged 15, I had rather different ideas. You are thinking in a
different way when you made the experience, but the music was good. Well, with
19 I certainly had experienced so many rejections with respect to my music that
I began to doubt my music. I thought, perhaps the people are right, look for a
band for you, play dance music, at the moment we are interested in heavy metal
and so on. In the beginning I tried to discover new things, and perhaps to
learn something, but then I let myself be infected with the virus of the
everlasting questions. "What do you think of that?". When you always had
success as a small child, you wonder why today noone is clapping any longer?
You become so addicted to the noise of applause that you lose your
self-confidence and wonder what you have done wrong. And then you begin to
convince yourself that what the people tell you is right. Certainly it was an
incredible positive experience when I sat down again at the piano and was
myself. I do not need to sell myself, in a certain way the first LP was
something like the rape of my soul, the music lays more closely to my heart
than anything else, and it surely was a good experience to play with Matt. But
I wish I would have been stronger then and had not listened to those idiots.
One day they tell you how wonderful your record is, and when the sales figures
failed to materialize, the same thing suddenly is shit. It is quite shocking
for them to see that this album sells so well."

If you look at the reactions to your concerts, many of your spectators are so 
deep in thought, others (often women) find your appearance too offensive 
because of your posture and gestures (Tori Amos supports every move with 
gestures, puts breathing under her singing and facing the audience frontally).

"I am not offensive, that's just passion. I want to show my power. Many women 
think that, when they are not intelligent or show their passion, they are 
considered to be bitches. And to justify themselves, they sit there, with dry, 
closed legs and condemn me for that. I have a concience, a heart, a spirit but 
also my sex. I am a sexual, emotional being. When you describe that appearance 
with one word, I would consider confrontation the right word. The people should
be responsible to their feelings when they leave the concert, because what they
feel and think afterwards, is not my feeling, it is their feeling. Why are
there so many men who hate me, who want to rip off my clothes or who jerk off
when I play "Me And A Gun"? When you come to my show, you either have to ignore
me or have to look into yourself, here is nothing that can distract you,
there's only me and the piano. You can close up yourself, but when you don't do
that, then things will show up in you which you are reluctant to think about.
These do not really have to be good thoughts, but I have understood that
monsters are neither good nor bad, they are just there. There are things in you
which are good and there are other things which are bad. Sometimes you are
cruel, sometimes you are the victim, sometimes you are passionated and
sometimes not, what counts is the whole being! Some things you simply can not
exclude. You have to show responsibility for your whole being. Try to learn as
much as possible about yourself and show responsibility."

Let's come back to your lyrics and your songs. Many critics have compared you 
to Kate Bush, but when someone visits your shows or studies your lyrics more 
closely, he finds completely different heroes. Cover versions of "Whole Lotta 
Love", "Angie", "Thank You", lyric lines like 'Strawberry Fields' in "Happy 
Phantom", 'Even the wind cries your name' in "Mary".

"What? You know the song? Yes, it is true, my heroes come out of the seventies 
and are mainly men, though I rather [hear?, there's a word missing in the 
German text] the things of Judy Garland, Barbara Streisand and Joni Mitchell 
(which you could convince yourself of at the last concert in Stuttgart, where 
you could hear "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and "Moon" as the last encore, and,
as she stresses, the first time in front of an audience). But I believe that my
preference of male musicians has to do something with the fact that I always
wanted to play the guitar. I love to play the piano, but I do not like it,
because all people are thinking that a piano has a certain sound. I want to
change this idea, so on the next record we will use an effected piano side by
side with the acoustic one, so that we will be able to play riffs and to
connect the piano to a Marshall Amp. I want to develop myself. (And with a
laugh). On the next tour I will have two pianos and roll to and fro with the
piano chair."

What also stands out is your way to breathe while singing the words.

"The voice is an instrument like every other one. The breathing takes very much
room. The breathing helps you to survive and I find the sound of breathing very
exciting."

Back to your lyrics. You often use colours to accompany your lyrics, actually 
typical thoughts of someone who has just taken drugs.

"My mother is an Indian, and once there was a time when mankind did respect the
plants and the earth as a great vision, and when they neither abused the plants
nor the earth. Today that has changed substantially. Even the Indians have
started to make abuse due to their situation. If you visit a reservation today,
and I have lived in one for many years, you will find many alcoholics there,
what is very tragical. But many think, that this is an escape, but it makes

        "I have a concience, a heart, a spirit but also my sex."

them unable to think. It is bad to see what became of many great people. Today 
drugs mostly serve as an escape from reality and you are able to experience 
other levels of consciousness and to reach other dimensions. I took drugs 
in a controlled way in the past to reach other dimensions, smoked pott, 
while listening to Jimmy Page and hoped that my father wouldn't catch me, but I
think, that this is a part of your teenage days, especially when you lived in

        "I took drugs in a controlled way in the past to reach
         other dimensions, smoked pott while listening to Jimmy
         Page and hoped that my father wouldn't catch me..."

the sixties and the beginning of the seventies. That was a completely different
time, the revolution of many young people against the bourgeoise normal. An
outbreak from the aims that once were given by the parents. The try to change
something. Aims like humanity, the emanzipation of the woman and also the
equality of men, like it was shaped by Martin Luther King. And today? It seems
as if these people have given up, these aims are just caricatures of
themselves. The women have not reached their aim, humanity is a foreign word in
today's society and hate for blacks and foreigners is stronger than ever. And
then you see the abuse of extasy in London and recognize that this generation
has not grasped the whole conflict. What sense does it make to load yourself
with drugs so much that you are not noticing anything anymore?"

Unfortunately many questions had to be left unanswered, we had overrun the 
interview by twenty minutes, another one should follow, and the soundcheck 
could not be held up. Fortunately, because the soundcheck was nothing else than
a 45 minute request concert, and what happened on the following three evenings
was unforgettable. Three concerts, different in the choice of songs, partially
very spontaneous and always so intensive that cold showers run over your back
to be captured in the next moment by an undescribabal warmth. Even at the open
air in Hamburg this intensity came over. Merely acting as a supporting
programme for Luka Bloom [who's that?], she convinced the audience so much that
the whole schedule was turned completely upside down, she unrestrained had to
play further encores and finally Luka Bloom visibly despaired had to ask the
audience to applaud to him at least a little bit. This woman is something very
special, a being you can't capture in words, music that simply is not graspable
in it's beauty anymore. In a world of music that has lost a lot of it's
original fascination due to it's predictability, you cannot stress the
greatness of this woman enough. Tori Amos is unique.

HOLGER ANDRAE / OLE BERGFLETH / KARLO RADIC
--- End of messages ---
