{"id":3135,"date":"2025-03-31T15:46:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T15:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pilotshopworld.com\/?p=3135"},"modified":"2025-04-02T18:33:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T18:33:19","slug":"tori-amos-takes-advice-from-the-muses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pilotshopworld.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/31\/tori-amos-takes-advice-from-the-muses\/","title":{"rendered":"Tori Amos Takes Advice From the Muses"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tori Amos<\/a>\u2019 creative path has never been linear. A child piano prodigy, she was the youngest student ever admitted to Baltimore\u2019s prestigious Peabody Academy, but her parents\u2019 dreams of raising a concert pianist were soon shattered by young Tori\u2019s preference for Beatles over Bach.<\/p>\n

A stint playing showtunes and standards in Beltway bars turned into a big-gamble move to Los Angeles, where Amos joined a hair-metal band called Y Kant Tori Read that also included future Guns\u2019n\u2019Roses drummer Matt Sorum. The band\u2019s one and only album now has a devoted cult following, but at the time, it was a flop. In the depths of despair over the band\u2019s failure, Amos dug deep to write 1992\u2019s Little Earthquakes<\/em><\/em>. Largely out of step with everything else that was on the radio at the time, the album and its follow-ups were a surprise success and by the late 1990s Amos was selling out stadiums.<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly best-known for her music, Amos has nonetheless always had a strong and multi-layered approach to media, whether that means the careful and elaborate lighting design for each of her tours or the eye-catching album art, which has seen the artist breast-feeding a pig and laid out on a giant photocopier. In 1998 she was one of the first artists to offer an exclusive digital-only track (\u201cMerman,\u201d which she would later dedicate to the memory of Matthew Shepard in live performances). 2003\u2019s Scarlet\u2019s Walk<\/em><\/em> came with a video \u201cvisual\u201d for each track, another pioneering move. Amos has also written two books (2005\u2019s Piece by Piece<\/em><\/em>, co-authored with Ann Powers and 2020\u2019s Resistance<\/em><\/em>). She has also branched out into musicals composing music and and lyrics for 2013\u2019s The Light Princess<\/em><\/em>, which ran in London.<\/p>\n

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In 1997, Amos played a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden in support of a young organization called RAINN, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network, then the nation\u2019s first 24-hour sexual assault support hotline. A few years ago, she stepped back from her duties as a spokesperson for the org and from her role on the National Leadership Council. Nonetheless, I asked her about RAINN\u2019s recent decision to remove trans and nonbinary-specific information from their website. \u201cMy art is for everyone,\u201d she told me. \u201cAnd I hope that the world I try to create can act as a safe haven for anyone who needs it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s back with another surprising twist: a children\u2019s book. Written by Amos and illustrated by Demelsa Haughton, Tori and the Muses<\/a><\/em><\/em> was published on March 4 by Penguin Random House. The book came with a second surprise \u2014 a nine-track album written and produced by Amos as an accompaniment to the album. To tell this story, Amos taps into an ancient literary tradition, one stretching all the way back to the Greek poet Hesiod, who wrote that the Muses themselves revealed to him the names, genealogies and offices of the gods on the slopes of Mount Helicon. <\/p>\n

On a sunny but very busy Monday that had started at 4 AM, Amos \u2014 patient and generous in her responses \u2014 got on the phone for an afternoon chat that covered not only the new book and album but also shoes, archetypes, the modality of the visual and a shared appreciation for Susan Cooper\u2019s young adult novel series The Dark is Rising<\/em><\/em>. <\/p>\n

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First things first, tell our audience what shoes you\u2019re wearing today.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well. I\u2019ve [worn three pairs] already. I\u2019ve been up since 4 AM. So I started off … hold on, I\u2019m back in the hotel room, give me a second. [C<\/em>alls to her assistant for confirmation<\/em>] I was in Alaia, the Alaia PVC slingback hard cap toe, in white. Then I went to Aquazura in yellow satin. And then I moved on to these great PVC Stella McCartney because I\u2019ve been doing interviews, television and filming since early, early morning. <\/p>\n

Oh wow, busy day. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Very busy. <\/p>\n

Your busy day is because you have a new children\u2019s book coming out tomorrow, illustrated by Demelsa Haughton. Tell me how this new project came about. How did you find yourself writing a children\u2019s book?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Francesco Sedita [the book\u2019s editor], over at Penguin Workshop, reached out. He had read the liner notes to one of my projects, and I just didn’t know that really, anybody read my liner notes all these years. So he said “Hey, you thank the Muses and the fairies. Can we talk about it? You want to write a children’s book about it?” And that’s really how it began, two years ago. <\/p>\n

What attracted you to Demelsa\u2019s art? What was it you saw and thought, “Yes, that\u2019s my artist?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything. Everything she drew, and I had looked at many illustrators, and when someone on my team showed me her work I just said “She\u2019s the one.” There were notes back and forth from story to art, and she was completely open even to what shoes some of the Muses were wearing. And I was taking pictures of shoes from my shoe collection and saying, no, she has to be in this one. <\/p>\n

Were you writing as she was drawing or did you write the text first? <\/strong><\/p>\n

We wrote the text first. <\/p>\n

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This is your first children\u2019s book, but your work has always had a very strong visual component, whether it\u2019s album art, videos, lighting for your shows. As a primarily sonic artist, what does the visual realm add for you creatively? What can the eyes do that the ears can\u2019t do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, that\u2019s a good question. In my opinion, you\u2019re missing an opportunity if they aren\u2019t collaborating. It\u2019s a huge opportunity to expand the story that you\u2019re telling into a multi-dimensional perspective, as opposed to just sonically. <\/p>\n

A couple of days ago you also released a surprise collection of songs to accompany the book. Were you planning a soundtrack from the beginning or did it sneak up on you while you were writing? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It snuck up on me over a year ago, so I\u2019d say halfway into the book. Mark Hawley, who I\u2019ve worked with since \u201994 and who I later married, just looked at me one night and said, “You\u2019re writing a book about music, and your music, and you\u2019re not gonna have music with this. Explain that to me, please.” And I went, “OK, there\u2019s gonna be some music [Laughs<\/em>]. Thank you for the suggestion.” I don\u2019t care where a good idea comes from. If somebody says “Hey have you thought of this?” And I\u2019m like, “You\u2019re absolutely right, thank you, yeah that makes sense.”<\/p>\n

In your mind how are these new songs categorized? Is it a new Tori album, an EP, a soundtrack?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s an album, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s an album that\u2019s just collaborating with a book and story that go together. <\/p>\n

Looking back at your catalog, are there songs where you did not heed the Muses\u2019 advice and regretted it after? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. And I don\u2019t think I should go into detail. There are some things I left off records and didn\u2019t explore. There\u2019s some songs that I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote till I lost the magic, and they didn\u2019t make it on the record because I didn\u2019t think it was good enough. But that\u2019s when we can over-tweak. That\u2019s what we say in the control room when we replay things and replay things and rework things, till that spark that was there, we\u2019ve just turned it into goulash. And not even good goulash. <\/p>\n

I was at your [bookstore Q&A] yesterday and you mentioned Susan Cooper\u2019s Dark is Rising <\/em><\/em>series, which made me really happy because I love those books. Is fantasy a go-to genre for you? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Not so much as loving Tolkein [the other book Amos mentioned at the event was Lord of the Rings<\/em><\/em>] <\/strong>and Susan Cooper. You\u2019d think I\u2019ve read hundreds of fantasy books, which I have not. But I do adore the Dark is Rising Series<\/em><\/em>.<\/p>\n

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