MELISSA: How does it make you feel to meet so many fans whose lives -- though you may not know it -- you play such an important part in?
TORI AMOS: Well see, we're sitting here talking, I play the piano, I write some songs, and I go to the grocery store like you do. I'm thinking about what I'm going to eat tonight, and -- maybe not like you, obviously (points to her thighs. They laugh). And I don't really think about it. I just think, this is a nice person, we're having a good chat. So talking to the people that come to the show, don't think I'm not gaining anything out of it, because I'm listening, too, I'm an ear with feet, too. Just going, "What did he say? OK."
WALKER: Do you ever have times when you get really sick of your fans? (They all laugh) Or you think, get the hell out of my face, I don't want to deal with all of these people today? I just need some time alone and I'm tired of people telling me, "I understand this song because I've had the same kind of experience." Do you ever think, "just let me be me and don't intrude so much"?
TORI: I'll be very honest with you, when I need my space, I take my space. But I really do like connecting with people. The one thing that I'm getting from you guys that is really important, some people that come to the show are on the verge of real self-destruction. Some people have been there, tasted it, worked themselves out of it. The people that are not in that place that are very much about "you do this for me, I need you to do this for me, I need you to tell me this," it's like, I can't. I don't know these answers, only you can give yourself that. And we all know that, but the ones that are starving here (motions to her heart), you give love to them, you give support to them. There's only one answer: you have to do your own work. You can't do it for me, as much as I might look at you, you seem really grounded, can you be that for me? You can't be that for me. I've got to learn to do that for myself. You can support me and encourage me, and be inspirational, but at the end of the day, it's about everybody stepping up to the plate, and going nobody's better than anybody else here, nobody has some sort of contact with the divine that somebody else doesn't have -- we all have that in our own unique way.
JAMES: It seems like a lot of your fans feel like you're very therapeutic for them. Do you feel responsible for being therapeutic, like you have to be their therapist?
TORI: I'm not a therapist. I think I'm a friend. When somebody says, what can people say about you? That you're a good friend. But being a good friend means that you really respect another person and you don't try and do their work for them. It's kind of arrogant, don't you think? To try and move in and do somebody's work for them, I mean, f**king, who am I to do that?
JOHN NORRIS: And who are they to ask you to do that?
TORI: Right. It isn't my job. It's disrespectful. It means that I don't think your soul is really that bitchin' if I think I can just come in and [mess] with it.
JOHN: Do you think your fans are obsessive?
TORI: People don't come to my shows to be complacent and have a picnic and sit there and talk about their investment-banking. Hopefully not, or I haven't done my job. They're sitting there and they're getting to places within themselves, so I don't think it's an insult to the majority of the audience to say that they're obsessive. It's just gross because I don't see that. I just think it's like a party.
MELISSA: We both slept out there when the tickets were going on sale to make sure that we could get in. You have all these people sleeping out and doing all these crazy things trying to get tickets, so that's kind of obsessive, and there were a lot of people out there.
TORI: But you seem very well-adjusted. I've got to tell you, when I was, well let's put it this way, this sounds terrible, but when I couldn't get tickets so easily to other gigs, and I really wanted to go, I'd go after it. The way that some of the media talks about the people that come to the shows, I find insulting. It's like everybody's just escaped from Bedlam or something, and that's not the case.
intro | the album | the tour | inspiration | tori fans | favorite concert moments|
.