Tori amos inspires an almost religious devotion among her fans, who build totems in her image and covet her castoffs as relics. How can a goddess show her love without bleeding herself dry?
By Maureen Callahan
Photographs by Mark Alesky
Pat Kochie has transformed the living room of her tiny house in New York's Hamptons into a shrine to Tori Amos. But it's not decorated with the usual concert posters, ticket stubs, or fan-club tchotchkes; it's crammed with dolls. Some of them are small and childlike, with disproportionately big heads sprouting thick manes of curly red hair; others are long and lanky, with fairy wings and haunted expressions. All of the dolls, though, look like idealized visions of Amos. Kochie calls them her "girls," and she made each one by hand.
Kochie is not the tormented teenager you might expect, but a 46-year-old mother of two. With her unnaturally black hair and suburban-mom outfit‹a loose blue oxford shirt worn over black leggings‹Kochie looks like a former rock chick who refuses to totally surrender to a life of laundry and car pools. Referred to as "The Doll Lady" in Tori-land, she makes her living selling her girls for $1,800 and up; her collectors range from rabid fans to amateurs like Gwyneth Paltrow and Demi Moore. Kochie makes the dolls out of clay, artificial tresses, cloth, and wire, and she is always careful to include a little piece of herself‹blood, nail clippings, hair, saliva."It started when I accidentally got my blood in one Tori doll, and then I figured it was meant to be that way," she says. "But I'm not a freak!"
She made her first girl, "The Muse," in 1994 and presented it to Amos after working her way backstage. But it was "Echo," a replica with bound hands, that sparked a more intimate exchange. "When I showed it to her, I told her I felt like the doll," Kochie says. "And Tori said, 'I need to talk to you!'" Amos promptly took her aside and offered some counsel, suggesting Kochie buy the book A Woman's Worth by New Age guru Marianne Williamson. "Tori told me it was all about possessing the goddess," Kochie says.
She soon bonded with Amos' parents over the "Raven" doll, another mini-Tori, and now speaks with them often by phone. One time Amos was visiting when Kochie called and chatted with her for 20 minutes; incredulous, Kochie and her Tori-loving husband checked their phone bill to confirm that such a momentous event had really taken place.
"I have lots of letters from Tori's mom, but I don't have any notes or anything from her," Kochie says. She's laughing, but her consternation is evident. "I think there's a bit of the rock-star barrier now."
TORI AMOS IS CURLED UP IN THE BACK OF A LINCOLN TOWN CAR. Her driver, a gruff, tattooed Brit named Dave, has been with her for years. He ferries her everywhere, and this afternoon he's taking her to the London Aquarium. Dave keeps a watchful eye on his charge, although Amos will go largely unrecognized during her three-day stay in the city (she spends most of her time hours away in the Cornish countryside, where she's had a house for several years). Doing press for her new album, to venus and back, she's dressed down in a faded-denim jumpskirt over a gray scoop-neck T-shirt, her wavy hair a bit frizzy and back to its natural brown shade.
"I used to chase people down the road when they would cut in front of me at a light," Amos says of the long-ago days when she used to drive herself around Los Angeles. "They would be in, like, a pickup truck, and I would chase them‹I didn't care if they had shotguns." She looks out the tinted window at the slow-moving rush-hour traffic. "I was 23," she says. "I didn't appreciate life then like I do now."
The aquarium is closed by the time she arrives, so Amos decides to sit by the Thames for a while. She perches on a balustrade and dangles her legs over the river. She's known for provocative interviews, and today she does not disappoint. "What would happen if I fell in?" she wonders aloud. "I'm so nervous that my skirt would lift up. Like your mother says, always wear clean underwear in case you're in an accident."
She sits for a while in silence. "People just don't know grace," she says, unprompted. "You know, they don't know how to give back. I think music has really been my way of doing that." She swings around and faces the aquarium's promenade, making furtive eye contact with passersby.
"But sometimes people want me to give them what their human value is," she continues. "I can't do that; it's a bottomless pit. I could never pay you in fruit, land, money, or blowjobs what your worth as a human being is. And I'm not going to start opening up my veins and bleeding until they cry enough‹because they may never cry enough!"
TORI AMOS IS THE ULTIMATE CULT ARTIST, the fervor and devotion of her fan base far outweighing things like album sales or radio play. She has never had a bona fide hit single, yet all four of her records have gone platinum, pretty impressive for challenging, piano-driven music full of twisted religious and sexual imagery. MTV relegates her to the 120 Minutes ghetto, if it plays her videos at all, but the channel has devoted two specials to the Amos phenomenon, as well as a recent episode of Fanatic. A live phenomenon known to play 200 dates in a single year, she's a guaranteed sellout and recently upgraded to arenas. There are thousands of fan sites and chat rooms devoted to her on the Internet, and the singer receives truckloads of letters every month, often filled with incredibly personal disclosures and pleas for help.