News: The Columbian Interview (November 30, 2007)

It’s a real blast because you don’t know what the show is going to be until, I don’t know, you have an hour before the show to change it And God knows, something might have happened at five o’clock that afternoon on the news in that town. And you say we have to do Isabel tonight. It’s a political issue. We have to do Isabel. And those are the decisions that get made.

Alan Sculley’s piece in The Miami SunPost also appeared in the November 30th edition of The Columbian, with some slight semantic differences, to promote this week’s show at Arlene Schnitzer Hall in Portland. Even though it’s essentially the same, we present it here again in its entirety for completeness’ sake. Enjoy!

Update: The piece also showed up in The Press-Enterprise on December 13, 2007.

---

Familiar themes, a new tone

Friday, November 30, 2007
By Alan Sculley for The Columbian

For an album that is very much about character types, it’s ironic that in some major ways, Tori Amos stepped out of character in making her latest CD, “American Doll Posse.”

Thematically, the CD is consistent with Amos’ past work. It finds Amos adopting four distinct female characters based on Greek mythology as a way to study and break down stereotypes of the contemporary woman.

As an artist, who throughout a solo career that dates back to her multi-platinum 1992 debut CD, “Little Earthquakes,” has explored the question of what it means to be a woman, there’s nothing out of character thematically with “American Doll Posse.”

But musically, the album is a different story.

That much is apparent by the time Amos and her band unleash the crashing chords of “Teenage Hustling,” the fourth song on the new CD. While previous Amos albums (such as 2005’s “The Beekeeper” and 2002’s “Scarlet’s Walk”) were known for their baroque and often delicate piano-centered pop, “American Doll Posse” quickly establishes itself as a rock album that’s distinctly different from much of Amos’ past work. It’s also an album that is melodic, musically smart and one of her most accessible CDs.

Ironically, the female-centric concept of “American Doll Posse” played a big role in leading Amos to make this harder-hitting musical departure.

“As a scribe, you have to listen to what the songs want to be,” Amos said in an early October phone interview. “Because the narrative was very much about female character types, sonically the songs were saying we have to go to the rock gods. So I needed some testosterone, and I knew that.”

On a more subtle level, “American Doll Posse” forced Amos to yield some of the control she has usually had as a singer-songwriter, especially when it came to the music on “American Doll Posse.”

“Mentally, the producer and composer were in the driver’s seat, not the singer-songwriter persona,” Amos explained. “I had to have a chat with Tori the singer/songwriter and say simply, ‘I need you to agree to be a band member here, as a player. … And the piano might have to take a back seat in a lot of songs.’ ”

The idea of exploring female archetypes was inspired by the regression Amos had noticed recently in the roles of women, particularly in American society. The situation, she said, is largely a result of the influence of the Christian conservative movement and the Bush administration.

“It seemed to me that the Christian right wing had done their job very well,” Amos said. “They were able to distract the women from really looking … at how the Bush administration views the place of women at the table of power. … Women are stepping into these stereotypes, and we need to rattle our own cage.”

The CD doesn’t so much preach about rebelling against simplified and subservient stereotypes as it offers character studies and stories within the CD’s 23 songs, and in a sense, a process women can follow to get in touch with their many personality traits and become more of their authentic selves.

In creating “American Girl Posse,” Amos looked far back to Greek mythology, a time when the feminine was considered divine. She created four characters — Isabel (based on Artemis and the most political of the characters), Clyde (drawn from Persephone, an idealistic and emotionally naked character), Pip (culled from Athena, a warrior) and Santa (based on Aphrodite, who is full of passion and sensuality).

Amos is building on the characters and themes of “American Doll Posse” by starting a blog for each of her four characters and by extending the album’s concept into her live show.

Each evening, Amos comes out on stage dressed and in full character as Isabel, Clyde, Pip or Santa, performing a few songs that relate to that character. She then shifts into herself as Tori Amos for the remainder of the shows, which generally run more than two hours.

“It’s a real blast because you don’t know what the show is going to be until, I don’t know, you have an hour before the show to change it,” Amos said, referring to the task of choosing her character for each show. “That’s kind of exciting.

“And God knows, something might have happened at five o’clock that afternoon on the news in that town,” she said. “And you say we have to do Isabel tonight. It’s a political issue. We have to do Isabel. And those are the decisions that get made.”