News: Heineken Music Interview (November 17, 2011)

I don’t think about [pop culture], to be honest. I think it’s more fun to keep creating, and to be a creative force. I’d like to see myself known as a composer – and I’m fairly sure that my work will move into that area. I’m not sure where it’s all going, of course, but I’d like to think I’m carving my own niche for what feels right at the time – to me, anyway.

Tori spoke to John Erne for Heineken Music and the interview was posted on HeinekenMusic.ie earlier this month. The brief conversation discusses Night of Hunters, Tori’s Irish home in Kinsale and her thoughts on pop culture.

A tip o’the hat to lilfaerie for sending this our way!

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TORI AMOS – HUNTING HIGH AND LOW

by JOHN ERNE
added on Thu, 17 November 2011

She says she could be Lady Gaga’s mother, but diehard experimentalist Tori Amos remains very much her own person. Her new album is a left-of-centre collection that is based on the works of classical composers, but don’t let that put you off – there are more tunes on the album (Night of Hunters) than you’ll have room in your head for. She talks exclusively to heinekenmusic.ie about her home in Kinsale, fusing classical music with contemporary arrangements and her place in rock/pop music.

Night Of Hunters works so well as just a collection of songs. Does it matter to you that people don’t really need to know background or the specific composer influence?

“Well, I would love if people did get the background, because if you are taking on board a classical form like a song cycle it’s got to work as piece of sonic architecture. It has to have a certain amount of plinths in order to make it work so that it’s not just an exercise in merging styles.”

You also have to put time in to understand the form, don’t you?

“Yes, you just can’t listen to anything and say you’ll work with it. The narrative has to work and it has to be musicalised, so to speak. But there is a danger of taking it to a musical theatre place, which can be very dialogue-based. There is nothing wrong with musical theatre, but to have put that to these themes could have taken it into a style that I felt might not work.”

What realm do you dwell in within pop culture?

“I don’t think about it, to be honest. I think it’s more fun to keep creating, and to be a creative force. I’d like to see myself known as a composer – and I’m fairly sure that my work will move into that area. I’m not sure where it’s all going, of course, but I’d like to think I’m carving my own niche for what feels right at the time – to me, anyway.”

Do you see yourself as being in competition with the likes of Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Katy Perry, and so on?

“Oh, no! They’re all great at what they do; I could be Gaga’s mom, I suppose, but being where they’re at, commercially, is not a good place to be.”

You’re a minister’s daughter, strictly raised – what is your take on religion?

“I understand the energy, the power, but I don’t have a glamourised view of it. And I’m certainly not seduced by it.”

You have a large old house in Kinsale, County Cork – how often do you call it home?

“It’s a spiritual home, a safe house. I flee situations, experiences and people to get there. And it protects me and helps me reinform myself. It’s also a metaphorical well – plus, I don’t have childhood memories there, I don’t have those ghosts. But the mythology and the poetry of the house and area pulls me… I bought it from the record budget of Boys for Pele, by the way; Peter Gabriel told me to do that. You use these record budgets to buy property. I only did it once!”