News: Chicago Tribune Interview (December 8, 2011)

I wish [Natashya] would be a veterinarian, quite frankly. This business is not something you would wish on a friend, much less a daughter. It’s not for a sensitive heart. But you’re in so deep by the time you realize how the business works, and you lie to yourself and tell yourself the business is filled with nice people.

Tori spoke to Allison Stewart of the Chicago Tribune and, in advance of Tori’s show at Chicago’s Chicago Theatre this Saturday, “the ensuing article”;http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ott-1209-tori-amos-20111208,0,5140559.story appeared in the December 8th edition of the Tribune.

Thanks to mab for the link!

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For Tori Amos, ‘Night of Hunters’ a classical gas

Album, tour take singer on new journey

By Allison Stewart, Special to the Tribune
December 8, 2011

When German record label Deutsche Grammophon asked Tori Amos if she wanted to make a classical concept album, the conversation went something like this:

German record executive: “Would you like to do a modern take on a classical concept album that uses the work of old masters like Bach as a jumping-off point for an exploration of female empowerment?”

Tori Amos: “Can I have a drink first?”

The end result, the lush, dauntless “Night of Hunters,” recorded with an orchestra, recently went to No. 1 on the Billboard classical chart. The disc “brings classical masters into the picture and holds them hostage to feminist ideals,” says Amos, who recorded the album with longtime collaborator (and husband) Mark Hawley and their 11-year-old daughter, Natashya, on vocals.

Amos, who splits her time between England and the U.S., is touring behind the project, with a classical quartet for backup. In advance of her Saturday night Chicago Theatre date, she got on the phone to talk about the challenges and pleasures of making her first classical album.

Q: This is your first time touring without your regular band. How is it going?

A: I’m out with a quartet and they’re classically trained, so it’s a merging of two worlds. The crew calls them the Fab Four. They’re in their late 20s or early 30s and they have a lot of energy. They play like demons.

Q: You’ve had classical training yourself. You must feel equal to this.

A: I’ve been around a long time and I think that experience helps. I think doing variations on a classical theme is a dangerous thing to do. If you get it wrong you can never show your face again to your music peers. There are a lot of pop musicians who have done this and it hasn’t gone so well, so I didn’t take this on casually. And the idea of touring it was quite a challenge. The idea of making this record come alive, and then how do you bring the music from the other records (into it)? It was a thought-out process. … It was actually my husband who said, “You need to take the quartet out (on the road).” That’s the only way it’s going to work. And I looked at him and I said, “Do you mean I’m going to be on a bus with 20-somethings?” And he said, “Yes, and you’re going to have the time of your life.” And I’m having the time of my life.

Q: Your daughter sings on this record. How much fun was that?

A: She wanted to do it. I heard her singing in the shower and one of her cousins commented, “When did Bessie Smith show up in the house?” When you see Tash with her British accent and her braces, you just don’t put two and two together. I (wasn’t sure) she was ready to take on the professional strain, because it’s very demanding when you’re in the studio and you can stunt a budding artist’s growth if you do it too soon. As her mother, I was reticent. As a producer, I saw the potential. So the producer told the mother to stay out of the way. But Mark and I work as a team — we have since 1994 — and we closed the door and worked with her as professionals. She really wanted to make it great.

Q: Has she expressed a desire to do this for a living?

A: I wish she would be a veterinarian, quite frankly. This business is not something you would wish on a friend, much less a daughter. It’s not for a sensitive heart. But you’re in so deep by the time you realize how the business works, and you lie to yourself and tell yourself the business is filled with nice people. … It’s a very vicious business.

Q: Does making a classical record make you want to do a really poppy record next?

A: The next project is the 20th anniversary of (her solo debut) “Little Earthquakes.” We recorded with one of the Dutch orchestras, and we rearranged a good number of the songs with a big orchestra. We’ll put that out in 2012.

Q: Does that type of experience make you look at your whole catalog in a different way?

A: It does make you think about how songs can wear different dresses. Songs aren’t that different from us as women. … I’ve always seen them as having a consciousness — since I was 2 1/2 they would come to me from nowhere. I never thought that I was conjuring them by myself, and I was always grateful they would come and visit. … They’ve been kind enough to let me have the publishing, so it’s a good deal. They’ve always been very much alive. They don’t have a physical body like we do but there seems to be an awareness. And some of them will push to have a reinterpretation, and that isn’t strange to me. I get tired of wearing the same thing all the time too.