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Tori Amos Challenges the 'Hardest F---ing' Metal Bands to Musical Throwdown, Praises Mick Foley's Work With RAINN
- Posted on Sep 20th 2011 4:00PM by Dan Reilly
Victor de Mello
But, as Amos explains to Spinner, the songs are rooted in the way we all experience relationships. We recently caught up with her to discuss the album, its real-life inspirations, her friendship with pro wrestler Mick Foley and how she'll take on any "f---ing heavy metal band" with her emotional lyrics.
This is quite an ambitious album. Where did you begin?
When Deutsche Grammophon approached me about it, I said, "That's a lot to process, but if I'm going to do it -- and I need to have red wine before I'm going to say yes -- then [you've got] to send me reams and reams and endless amounts of classical music, because I've got to have plenty to pick from, because many won't work for all kinds of reasons." So, that was the beginning step, hearing the music.
At a similar time, I was touring and I started taking note of the 21st century -- what are things that set us apart from the century before us? One of the things that kept coming up is that lives can change, and I don't mean because of traumatic events. I mean because of day-to-day events. People's lives were being turned upside down, it seemed. I've been touring 20 years now, and I've never heard so many stories of such change in such a small amount of time. That kind of began to make me see that this woman needed to have a transformation from dusk 'til dawn, in a very small amount of time.
How would you describe the character of Tori in this story? How much is like you and how much is just fiction?
Well, you know, you walk a thin line as a writer. What you write about, you have to emotionally understand it. A lot of what the woman is going through in one night has taken me 20 years to go through, in some ways.
There's a theme of persevering through "out-creating." Is that something you've had to do in you career, particularly with critics?
I don't really think about what the critics think, because posterity will see things differently. I have a lot of friends who study that, and it changes some of the projects they choose to do, and I think you have to really work from an intuitive place [rather] than reacting to people's opinions. You don't even know why sometimes people have opinions. Do they really understand it? You and I can argue it. You have to let people have their opinion and in some ways, it's none of my business. It's their right.
Over the years, I've had to create and allow it to live out in the world. We can all get into a destructive place, and the only way to deal with destruction is to out-create it. That's something I think quite a few of us have learned over the years. Once you start becoming destructive back towards somebody or something, nothing positive happens.
How has your marriage influenced the album?
Well, when you've been together for as long as we have, and you work together, you've got to figure that it fizzles up sometimes. But I think it makes it passionate, and we've found a way to make it work, to work together and live together. It'll be 16 years in October since we started dating, and we've been married for 13 years. During that time, you're going to discover all kinds of things about yourself and how to communicate and how not to communicate, and all of those lessons are pretty much in this record. I mean, he looked at me at one point and said, "You know, everyone's going to think we're living in separate places," and I said, "They can think whatever they want. I don't care. As long as we're still kissing inappropriately in the kitchen and [my daughter] Tash yells at us to get a room, it's fine."
On another topic, former pro wrestler Mick Foley is a big fan of yours and a supporter of your anti-sexual assault organization, RAINN. How did you guys get to meet and have you developed a friendship?
He's great. My nephew is a wrestling aficionado, and somehow I had heard through RAINN that he was doing some really great things for the charity. I met him, and he had heard that my nephew was a wrestling fan, and it kind of went on from there. He's been really beyond stellar to the charity. He's really given.
He's a really liberal, creative figure too, and I think there's a side to him that has always been sort of the poet of the wrestling world, where I wish we could read all his journals of everything he's experienced because I think he's quite a writer.
Were you surprised to find that a wrestling superstar was one of your fans?
Well, look, sometimes you don't know how music affects people. I embrace that because I don't think that just because I talk about emotional stuff that it's not mother---er stuff. I'll stand next to the hardest f---ing heavy metal band on any stage in the world and take them down, alone, by myself. Gauntlet laid down, see who steps up. See who steps up! I'll take them down at 48. And they know I will. Because emotion has power that the metal guys know is just you can't touch it. Insanity can't touch the soul. It's going to win every f---ing time.
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I love Tori Amos and I love metal. That being said, I don't think Tori meant to insult the metal genre, given her rock influences (Led Zep and Jimi) and Slayer cover, she wants just to say that she can be just as emotionally intense performing by herself on her piano just as much as a metal band (she is not implying that metal has no emotions) which is why different people, people like Mick Foley, whom someone what have figured to not listen to Tori's music, are avid fans because her music gives them emotional fulfillment. Sure she could have been a little nicer in the way she worded her statement, but Tori never been one to sugarcoat everything she says.
@ Karina- lol shows how ignorant you are about her music since it's not folk.
http://www.anus.com/metal/about/metal/assimilation/
September 24 2011 at 1:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyMetalhead of the female gender here. Therefore i can be emotionally insane AND emotionally soulful. You have triggered the insane with your immature attack on us. I suggest you apologize and stick to what you know, folk music. To be continued on other websites until you apologize or i get completely bored with your lameness. \m/
September 24 2011 at 1:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWow . . .
Where did all that Heavy Metal "Gauntlet" stuff come from???
Ha! Gauntlets are made of Metal Tori :p . . .
I'm a huge fan of Tori. So is Meshuggah if you read the liner-notes from "Destroy Erase Improve". If she really said that, she obviously has no clue what she is talking about.
I'll mention a a few Bands she may need to look into (these are Bands from many sub-genres of Metal):
Opeth (Prog/Death Metal)
Fates Warning (Prog Metal)
Meshuggah (Math Metal)
Dream Theater (Prog Metal)
Deep Purple (Hard Rock/Post Prog-Metal)
Forbidden (Tech-Thrash)
Queensryche (Prog Metal)
Kings X (Heavy Metal/Prog Metal)
Cynic (Death Metal/Fusion Metal)
TesseracT (Math Metal/Djent)
Epica (Darkwave/Prog Metal)
Ayreon (Prog Metal)
Dio (Heavy Metal)
Trouble (Doom/Heavy Metal)
Paradise Lost (Darkwave/Doom)
Stream of Passion (Darkwave/Prog Metal)
Redemption (Prog Metal)
Aghora (Math/Fusion Metal)
To-Mera (Prog/Math Metal)
After Forever (Darkwave/Prog Metal)
Death -"Spiritual Healing" and after (Death Metal)
Leprous (Prog Death Metal)
Cloudscape (Prog Metal)
Nevermore (Tech-Thrash/Powermetal)
Megadeth (Thrash)
Sepultura (Thrash)
Tool (Alternative/Prog Metal)
Orphaned Land (Folk/Death/Prog Metal)
OSI (Prog Metal)
Skyclad (Folk Metal)
Amorphis (Folk Metal)
Suncaged (Prog Metal)
Ark (Prog Metal)
Pain of Salvation (Prog Metal)
Into Eternity -The concept album "The Incurable Tragedy" was inspired by the deaths of the two best friends "and" father of guitarist Tim Roth (Tech-Thrash/Prog Metal)
...and I can keep going on and on (I invite anyone who has their "ideas" of what Metal is to find these bands on YOUtube and find their lyrics at Darklyrics. c O m).
I would also bet that most of these bands would actually invite her on-stage to sing with them, not to be ridiculed but to seriously "sing" with them.
Metal has its cliches but what I'm interested in is topical lyrics, about the human condition, the world around us, with the Fantasy aspects and "Stories" as well.
Metal has always been about the Soul and emotions.
I wonder why she singled out Metal? Its full of sub-genres and for her to think she "owns" the rights to emotions and soul is pretty ignorant :/.
Some of us Metalheads can listen to Bjork, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Sting, Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra with our "Carcass" as well :p.
I love your music Tori but dont be surprised if theres a Metal Festival named in your Honour.
And Jonathan Greg Ward . . . youre not helping! :p Youre touting the same cliche's as non-metal listeners. Take a listen to all those bands I've listed and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised :) \m/.
i just updated my blog with a article about this
www.imperialomen.com
Tori Amos Attacks Metal and Offends the Metal World
please check it out and share it with your friends
tori amos is so far out of line insulting metal. This sounds desperate, the music industry is shrinking and her fan base grows old and tired of her long winded chick flick level boring crap. Why call out metal of all genres. She must have no idea how many metal heads there are out there how international and die-hard we metal fans, how much we live breath and suffer for metal. If thats not heart that she don't get it anymore. I think this is a total hollywood move to steal headlines. If she bothered to listen to a metal band in the last 20 years she would have a right to have a opinion. But no she will just do another cover of a Rap song about a man killing his wife and dumping her body with his baby in tow cause ya know that is emotional. She wants a battle of the bands she can have it lots of bands would step up to the plate and crush her faux emotions if she can even show any after the surgery and botox .
September 23 2011 at 4:03 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHey, Tori. When I was an angry, pierced-up kid in high school, and my mother was lying in a hospital for months and months, drifting in and out of comas, with an uncertain prognosis - what do you think I was listening to? Was it your records - your artfully angsty, gentle, dreamy little songs? No. You know what cheered me up and made me feel strong, made me feel like I wasn't alone, and convinced me that there was a bigger world outside of my 600-odd person town in the middle of nowhere? A world worth living for, fighting for? It was not you, Tori. It was black metal. I couldn't talk to my friends about how I was feeling, about the howling void of bleakness, hopelessness, and sadness that threatened to consume me. The harshness, the raw, agonizing pain and aggression and sheer misanthropic ferocity that shone through Leviathan, Xasthur, Darkthrone, Cult of Daath, Kult ov Azazel - THAT made sense to me then. And I'd be willing to bet that I wasn't the only one. You've got a pretty voice, that's for sure, and i'm sure your lyrics resonate with and empower some people…but they do absolutely nothing for me. Nothing. Where are those all-powerful emotions? That soul? That fire? Your music is not universal, Tori. You are not all-knowing, or even particularly interesting. Turn down the ego, slow your roll, and back off.
This is why it genuinely bothers me when outsiders deride and scoff at metal as nothing but angry grunting and tuneless screaming. Metal saved my life. Metal has saved many lives. Listening, playing, writing, and being involved with this scene has given a lot of lonesome, angry, confused, ******-up and otherwise "different" kids something to hold onto, to belong to, to count on. This **** MATTERS.
This "challenge" was a publicity stunt, one that will be forgotten by the end of the day and buried at the bottom of Twitter feeds where it belongs, but the ignorance and condescension it radiates are things that we have dealt with, and will continue dealing with, for a long time coming.
But hey, we can handle it.
Wow, that's more than a little condescending and ignorant of you. Sure, lots of metal bands have ridiculous/stupid lyrics, but there are a few whose lyrics deal with some seriously deep & painful emotions. Your narrow-minded and uninformed perception of what metal music has to offer is exactly why most people choose to simply ignore it. Metal isn't the problem; people like you are.
September 22 2011 at 12:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyBigtime disagree Tori. If you're talking about the thrash/death metal or nu-metal bands,I can understand, but not all metal bands swear every other song. *Good* metal bands, (imo) like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden and others have soulful songs out there, and as meaningful as your music is, they could go toe to toe with you and knock you out of the park in vocals, music and soul. In other words, never judge an artist by it's cover. Another example, the late great Ronnie James Dio. You couldn't hold a candle to him dear, sorry. As "learned" as you seem to tout you are, you obviously aren't.
September 21 2011 at 5:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyBigtime disagree Tori. If you're talking about the thrash/death metal or nu-metal bands,I can understand, but not all metal bands swear every other song. *Good* metal bands, (imo) like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden and others have soulful songs out there, and as meaningful as your music is, they could go toe to toe with you and knock you out of the park in vocals, music and soul. In other words, never judge an artist by it's cover. Another example, the late great Ronnie James Dio. You couldn't hold a candle to him dear, sorry. As "learned" as you seem to tout you are, you obviously aren't.
September 21 2011 at 5:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply
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