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"Any time you get an opportunity to put something out, I'm in the mind that you seize the project with both hands. And I'm not one to give the record company my blessing and do what [they] think is best. I don't think that anybody knows what's best except the composer or the midwives of the songs themselves." "I had access to all the material since 1990, and my goal was to try and retain the integrity of everything," she says. " When you're putting together a work of this magnitude, [the songs] all have to work together. I wanted to have some kind of story -- a payoff denouement for each record." "There were no remixes allowed to the first two records. That was my law. It's not a democracy. Well, it is 'til it isn't. When it comes to my world, I have to answer to the songs."
-- Tori; aolmusicnewsblog.com, Sept 11, 2006
TORI: Well, you get more of an octave with this piano (the paino: a collection packaging). It�s umm, keys, and you open the keys, and inside, umm this box there�s the music five discs and a picture book really. Not, not a pamphlet, but a real book.
SIMON: The only disappointment is you can�t play it. It looks like a piano, a little bit of a piano, but the keys don�t work.
TORI: Well, the Chinese told us that if we did make it that way that they would probably break, so I couldn�t take the risk.
SIMON: The Chinese made it, did they?
TORI: The Chinese made it. Part of it was made in China, part of it was made in Mexico, and the third part was made in Pennsylvania.
SIMON: The thought behind this is, I mean this is kind of like a collected works, this is the back catalogue.
TORI: The end of an era...Because I think you pull it all together (what I�ve tried to do anyway) Is to pull all these pieces � The Minister�s Daughter umm, The Pianist that was going to be a classical something-or-other and wore black dresses that were way too tight and became a hussy and it didn�t happen, and the side of me that umm, went through some violent things and survived it and then there�s the side that became a Mum, and all of that is in this work that�s A Piano, and then I�m�I�m gonna do something different.<
SIMON: So when you say �end of an era�, you really do mean that?
TORI: Yeah I do, I really do, I really do...
SIMON: So you�re gonna stop?
TORI: I�m doing something different, no I�m not gonna stop, but this is the end of the last 15 years. 15 years of my life.
SIMON: So what do you do next?
TORI: (mysteriously) We�ll see.
SIMON: You must have an idea?
TORI: I�ve got something up my sleeve.
-- BBC Radio 2 Interview, September 17, 2006
TORI: I�ve been putting this box set together, and I had no idea that I�d be going through a catalogue of over fifteen years. Not just one mix of the track that might be chosen, but every single mix that we had on it. What I didn�t realize when I agreed to do the project is because the record industry has imploded�how they�ve kept the tapes over the years�some of them have been severely damaged. I�m talking about the old tapes, the old analog tapes. Therefore, we had to get everything brought back to our studio in Cornwall and comb through it to find the closest thing to what I thought was the integrity of the original piece.
BBC: You must have been quite upset when you found out about the deterioration of the original tapes?
TORI: �Numb� is a really good word.
BBC: It must have been a little bit like watching a movie of your life, in a way?
TORI: I�ve told people I felt like Billie Piper, not as a musical person, but like in the TARDIS�A box set is a sonic TARDIS, you go into a different time frame and you are there. Every cell of your being is back in 1990 or 1993. It took seconds to time travel.
BBC: And did you like it back there; did you want to stay or were you happy to get back in the TARDIS and come back?
TORI: There are moments I did want to stay, if I�m honest with you, but that�s the danger of doing a box set: You have to come back.
BBC: From where you are now, how does it all look?
TORI: Well, it�s kinda crazy to say to you that I wouldn�t change any of it. I think it�s been pretty confrontational, and I have a reputation as a ball-buster. You know, the Corporate Boys, when they see me coming, I think they call the guards because they know that, while they�re asleep in their beds, I�m going to be thinking of ways to rescue my masters.
-- BBC 6 Music Interview, September 17, 2006
�My goal was to try and be objective,� she says of the effort. �When you�re putting together a work of this magnitude, it has to work as a body of work now, not as individual records over the years. There�s a side of me that really forced myself to be in the producer�s chair, and that means that you have to make decisions sometimes where the emotional self has to walk out the door for a minute, because you can get attached to things for the wrong reasons.�
-- Tori; AOL Music News Blog, September 18, 2006
"In my life I�ve really enjoyed certain boxsets, especially Led Zeppelin�s. So when Rhino Records approached me, I decided here was a chance�before I get too old and senile�to make a collection of my songs, add some unreleased tracks and remaster everything, but still hold true to the original recordings....In 2007 we�ll tour again with the new record that we�re working on now. The box set is the end of an era�it�s very much about pulling everything together over the last fifteen years before I jump ship. You have to sense what is going on in the world�it�s a really disturbing place right now. A few years ago I had more confidence that people would make the right choices for our leaders in America and they didn�t. So therefore it�s time to take the gloves off."
-- Tori; Clash Magazine Interview, September 2006
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