MUSICIANS & QUOTES >>


I: I wonder if Alanis and Tori-who you're forever being compared to-were as clever. What do you think of that comparison anyway?
Fiona: I can explain that right here, right now. Alanis-we're both white, have long hair parted down the middle and we're young people who get angry sometimes. It ends there. Tori Amos - two words: piano, rape. They're unintelligent comparisons.
-- Fiona Apple, Details Magazine, Jul 1997

"I do not think of Tori Amos as the 'poster girl for rape.' I was merely referring to the danger in both of us being honest about our personal experience, when, as public figures, there is a tendency of the media to label us and reduce our music to simply a reflection of one cultural ill."
-- Fiona Apple, a posted letter from her on her web site to Spin & fans, Oct 22, 1997

I: What do you think of performers like Tori Amos and Fiona Apple?
Paula Cole: I'm jealous of Tori's touring success. She works really hard and deserves it.
-- Paula Cole

"I've read several articles saying that the frivolous pop music of the past few years will lose its popularity in the wake of the attacks. Yeah, but then who's going to entertain the troops in tight jackets and panties? I just don't see Ani DiFranco doing that gig. Geri Halliwell does it very well."
-- Tori; Performing Songwriter, Jan/Feb 2002

During a live concert, Ani DiFranco began making squeaking sounds into the mic saying, "Andy, who am I?" to her drummer. Andy replies, "Bj�rk". (audience laughs) Then Ani begins to breathe heavily into the mic saying again, "Who am I now!" and Andy says, "I don't know." To which Ani answers, "Oh come on! (breathing heavily again) I'm Tori Amos!"
-- Ani, in-concert

In a video shown before each show during the [Family Values?] Tour, Fred Durst said something along the lines of being a fan of Tori Amos and how her music was an influence on his song writing.

Meanwhile, Borland [Wes, 24, the one with the black eyes] is listing the music he's been listening to lately. "Dead Can Dance, Tori Amos, Portishead. I like whatever is the most opposite from us."
-- Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit), Spin Magazine, Aug 1999

"Limp Bizkit make great records - we're not coming from the same political stance or from the same perspective on things - but those records speak to a sexual power play, and some of it is dark and it's underground, and it's about wanting to do harm. It's not just 'I want to do her and I've got a big dick.'"
-- Tori; Vox Online, Nov 2001

"Tori Amos. Wow. She's frightening. I get scared of her."
-- John Popper (Blues Traveler); VH1's 100 Greatest Women Of Rock And Roll

"I was held by the Germans at the Belgian border. They were grilling my friend, who had marijuana, and I was in a solitary room for hours. They were going to pump my stomach and look at my ... my ... I can't say the word ... (whispers) my ... my ... my bum. And the only thing that got me out of it was Phil Collins. When they asked me what I did, I took a shot in the dark. This guy looked like he would be into Phil Collins, so I said, 'I'm a musician, and I'm actually on a recording with Phil Collins' my record label included a song from Y Kant Tori Read on a promo track of his. And you know how they put a flashlight thing to your eyes to find out if you're lying? Germans are great, they know how to do all that stuff. He said, 'You're telling the truth!' Phil Collins saved me."
-- Tori; Rolling Stone Magazine, Sep 30, 1999

Fan Mail: Yo Vanessa, I just want to say you are a GREAT singer. I was just wondering who you think is a GREAT singer. Hope to hear from you, Kim
Vanessa Carlton: Hey Kim, I love Neil Young, Thom Yorke, Jeff Buckley, Tori Amos and many more. Thanks for the message. Peace, Vanessa
-- Vanessa Carlton; answers to on-line fan mail

Even now, she [Vanessa Carlton] has to shrug off comparisons with Tori Amos and Fiona Apple, Carlton said, "because they play the same instrument and have `chick' voices."
-- Vanessa Carlton; San Diego Music Guide Profile

When I was 17..."My favorite female musician was definitely Pat Benatar. She was my goddess. I loved her and I got into her whole look. I stuck out like a sore thumb in school."
-- Tori; Seventeen Magazine, Nov 2002

I: What's your opinion on people like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson who get loads of attention because of their image, videos and shows?
T: Oh, I have no problem with that, Britney is a role-model to little girls, she gives them self-confidence. But she also creates the illusion that every little girl's dream has to be like hers: long blonde hair, beautiful fingernails, adjusted chest and loads of fame. So the pros and cons cancel each other out. I think the secret of the success of those kind of songs lies in the fact that people can sing along with them, they're thinking: 'hey, I can do this too!' giving them a sense of proudness, that they can do the same like their favourite artist.
-- Tori; Belgian/Dutch Magazine Humo, Sep 18, 2001

I: What do you think of Tori Amos' cover of "Raining Blood"?
S: I can't believe alot of people have heard that already!
I: Aw yeah, man, it's all over the internet.
S: We heard it, and it took like - me and Jeff were sitting on the bus listening to it on the Pantera Tour and we listened to it - took like a minute, minute and a half, for us to even realize what the hell she was saying and figure out what part of the song she was at. um...so...it's not my style..hey, maybe she'll sell more of it than I did and put some green in my pocket. That would be great.
I: Have you heard the whole record? Like the Eminem cover, the Kate Bush all the other stuff on there?
S: No, I just heard the one song.
I: Alright. Yeah, she does this very strange reading of uhh the uh Eminem tune in which he cuts up his wife, Kim, and like hacks her up and throws her in the trunk. It's very...
S: ..She did an odd "Raining Blood", that's for sure!
I: Have you ever heard her cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"?
S: Nope.
I: Very odd. Very odd.
S: ..She's fucking out there.
I: She is out there. But that's why we love her.
-- Slayer band member; radio interview [Download]

I:Have any of these artists heard your versions of these songs [on Strange Little Girls]?
T: Well I'm not necessarily warm and fuzzy with all these artists, so I don't know any of them personally. Some of them -- Slayer sent tee shirts -- and you know, little messages have come from certain ones but certain others ... No, I have not sent the bottle of champagne and the record to everybody and said, you know, thanks, because that's not what this is about. This is not a tribute record."
-- Tori; musiqqueen.com "Tori Amos Roundtable Interview", Nov 6, 2001

I: Have you heard from any of the artists whose songs you've covered?
T: Well, Slayer sent T-shirts, which was really appreciated by the crew, and they sent a small one so that there's no way of me getting out of wearing one.
-- Tori; RollingStone.com, Oct 4, 2001

"For the Slayer track I walked back from the house to the barn -- the studio's in a barn -- and I felt that. It was like immediately, this French Resistance movement [person]; when I heard 'Slayer', I saw her, I knew who she was. I had a sense of her. And in a few days she arrived."
-- Tori; Alternative Press Magazine, Oct 2001

"You�d be surprised at some of the individuals who are actually Slayer fans," [Paul] Bostoph [drummer for Slayer] adds. "Tori Amos did 'Reign in Blood' and who knows if she�s a fan or not, but she liked the song enough to cover it."
-- Paul Bostoph (drummer); SLAYER LOVES TO HATE US, Issue #2, May/Jun 2002

I: Like several new UK based rock bands, you've been quoted as finding Tori Amos inspirational. How did you first get into her stuff and why is she in particular so important?
M: I heard "Me and a Gun", from the first album. It's an acapella song about rape. It totally affected me, this woman having the strength to sing about something which has the capacity to utterly destroy people, without any bullshit at all. That's the reason she resonates with metal people is that she articulates incredibly intense emotion; when we said that Tori Amos is heavier than most metal bands, that's what we meant. In terms of the emotion expressed, Tori is heavier than ANY metal band whose only lyrical point of view is pure anger. It's like when you hear someone swear when you've never heard them swear before; it has a power because it's not over used. That's the power Tori has when she's speaking about anger and alienation - it's not her vanilla flavour the way it is Korn's.
-- Miocene, rocktribe

I: Sticking with the topic of music here, I read somewhere that you do a cover in concert, a Tori Amos song, "Me & A Gun". Now that song, is a very deep emotional song.
A: No. That's misinformation. We do not do covers. Stabbing Westward is not a cover band.
I: Well, I didn't say you were a cover band, but I read somewhere that you guys covered that song, that was bad info I read somewhere.
A: I think Chris has on occasion, during sound-check, during his vocal check, sung the lyrics to that, but a lot of the stuff, people from our fan club show up and they hear sound check and they hear Mark noodling on some song by some band and immediately, it's through the net that we're playing a Janes Addiction song tonight. You know, we're not a cover band. We don't do covers.
-- Andy Kubiszewski (drummer for Stabbing Westward), entertainment ave, Nov 26, 1996