QUOTES >>

"I couldn't understand all this talk of women being 'of the devil', and that only 'evil women' gave away their virginity before marriage," Amos explains. "Yet when I was 10 I heard Robert Plant and wanted to give him my virginity. I thought it was like sharing peanut butter and jelly and holding hands!"
-- Tori; Irish Independent, Late 2001

"I'd be five years old, lying in my bed, with the afghan over me, squeezing my legs together and thinking, 'Something should go here one day.' I wanted to run away with all those guys, with Zeppelin and Jim Morrison and John Lennon. I [recently] told Robert Plant that I really wanted to pack my peanut butter and jelly and my teddy, and my trolls and come find him."
-- Tori; Keyboard, Nov 1994

"Yeah, I did a duet with Robert. On the tribute, can you believe that? He sang on his own tribute. That's a hoot. He just decided "Look, this is a tribute to the Zeppelin songs, and I think I know how to do it." I said "Okay, I'm with you, no arguments"."
-- Tori; Phone Interview, Nov 2, 1994

"There are 23 bootlegs now," Amos says ruefully. "Robert Plant came home with a bootleg video and said 'Tori, you've made it. You're nothing until you've been bootlegged.' So I've started to feel better about it. But they're such poor quality that I'm like, 'Why don't they buy the English import that has seven or eight tracks live that are recorded great?"
-- Tori; Illinois Entertainer, Aug 1994

"Well, I'm a bit of a lunatic right now. I called my friend Trent Reznor -- I was lying on the marble. There's this marble little sit place at the Ritz Carlton in Chicago, with the windows, and I was just losing my mind a little bit. Don't think I was thinking of anything so cliche, right, but you know, I was thinking of at least throwing my ice cream out the 26th floor, or the telephone. And he said, `You can't, Tori. I've been in that Ritz Carlton in Chicago, and the windows are inverted, so I'm not worried.' So there's kind of something wonderful about having friends that go through what you go through. You have your buddies that understand. Obviously Robert Plant can't understand, because all he says to me is, `Why are you touring? Just come to Wales and we'll watch the butterflies and talk about great Welsh stories.' I was going, `Yeah, a legend can say that, you know?'"
-- Tori; Baltimore Sun 07/94

"Obviously, working with Robert was a hoot. I almost wore my confirmation dress just for old times sake."
-- Tori; quote from Encomium album booklet

"It's very different. We do it kind of like Riders on the Storm. It was a jam, so it's eight minutes. He [Robert Plant] played guitar, I played piano, and two of the guys that are now in the band that he's in with Jimmy Page, this is the project they're doing together, the bass player and the drummer, who have been with Robert, I think, for a little while. Anyway, it was just kind of neato. I showed up, and we kind of rehearsed, and I threw in a section and he threw in a section that hadn't been in before. I kind of went, 'God, I really want to do this part.' I thought the melody was different from what it was. In the shower, I always sang this different melody. But I was so married to it that I just made it my part. They rolled tape, and we were finished, and we all went and listened and said, 'Where's the Indian take-out? This is finished.' It was kind of like - it was so neat, because I waited all my life for that. So I stored up 20 years of estrogen."
-- Tori on Down By The Seaside

"Something really clicked in me when I discovered Led Zeppelin. And you have to understand what that did for me because first of all, oh my God, besides the guitar playing, which was you know, I *wanted* to be Jimmy Page. That's what I really wanted to be. But I wanted to *be with* Robert Plant. Just the way he'd move his body and the sensuality. I mean, I just knew I had found the Goddess, that was it. And the highlight happened when I was in New York City and, I think, Johnny said to me, there's a phone call for you in the bathroom. Obviously, you know you have success when there are phones in the bathroom. So I toodled into the bathroom, I pick up the phone going, hi and he goes, Tori darling, it's Robert. I went, Robert? Robert from NBC? He goes, no darling. Robert Plant darling. I'm like (deep breath) and you know, I couldn't, like, scream and tell anybody so I looked at myself in the mirror - something I never do - and (whispers) Robert Plant is on the phone. And, I have to tell you, you know (makes whiskers with her fingers)...whiskers. It was just a real moment for me."
-- Tori; MTV Revue, Nov 4, 1998

"I never had a fantasy of being a bride as a child after I realised that Robert Plant would never marry me. And with Dad being a preacher, I saw too many weddings. You see, I don't think I could ever have gotten married in America."
-- Tori; The Times (U.K.), Apr 11, 1998

"I started singing as a choirgirl. It was called the Cherub Choir and ...eh... I was a terrible singer, really, I had a very hard time even though I had good pitch. I was always trying to sound like Robert Plant. And you can imagine being a little girl trying to sound like ... some of my favourite musicians anyway I tried and sound like them. I remember this boy, Kevin Craig, when I was nine, writing a note to a girl called Peggy. And I had this huge crush on him, like huge, I was so in love with him. And he said: "Tori Ellen sounds like a frog, she's got the worst voice I've ever heard, she should shut up forever... (laughing) And I was crushed and didn't sing for like six months until my brother talked me into doing it again."
-- Tori; "Shirley and Tori", Canvas Television (Belgium), Jul 1, 1998

"As a ten-year-old I imagined I'd marry Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin. I loved him immortally. Later I got to know him. As we were sitting in the studio eating our indian fast food, he really asked me to marry him. He probably tells that seven women a day. And I believe he thinks he is King Arthur. I rejected his offer. Last year I married my soundmixer, Mark."
-- Tori; Die Zeit (German newspaper), Nov 11, 1999

I: Who was the first love of your life?
T: Jesus. But I got over when I first saw a picture of Robert Plant.
-- Tori; NME Magazine (U.K.), May 1998

"I first heard Led Zeppeiln II when I was eight or nine. My dad had the pastor's house next to the Good Shepard United Methodist Church. This was in Silver Spring, Maryland. I was downstairs in the rec room � television, record-player, shag-pile rug. My friend Linda Yon had lent me the album, and when I put it on my whole body started shaking. Initially, it was Robert's voice. I knew I needed it in my life, and quick. Up until then, I'd never understood what the men in my father's church were trying to keep me away from. I didn't get why they'd want to shield me from The Beatles or even the Stones, but as a little girl going into adolescence, I knew exactly why they wanted to keep me away from this record. Moral judgments was very much a part of my surroundings � and with Zeppelin, The Word was made flesh. There were always cute boys in church, and we'd go up into the steeple, smoke pot and play Spin The Bottle. With Zeppelin, though, there was more life below the navel and my femininity was awakened. Words and concepts get thrown around, but you don't necessarily understand until Oreo cookies starts happening in your own Wrangler jeans. I'd been playing piano since I was tow-and-a-half, but now I realized the importance of passion. John Bonham! Man, that guy could fuck to a metronome. The Beatles and Joni Mitchell had already taught me about structure and shape, but Zeppelin were evoking God knows what. And as much as Robert {Plant} might like to think he was in league with Valhalla, I'm convinced it was The Goddess who inhabited him. There was a Pacific Island goddess who would expose her internal parts in order to shatter this 'shame of the body' thing, and Robert could contain a woman like that. Yes, there was no question that he could penetrate, but he was also awaking the kundalini. Some of the men whose songs I've done on my new record are known for their misogyny, but to me, Zeppelin were never like that. Even at 10, I knew that I wanted to share peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Robert. I was gonna make 'em and take 'em and play some piano so we could do some songs together. Have I met him since? Oh, yeah. He's a wonderful mentor and he always seems to turn up at my shows. Then there's the melodic side of the album � the Jimmy of it. I didn't want to steal from other piano-players, so I studied guitarists like Jimmy instead. I'd take his riffs to the piano and try to jam with him. Later on, Zeppelin as a whole influenced my sense of melody. {She sings a phrase from Led Zeppelin IV's Going To California, whereupon MOJO suggests Tori's Tear In Your Hand sounds a little similar.} Does it? Well, that's good. It's not a rip, though, it's a variation. Zeppelin are embedded in my cell structure, so it had to come out somewhere. One of the first things that drew me to the album was the song titles. With The Lemon Song, I didn't understand the sexual innuendo. I was just thinking lemon-drop candy. I do remember that when I was 13, a junior high school friend filled me in on what it was really about. At first I thought, I don't really want to know this, but I turned it around in about five minutes. Other tracks? Well, Thank You is a wonderful song. I covered it a while back. I think Robert wrote it for his partner, and I remember thinking, I wish I could write something like that. My favorite has to be Whole Lotta Love, though. When I first met my husband {recording engineer Mark Hawley}, that song took on a new significance. Suddenly it was Oreo cookies again. Whole Lotta Love is an aphrodisiac, and it makes you want to put on your kitten-heel boots. In my later teens, I went off the album for a little while, but it was just a phase. It's become a part of me, so I don't ever feel segregated from it. Even now, I can go and find that little girl I was when I first heard the record. And now that I'm starting to deal with my various nieces' musical awakenings, that could be useful."
-- Tori; Mojo Magazine, Oct 2001

COLLABORATIONS
Down By The Seaside - Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin

COVERS
studio: Thank You - Led Zepellin
live: Whole Lotta Love - Led Zepellin
live: The Lemon Song - Led Zepellin