Tori Amos - Hereinmyhead.com

Once upon a time... ...at the ripe old age of two and a half, Tori Amos found her calling in the living room of their family's new home in Baltimore, Maryland. While her older brother and sister were dutifully practicing for their obligatory piano lessons, little Tori was listening, and when they'd had their turn on the piano stool, she would toddle up and tickle the ivories herself. Soon she was playing classical pieces, popular tunes, and anything else that caught her ear. The Amos's piano, along with Nannie's organ in North Carolina, became additional members of Tori's family. She remembers "this huge black upright. It had one of those winding stool on it that could wind down low or wind up really high, and I would wind it down to get on it and then I would ask my brother to wind it up so I could reach the keys. He would always wind it up for me." -- All These Years, pg. 7

At the age of five, Tori was accepted into Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory of Music on a full scholarship. She was the youngest student the prestigious institute had ever admitted. "I remember everything about it," she asserts. "I remember these people sitting there, and I was an object to them, and I was aware of that. I was a thing that could do things. I felt a bit like a Dr. Seuss character." In 1974, at the annual Peabody audition, Tori played the required and prepared pieces in her own inimitable style, which resulted in her full scholarship not being renewed. -- All These Years, pgs. 10, 14

By her teens with her father as chaperone, Tori began fulfilling hotel bar engagements in and around Washington, performing easy listening standards. At home, she composed and recorded her own songs. Reverend Edison Amos then dutifully mailed them to record companies and dealt with the stream of rejection letters. For nigh on a decade, it seemed as if the minister's daughter was destined to burn eternally in the fires of piano lounge hell. By the start of the '80s despite Tori dogged efforts, the consensus among disinterested A&R personnel was that the appeal of the girl-and-a-piano concept had died in the '70s along with the dwindling commercial fortunes of Carole King. Narada Michael Walden - celebrated funkateer and future producer of Whitney Houston - disagreed, having spotted Amos playing in a hotel lobby and likened her to a young Joni Mitchell. Following a year in which the singer-songwriter posted off a succession of cassettes to Walden, at 19, Amos flew to San Francisco to work with him on her first serious demos. The resulting tracks featured her voice tweaked up a vari-speeded notch to make her sound more girly - which she hated - and no record contract was forthcoming.

In desperation, in 1984, at the age of 21, Tori Amos moved to Los Angeles, heralding the beginning of her ill-fated rock-chick makeover. In teased hair and thigh-length boots, she became a Sunset Strip metal fashion atrocity, although this transformation was to fleetingly pay dividends with the singing of her band Y Kant Tori Read to Atlantic Records. Following a fraught recording period in which the outfit disintegrated and the record company seized the creative reigns, the band's eponymous album was released to mass critical derision and negligible sales. Amos woke up to the reality that she had become "a musical joke". Licking her wounds, Tori turned once again to the piano and began to pen the confessional songs that would make up her 1992 solo debut album, Little Earthquakes. This move launched Tori's solo career to the height and awe which has inspired millions of devoted fans around the world.

In 1994, during the Under the Pink tour, Tori brought a nine-foot B�sendorfer grand piano on the road with her. She now had the "best piano in the world" as her faithful companion each night. Keeping the "B�se" company on-stage, and serving perhaps as a reminder of the little girl within, is the upright "Bells for Her" piano which has toys hidden inside it, and some naughty ones at that....Tori now works with two B�sendorfers, "the one that I own and the one that I tour with. The B�se I own is very much a recording instrument, she's not into touring." "She's eight years old now. She was in a church in New York City for a while where she got battered and abused, and she got shoved around to every club in the city before she was in the church, so she just got the shit beat out of her in New York, and I felt like she and I

"I spend most of my time with my B�sendorfer. The guys I pull in to work on a project use the computers in unbelievable ways. All the tracks are recorded, me and the piano alone first, then everything is built on top. So you can imagine how computers can be used. Tempo changes are happening all the time within my own structure and they have to get clicks for the musician to play on top of my work so that it make sense. There's loads of stuff that happens in the computer." -- Michael Pearce interview, 1994

"I played a B�sendorfer when I was little. I felt a difference in the presence of this instrument. It was like it had a ghost protecting it...sometimes it was sinister, others alluring. It was like the soul of it came from the underworld. I've played some Steins that I've had a relationship with For the most part, the B�sendorfers are hand made, you get the personality of the maker. It gives you more stuff to work with as a player. They're live things, they really are. -- AOL Online chat; Jan. 20, 1999

B�sendorfers are reputed as the world's finest pianos, founded by Ignaz B�sendorfer (builder of pianos & founder of the B�sendorfer firm). Handcrafted in Vienna, Austria since 1828, building techniques require 62 weeks to complete a single piano. The B�sendorfer Grand is considered the ultimate musical achievement. The beautiful sound and technical perfection of the action truly enhance the player's ability. Tori performs with a black, Model 290 Imperial Grand (97 keys, 9'6" ft. in length, 5'6" in width, and 570 kg in weight). This is the one that we see on-stage at the tours. To see the road crew fold "the giantess" up is a sight to see, indeed!

Inside the studio Tori introduces on of the two B�sendorfer pianos she owns as "my baby". Always referring to her instruments in the female third person, a year ago, Amos had told Q Magazine that this piano "had no character, she was boring". Now she admits, "She's making me pay for that statement daily," before beckoning Q under the piano's lid saying, "Here, put your head in," for the full cochlea-rattling experience. Following a torrent of expert arpeggios played by a swaying, trance-like Amos, she holds the sustain of the last note, and then emits a breathy, "Isn't she pretty?" -- Q Magazine (UK); May 1998

Tori also uses a Kürzweil K2500XS MIDI piano with zip drive connected (the infamous keyboard of Tori's signature simultaneous playing of both keyboard & piano) and Neumann KMS 140/150 hand held (vocalist) mics. With Boys For Pele, a combination of new-found freedom and encouragement led her away from her piano to different instruments and timbres. Besides new keyboard varieties, Tori experimented with the harpsichord, a harmonium organ, and a clavichord, as well as other instruments such as church bells, horns, strings, a gospel choir and bagpipes. Boys For Pele predominately features the rather aggressive sound of a harpsichord played through a B�sendorfer piano, and at the other extreme is the warmth of the Black Dyke Mills Brass Band from Yorkshire, England. The song Talula was written on the harpsichord.

Tori recorded her third album at home in Cork and on location in a church in Delgany, exploiting the natural acoustics of the aged building with Neumann microphones and a unique approach to the problem of isolation. Engineer Mark Hawley, fashioned an acoustic screen between her favoured piano and harpsichord to create sufficient separation while the overdub-free keyboard and vocal performance was executed. Some songs featured both keyboards--"I wanted the overhang from the piano when I hit the harpsichord," Tori reveals. (Overhang here refers to the sound of the piano as it slowly fades out, while the harpsichord comes in.) "In order to separate the vocal signal from the piano and harpsichord mics," says

From the Choirgirl Hotel chronicles a new phase in Tori's musical evolution that includes a full band - guitarist Steve Caton, bassist Jon Evans, and drummer Matt Chamberlain. "I wrote a lot of it at the keyboard but also at the synth, too. I have a.... What do I have? [Chuckles.] I have a Kürzweil. The good thing is they maxed me out at Kürzweil with sounds, and then my friend came in and gave me a bunch of sounds - Mellotron sounds and stuff, 'tron viola, 'tron flute, 'tronny stuff like that. I started messing with them and in some cases writing things around some of them, like in "Hotel." So the keyboard was very present while I was writing. I wrote most everything before I walked into the studio." "..the B�se...she's just in another league than the other ones. She's hand-made, and we got her MIDIed up so I can play with a band without all the feedback and stuff. If you played her, you would understand. Just in the action, the way she talks back to you as an instrument. She talks back in a different way."

../PRACTICE SPACE BASICS Tori Amos, keyboards, vocals: A shiny black B�sendorfer grand piano, a Kürzweil K2500XS MIDI piano with Zip drive connected, and Neumann KMS 140/150 hand held mics. Steve Caton, guitar. Two Schecter Trad guitars, a Schecter guitar tuned to Bb with a bass string for the "E," two ESP Eclipse guitars, a Renson Strat-style guitar tuned to Db, a '78 Valley Arts Strat-style guitar, a Roland Jazz Chorus 120 guitar amplifier with ElectroVoice Series II 12" speakers, a Roland GP100 guitar preamp processor, and a Roland FC200 MIDI foot controller. "I'm trying to organize the patches on the foot controller. I really don't want to step on the wrong pedal during a live show."

Matt Chamberlain, drums: An Ayotte Wood Hoop drum set with a 12" mount top, a 15" floor tom, a 22" kick, and a 14" Keplinger Metal snare. He uses Sabian cymbals; 14" hand-hammered duo hats, a 20" duo ride, a 16" AAX Studio crash, an 18" Sizzle crash and an 8" mounted saw blade. "You never know when you might need it." All his hardware is Drum Workshop. Interestingly, he has Taos Native American kick drum and snare. On the other end of technology he has a MIDI FAT PAD, and a Roland MS1 sampler. He pounds out the music's disparate rhythms with Vic Firth sticks.

Jon Evans, bass: A '72 fretless Fender Precision Bass, a '92 Tobias five-string bass, a DART Bi Level acoustic bass, and a Pikart Upright Bass. For amplification, he combines a Boss SE 70 effects processor, a Groove Tube preamp, and a Crown MicroTech 600 all shot through Acme LowB4 cabinets.

TL Audio�s Valve technology has recently become a firm favorite with Tori Amos, whose private studio in the UK is jointly run by Mark Hawley and resident engineer Marcel van Limbeek. The studio, which is based around a 60 channel Neve VR Legend / Sony 3324 combination, was set up 2 years ago to record the Choirgirl Hotel album, and it was during the mastering of this record by Jon Astley that Mark and Marcel were first introduced to TL Audio products. More recently they have been busy with the recording and mixing of Tori�s new album, and invested in a TL Audio C-1 compressor, EQ-2 equaliser and 5051 voice processor to assist the mixing process. Mark and Marcel told us: �We employed the EQ-2 on bass, 5051 on main vocals and the C-1 on the stereo mix. All the units are highly musical: with the EQ-2 for instance, you can be quite extreme with

Tori's "piano room", a cozy recording studio located within her Cornwall home, is where she recorded her 6th album, Strange Little Girls. The studio consists of one small room full of faders and mixers, and one large room full of keyboards. "I like being away from the record company," she says breezily. "for me to really create, I have to be away from people who are chasin' it."

SOUNDPROOFING (pointing to some square waffles on the wall) "Those are the icicles," Amos says of the small ziggurats that soundproof the studio. The Sound proofing enables Amos and Mark to work in contemplative silence. It also keeps out the noise of the neighbors cattle. They are, witnesses report, the loudest cows in the world. GUITARS Amos doesn't use a lot of guitars, but when she does, she makes them count. On this album, she makes Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" rock like the Stooges in a burning roller coaster. These guitars, however, are resting.

From her lastest album Strange Little Girls, Amos strove for a desert feel [for the song Rattlesnakes] and used a "Rhodes delay back and forth to create the tail of the rattlesnake." She tracked the song alone and calls it her personal favorite. During the Strange Little Tour 2001, Tori was seen performing with her ever-present B�se, the Fender Rhodes keyboard and a Würlitzer (Whurly), an organ used at the original Woodstock which she purchased from Country Joe and the Fish. Forever experimenting with sound and reinventing her "girls" with a new voice, Tori illustrates the roles and care of her instruments as she does to her music.