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On Monday morning, August 19, 2002, Tori was in the studio of radio station KROQ in Los Angeles, CA giving an on-air interview with Kevin & Bean. Tori discussed many things, including some comments about Scarlet's Walk and the theme behind Scarlet's journey through America. She also revealed that the CD for Scarlet's Walk will also be a key to a web site where you will be able to download b-sides and maps of Scarlet's Journey.
Danny at dqpc.net sent me a full transcript of this interview, and you can read that below. For those who prefer a shorter summary, look below the transcript for a summary of the interview from Toriphile Rachel Cuhrow.
Complete Transcript
As an intro, they first played “a sorta fairytale” announcing that Tori would be right after the song. The transcript is as follows:
KROQ (K)
TORI AMOS (TA)
1st Part: “A Sorta Fairytale”
K: You are listening to the Kevin & Bean Show in the World’s Famous KROQ 106.7 and that unmistakable voice is Tori Amos. I know her! We know her! I know that dude! Tori Amos, yeah. The CD is coming out October 29th, is called Scarlet’s Walk and again that’s “A Sorta Fairytale”. Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome back to the Studio, our friend Tori. Hey Tori
TA: Hello Bean! Hi Kevin!
K: How are ya?
TA: Really well
K: It’s good to see you again. Can’t remember the last time we talked to you. We talked to you within the last year certainly. But I can’t remember, it’s been a while.
TA: Yeah, lot’s happened.
K: What’s happened?
TA: Well the biggest thing is we’re potty training, and we’ve almost…
K: Sure, and by we you mean you and your husband.
TA: yeah and are almost 2-year old and it’s really working, she is doing great and wow! What a trip!
K: Isn’t it funny how two and a half years ago, your life was about certain things and all of a sudden, your entire life is focused on just poop. You know what I mean, it’s really amazing the transformation there.
TA: the thing is that people would tell you, having a crew of a lot of guys and few women, but a lot of guys who would talk this talk, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
K: Of course!
TA: And I just don’t like talking that kind of talk it’s just, uh, uh, um, shh. Don’t say it! I don’t wanna talk about it! You know, nice things, nice things. I mean, I’ll talk about porno, I’ll talk about anything but not…
K: not bodily functions
TA: no
K; I gotcha!
TA: Lipgloss is where it stops for me. So now can you imagine, now is like “mommy potty in living watching Harry Potter (with English Accent)” Oh my God, it’s so complicated!
K: Wait for a year and a half to two years, when it’s their favorite thing to talk about bodily functions, wait til that point.
TA: She can talk to her daddy then.
K: that’s what Kevin did… it’s so much coming with Daddy now!
K: Tori here is what I was talking to you briefly at the end of your song when you came in, It’s weird that, you lived in the US your whole life, right? Pretty much?
TA: yeah
K: and then you’re just up and married this “bloke” and now you’re foreigner
TA..- ish, foreigner, I’m here part of the time, but because he said to me: “look, I’d really wanna know what you’re like pottering down to the garden when you’re 80, but I don’t’ wanna live there.” And I said: “what do you mean, because you work there, we met there”. And he said: “ I just really need to be where there’s football, formula 1 and good tea.” And I said “okay, well love makes you do crazy things.” So, I moved to a place where it rains all the time, every day.
K: Ouch… When did you have the conversation, did you have it before you got married or after you got married.
TA: We have these conversations, once in a while, which is: “husband, it’s been raining for three weeks, I really gotta go.” And he’ll say: “ why don’t you go and take off a day with Beanie, one of my friends.” Because he really loves being there. I mean a holiday for him is being in the rain, walking in the rain, making you a cup of tea.
K: How long are you gonna be able to take that?
TA: I don’t know!
K: It’s gonna drive you nuts!
(everybody laughs)
K: What about, because when I travel, I don’t get a chance to travel nearly as much as you do, but when I travel, there’s so many things you miss the familiarity, the comfort level of how easy things are in United States, and just seems like when you go to other countries, is not that it’s better or worst, is just that you are used to, there must be a lot of things about the United States that you miss being gone for months at a time.
TA: of course, and people send “care” packages to me all the time, and that’s really good
K: What’s your favorite item to get in the care package?
TA: cinnamon toothpaste by Tom’s.
K: really?
TA, I really love that…
K: What was it like, I think the last time we talked to you was not long after September 11, What was it like seeing how seeing the coverage from the other side of the pond, rather than being here, did you feel some sort of desperate wanting to come back here because this is where everything was happening? Or were you kind of glad that you missed it you weren’t in the country?
TA: Well, I was in NYC, on Sept. 11th
K: Ouch, bad, bad question.
TA: no, no no. Because I toured after that. We made a decision to tour because we were getting a lot of emails from people saying look, everybody’s canceling, and even if you just sit up there, lose your voice, whatever, we just need a place to go to see each other, they needed a place to congregate, so we felt like having been there and seeing that the masks came down, the makeup came off for people in NY and people I think for maybe the first time in a long, long time were talking about things, asking questions that I haven’t heard in my lifetime in the US. My mother tells me during WWII, there’ll be questions like that, because there we were attacked and it was that feeling that people felt in Pearl Harbor, you know, everybody says that, but when I went overseas, um, Europe was really with us, their heart was there, they were very much almost like a good sister; but then, as things started to get to a place of we’re moving to other countries, not mentioning any names right now, but, the feeling was ‘hey guys, we stood by you on this one, but don’t take advantage and say, now let’s beat up everybody that we don’t like, we don’t’ feel good about that.’ And you know, they have a huge Islamic community in Europe, and people have to understand that the foreign policy there, people read about it in the papers everyday. And we don’t really get that here, not that kind of coverage, and that’s the thing that fascinates me. That’s a big, big difference.
K: The impression I’m getting from countries like it, is that they start to look at the US like a big bully
TA: That’s right!
K; and that doesn’t seem like it boats well for what’s ahead.
TA: No, but don’t you think, Bean, that a generation has to raise up and whether it’s the one behind us in college, and just say, ‘hey, we gotta take part and figure out what our country is doing. How they’re pimping her out’. Because you know, some of these guys are either gonna be dead or senile, when this country is given to the next generation. And people are gonna wake up and say: ‘we didn’t know this was going on!’
K: Tori I gotta tell you, we, uh, we have the opportunity to see a lot of our listeners. I don’t want them running this country! I don’t know who needs to be there instead, but please, not the wake and bake club! Somebody else!
TA: I have faith in them.
K: yeah, but your fans are different that ours. I don’t mind your fans running the country. I don’t want our fans running the country.
TA: Don’t you guys think that your fans might be better than what we’ve got in there now… ?
K: Oh God, now, you haven’t met our fans. Listen, we have to take a quick break, Tori Amos is in the studio, we kind of got out of the topic we wanted to talk about, which is Scarlet’s Walk, we gotta find out all about that, you got a brand new record label this time, which must be very exciting for you.
TA: Very
K: And I know you’ve got big plans for the future once this record comes out. I wanna hear all the dirt when we come back. Once again, Tori Amos in the world’s famous KROQ.
2nd part: “Cornflake Girl”
K: This is the world’s famous KROQ, 106.7, it’s the Kevin & Bean Show and during that record we found out that Tori Amos hates Alaska
TA: (chuckle)
K: That was really disappointing that she feels that way about one of our greatest states.
TA: If you all believe this two cracks,
K: they all know it by now, not to believe everything we say.
TA: Tell them what we were talking about Scarlet, my character, goes to all the states, because she’s taking a road trip
K: The name of the new album is gonna be “Scarlet’s Walk”, and this is a character that you’ve created named Scarlet,
TA: Yeah
K: And the character goes from West to East?
TA: Slowly
K: Throughout the US?
TA: Yes
K: She’s road tripping but not the you know, all night truck-stop, beer-bond road trips they were used to. This is like a mission a searching the soul kind of thing.
TA: Yeah, but she passes a few truck stops, there are cute people there too. You know she covers a lot of grounds.
K: How did you come up with the idea?
TA: Well, on the road last year, in the wake of the twins going down, and uh, decided to tour, started to see the country in a different way.
K: Did you get a completely different reaction from the audience after that when you were performing?
TA: Every night! Definitely, depending on what city, what they I guess what their background is, if there was a military base, certain cities would be more aggressive about the whole thing, and certain cities, say Seattle for example, is a little more left wing. So they would be: ‘Hey, why isn’t anybody asking the question why does everybody hate us so much?’ But then you go to another place, say where there is a different sort of tone, and people would be ‘go, kill, go’.
K: Like San Diego or some place.
TA: Well I’m not mentioning any names because…
K: Like San Diego or some place.
TA: (chuckles)
K: Plus you got cities that would be affected differently, like Los Angeles for instance, because what, 3 out of 4 jets where on their way to Los Angeles, from Boston where they took off,
TA: Right, yeah. Well the thing is playing NY, playing Boston, playing DC, uh, very uh, the audience was in mourning, you were dealing with people that had lost somebody, and so the set-lists were differently, I approached it differently. And it was much more of a candlelight vigil concert.
K: You don’t even do that Macarena medley when you’re those cities. Right?
TA: Have I ever done that? Have I ever done that?
K: You should do it Tori.
TA: I don’t know
K: Everyone would freak out.
K: I don’t know, how does the Macarena go? Lalalala Macrena….that’s how it goes. But as you go across the county, and you’re the type of person who meets a lot of your fans and talks to them about a lot of things and they seem to open up to you, and you noticed there was something in the air that you felt you wanted to capture that you wanted to write about.
TA: Yes and there was a seed that was planted after the 11th, which was that people started seeing America as a soul as a being. Whether it’s their mother or a love or a sister, whatever it was to them.
K: They were actually people again…
TA: She was a being, as the Native Americans have always thought of her, she’s a living essence who has a past that goes back before the colonists so Native Americans would come and visit me too and they would be saying things like “now is the time,” when the people that hold the land and the people that own the land need to come together and try and take care of her. And I kind of sat back and said things are happening here on so many levels and I just need to keep traveling and need to keep taking information and this story started weaving itself. Scarlet really is a threat, that’s all it is. It goes through me for a lot of it but then sometimes leaves me particularly when my character goes to the Boston airport and I take a little flight into New York and I get in and the threat has followed another woman on another plane that ends up going to New York and the plane doesn’t make it so the threat comes back to me and it’s very painful what I’ve learned from this other woman’s experience.
K: You know what I haven’t done in a long time, I don’t know, ever, is listen to a whole album as one piece. I find a song I like and I just fixate on it until I am tired of it. Do people in general do that? Are you a little worried that they will miss the whole story line and treat it as a whole piece?
TA: Well, I kinda recommend –go driving with it because that’s how it was created. It’s a road trip. You can make it to Palm Springs and back, it’s a long way, it’s long.
K: You may have to go back to Palm Springs half way and then turn around.
TA: I mean, it’s a long record but it is a story so it’s like skipping around in a book. Let’s just start with chapter 4. So, you know.
K: I’ll have to listen to it that way. I’m just, that’s not the habit that I am in, treating the entire album as a story or as a through line or as a whole thing.
TA: But what about when you were a kid? ‘cause I think it was different then, I listen to albums top to tail when I was a kid.
K: I was never that kind of person, but I know Bean is a whole picture guy. October 29th is when it comes out, Scarlet’s Walk and you are on Epic records now. Any difference being with a different label? Were there reasons why you wanted to leave or did you just get a better deal at Epic or what happened there? You’ve been with Atlantic since day one, right?
TA: Yeah, fifteen years. It was one of those things where some of my dear friends were still there but the suits, those who are they and I saw things differently and the marriage got to a point where you know, there were no more conjugal rides…
K: Irreconcilable differences?
TA: Yeah, and the funny thing is that the label can have all these love affairs with these other people but I am sitting there and I couldn’t even get the pool boy. You know, you can’t do anything with anybody, I couldn’t sing for anybody but my mother if I would have left so I had to my due diligence
K: You gotta do what you gotta do!
TA: And Poly over at Epic is just great, but she’s a woman’s woman.
K: And you feel that they are excited about you and making you feel like a priority and that’s enough of good news for you and your fans…
TA: You know what they said to me..when she came to visit me she said you know what, just do what you do, that’s all I ask. And she looked at me and said but you know, can you do it well? I said I’ll give it a go.
K: Try not to suck in other words? (laugh) They didn’t mind all the fairy BS and they’re down with all that?
TA: Wait a minute, the thing about the fairy BS, is have you been to Ireland and started dissing the fairies because they will kick your behind.
K: Yeah, they will, that’s true.
B: No, he doesn’t usually go to Ireland and start…
TA: Why don’t you go to Ireland, you know, I dare you. Go to Ireland, go in a pub around midnight and start saying fairies suck. Let’s see what you look like once they are through with you baby.
K: Well, if you put it that way, I am on board with the fairies BS. And one more thing, but we’re kind running out of time, tell us about the extras that are the CD, this is awesome, the maps and stuff.
TA: Well, this is how it works. So when you get the CD, I kind of figured, you know you can’t change technology, I mean people are doing what they do…
K: The cat’s out of the bag?
TA: Yeah, so you change it’s function. So the CD becomes a key and then you put it into your computer and it will take you to Scarlet’s Web. So that’s the only way you can get there.
K: You can’t type it in you have to have the CD.
TA: No, it will be a code, that I am sure somebody will break within 8 months but I’ve got 8 months and I kind of know that, but once you get to Scarlet’s Web there will be extra tracks which in the old days would have been B-sides but because we don’t do that anymore…
K: Oh, there’s extra songs?
TA: Absolutely! And this is part of her journey too but I just decided I can only fit so many and the maps where she went come alive so you can go visit them in detail, you know, know where she went, you just don’t know who she slept with or where (laugh).
K: Beautiful! That’s a good idea.
TA: A lot of research but big fun!
K: Why are you making us wait until October 29th? That’s a long time.
TA: Why? I’m still doing the maps.
K: You’re still working on it?
TA: Every state, every road.
K: Except Alaska, because you hate them (laughs)
TA: I love them! That’s the only state I haven’t been to
K: That’s all I am saying…
TA: And I am going to go there, so I had to research this because I haven’t been myself but I would like to go.
K: Alright, Tori you are one of our favorite guests, listen to that, she is giving me the raspberry, I said nice things about her. You are one of our favorite guests, we always enjoy spending time with you, it’s just that time goes by way too fast.
TA: Thank you guys
K: You are a smart lady and a nice lady and a powerful lady and really, we love you. We do – Scarlet’s Walk, is the name of the new CD and it out October 29th. Thanks for coming in.
TA: OK, and you both are very naughty! Goodbye.
Interview Summary
Toriphile Rachel Buhrow sent me this description of the interview Tori had this morning, and you can read that below. If anyone can provide a full transcript to the Dent, that would be appreciated.
Kevin and Bean started their 9:00 hour off with a hard rock song. (I forgot which one, I was too excited for Tori's attendance) Then they got on the air and started by saying that Tori Amos had a new album coming out on October 15th, called Scarlet's Walk. Then played "A Sorta Fairytale". After that they came back on, stating "that was the unmistakable voice of Tori Amos" with a new album coming out on October 29th, called Scarlet's Walk. Darn, I was getting excited about the closer release date.
They welcomed her on the show. She replied that it was good to see them. (Tori, Kevin and Bean have spoken on several occasions, and have a great rapport.)They asked something about how things were going. She replied that the biggest thing going on right now is potty training, apparently her daughter is doing well with it. Kevin and Bean were quick with the potty humor, to which Tori replied, "Oh Dear". "I'll talk about porn, not bodily functions... lip gloss is about as far as I go". She spoke about the baby in the living room wanting to go potty and watch "Harry Potter" (The name of the film in an adorable British accent).
Soon started the questions about living in England. She said that it was her husband's idea, that they were here part of the time, worked here, met here. He doesn't want to live there (here). She stated that it rains all the time, that he lets her go on vacations with her friend when she can't stand it anymore, that he loves being there; and also that love makes you do things. The KROQ crew asked her if she missed it, cause she has lived here all her life, when she said "Of course", and that she got "care packages". They asked what her favorite items were, and she replied "Cinnamon toothpaste by Toms", she really loves that stuff.
They got into September 11th. They asked her how she felt about it, being in another country, seeing it from the other side. She rebutted that she was in New York City on the 11th. (Apparently they didn't know that). She continued touring when everyone else cancelled, saying that the people needed it. She watched their masks came down, people came out and starting talking; asking questions. Her mother said that nobody has really asked questions like that, since WWII, since Pearl Harbor. She also talked about when she went back to Europe, that Europe was with us (using a very Tori-like phrase) "almost like a Good Sister"; but that Europe is now saying, we stood with you, don't take it too far. She said a big difference between here and there is that Europe reads about foreign policies a lot more than Americans do. KROQ said that they heard that England was kind of looking at us like a "Big Bully", to which Tori replied "That's right". She said that a generation needs to rise and pay attention to what is going on in this country. "Perhaps those in college now". That someone needs to find what they are doing to the US, how they are "Pimping Her out" (Another classic Tori-ism). When Kevin and Bean started talking the usual smack about their listening audience, Tori simply replied "I have faith in them, at least they can put together a sentence". KROQ admitted that they had gotten off track, were there to talk about the record, and the new record label. They'd get back on course after the break.
They come back from the break, after a "Cornflake Girl" interlude. They are now telling us that Tori hates Alaska, Tori defending. The conversation is a jumbled mess with everyone talking over everyone, and Tori trying to get them to tell the listening public what they were talking about, but the subject moves to the album. Scarlet is of course the character, going across all the states; "Slowly, West to East". Scarlet is on a road trip. Kevin and Bean start talking about how it isn't an ordinary road trip, hitting truck stops and stuff, but a "mission". Tori replies with a "Yeah, but she passes a few Truck Stops on the way". She said that she got the idea for the album last year on tour, that she started seeing things, and places differently. She said every place was different, that the mood was different in every city. She said that in Cleveland (where most everyone is on the "Left" side) they were asking questions, like "Why does everybody hate us"? On the other hand, other cities were angry, especially those with military. (At this comment, Kevin and Bean kept mentioning San Diego, probably because of the huge USMC base down there). Tori would not name names (very diplomatic, I think). She spoke of how New York, Boston and D.C. were in mourning, that a lot of them had lost someone, and that those places were approached in another way than others, with a "Candle-light Vigil" type atmosphere. Also the set list was made to be appropriate with the mood.
Tori said that there was a "Seed planted after 9/11." That people started seeing "America as a soul, as a being, mother, love sister." That "She is a being, a living essence" as the Native Americans have always believed. She stated that she has spoken with Native Americans recently, and they have said "Now is the time for people who own the land and hold the land need to come together". For Earth. She said that so many things were going through her, that she couldn't comprehend it all. "Scarlet is a thread that goes through me", and sometimes out of her, apparently. She spoke of a song where Scarlet goes out of her when she is entering a train from Boston to New York, and that Scarlet follows another woman on another plane; one that never makes it to New York. The thread then comes back to her, bringing a profound sadness with it. (Wow, Deep... but then again, isn't that Tori?)
Kevin (or Bean, I can never tell them apart) says that he usually fixates on one song in a record, and plays it over and over. He asks her if she would not recommend it on this one, if he should try and listen to it all the way through. Her advice to this is simple, "Go driving with it" that's how it was made, and how it was intended to be. She says that you can make it to Palm Springs and back, that its a "Looong record". (YIPEEEE!!!)
They go on about her changing her record label. She had 15 years at Atlantic, they wanted to know why she changed. She said that she still had dear friends there, but that they had different ideas. She said that it was like a marriage with no more conjugal visits, and that the company got to have affairs with other artists; said that she didn't get any, "not even the pool boy"! She said that she could only sing to her mother, other than them. Epic (the person she mentioned there was named Polly) asked her just to do what she did, then added "but do it well". Tori said she'd try. Bean (or is it Kevin? What do I know?) asked her if they put up with the "Faery B.S." She asked if they'd ever been to Ireland. She said that if you "diss faeries, they'll kick your behind". Then she dared them to go into a pub in Ireland at midnight, and yell "FAERIES SUCK!" and we'll see what they do to you. They dropped the subject, put up with the "Faery B.S."
Tori went into very interesting features of the knew album. She said that the cd was a key to Scarlet's Web. A series of maps, extra tracks, and only Tori knows what else. Maybe they are all one thing. Technology is amazing kiddos. She said that she could only fit so many maps, but that it makes Scarlet come alive. That you "Know where she went, just not who she slept with on the way". She didn't go to Alaska, yet. She said she is still working on the cd, which is why it is coming out so late. (KROQ asked her why she was making us wait so long) I think that has to do with the earlier remarks about her hating Alaska; that she still hasn't been there.
They then wrapped up the show, Kevin and Bean telling her what a pleasure it was having her there. Tori's final words: "You are both very naughty. Bye".
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