Abnormally attracted to Tori

(Credit: Karen Collins)

Tori Amos, 'Abnormally Attracted to Sin'

A sensual, sprawling set from the poetic pianist

Tori Amos grabbed her piano bench and launched her career at a time when record labels were mostly rolling grunge bands and gangsta rappers off their assembly lines. She’s been a fixture ever since, touring and releasing new material at a steady clip. Now 45, Amos likes to say that she’s entered the “classic car” phase of her career—but the classic car shows no signs of slowing (she jokes that she’ll be playing until she’s “80 in high heels”).

Her 10th album, “Abnormally Attracted to Sin,” takes a step back from the overarching concepts and characters that defined her recent albums, and returns to some familiar philosophical territory: sex, religion, gender roles and times of crisis.

Metromix pulled up a shady seat poolside at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Los Angeles to chat with Amos about sin, “sex magic” and the pioneering spirit of Stifler’s mom. 

Just the title “Abnormally Attracted to Sin” has made a certain segment of the population think that the album is automatically detrimental for their kids.
It is. Keep your children away—if you want your children to be subjugated by a male authority. If you want them free, send them my way and I’m going to encourage them. I’m a minister’s daughter who’s hell-bent on redefining sin for myself as a woman. It is absolutely unacceptable that women have to take on board some ancient patriarchal idea. If you go back to the ancient myths of Freyja...[women] held their sovereignty and power and sex—but not with vulgarity. I have traversed the gutters in order to understand. And I didn’t find it in the dark side. I was bored. Sex magic doesn’t happen there. Or spiritual magic.

There was an article making the rounds recently about Facebook and gender identity. The writer noticed how many women on Facebook present themselves as mothers, end of story, and lose track of any identity separate from that. Has that been a struggle for you?
Yeah, I mean, when I became a new mom, I wasn’t where I am now. I hadn’t been able yet to integrate being a mother and nurturing the woman. I think “The Beekeeper” is very much a record that was mother-driven, not woman-driven. And then “American Doll Posse” went woman-loaded guns, and the mother stepped out. I think this is a more integrated work. It was just an awareness that I had to come to. Even though I knew in my logical mind that I don’t need to take on those clichéd definitions, I found myself doing it. This programming is embedded in us. Mothers are nurturing forces—and erotica and mothers kind of makes your stomach churn. But that’s because of the definition of what erotica has become. It’s how these concepts have been absorbed by a patriarchy.

The sexualized mother has become a common comedic device: cougars, MILFs, Stifler’s mom in “American Pie”…
Yeah. But we had to break the stereotype of the mother. As you can see, it was en masse—that kind of stereotype was broken by little things like that. MILFs happened because the reality was that they were there, they were birthing themselves, and it had to be acknowledged. So that, in itself, becomes a different stereotype for a while, until you find ways to make it your own.

2009 has given us music from a number of artists who could be seen as torch carriers for you—Bat for Lashes, Regina Spektor, Polly Scattergood, among others. What kind of interaction do you have with artists who have gleaned inspiration from you? Do you have advice for them?
I think it’s wonderful. There were great women who inspired me, and if my songs have inspired younger artists, that’s really energizing. If this were 15 years ago, I might have been threatened by that if it was right on my tail. I’m being very honest about it; I think the industry puts fear into you. They pit you against your contemporaries. So I try and encourage the ones on their first, second, third records. And even their ninth record, yes, but by then they’re walking into classic car-dom. It’s not the first record that’s hardest, though I wouldn’t have believed that at the time. Now in this business, to me, to have a fourth record [is the hardest]. It goes back to how people are listening to music and viewing artists. Artists are new toys. They are! I’d like to think that I’m that 1992 Maserati or a bottle of ’92 Cristal that you pop. You’ve got to see yourself as aging well or you’re not going to survive.

[Universal Records CEO and longtime music mogul] Doug Morris has come up a lot in the press around this album, having played a key role both in your early career and on the new album. Speaking of torch carriers—will there even be a next generation of people like him in the record industry?
That’s an amazing question. I don’t know. I know some of the ones that are getting elevated, here and in Britain, and some of them are bad to artists. I’m not talking about Universal. I’m not mentioning names, but I’m telling you—they are not good men. Doug Morris came from a different time. He’s one of the great record guys. He was a songwriter. He broke “Little Earthquakes” worldwide. When he left during “Under the Pink,” it was a huge hole in my heart. He didn’t leave—he got locked out of Rockefeller Center. He had to crawl back, but with dignity. When you get locked out of Rockefeller Center, people in the business are going to shun you. It’s sort of like “Trading Places.” But I don’t know if Doug would be one of the most powerful men in the record industry if he hadn’t been betrayed and recognized who the good people are and who the bad people are.