Q magazine (UK)
May 1998

The Diary of Tori Amos

[1997-1998, during the construction of Martian Engineering studios in a 300-year-old barn]

October 2nd
OK, so small noises at first. Like not so terribly irritating for before-the-sun’s-up noise. But by 7am every drill, saw and hammer that ever was is welcoming me. We have one week till the musicians come - we have half a roof.

October 3rd
George is my favourite builder. He swears that there are Germans that will be doing a rear dorsal attack at 13 hundred hours, so maybe I’d like to bring over plenty of sandwiches and a thermos of hot tea before the siege.

October 9th
Drummer arrives today, we have sort of a roof. It looks like thousands of bin bags superglued.

October 23rd
I’m having flashbacks of a hospital emergency room. There’s bed upon bed with not a Chelsea blue for the sheet color but kinda a more faded color. All I really want is a little nap. The nurse - there’s only one - says she needs the beds and I can’t nap and I say this place is empty except for hundreds and hundreds of beds and she said if I can find a bed without chopped pieces of hair on it I can lay down, and sure enough I go from bed to bed finding clumps strands split ends of every colour and kind possible. I don’t know if it’s worth trying to make sense of this but the boys were dying their hair this week to look like Debbie Harry and Marcel had an accident.

November 5th
The Butchers’ League Of North Cornwall knocked on the studio door and said, “We’d like to record our Christmas album here. We normally record down at Giles’s in Strawhaven but we thought since you’re new... you’d give us a deal.” The engineer said, “How much do you pay at Strawhaven?” “Well,” said the Butcher, “we normally get it for free.”

November 18th
Fire engine fridge with magnets of Marilyn: one of us changes her outfit every day. There is no law other than she MUST be changed.

December 7th
Fish bottoms, Tellytubby heads. We did our own choreography to “Children’s it’s alright to pass gas song.”

December 23rd
Christmas shopping for the boys - got Marcel a porno star belt buckle. The surf shops are as good as Zuma Beach in Cali. This one surfer genuinely invited me to go surfing in the North Sea on Christmas Day. “It’s for charity,” he said. It would have to be.

January 5th
Taking a little Cornish walk, a hand reaches out - I don’t even know this woman - she gives me some sherry. I don’t even like sherry. I feel like I was being anesthetised - Beene calls this true happiness. What’s her plan - I’m not sure but after the second or third glass of sherry promised her my house, backstage passes to all the shows, free transport to and from the gigs, a place in the band for her grandson, if she’ll just let me go. She grabs my arm and says, “So then, will you bring around that tall dark intriguing Dutchman sometime?” (Rob). Gulp, whew. Does that mean I get to keep my house?

January 10th
Shocking cold. The piano is dropping quickly. Scalextrics isn’t affected. I put on a pair of shorts and whipped up Sea Breezes for the boys. Checking into... um, Betty Boop.

January 27th
Mixing - still - mixing. I’ve written Nurofen into my will. Bless those people.

February 1st
The night the builders and the crew go out story. It was suggested to me that everybody needed a night out so the builders came to rescue the crew. It was suggested to me that I should grab my boyfriend and have a night in. So I get all these scented candles, a bottle of warm-on-the-throat red and everything’s going really well for the girl. I’m off in that never land and from far away I hear my boyfriend say, “Hey Tori I think all your candles are really beautiful but do you smell something funny?” Wouldn’t you know the duvet was burning.

Next Day
I’m up early. Marcel’s walking into the door. “Jeez,” I said, “what happened to you, then?” He had just walked all night nine miles - the other boys had some luck with some teachers while he was prancing completely naked in the kebab shop and somehow missed his ride.

 

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