Piano-driven Tori Amos looks to the news for inspiration

By ALBERT CHING
TRIBUNE

     In a musical career in which she's become known for intensely personal lyrics in hits such as "Silent All These Years," singer/songwriter Tori Amos has taken to using the news as a muse.

     " ‘The Beekeeper' is a mixture of the microcosm and the macrocosm," Amos says of her latest album. "We can't shut what's happening in the world out of our apartments or our homes because it's affecting us, it's affecting our relationships."

     Current events shaped much of the new disc, her eighth studio album.

     "When I'm trying to write a song like ‘Mother Revolution,' or a song like ‘General Joy,' they're both very much inspired by the times that we're living in and the fact that we're at war," Amos says.

     Songs such as "Barons of Suburbia" further represent this blend — on the surface, they appear to be consistent with typical Amos fare, but metaphors can be drawn to her thoughts on a world gone wrong ("I'm in my war, you're in yours").

     "There's always an ulterior motive to everything I do," Amos says. "I believe when there is destruction everywhere, the only way to combat destruction is to create."

     Amos recently let fans in on her creative process in "Tori Amos: Piece by Piece," a peek under the piano top cowritten with journalist Ann Powers.

     The singer isn't worried that publishing the tome will ruin her mystique.

     "I didn't feel that the mystery would be taken away," she says. "I've read books from visual artists that have really given me a lot of tools to develop myself as a composer and a performer."

     Amos is optimistic that, just as she was inspired by artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe and Max Ernst, her tome will similarly move people.

     "I hope the book will motivate those creative forces," she says. "Fuel the fire within their being to pick up their pen and write."

     Tori Amos With: The Ditty Bops, Brandi Carlile and Imogen Heap When: 7:30 p.m. today Where: Dodge Theatre, 400 W. Washington St., Phoenix Cost: $25-$45 Information: