Tori Amos: ‘I’m too raw and my gigs are torture for straight guys’
Singer Tori Amos has paid tribute to her gay fans, but said her gigs are “too raw” for straight men because they are “tortured” by them.
Speaking to the Guardian, the star talked about her personal life and raising her baby, as well as her musical career.
She went on to pay tribute to her gay fanbase, saying she learned a lot from them.
“It goes back so far, that was the beginning of my professional career. I was very impressionable at that age and they tried to teach me things, and they’re still teaching me things. I’ve learned a lot from my gay friends and continue to learn. With my gay male friends, they weren’t trying to tear me down or make me doubt myself; there wasn’t a competition, no secret envy of success that sometimes unfortunately can happen among young women where you compete with each other.
“You try to be magnanimous about your friends’ successes and try to be happy, but I never felt compared against gay guys. And even with dykes, I didn’t feel compared to them either. But I was brought up more by the gay boys – the lesbians came a bit later.”
Going on, Amos suggested she was “too raw” for straight men, because they are “tortured by what goes on” at her gigs.
“If you’re a straight man, there are a lot of heterosexual women at my gigs, so my crew says that this is where straight guys should come. But for straight men, I’m too raw, the emotional thing, the things you don’t want to talk about – that’s what goes on at my shows, [straight men are] tortured by what goes on.”
