Tori Amos - Hereinmyhead.com

take a trip on a rocketship

An interview with Cindy Palmano
Really Deep Thoughts Fanzine, Issue #4

Cindy Palmano's six year old son, Buster, was building a space rocket while we talked to Cindy about her work with Tori. On reflection, that seems appropriate since it was just over two years ago that Cindy was helping Tori put together a rocketship of her own.

Certainly Tori's music stands on its own merits but in today's music market the graphic design of and album and its promotional videos plays an important part in launching any new release. Cindy did an outstanding job on Little Earthquakes, as well as its associated singles and videos. She contributes her own unique vision, capturing the viewer's attention without overpowering the music itself.

RDT: Thank you for agreeing to talk with us. What kind of work do you normally do?

CP: The only videos I've done successfully have been for Tori. Prior to that I hadn't made any moving film and I'm commonly known as a still photographer. Which means I don't really get involved in the pop world much. The last cover that I did before Tori was the Pet Shop Boys. I do do record covers from time to time but that isn't my main source of work. It's quite hard to pinpoint what my main source of work is. Still photography, but the subject matter can range from interiors to still-lifes to landscapes to advertising. Editorial or advertising, I suppose.

RDT: You have a pretty wide range. How did you get involved with Tori?

CP: By Elyse Taylor, who works at East West Records. She and I had met each other some years previously, I can't remember who through. Obviously, professionally, She remembered my work from that period of time and when Tori came in, said, "I'd like to put you two together." It was entirely of her making.

RDT: How did you work with Tori to get a feel for the music and message?

CP: We worked incredibly closely, in close contact. I'd take her through scene by scene, exactly how I imagined it going. We'd rehearse it. When we'd rehearse it, we were just really intimate. We knew what we were going to do before we did it. I think that's a pretty good way to work, actually. It's a good way to go, to know what you're going to shoot first and then it allows you the freedom to move from that.

RDT: Do you storyboard?

CP: Yes, very precisely, down to the word.

RDT: With "Silent All These Years" it seemed like you must have worked very closely. It's hard to imagine any other video for the song.

CP: We had the luxury of time, though, you see, because Tori was not celebrated at that point at all. We had the time to go off and do that without her having huge schedules to meet. Obviously she was busy, but not to the same extent that people are when they've achieved any sort of success. In photography, too. I do think it's everything towards making something good or not is giving it the time. It's a sort of comment on modern-day life, in a sense, isn't it, that nobody has the time.

RDT: How long did it take?

CP: Shooting time, we shot over two days. Preparation time I suppose was about two weeks. Conceptual time... I don't know, it's hard to tell actually because I wasn't only working on that project. It was so long ago now that I can hardly remember.

RDT: I know! I'm asking you to remember things that happened over two years ago. I'm sure you've been asked this before, but comparisons have been made between the U.S. cover for Kate Bush's The Kick Inside and the cover photo of Tori for Little Earthquakes. Both artists are pictured in a wooden crate.

CP: I don't know what you're talking about, actually.

RDT: I feel silly now. Kate Bush's first album pictured her in a wooden crate...

CP: Did it?! I had no idea.

RDT: When Tori's album came out there was talk among Kate Bush fans that it might be some sort of reference to Kate.

CP: There is no such thing as a new idea. I'll tell you where the crate came from. What I make as part of a picture always is relevant. It's never there without having had a thought process behind it and around it or explored, because that's the way I work. The box wasn't there just because it was a box. I had the box made specifically because it was a simplification of the idea of Alice In Wonderland. Tori was de-scaled, hence the tiny piano, too.

Anything that's a good idea, if it works, it doesn't matter if it comes from a conceptual basis or it if just works. I really rate Kate Bush, I think she's great. I'm sure that her album cover was good. Maybe I did see it. Maybe I have seen it and maybe it did come up as a subliminal thing. But who knows where things come from? I certainly wasn't consciously aware of it.

RDT: You've mentioned that you worked very closely with Tori. In "China," the stone piano, where did that idea originate? Were there ideas that were specifically Tori's or yours?

CP: I don't like dividing things into whose they were and where they came from. Do you know what I mean? It's sort of unnecessary. When ideas are sparked between two people then it's very hard to say. When one person is generating an idea, it might be because the other person is enabling them to generate it or to spark it. It's not as simple as who thought of what.

It's an ongoing process as to what one likes and what one doesn't like. Tori might say something and I'll say, "No, I hate that." And I'll say something and she'll say, "No, I can't do that to a piano." For example, one thing I wanted to do in "Silent All These Years" which she absolutely refused was that I wanted to smash a piano up and feed it through a square hold and she said, "No, I can't do that to a piano. It's like killing an animal." She just couldn't handle it at all.

The ideas come as a result of really intensive work and hopefully on the foundation that they're interesting. One tries to make them interesting, listening to the music, so that people stretch their brain, so that they're thinking, being amused and enjoying it. Hopefully it makes them giggle or think gets that kind of reaction, as opposed to one of negativism.

The stone piano came as a result of the record company insisting that they must have a piano in the video. So we stuck one in there.

RDT: We've had questions about some of the image in "Silent All These Years." The balloons in the videos, they are balloons?

CP: They are. They obviously have to do with women. (laughs) There was a male image, but we just didn't have time to put it in. It was a bunsen burner with a test tube was bubbling and bubbling until it overflowed. It was a brilliant image, but there just wasn't time. It would have appeared in the bank of images in that part of the video. It has a modern look, very clean.

RDT: Those shots appear on the tour T-shirt. Did you design it as well?

CP: No, no I didn't. I could have designed some fantastic merchandising, actually. They didn't ask me. Silly of them. (laughs) What was the T-shirt? It was the back cover of the 12" I think.

RDT: "Crucify" has a different feel from the rest of the videos.

CP: I took it to a certain stage and then the record company wanted to edit it in a different way. It got a bit uncomfortable so they finished it off and I didn't.

RDT: "Crucify" has the definite MTV "short attention span" feel. It's a shame, really.

CP: "Crucify" could have been good but it was cut with some mad stuff that they shot later. I didn't shoot any of the performance clips. I think it looks dreadful, that stuff. It's such an obvious approach to femininity, that, and it's one that I'm not at all interested in.

The filling of the bath was good, wasn't it? That was a good shot. I really liked that one. I like when she steps into the bath and comes out of the bath. It all looks really Hitchcock, I love it.

RDT: The clothing in "Crucify" is reminiscent of Anne Boleyn.

CP: Yes, exactly.

RDT: Was that the thought?

CP: Well, one of the queens, I don't mind which. (laughs)

RDT: We haven't talked about the "Winter" video...

CP: Oh yeah, that's a nice one.

RDT: The scenes with the children are wonderful.

CP: She adores childre. Children adore her. That's a really nice thing, actually. It's quite rare.

RDT: Did Tori have the bellbottom look before, or did she come up with this for the video?

CP: It wasn't us, it was the stylist, Karen Binns, who was fantastic. That was her look. She and Tori went and made that look. I just fed colors that I was interested in. They made the look.

I think it was just to do with the nostalgia, because "Winter" is about her father. It's a nostalgic song and certainly that's the way I interpreted it, so that it would look timeless. It does look a bit timeless, that video. It could have been shot at the same time as Sesame Street. It has a Sesame Street feel to me. It's very simple.

RDT: What can we look for for other work of yours, you mentions Pet Shop Boys earlier.

CP: I did the Pet Shop Boys Actually cover. One of them is yawning. That was an award winner, I think. It got a gold or platinum or something.

RDT: How did it feel to be nominated for the awards? Was it a surprise to you?

CP: Yes, because I didn't know that such a thing existed. (laughs) The nomination for best video was a double surprise.

RDT: You were nominated for "Silent All These Years" for "Breakthrough Video" and Best Cinematography at the MTV awards. I believe that Red Hot Chili Peppers won the Breathrough video for "Give It Away."

CP: Was I? "Give It Away" is a great video. He's a friend of mine, the guy who made that. Better that it was won by a friend. At least it was a good piece of work. It could have been a horrible pop thing but it wasn't. It was an arty look.

RDT: Where did the idea for the lyric design for the album come from?

CP: In a square? Well, because everything else was square, I suppose. (laughs) I reckon that with lyrics, I don't know, I haven't followed lyrics when I'm listening to something for ages, but usually what you do is you listen then you look to the lyric sheet when there's something you can't hear. You only look to it then. I don't think you follow it with the lyric sheet. You may as well try something new.

RDT: What about the capital letters?

CP: Oh, I just picked out the ones that I thought would look good in capital letters. (laughs) In fact, we did it over the telephone. I asked Tori to sing it so that if somebody was trying to follow it, it would help relate. Then I'm afraid I moved it around a bit, according to where it came typographically. Where there was an emphasis on the word, or a word that you really heard... it really does work.

RDT: Have you, by any chance, heard Tori's first album?

CP: I don't know. I think maybe she did play it for me. I've certainly seen it. I think she has. I can't remember it though. She sung me some of the songs.

RDT: It would be interesting to see what you would do with that album. I know at first that Tori didn't like to talk about it but...

CP: But when you think about what one does as a youth, I mean, God I've been through some changes, haven't we all. It's really unfair to criticize somebody for the ability to change.

I think it makes someone much more interesting to go through radical changes. I think it's much more interesting than somebody who stays constant which is really dull. Me, I've never, ever, ever been a heavy metal fan and I'm just beginning to get turned onto the idea of it. I've been a punk rocker, I've been a soul girl, I've been everything. We all do these things, going from one trend to another.

RDT: So are you getting into Metallica now? (laughs)

CP: I don't know that I'm ready to in a full fledged way. I'm too old to be naive enough. (laughs)

RDT: Should I ask how old you are?

CP: I'm 30. I was thinking of having a Mohican last Friday and I didn't. I'm so pleased I didn't. My friend stopped me. She said, "No, don't do it." I was just going to have my hair cut in a Mohican and dye it green. She said "dont' do it." I look in the mirror and think, "I'm really glad I don't have a green Mohican" because it just doesn't fit anymore. It has something to do with the lack of knowledge. (laughs) It'd look like a freak, actually. And when you're shooting advertising people don't want to communicate with you. I quite like the idea of the change of approach. It's funny, like when you're pregnant, everybody naturally assumes that you're a nice person. (laughs) They all think you're very very nice because you're pregnant and a mother. People are incredibly nice to you. Then if you have your head shaved people immediately assume...

RDT: It's that way here as well. People are so uptight. There's pressure to look a certain way. But who am I to tell you about people being reserved and conservative? I'm sure you see a lot of it, too.

CP: Tori complained bitterly of it...in me. (laughs) There are different lines of where one draws the line. Certainly in England, that reserved nature of what one wants to discuss and what one considers private is a very definite line that I think most people adhere to.

RDT: Tori doesn't have a "star" persona.

CP: She's a very kind person, through and through. I think she tries not to. I think it's quite hard not to. It's very difficult. I don't envy her at all. I don't know why she wants to do it. But then, that's what puts her there.

RDT: She has such devotion to her fans, taking time to talk with them after concerts and such.

CP: Also, when you consider that she's out there alone, she has no band. it's quite incredible, actually. She takes it on board. That goes all the way along the line, not only with concerts. If you're alone out there, then anything you do, it's really noticed. Whereas, if you're lead singer in a band, then the attention is taken away for a while from there, there's lots more to look at. It was like that with the videos too. All of the pressure is on you. Then again she's got a good team. She's got me, and she's got Elise, at the record company. She's very, very lucky to have her.

CP: That too. The best thing is to have a really tight family.

RDT: Feedback from people you trust is very important.

CP: Right, she really knows how to work at making it work. It's not always easy, is it, keeping a "family" happy. It's like at a picnic. Obviously there are going to be difficulties. The only way that it works is if you work hard at resolving rather than rejecting a difficult problem. Tori is very, very good, even when she's tired, at talking with her fans. Even when she's tired, she communicates well. She doesn't get angry. Tori is not critical of people. She really allows them to do what they're good at, which means she gets the best of them.

RDT: Have you been asked to work with Tori on the new album?

CP: Yeah, she's going to send me some tracks soon and then we're going to come up with some ideas of how to project it visually.

RDT: We'll be looking forward to it. Thank you for talking with us.