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Is the live DVD still happening?
Well, it should be. I mean, it's all intact, and we haven't pillaged it. It's safe, so that's good. It hasn't been edited and it hasn't been mixed. So it's all... sort of... in a time capsule, being retained and protected. There will be a time when we release it. The reason it hasn't been done is because we all got distracted and did [Abnormally Attracted to Sin] instead. But I think that there will be a special time when this should come out. There are plans, but it's not tomorrow. We're gonna tour first. But I'm not gonna do a whole 'nother big old dvd-film. We have one.

On the previous tour you offered 27 live shows up for digital sale, hours after the shows had taken place. Were you happy with the way they turned out?
We enjoyed that a lot. I could see us doing something like that again, it might be in Europe, though. For this next tour, we start in the States, so we'll be well rehearsed by the time we get to Europe. And also, sometimes dealing with promoters and venues in the States, I'll be honest with you - it's a real headache. So it's about being able to do it.

Because they all want a cut of the profits as well?
They all want everything. They all want your first child and your blood and everything else. But sometimes that's the problem I find with people is, they don't know... I think you need to know when you're at a wine tasting, when you're tasting the wine, and you start putting bottles of the wine in your bag, maybe you're crossing the line. But some of these venues and promoters in the world don't know when they're crossing lines, so you just have to smack their hand and say "Well, then you don't get to come to the party!" So, it's unfortunate.

But releasing live shows is something you'd like to continue doing?
I would like to, yeah. And the whole team. We're trying to find the best partnering. The mixing was done live, on the night of the show. That took a lot of energy and effort. Mark would be up until four in the morning, trying to upload it. From our end, everything was a dream. Partnering with the whole 'tech support' - which was no support at all - from the Sony connections, we're trying to not have to deal with that, because they were all pretty useless. It was the crew, MY guys, that were up through the night, while everybody else went to 'sweepy pie' [she said it in a kiddie voice, so she probably means sleepy time] after nine o'clock at night and didn't do anything on their side. I was really disappointed with what the label's input was, and what they were doing. And the tech support side of them - they didn't do a whole lot. It was my crew that did 99% of everything, and yet, we're cutting in all these people. So that doesn't mean I'm not gonna do it again, it just means that the people that you cut in with need to do something. Wash clothes maybe, do some laundry. Something!

A lot of fans would still like to hear some old live shows from earlier tours.
We talked about that! You and I talked about that before, I remember. The thing is, Mark only has so many hours in the day, and months in a year. And there's a side to him that's very aware of [the earlier tours]. But when you're doing a new album and a new tour, and you're talking about the boots for that tour, the workload is so great for the tech guys, that sometimes a project like that would need to come in down-time. Which I haven't had. So I would need to go do something like... I don't know. As The Light Princess was getting rehearsed on stage, then he could possibly like that.

So you are still working on the musical?
I'm still working on it! [Samuel Anderson, the playwright] is writing the second draft now. The first draft had a song for everybody, including every friend of every soldier in the cast. And now we've recognized that it needs to be two hours, and with a break, and... It's about trimming the fat of the work. Not everybody can have a song, and still come in under the time frame. We know the world, we know the characters. As Sam has said to me, we know so much about it, sometimes you need to know your subject matter inside and out. It's all there, it's all important stuff to know when you're building a world. So we know the world of The Light Princess, that's good. Now it's a question of making a world that can fit into an evening of two hours with a 15 or 20-minute intermission. He's going away to write the second draft. I just saw him a couple of weeks ago. The producers said to me, "making a musical is a glorious nightmare", and that for Cabaret they had written drawers full of songs, in order to come up with what Cabaret was, to finally hammer out the story. And now I think they're trying to spend the energy on getting the story, so that the songs are in place.

I have ONE more question before we start talking about the new album: how are things coming along for the 2013 Y Kant Tori Read Remastered and Expanded edition?
[laughs very loudly] Oh Goooood! I don't know... I'm not sure, are you sure that's something we should do?

Well if it ever gets re-released I won't be able to use my original copy as collateral to remortgage my house anymore. But I do think a lot of the material is really good. I know there's old material that hasn't been released, like Car Full Of Boys, and...
And it shouldn't see the light of day.

A really bad recording of it leaked years ago. It's fun. Maybe because you've been revisiting some of those older songs, it would be interesting to hear your current take on some of the songs in a studio environment.
Hmmm. That's interesting. I'll put it in my head. There are all kinds of things happening. [The CEO of Universal Music Group Doug Morris] whispered something in my ear when I saw him in New York, something he wants me to do. He wants me to do it soon. It doesn't take away from the new album, it's not 'trying to write another new album' -how could I, after having put so much energy into this one- and going around to all the galleries for the next year and a half, it's that installation an artist does, that you spend a year and a half making their involved work. However, he mentioned this thing to me that is sort of an off-shoot concept, and I... If I take it on board, then I'm gonna be busy. And so, things like that sometimes just step into your life, and you haven't really thought about doing them, but all the planets align. Just like I wasn't planning on doing this project - I was making a live DVD, and I saw the montages from the day out on the road, and I would turn off the live music, just to see it. Because I couldn't see it without the distraction [of the music]. And then it was clear, it was a whole 'nother artwork.

When listening to the album, it almost seems like you recorded two separate albums and condensed them into one. There are the spacey synthesizer tracks like the title track and Flavor, and then there are the tracks that are almost an extension of the material on your previous album, like Not Dying Today and 500 Miles. Were you working on two different things at once?
Yeah, and then there's Maybe California and That Guy, which comes out of all those classic piano/strings... So there are levels and layers of compositional structures and arrangement choices. And then maybe, with the idea of it being the tenth album, you sort of chorale (sp?) your favorite horses, and you've been investigating these different architectural sound worlds, and you're drawn to certain ones. They're short stories, they all live on their own, independently of each other, very independently, but they live in a solar system, they orbit together. I think the visualettes connect them as well. The order is different though, which was very intentional. The order of the visual side of things is different than if you're just putting the sonic thing on headphones and taking a walk. I felt like you had to experience it very very differently. Without the visuals, if That guy is first, you're gonna get a very different impression of the record than if Give is first. Because there is a lot of synth and technology going on on the record, and I think that That Guy gives you a different apéritif, you know? If you start with margaritas, people will think you're serving Mexican. And it's like, no, we're not doing that.

Which tracks were written during the tour and which were done after?
Well, songs like Maybe California were down the line, after the crisis had hit in the world, and people were losing their job and losing everything. People were falling apart and I was traveling. There were segments where different things were written. Songs like Give were early on, defining the record, demanding, being pillars. Flavor coming on the back end, to meet up with her, one of the last in. So almost a year apart, at least, and yet they were book ends for each other. Lady In Blue forming out... When I get into Europe, I get into these kinds of strange vortex-lives that I walk into. And I have to tell you, this might sound strange, but all the women that I was playing also influenced the new record, because instead of writing for characters, they had become integrated. By the end, Santa would go out on a date with Husband, and all those things.

The dolls are all featured in the visualettes for the new album. Were you planning to do something with the concept of the dolls after having done the visualettes?
The dolls became integrated on this record with different redheads. And you'll see the different redheads on tour. And in the artwork. There are shorter redheads, redheads with curly hair, there are longer redheads, there's all kinds of extension-crazy-hair-world going on. We were all radically changed by American Doll Posse, because it was treated more like a band. They were all singers that worked within a band world, opposed to maybe the person driving it putting on George's Martin's hat, the producer of the Beatles. With this, Mark and I were walking in very much with producer's hats on, and pulling in Marcel, pulling in the guys. Whereas The Beekeeper was just about people jamming. That was the most unproduced record. And in some ways it's my least favorite. But that's like saying my naked body is my least favorite presentation of myself, which is not necessarily true. I don't mind my naked body. But I don't want to be giving postcards of it to everybody that comes to a show. And I think maybe The Beekeeper was part of the process, that she was been kept as a b-side kind of exercise. A lot that was just people jamming and playing live, and first and third takes being accepted, with no arrangements hammered out. And Mark was very disappointed by that, angry, because [my book Piece by Piece] was taking so much of my time. And having a young daughter, I was not able to step into total and full musician ruthless perception, which I have always been able to do. In a way though, without The Beekeeper, which just us kind of playing, very organic, like a Birkenstock, but who wants a fucking closet full of Birkenstocks? I have a couple, with rhinestones on them, and I like those ones, but come on! So maybe that was just what pushed this very complex American Doll Posse, or 'what is a mother', and 'what is this image I'm taking on of myself' and... You have to really break through these cliche's, the coats you put on that say 'I'm a mom now'. You do have to get through [mixing] a breastfeeding pump and fishnet stockings. Its tastes and smells are kind of funky, it's a weird thing, and you don't want to get into, you know, Blue Velvet, one of my favorite films. I think it's important, for me anyway, nobody's really talking about it in all of the interviews... There was sort of an integration of all these character types, that I was able to discover. Musically and personality-wise, which just became part of the 'day-to-day'.

Do you still write songs the way you wrote Thoughts or Marianne? One-take songs that were mostly just improvised.
Yes, but sometimes the recording lights aren't on. Sometimes it happens at the beach house, or backstage or wherever. And then hopefully I'm able to notate it real fast, so that I can remember it before I forget it. They happen.

Any songs on this album that were written that way?
Well, I was in Ireland, and I had gone to this museum with my friend Vincent, who was one of the art directors on Pele. Within a few days all these pictures of the preraphaelites we had seen went through my head again, and I just found myself at the piano, and Tash came in to see me, and said "Mommy, what's that?" I said "I don't know, but it's taking over." By the time I left, Ophelia was intact. And that's just one of those things. You get led to places and people and experiences, and then somehow you're triggered and able to contain this creature.

On Little Earthquakes, the record company was urging you to add more guitar to the songs, which you refused. Yet there seems to be a lot of guitar on your latest albums. What made you come around to using it?
It's on our own conditions now, and I think I'm composing things that are for full instrumentation. With Little Earthquakes, it was very much about the piano being central. Anything that got added had to work around the piano. Whereas the composer in me in the last few years had been stretching myself. Listening to a lot of records that have all kinds of arrangements and instrumentation, and wanting to compose for more than just the piano. But there are some songs, like Ophelia and Maybe California, where it does take center stage.

I interviewed Patrick Wolf about a week ago, and he said he was going to interview you as well, has that happened yet?
Oh yeah! You mean the artist? I think that's going to happen in London, next week. I've never met him, what's he like?

Well, last time I interviewed you 2 years ago, a couple of hours later I interviewed him as well. At the time he seemed very depressed and very overworked. It was the first time he was with a major label, and he was talking about selling his publishing rights. Which I thought wasn't a very good idea.
Did you tell him that?

Yes, it wasn't really my place, but he looked almost kind of self-destructive at that point.
Yeah. Has he sold them?

Yeah, but he said he found a deal with someone that he trusts.
[gasp] Well, ok, fine. Good luck!

I spoke with him about Gay Pride, and the parades. There's always a discussion about whether or not it's a good idea to dance half-naked on boats, or whether minority groups should just trying to blend in as much as possible. As Amsterdam Gay Pride is coming up soon, what is your opinion on the gay pride events?
You're talking to a woman who courts controversy. I mean, if you stop doing the gay pride thing, do you know that song by Jim Reeves, Each Time You Leave? [starts singing 'Each time you leave, I die a little'] I understand what people are saying, but it seems to me, if you're really gonna become influential, then instead of worrying about tempering the gay pride thing, trying to tone it down, I think you need to start getting in office. Those people who don't want to partake in the gay pride side need to get involved in getting into positions of authority, that can start to turn people around in their way. I think the problem with the whole gay pride thing is, if you stop doing that, then you're not just taking it away from the gay community, you're taking it away from the people who also think "they're so creative, they express themselves". If that goes away, then that dies in me a little too. I don't think the black community got a black president by thinking "They're segregating us, let's just be quiet, and don't make noise". I think the rap music scene thought "If it's too loud, turn it up." But that's the entertainment side, the gay pride parades. That's fun. Now you all need to roll up your sleeves and get fucking serious. I would only spend so much energy on your floats and your festivities. I'd be thinking about my votes instead of my floats. Getting into positions where laws are made and governments are influenced and lobbysists are there. You need gay lobbyists, being smart, knowing how to play the chess game, knowing how to get people to open up to the concept. That's what I think. You have to be working on all fronts, you know?

I'd be thinking about my votes instead of my floats.

God, I fuckin' love it!