I am definitely NOT the a typical Tori fan! I was first given a promotional CD copy of Little Earthquake from an Atlantic Records PR rep back in 1992 when a friend and me were visiting New York to smooze with the record company. My friend managed a record store back then and sponsored some college radio station programs so we were trying to score some stuff for the store and radio contest and to meet his contacts at the labels in person. The typical music we listened to was Heavy/Hair metal, after we are talking about the late 80’s into early 90’s. We showed up at Atlantic, scored a bunch of metal CD’s meet some of the guys from Siagon Kick, and got to play with the iguana that the record company gave them for there up coming release “The Lizard”. So picture the look on our faces when the two of us, all dressed in ripped jeans, concert T’s and leather and long hair when this PR rep gave us each a copy of this chic that sings and plays the piano saying “You should give it a listen it is pretty good”?????? What the Hell was this guy thinking??

I believe on the drive back from New York we might have listened to about 15 seconds of the cd before taking in out and replacing it with some good trash metal to wipe that memory of that out of our minds, most likely knowing the time and us it was probably a song by WASP, “Animal F**k like a beast most likely”. The Tori cd then got ignored for a couple of weeks until one night I was feeling a little low and wanted to listen to something a little calmer for a change so thought I would give the Tori CD an actual listening. Little did I know just how hooked I would become. After about two weeks of listening to Tori in secret I decided it was time to mention to my friend he might want to give the CD another actual listen because it was really pretty good especially if you are in a mellow mood (after all I had to try and save some of my reputation as a metal head didn’t I). Was shocked when he told me that he had already listened to it and was listening to it pretty much every night himself.

Fast forward two years and my wonder daughter is born and the song I cued up to play on the CD player when we bring her home from the hospital, isn’t some death speed metal classic, or some power ballad. Nope it is “Winter” as my promise to my new little girl to always try to be the best dad I can, for us that song will always be her song. My double life of both Metal Head and Toriphile was in full swing. Yet to this day I refuse to fully explain what the song means and why I picked that song, but the older she gets the more and more she figures this song out. It has been really cool to watch over the years as she figures the song out more and more.

So it has now been 15 years that I am been listening to Tori and have come a long way from that angry, me against the world attitude that I had when I first heard her music and while I will take most of the credit for the person I am today, I have to acknowledge that Tori’s music has been a huge part of my life and the person I am today. Today I still occasionally listen to the harder stuff my 95% of what I listen to is all Tori.