November 2003 Tori on BBC Breakfast TV

Q: You've got a very interesting background, haven't you because you're part Cherokee and you're the daughter of a Methodist minister, so your upbringing must have been fascinating.

Tori: A peace-pipe in one hand and a cross in the other. So it was difficult to juggle sometimes because the belief systems are very different, but my mother's family would tell stories and sit on the porch and it's a very oral tradition. We'd sit every night on the porch and listen to Papa, my mom's dad, talk about the escape from the trail of tears, and that really formed, I think, my interest in storytelling.

I think because you sit around and listen to a wonderful storyteller, my grandfather, who would know everything that was going on in town.You know, what the choir director was doing, who the minister was 'seeing' and that would all end up in a story with the names changed and everything else, so we knew in the family what was going on. He was chronicling time and our life in story every night.

Q: And how have they reacted to your career and to the huge success that you've had?

Tori: I think it was tricky for my dad at first because I'm a follower of the Magdalene and I've always been about women's rights within the church, and that there has to be an integration of the Mother Mary and the Mary Magdalene within a christian woman for wholeness, and so that met with some consternation at first, but I thought it was really important that the Mother Mary who has been separated from her sexuality and the Magdalene who has been separated from her spirituality needed to come together.

Q: When did the singing and songwriting start?

Tori: My mom says two and a half. That's what she says. I think that's the first thing that I remember is that this big black upright piano was my best friend.

Q: But you landed your first gig at twelve, didn't you?

Tori: I think my dad got me for a deal, I would do the funeral in the morning and the wedding in the afternoon, so he'd to a bit of a two-for-one special with me.

Q: You've got a favourite piano now have't you?

Tori: I have, one of my best friends in the world is my piano which has been all over the world. And she has blankets that wrap her up and they take her legs off and put her in a big box every night and they take her out every day because we do six shows a week when we tour, we just did ten months of touring.

Q: That must have been absolutely exhausting

Tori: It was but we had our Natasha their, our little girl. She would be backstage with us before the show before she went to bed and she'd do ring-a-ring-a-roses every night with us before we went on and then she'd look at me and say now mommy go rock.

Q: You've moved to Cornwall, you've really settled there

Tori: My husband is British, persnickity, but British, and so he wanted to live, it was either South London or Cornwall, so I said definitely Cornwall. So we made a compromise. I love the Cornish there. I'm an outsider and I understand that, I understand that I'm not of their tribe, but they've let me in and they treat me with love, and it's a magical place. We have our whole studio there, so the musicians fly in from America and it's very difficult for the record company to just breeze through.

Q: There's a rumour that you're in a new Julia Roberts film, is that right?

Tori: Yes, that's right, I was kind of summoned to come and play, it's a small part, a cameo role of a big band singer. So I do songs that were written in the 40's, early 50's and I worked with Trevor Horn which was just heaven. So it was different for me but I enjoy that style of music.

Q: Is it your first movie?

Tori: Yeah, that did anything yeah.

Q: You also dedicate a lot of your time to your charity, it's called RAINN isn't it?

Tori: It's the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. It's independently funded, nothing from the Government and the idea is that you can call wherever you are in the states and it's like a hot-line that will connect you to the closest rape crisis center near you. So if you need to go in and honestly, if you are having problems in Kansas, you need to know what the laws of that state are and lawyers can help. Sometimes the kids are under age and the perpetrators are in the family. We've had over a million calls so, that's the sad news, but the good news is that the service is there.

Q: What's next for you now?

Tori: Well, I feel like this 'best of' was kind of a, even if Tash plays it to her grandchildren and that's the only person that listens to it, I felt like I compliled a sonic autobiography of a woman called Tori that grew up at a time when I think that there were a lot of hopes and dreams for a place called America and now that it's at it's crossroads I sort of wanted to chronicle that for her and her grandchildren. And then next, I don't know.