tori meets maynard did someone around here play a part?

Shane's Story

Tori and Maynard met after Tori's show at The Greek in Los Angeles CA on June 29, 1996 while the band was mixing Ænima in North Hollywood, CA.

About a year and half (winter 1995) before that I was watching a local TV rebroadcast of Tori's November 1994 show in Montréal PQ and was taken aback when she mentioned Tool in a story about her father.

I contacted Maynard to find out if he knew her or was familiar with her work. It turned out that he, like I, was a "huge fan" and wasn't aware that she was familiar with Tool's work but was really pleased to hear it.

I was put in touch with Rantz Hoseley (a friend of Tori's) through rec.music.tori-amos and found out that he had introduced her to the band during the recording of Under the Pink. I acted as a go-between between Maynard and Rantz for a while.

Rantz set out to get word to Tori that she and Maynard were mutual fans. By this time (winter 1996), Tori was in the middle of a media promotion tour for Boys for Pele and on tour shortly after (thus, very busy). Tori and Maynard still had neither met nor spoken.

Outside, after her May 1996 show in Montréal, I gave her a short note from Maynard and told her that he was going to try to attend one of her upcoming (June) LA shows. Since there was a large crowd of people vying for her attention, I had a hard time telling her anything so I couldn't go into detail.

Despite the band being very busy, Maynard managed to attend one of the LA shows and got backstage where Tori picked him out of the waiting crowd. The two had a chance to speak alone and have been friends since. Tori was one of the first people to have a copy of Ænima.

Performing "Muhammad My Friend" at the RAINN show was Maynard's choice. The two of them took about an hour before the show to work out the details.

I'm not sure what any of their future plans are.

I'm really proud of the duet. It's really odd to hear two familiar voices sing as one but very gratifying knowing the amount of work that went into getting the two together.

-- Shane Brouse (shane@toolshed.down.net)

(Tool)
"Your pal" Kabir Akhtar | kabir@toolshed.down.net