It`s 8 on a Friday night and Fiona Apple is calling from her dressing room at a club in Seattle.
From the confident way she talks, you’d never know she was new on the music scene. But until a year ago, the 19-year-old had never performed her songs in front of anyone but friends and family.”I’m very lucky,” says Fiona of her quick success. “I was going to give music one try and that was it…I certainly wasn’t going to be one of those people who hangs around clubs for 10 years waiting to be signed to a big record deal.”
Though she plays the piano and sings, Fiona considers writing her true talent. Her bluesy debut album, “Tidal,” is full of soulful tunes, and her confessional style and sound have been compared to Tori Amos and Alanis Morrisette.
But writing didn’t come easy. “I’m a songwriter because of the way I lived my life,” Fiona, a New Yorker, says. “If I hadn’t been through hard times, I wouldn’t need to write the songs.”
Fiona talks about the hard times as honestly as she writes of them. “Other kids were not that cool to me when I was younger,” she recalls.
“I was funny looking and I spent a lot of time by myself. My sister was actually named queen of the school and I was named dog of the school.”
How did that affect her? “I don’t think I would be a writer if everything had been so great,” she says. “Whenever I’ve written, it’s because I needed to get something out.”
And it does seem that Fiona’s hard times have paid off. Her demo tape was quickly plucked from her hands and given to a music industry hotshot who hooked her up with a record deal.
Now Fiona is noted for her beauty and her talent. Is she having the last laugh?
“I can see why I might get a chuckle out of it because people used to call me ugly and now they think I’m pretty,” she says. “But it’s a bad thing to say `ha’ about, because why do I have to be pretty and famous to be cool and accepted? I’m still the same person.”
