nichesitetool.com

Dolly Parton just dropped a collaboration with Good American, and it’s as glam as you’d expect. Called “Dolly’s Joleans,” the limited-edition collection, available April 3 at Good American and Nordstrom, is packed with rhinestones and country-inspired details that have become synonymous with the country legend whose always been an outspoken advocate of staying true to yourself.

“We wanted to kind of get into my closet and pull out things that I’ve worn through the years in magazines and on shows,” Parton tells PAPER. “I know if I feel good in my clothes according to my personality and my rules, then I can radiate more love and more light and more personality to where I can make people happier in my atmosphere and in my little field of energies. People should apply that with their clothes to wear — what you think makes you look your best, that makes you feel your best and makes you do your best. You’re going to shine and you’re going to be your best self. Just go with it. Be you.”

Below, Dolly Parton chatted with PAPER all about making a collection with Good American, staying true to yourself, living a life of love and the importance of being a good person.

Hi Dolly! How are you doing? You look amazing.

Thanks! I look country and good American girl-looking with my gingham and my hair bow. We’re promoting our Jolene Jeans Collection.

Let’s get right into it! How did this collaboration come about?

Khloé Kardashian and Emma [Grede] from Good American came to me and said, “Why don’t we go in business together?” I said, “Well, why don’t we?” They wanted to play off of some of the things from my own closet and play off of that country theme that has been such a big thing for the last few years, because of country music being so great and so many people dressing in that way.

What can we expect the collection to look and feel like?

We just wanted to have some good pieces, some good jeans, which we had to name “Jolene” because of my song: the Jolene jeans. One of the things I love about them is that they really do fit good and make your butt look good, even if you don’t have a good butt. And if you have a good butt, they make ‘em look really good. Then we have all these other beautiful pieces — blouses like this [gingham] one, and some we have with stones and all. We wanted to kind of get into my closet and pull out things that I’ve worn through the years in magazines and on shows. It seemed like a perfect fit. It looks like everybody’s getting excited about it. I’m really excited to see what it does.

You’ve always had such a good sense of style and authenticity. How do you share that with other people in something like this?

Everybody that knows me (and everybody does, seems like these days, especially anybody that’s going to be wanting to buy these things), they know that I’m an individual. Everybody should be true to themselves, and I agree with that about everything: You should be the way you are. Whatever that is, you should be allowed to be you. Whatever you are, be that. Whatever you do, do that. Anything else is just an act.

That really applies to the clothes you wear because what you wear reflects so much about how you’re going to function that particular day. I know if I feel good in my clothes according to my personality and my rules, then I can radiate more love and more light and more personality to where I can make people happier in my atmosphere and in my little field of energies. People should apply that with their clothes to wear — what you think makes you look your best, that makes you feel your best and makes you do your best. You’re going to shine and you’re going to be your best self. Just go with it. Be you.

What’s the secret to really honoring yourself when there can be a lot of external forces, especially these days on social media, that may influence you?

First of all, if I can’t be me, who would I be? I wouldn’t know who else to be. You can’t imitate somebody else. That’s just a false thought altogether. I mean, you might like certain elements about people. You might even steal certain things from them. But if you’re not authentically yourself, you’re not going to be a real person. You’re going to seem like a phony, because people are going to pick up on certain things that they know are not real. You’d be better off to just stay yourself. I am myself, and that’s easy to be, because I don’t want to be anybody else. I like me. I like who I am. Everybody should learn to love themselves. If you don’t love yourself, it’s not likely that somebody else will.

There’s certain things I wish I was: taller, more beautiful. There’s a lot of stuff like that, but that’s not the stuff that counts. Those are just fleeting things. Really deep down inside where it counts, you gotta just be glad that you are who you are. Thank God for making you the way you are. He did it for a reason. I’ve always been anchored in my spiritual self more than anything. I mean, I’m not preaching to anybody else. It works for me. I’m very grounded in my faith and in my spiritual self, and that keeps me from wandering too far, because I have someone to give it back to. I don’t claim anything for myself. It’s just all on loan to me. And so I just think, I’m going to make the most of everything that I’ve got and try to make people as happy as I can and throw as much light out there as I can. And if I’m wearing rhinestones or plain clothes, I still want to shine and radiate.

I just want to say thank you for being you and for your music. I’ve always turned to it in moments that I need grounding and healing. Throughout your life, are there any people that have inspired you creatively and also just as a person?

I’m inspired by anyone that’s got love, that really cares, because there’s a certain light about them. And you’re drawn to light. If you’re a good person, you think about other people. We’re just all pieces of each other. We’re all the same. We all feel the same things: We all laugh, we all cry, we all bleed, we all suffer, we all have heartaches. Just feel for people. That comes from a loving heart. God is love. And that’s really the only definition that we have. Love can work miracles if people allow it. It’s about just caring enough to love somebody, to lift somebody up. People should do more of that. It’s not so hard to be good.

Your music often talks about love and loss and resilience. Right now, individually and collectively, there’s a lot of heaviness on all of us. What do you think the deeper purpose of pain and struggle is, and how do you transform it into something beautiful?

That’s up to the individual. In my faith, God gave us free will. He gave us everything. We have access to every bit of that. Maybe you can’t save the world, but you can just do the best you can. That’s all we can ever do. Ask for help. Ask for understanding and strength and love. When things are bad, pray. When things get worse, pray harder. Love one another.

Photography: Inez and Vinoodh

“I’m a manifester!” Lil Nas X hums from his makeup chair where he’s getting dolled up before his PAPER shoot in New York. Just hours ago, the internet savant-turned globally famous rapper was performing his new single, “HOTBOX” for a jam-packed crowd at The Box in Manhattan. But after just a few hours of beauty sleep, he’s ready to dig in.

It’s clear he has a lot to get off his chest after a relatively quiet period in his life and career.

Emerging from his semi-cocoon, Lil Nas X feels ready to enter the world with the same force and gumption that helped him move rapidly from a bedroom internet-poster to a chart-topping pop star, first with “Old Town Road,” and then later with culture-shaping hits like “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” and “Industry Baby.” This go-around, though, he’s taking a markedly different approach. “Last time I was bringing the world to me,” he reflects. “This time I’m bringing myself to the world.”

Whereas his last era centered around controversy and bombast, his new era, DREAMBOY — which encapsulates his forthcoming album, but much more as well — has a more intimate tenor. “It’s a collection of everything and anything I’ve ever loved or hated,” he beams. “It’s just me going out there and doing me in whichever form I feel.”

That sounds like a natural move for any artist looking to express their inner world, but for Lil Nas X, that recentering has an even deeper resonance. At the beginning of his career, the thrill of his artistry was largely contingent on the social hullabaloo surrounding him. That’s especially true of the pitch-perfect rollout of “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name).” Its video, (which features Lil Nas X sliding from heaven on an eternal stripper pole into the fiery pits of hell) and its promotional campaign (where he sold 666 pairs of shoes with drops of human blood inside them) was positioned as easy bait for right-wing culture warriors. Still, the extent to which they took it was surprising. “I was like, What’s even going on? I actually had a moment where I felt like I was on The Truman Show,” he laughs. “I was like, There’s no way this is working this well.”

At that time, it did seem like Lil Nas X was a conductor controlling pop culture’s orchestra. As a long-time resident of “stan” communities on Twitter, he was well-prepared, knowing exactly which notes to hit. That said, a seamless symphony is hard to maintain, though he has faith in his powers to manifest his dreams. “I never want somebody to think they can’t create magic, 24/7,” he says. “[But I did] get to this place where I was super doubtful at the same time as I was starting to do what was expected of me. It was clashing.”

He’s referring to 2024’s “J Christ,” his comeback single that was very much a continuation of his debut album’s style. The video features him as the aforementioned child of God and was similar to “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” in the way it merged flamboyantly braggadocious bars with biblical themes. It ends with a Noah’s Ark-style flood and the ominous words “Day Zero,” which Lil Nas X says was, in its own way, “a prophecy.” “It destroyed the old way of everything,” he shares. “After that, nothing was the same ever again. It made way for now.”

The video and song, which didn’t have the same grand reception as his previous hits, was contending with a lot. There were sky high expectations put upon him as one of the decade’s biggest new stars, but also there was a rapidly changing culture to grapple with. “The world was shifting so much at the time,” he says. “Even right now, [there’s] everything with the young males being taught these super conservative ways,” he sighs.

Indeed, when “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” came out, the pearl-clutching conservative response to his antics was largely seen as a comical overreaction. But as the moral panic surrounding the trans community, drag queens and “grooming” has ratcheted up, Lil Nas X’s biblical satire began to potentially hit too close to home. Now, with Trump in office again, and the assault on the trans community reaching a government-wide fever pitch, there’s little to laugh at. Reflecting on his controversy-heavy approach circa the MONTERO-era, he reflects: “[If I did that today,] they’d actually try to kill me, like I’m not kidding.”

All of this is part of the impetus for Lil Nas X’s new pivot, which he describes as “void of darkness” and “full of light and joy.” With five songs released the week of March 10, and one more the following week, the influx is generally an “offload[ing]” of a number of songs that he had been “holding hostage” for some time. All of these songs, with the exception of the lead single, “HOTBOX,” will not be on the forthcoming album, but all are indicative of his current mindset: “I’m a bubbly, fun bitch,” he laughs — though some songs, like “DREAMBOY,” feature him being more honest than ever, even acknowledging his recent career’s ups and downs. “I just do what I want, I don’t care what they like/ Say it with me (Bitch, I’m back like J. Christ),” he raps before leaning into a heartache-croon.

Lead single “HOTBOX,” though, is “his baby” and the center of his focus right now. The song pulses with a buoyant, retro energy that is heavily reminiscent of The Neptunes’ early production, glimmering with clavinet chords and hits from the talk box. On it, he glides over the beat, name-dropping “poppers,” “the Eiffel tower”, and “Anna Wintour.” Its music video shows Lil Nas X starting summer early, flirting, swimming, and strutting in a variety of hot pink looks. Per his DREAMBOY ethos, the whole thing is “void of darkness.”

“I know a lot of people are very scared in the world right now about all the shit that’s happening, especially in our own country,” Lil Nas X reflects. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t mean that in the sense of being dismissive, but I’m just so fucking tired of being tired of this shit. If this song could even for three minutes make somebody just forget what’s going on and just feel some oblivious joy, then so be it.”

It’s a prescription for our current condition, though it’s vastly different from his former approach to culture-making, which was to shock the system. Only time will tell, though, if the world is ready for this Lil Nas X, or if the mood of the country is simply too sour to smile alongside him. He’s content, though, to let the chips fall. The reformed provocateur still “loves a little chaos.”

“I found peace in stopping to try to control it. I’m trying to do what I can, where I can,” he shares. “If I show up as myself, maybe that’ll help other people like me do the same.”

Congrats on what has been a crazy two weeks. What were you dreaming about as you were beginning to put together this era?

I wanted to be void of darkness. I wanted to be full of light and full of joy. I hated feeling like I was cookie-cutter all the time, but if I’m honest, that’s my personality. At my core, I’m a bubbly, fun bitch. I wanted to really express that in this era. I feel like a lot of music was going in this alt-girl, Rick Owens kind of scene. I was like, No, I want to do something pink, vibrant, super on the nose girly, gay, fun and then mesh it with some of my music, which is the polar opposite of that. Some of my newer songs are on a super Atlanta rap tip because that’s how I started in music. I was a rapper in Atlanta, and then “Old Town Road” came along and it opened doors for me to do what I wanted musically.

Before you settled on this fun, bubbly, pink world, were you trying different things that were more of that dark, hard sound?

I was doing a lot of things that I never presented to the world, but this felt right. I didn’t feel like I was trying to prove anything. I was just there and I was actually in the moment, having fun. I reached a place of internal validation like, I love this. I don’t give a fuck where it lands anymore. I’m just going to go out there and do my shit.

How do you think you got there? Because you’re under so much pressure, especially given the scale of everything that’s happened in your career.

As human beings we always want to succeed. I want to enter and stay committed to this area of my life where I don’t try to force every single thing to be the biggest thing in the world because at a certain point, it starts taking the fun out of it. I finally found that fun again. I’ve been making so much music and getting more outside of my comfort zone. In the past two weeks I’ve hosted little club appearances. I never was comfortable with doing stuff like that. I can just go in and be like, “Hey, let’s have fun.”

What’s it been like to connect with your fans and community in a more casual way?

It’s been nice to break down this vision I built of myself for other people. [You have to be] super polished; Everything needs to be viral; Gigantic: I can’t do that right now. Coming to New York last summer really helped me get to that place.

What about New York and that time helped you?

I was finally alone for the first time in my career, completely isolated, just myself and my thoughts and my feelings. I definitely had to do a lot of unpacking and understand the reason why I did a lot of things — not to judge myself and be like, Oh, that was a bad thing, because for me a lot of shit is neutral. You take whatever you want from it, right?

What were you trying to work through in particular?

I’m finally reaching this place where I can just give myself unconditional self-love, like “I fucking love you to death.” I would search for that a lot and be afraid of losing people — the world and the people around me. There were situations where I was like, This shit is not working at all anymore. I’m not having a good time with this. It stems from my own abandonment issues with my mom. I would find myself writing down the events of what happened as if I was there, like the day my dad got custody of myself and my brother. I was feeling like my mom wasn’t fighting hard enough to be with us anymore, like she didn’t care. There are a lot of things you think you don’t care about or that you’ve moved on from, but then as I wrote about it my body was crying. I burst into tears. I was like, Damn, I guess I did actually care about this thing I’ve convinced myself I don’t give a fuck about.

Yeah. How could you not?

Yeah, and the same thing happened with always feeling like a stepchild when I moved in with my dad, and I guess I kind of was. We don’t recognize how big the shit from when we were kids weighs on us as an adult and dictates our decisions. We think we’re just so completely in control and know exactly what’s going on, but you have to revisit your inner child and actually talk to them and say, “Yo, what the fuck is wrong with you? What’s going on? Why are you doing this thing? Why do you feel this way? Why do you need to make sure this person sees you, or that person loves you?” Since then it’s been easier to let go of shit.

Once you process it, you’re able to know what’s going on in your mind.

Or just have a sense of it. This may not be the whole story for this thing, but this helps me understand it a little bit more. It’s very easy to judge yourself with the opinions the world gives you. And then outside of that [it’s about] forgiving people, like with my mom and other family members, understanding these people are that way because everything that has ever happened to them. Why do I carry that for you when you’re probably having a hard time carrying that yourself?

It’s so much to process those relationships and then process your relationship with the entire world at the same time. How do you think becoming so famous so quickly fits into that process for you?

Becoming famous got me more in touch with spirituality. It usually works the opposite way around for other people, but it made me feel closer to everything around me and the synchronicities of life. There were all these things that I thought were “magical hoo ha” for my entire life as a very skeptical young man growing up, but then I was like, Okay, this makes sense. I get this. But in addition to that, after finding that spiritual side, I’ve kind of made a 180 in terms of thinking I need to heal the world all the time and towards coming back to myself. You have to have that balance, like, Okay, I need to focus on me right now. I need to do my shit. I’m obviously unwell, even though I don’t want to admit it. And the only way I can go back out there is if I can work with myself first. Now I’m tiptoeing back to the world again.

I felt like you were trying to shake everyone up with your first record. You were making this global statement, and now it seems like you’re speaking from your own perspective.

I think that’s fair. I look at it this way: last time I was bringing the world to me and this time I’m bringing myself to the world. Now, I’m physically, emotionally, in every way, trying to go out and exist in the world. I mean the smallest things: walking in parks and going to grocery stores, little common shit that I absolutely love and adore now. It’s brought me so much peace.

How long were you not doing normal shit?

Since my ingestion period into the music industry.

That’s so disorienting.

You think, Okay, this is how it’s supposed to be, because that’s the way it’s always been for celebrities. But I can do my own shit. I don’t have to follow the guidelines of how this is supposed to be. I already did that with a lot of other stuff, so why am I not doing that here where it matters the most?

At my core, I’m a bubbly, fun bitch.

Was it physical fear that was stopping you?

A bit. It was like, I don’t matter, you know? Whatever you convince yourself of becomes true. And I’m just like, You know what? I just want to let this go. This belief isn’t helpful for me right now.

I could see how you became super spiritual. You truly manifested your dreams.

Yeah, I’m a manifester.

In the “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” roll out you were inciting these reactions, and I felt like everyone was doing exactly what you wanted them to. It was perfect.

I’m not kidding, I was like, Is this even real? This is happening too easily for me.

Yeah, with the politicians responding.

I was like, What’s even going on? I actually had a moment where I felt like I was on The Truman Show. I was like, There’s no way this is working this well. That was the beginning of my journey to getting where I am now.

Because it didn’t feel authentic?

Not necessarily. It was authentic for the moment. It was great for the moment. It felt great. I loved the chaos and I don’t regret anything I was doing, just so there’s no misunderstanding. Your girl turned up. I had fun. I made history. I want to continue to make more, right? But I was like, I’m not having fun doing this thing anymore.

It was such a high bar. It can’t always be so perfect. There are a lot of things out of your control, even though you are this magic manifester in so many ways.

I don’t agree with that, because I never want somebody to think they can’t create magic, 24/7. 1,000,000%, I think it’s possible. If you think you can, then you can. But it goes hand in hand. If you have a certain idea that this thing is what you want, but you also believe these things too, and they contradict, it makes it hard for the magic to happen. I got to this place where I was super doubtful at the same time as I was starting to do what was expected of me. It was clashing. Because it’s like, Well, if everybody always expects me to go out of my way, then it’s not really me doing anything that’s unexpected anymore. It’s what they already expected. Fast forward to “J Christ”: I went the exact way that people would expect me to go. There was so much contradiction in my mind. I was just like, If they expect me to go this way, then it’s kind of unexpected, because wouldn’t they expect me to go the other way?

How did that moment feel for you?

It was a prophecy in its own right. There’s this video where I’m destroying this old way so that this new one can begin. It self-prophesied itself. It destroyed the old way of everything. After that, nothing was the same ever again. It made way for now.

It did change, but I’m sure there was a pain in that?

There was pain for sure. It’s this gigantic shift. I had never seen the world so upset. I was like, Really, is this what it took? It was that easy? But the world was shifting so much at the time too. Even right now, everything with the young males being taught these super conservative ways, at least in America: everything is shifting with this rebellious, hyper-masculine thing.

It’s scary.

But just like with everything, it’s going to come in cycles, right? That for them is what openness and acceptance to gay people has been for the last 10-ish years. That was the rebellion. We’re doing what we want. Now for them, it’s like that. I’m not trying to view that as acceptable, but I can’t pretend to not understand what’s happening. I’m not a fan of misogyny or homophobia, but they want to feel like the world isn’t forcing them to do something. If you convince everybody that this is the thing that’s stopping you from being you, you want to rebel against it.

But what they’re doing is destructive. So how do we get them to see a better way?

That’s a very complicated question. I think it’s just going to take time. Everything comes in cycles. I don’t think the world will ever exist in this perfect condition that we want, because I don’t know if that exists. Because even us, as human beings, what we want in life changes over and over. I found peace in stopping to try to control it. I’m trying to do what I can, where I can. If I show up as myself, maybe that’ll help other people like me do the same.

Even these bros?

Yeah, even them, because once it becomes uniform and everybody’s on the same shit and all the boys feel the same, eventually they’re gonna be like, Hey, we’re kind of all being robots right now. Let’s do something about this.

I watched your documentary a few days ago, Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, and was thinking about the “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” era. I feel if you did that today, with where the world’s at, it wouldn’t be very fun. It would be really dangerous.

They’d actually try to kill me, like I’m not kidding.

In the documentary, you bring pizza to anti-LGBTQ protesters outside your show. It was cute. But I was like, I don’t think you would give them pizza now. Maybe you would, but everything feels harsher now.

It does, but at the same time — and maybe this is super optimistic of me — I think it’s going to work itself out. I think things are going to be fine. I’m not trying to minimize what’s happening. I just think shit is going to work itself out, especially in the generation where everything is a trend. The second the next thing comes along, it will be like, Hey, we don’t hate women and gay people anymore. Let’s do something else now.

Last time I was bringing the world to me, and this time I’m bringing myself to the world.

Let’s wear pink hats and dance to “HOTBOX”?

Let’s fucking do it. But that’s the way it happens. You show up as yourself. I don’t regret anything I did 1,000,000%. I’ll say that again. And a lot of the gay girls are on the rise and trans girls are on the rise too.

Who’s exciting you that’s on the rise?

Cortisa. I think it’s so nice to have this Gen Z girl, doing her fucking thing, and just being funny. And on some underground shit too. We need more of the girls in the underground.

Love her. I want to enter this new era. We had five songs last week, one new song last night. A lot of these new songs have been around for a minute, right?

I wanted to offload a lot of the new songs, because most of this, with the exception of
“HOTBOX” is not on the album. But it’s like, This is fucking great. Let me just put this out instead of holding it hostage, because I’ve been doing that for some years: trying to make sure I can craft the perfect thing. So I was like, Let’s put the music out, because we also exist now in a world where music can pop off from any time period, in any genre, and be the biggest thing ever just randomly. Take [“Anxiety” by Doechii], a song that she did five years ago has now become her magnum opus. That’s a beautiful thing, because, if I’m being honest, I love being sporadic and I love a little chaos. I think chaos creates room for uncertainty. And uncertainty could go in a great direction or a terrible one. But regardless, no matter how good or how bad things get, I always believe there will always be some light for us to find some kind of joy. I’m hoping I don’t sound like a rich asshole or something, but you have to see it that way. If you don’t, you’re kind of fucked.

With this more spontaneous period, is your album also going to have a casual vibe, or is it going to be the full rollout that your fans have come to expect?

I’m not going to answer that, because I’m going with the flow and figuring out exactly what I want to encapsulate. But the DREAMBOY era isn’t just an album. It’s me spanning across multiple genres, multiple periods of my life, different stories. Some lyrics are super deep and intimate, and some are like, “I don’t give a fuck. Let’s fucking party and suck dick.” DREAMBOY is a collection of everything and anything I’ve ever loved or hated. It’s just me going out there and doing me in whichever form I feel. I’ll say that much.

What about “HOTBOX” made you feel like this is the song for right now?

“HOTBOX” seemed light. It didn’t seem like me trying to prove something to my haters. For a minute I was like, I want to get back at my detractors for how they made me feel. I was like, No bitch. I want to make a bubbly, fun song. I know a lot of people are very scared in the world right now, about all the shit that’s happening, especially in our own country. Shit is happening so fast. I don’t want to think about it. And I don’t mean that in the sense of being dismissive, but I’m just so fucking tired of being tired of this shit. If this song could even for three minutes make somebody forget what’s going on and feel some oblivious joy, then so be it.

Has that been your relationship to music since growing up? Did you see it as an escape?

Not intentionally, but yes. I feel like that’s what Nicki [Minaj] was for me. Once you can find somebody to vicariously live through, you can forget your own problems for a little bit. I know that sounds like bad advice, to not focus on your own shit, but sometimes you just have to arrive there for a minute and then once you’re ready kind of step into your own shit. I literally went from my entire life being dedicated to Nicki, to finally coming into my own and getting the reins of my own life.

How does it feel being on the other end of that now?

It’s a roller coaster. I’ve learned that I’m not seeking constant joy and more so experience. And I know I’m being super Buddha, it’s all beautiful, but it fucking is. It’s fucking beautiful to watch myself get better after a breakup and see how I navigate my way through it. It’s fucking beautiful to look around me and be like, Oh my god, the world is fucking shit, but I really like this new music video. It’s fucking gorgeous to be inside of a grocery store picking out ingredients for a meal that I’m probably not gonna do a great job making, but I want to make it myself.

Just being a human.

I’m so in love with being a human right now, and I do not want to subscribe to all the shit that I should be upset about. We unconsciously get upset about things we’re not even upset about.

But also as a public figure, the world is throwing that stuff at you, so you don’t always have control over that.

That too.

But I guess you try to control what you can?

You try to and you try to be there for people in the best way you can, but I don’t think you can be there for somebody if you’re being beaten down. If you’re being down by life, you can only present the beaten down version of yourself to the world.

In the documentary, I was struck by your home. It was quite empty.

It still is.

I was just going to ask that. What do you think is stopping you from furnishing it?

I keep putting stuff in and then taking it out. I know you’re supposed to have the fully furnished home where everything looks nice, but I don’t want that. It’s not because I’m scared of it. I just actually don’t care for it. I like not having much stuff. Also, I’ve been really dealing with this idea of having attachment to things. I want to be able to get the fuck up and leave my house and never come back one day. Not in the way like, I hate things. I love stuff. Give me more stuff.

But you don’t want to feel tied down?

I don’t want to feel tied down with stuff, except my cats. I’ll keep them.

With that, why even have a home? Do you ever think about being nomadic?

I’m conflicted. I want to be nomadic, but it’s also nice to have a base, like a superhero lair to go back to right when you can.

If I show up as myself, maybe that’ll help other people like me do the same.

You’ve been spending more time in Atlanta too, right?

To be around my family, but also to experience Atlanta alone, because I would only usually go back to be with my family 24/7. But it’s like, Oh my god. I’ve never experienced this city as an adult on my own.

I heard you say in another interview when you were resetting and taking some time for yourself that Camila Cabello was an important friend for you. I’m curious about your discussions with people who have been in similar positions in the public eye. You all have such a unique experience.

We did a great job at uplifting each other and showing each other how we view the situation and how we view each other from outside of ourselves. Once you made up your mind: Oh, the world doesn’t see me as something great or feels like I’ve done anything amazing. To hear [affirmation] from somebody who you greatly respect and you love what they’ve done, it feels great, especially because you can feel like it comes from a genuine place, and not like someone trying to get something from you. It was fun hanging out with Camila, because that was the beginning of me getting comfortable going out to places. It was just genuine fun. It didn’t feel like work. Canila made me feel so good, she made me feel so great. And that was the beginning of me getting my confidence back. To finally be at this place, where I’m like, Okay, I know who the fuck I am. I know where I’m going. I don’t care what none of these bitches say. I didn’t care at first. Why do I care now?

So we have this song now. Do you have a bunch more that are coming out before you begin the album release process?

We’re still in the album release process. “HOTBOX” is my single, so there’s no confusion. She’s my focus. I will be taking her more out into the world and I will be doing more things around her. I gotta get back out here in these streets. Even this right here is a part of it, you know? You gotta rebuild, and you gotta be super confident and unafraid, and you just have to know in your heart where you’re going, despite whatever the situation looks like.

Photography: Oscar Ouk
Styling: Lisa Jarvis
On-set styling and fashion market: Xavier Means
Makeup: Grace Pae
Hair: Coree Moreno
Set design: Caylah Leas

Digitech: Kevin Lavallade
Photo assistant: Aaron Ryskiewicz
Styling assistants: Maxwell Lloyd, Natnael Abate, Iyanla Mossley
Set assistants: Nick Lugoviña, Anzo Gonzalez Diaz
Production assistant: Kaiya Lang

Editor-in-chief: Justin Moran
Managing editor: Matt Wille
Editorial producer: Angelina Cantú
Music editor: Erica Campbell
Story: Tobias Hess

Tori Amos’ creative path has never been linear. A child piano prodigy, she was the youngest student ever admitted to Baltimore’s prestigious Peabody Academy, but her parents’ dreams of raising a concert pianist were soon shattered by young Tori’s preference for Beatles over Bach.

A stint playing showtunes and standards in Beltway bars turned into a big-gamble move to Los Angeles, where Amos joined a hair-metal band called Y Kant Tori Read that also included future Guns’n’Roses drummer Matt Sorum. The band’s one and only album now has a devoted cult following, but at the time, it was a flop. In the depths of despair over the band’s failure, Amos dug deep to write 1992’s Little Earthquakes. Largely out of step with everything else that was on the radio at the time, the album and its follow-ups were a surprise success and by the late 1990s Amos was selling out stadiums.

Undoubtedly best-known for her music, Amos has nonetheless always had a strong and multi-layered approach to media, whether that means the careful and elaborate lighting design for each of her tours or the eye-catching album art, which has seen the artist breast-feeding a pig and laid out on a giant photocopier. In 1998 she was one of the first artists to offer an exclusive digital-only track (“Merman,” which she would later dedicate to the memory of Matthew Shepard in live performances). 2003’s Scarlet’s Walk came with a video “visual” for each track, another pioneering move. Amos has also written two books (2005’s Piece by Piece, co-authored with Ann Powers and 2020’s Resistance). She has also branched out into musicals composing music and and lyrics for 2013’s The Light Princess, which ran in London.

In 1997, Amos played a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden in support of a young organization called RAINN, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network, then the nation’s first 24-hour sexual assault support hotline. A few years ago, she stepped back from her duties as a spokesperson for the org and from her role on the National Leadership Council. Nonetheless, I asked her about RAINN’s recent decision to remove trans and nonbinary-specific information from their website. “My art is for everyone,” she told me. “And I hope that the world I try to create can act as a safe haven for anyone who needs it.”

Now she’s back with another surprising twist: a children’s book. Written by Amos and illustrated by Demelsa Haughton, Tori and the Muses was published on March 4 by Penguin Random House. The book came with a second surprise — a nine-track album written and produced by Amos as an accompaniment to the album. To tell this story, Amos taps into an ancient literary tradition, one stretching all the way back to the Greek poet Hesiod, who wrote that the Muses themselves revealed to him the names, genealogies and offices of the gods on the slopes of Mount Helicon.

On a sunny but very busy Monday that had started at 4 AM, Amos — patient and generous in her responses — got on the phone for an afternoon chat that covered not only the new book and album but also shoes, archetypes, the modality of the visual and a shared appreciation for Susan Cooper’s young adult novel series The Dark is Rising.

First things first, tell our audience what shoes you’re wearing today.

Well. I’ve [worn three pairs] already. I’ve been up since 4 AM. So I started off … hold on, I’m back in the hotel room, give me a second. [Calls to her assistant for confirmation] I was in Alaia, the Alaia PVC slingback hard cap toe, in white. Then I went to Aquazura in yellow satin. And then I moved on to these great PVC Stella McCartney because I’ve been doing interviews, television and filming since early, early morning.

Oh wow, busy day.

Very busy.

Your busy day is because you have a new children’s book coming out tomorrow, illustrated by Demelsa Haughton. Tell me how this new project came about. How did you find yourself writing a children’s book?

Francesco Sedita [the book’s editor], over at Penguin Workshop, reached out. He had read the liner notes to one of my projects, and I just didn’t know that really, anybody read my liner notes all these years. So he said “Hey, you thank the Muses and the fairies. Can we talk about it? You want to write a children’s book about it?” And that’s really how it began, two years ago.

What attracted you to Demelsa’s art? What was it you saw and thought, “Yes, that’s my artist?”

Everything. Everything she drew, and I had looked at many illustrators, and when someone on my team showed me her work I just said “She’s the one.” There were notes back and forth from story to art, and she was completely open even to what shoes some of the Muses were wearing. And I was taking pictures of shoes from my shoe collection and saying, no, she has to be in this one.

Were you writing as she was drawing or did you write the text first?

We wrote the text first.

This is your first children’s book, but your work has always had a very strong visual component, whether it’s album art, videos, lighting for your shows. As a primarily sonic artist, what does the visual realm add for you creatively? What can the eyes do that the ears can’t do?

Oh, that’s a good question. In my opinion, you’re missing an opportunity if they aren’t collaborating. It’s a huge opportunity to expand the story that you’re telling into a multi-dimensional perspective, as opposed to just sonically.

A couple of days ago you also released a surprise collection of songs to accompany the book. Were you planning a soundtrack from the beginning or did it sneak up on you while you were writing?

It snuck up on me over a year ago, so I’d say halfway into the book. Mark Hawley, who I’ve worked with since ’94 and who I later married, just looked at me one night and said, “You’re writing a book about music, and your music, and you’re not gonna have music with this. Explain that to me, please.” And I went, “OK, there’s gonna be some music [Laughs]. Thank you for the suggestion.” I don’t care where a good idea comes from. If somebody says “Hey have you thought of this?” And I’m like, “You’re absolutely right, thank you, yeah that makes sense.”

In your mind how are these new songs categorized? Is it a new Tori album, an EP, a soundtrack?

Well, it’s an album, isn’t it? It’s an album that’s just collaborating with a book and story that go together.

Looking back at your catalog, are there songs where you did not heed the Muses’ advice and regretted it after?

Yes. And I don’t think I should go into detail. There are some things I left off records and didn’t explore. There’s some songs that I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote till I lost the magic, and they didn’t make it on the record because I didn’t think it was good enough. But that’s when we can over-tweak. That’s what we say in the control room when we replay things and replay things and rework things, till that spark that was there, we’ve just turned it into goulash. And not even good goulash.

I was at your [bookstore Q&A] yesterday and you mentioned Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, which made me really happy because I love those books. Is fantasy a go-to genre for you?

Not so much as loving Tolkein [the other book Amos mentioned at the event was Lord of the Rings] and Susan Cooper. You’d think I’ve read hundreds of fantasy books, which I have not. But I do adore the Dark is Rising Series.

It would be great if kids discover that series, because I think Harry Potter drew some influences from it.

Clearly it has. My daughter Tash grew up in that generation of Harry Potter, so of course as parents we saw all the films and she had all the books, and I hadn’t read The Dark is Rising yet. When I did read it it did strike me that there were some bits of stories here that came first. As you said, she is the OG here, Susan Cooper.

Speaking of parenting, are there picture books for kids that were your favorites, or favorites to read to your daughter?

Madeline. She loved that series dearly.

I had a random question yesterday at the Q&A: Do you name your pianos? Did you name your piano as a child?

No, they’re always just “she.” She knows her pronouns.

Would you like to write more children’s books, or is that something you got out of your system?

Well, I’ve loved this process so overwhelmingly that it would be a privilege to write another one.

Do you feel that publishing is a less hostile world than the music industry, which I know you’ve had struggles with in the past?

Well, I had struggles with it in the past, until I had been in it enough years where a shift happened, and I’m able to work with people I connect with. So I go record to record. I make a deal for each album with who I feel is open to the type of project I’m about to create. So that’s shifted in the music world, I’d say over the last 10 years, maybe a little bit more. There was a shift that happened once I began with Deutsche Grammophon and moved over to that side of Universal. The team changed and we’ve been more on the same page.

You’re often discussed as a confessional songwriter, and yes, a lot of your lyrics are very personal, but you also quite often tackle political and social issues in your work. Do you have any advice for kids or even for other artists about how the Muses help you come to terms not just with stuff going on inside but also things going on in the world outside?

Over the years I’ve made choices at different times how to document what’s going on in the macrocosm as well as the microcosm, sometimes jointly. Sometimes it’s through story, world-building, or, like American Doll Posse, I chose to work with some of the Greek pantheon and personify them in five characters to look at what was going on in our time. And we were at war, as you know, in 2006 when I wrote it, it came out in 2007. That record, from the first song, is a direct comment on what was going on. It wasn’t metaphorical. Sometimes the work chooses to be built in story, as opposed to actual documentation of what we’re seeing before our eyes. So an artist has the opportunity to choose how they’re going to talk about what they feel called to talk about. And that’s a very important freedom, because there’s not a lot of things we can control right now. But we can choose that. That is one freedom.

We can choose how to express ourselves?

Yes, and how to respond.

Do you have any projects on the horizon that you can share with us?

Well, we’ll see what happens. It looks like there may be a tour in 2026.

That’s exciting!

That is exciting.

Photography: Kavita Kauljj