Singer Fiona Apple bruised but ready for tour

Grammy-winning singer Fiona Apple, who went into self-imposed exile for several years from live performing, is terrified at the thought of preparing for her upcoming concert tour, and now it's less than two weeks away.

The tour to promote her 1999 critically acclaimed album, "When the Pawn ..." did not go well. She famously walked off stage at a Manhattan concert in tears after only two songs, never to return that evening. Since 2000, she has avoided the stage.

"It makes me panic inside to think that I'm not going to be able to remember my own songs and the work that it's going to take to learn them again," Apple said in an interview.

Hence her nerves at the prospect of a 13-city U.S. tour, starting on November 22 in Portland, Oregon, to promote her latest album, "Extraordinary Machine." Still, she has not spent much time rehearsing. This tour ends December 11 in New York.

"Did I once sit down at the piano in my house in the last three years and try to work on these songs before the last weekend?" she asked, laughing. "No, I put everything off until the two days before we started rehearsals!"

But after only three days of practice with her band, her jitters are subsiding as her "fingers are remembering" her old songs, such as "Shadowboxer," "Criminal" and "Never is a Promise" from her triple-platinum 1996 debut album "Tidal."

Apple, 28, who grew up in New York and lives in Venice Beach, California, has already had her fair share of drama.

She caused a stir in 1997, appearing looking anorexic and in her underwear for the video of her hit "Criminal." She spoke also openly about being raped at age 12, and she has been described in print as tortured, controversial, volatile, disturbed as well as a magnificent musician.

RALLYING FANS

The release of "Extraordinary Machine" in October comes after rumours began that her record label Sony had rejected it, prompting fans to demand its release on a Web site, www.freefiona.com.

Apple said she was the one, not Sony, who wasn't happy with the initial recordings for the album and caused years of delay, but the pressure from her fans helped Sony come to the realisation that she was "a good investment."

Reviews have been positive.

"Apple ... is as musically sure-footed as she is emotionally labile," The New Yorker wrote. "'Extraordinary Machine' is the confident extension of a rich and original musical language that she has been carefully fashioning for the past decade."

While she's feeling less apprehensive about hitting the road again, she does not rule out the possibility of another on-stage "meltdown." Part of her new confidence comes from growing older and part from the realisation that she doesn't need music in her life, she said.

"If anything I think I care a lot less about my career than I did years ago," Apple said. "I'm more looking at going on the road as a fun experience, I'm not depending on a great show to make me feel like a great person.

"I spent six years without this life, so I know I can go back to a life without all this crap," she added.

Apple said she doesn't even really listen to other people's music.

Though the headliner on her upcoming tour, Apple will be the opening act for chart-topping band Coldplay for some U.S. concerts next year -- a task she said would be relatively easy for her. In the past, opening for bands including The Counting Crows and The Rolling Stones, Apple said she felt like an "uninvited guest."

"It sucks because half the people are there, and it sounds strange in the those huge places when it's only half full," she said. "It used to kind of bother me. But now when I think about it, it feels pretty easy because the pressure is off. I can go up for 45 minutes and then just forget about it."