Fiona Apple Grows Up

At 28, Fiona Apple is no longer the fragile teenage flower who languidly strummed her pain on her debut album Tidal. She is no longer the angry, angsty ranter that Chris Rock dubbed Fiona X. She is no longer the combustible performer who might storm off stage minutes into a show.

Question: The SunFest show is the beginning of a few solo dates for you before the start of a longer tour. You were out with Coldplay — what was that like after not touring for so long?

Apple: {.......} the crowds were really great. Coldplay has some very cool people who are fans.Not that she's necessarily any happier.

Her critically beloved third album, 2005's Extraordinary Machine, a suite of songs inspired by her breakup with film director P.T. Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights), still finds her introspective and

romantically torn. But she's audibly more comfortable in her skin.

And when she headlines Saturday at SunFest, she'll likely be more assured than the 19-year-old who, a decade ago, seemed to want to crawl into the stage and disappear.

"It's not to say that I'm still not terribly uncomfortable," she admits. "I say all this stuff about how I've grown, and there are days that I revert right back."

That honesty is part of what made Fiona Apple so endearing — and sometimes frustrating — to critics and fans. She put out a second disc with a 90-word title, which left her open to accusations of pretentiousness. Then, there was the long, gossip-fueled speculation about the release of Extraordinary Machine. Fans thought Sony would not release it, and even staged a rally outside Sony headquarters, calling on The Man to "free Fiona."

At the time, as Apple said in subsequent interviews, she was quite touched by the support, but the truth was that she was mostly sitting around watching Columbo reruns in her bathrobe, not being held hostage by the corporate suits. It was Apple who wasn't happy with the disc and delayed its release, switching from longtime producer Jon Brion and his carnivalesque sound to Mike Elizondo, who toned down some of the showiness and substituted a more grown-up, jazzy feel. Brion's original version was leaked to the Internet, anyway, critics debated the relative merits of each, and once again Apple was uneasily in the spotlight.

But Extraordinary Machine deserves the focus. It's gorgeous, ambitious and right out there on the edge. Apple's desperation and "look at me, now look away, look away!" airs of youth have been replaced with something just as honest, but comfortably imperfect. Only someone who knows herself can seem OK with being this naked. Or can admit, as she does in O'Sailor, that the responsibility in a failed relationship is "double-sided, cause I ruined it all/but also saved myself by never believing you."

And she's not looking for a lover to save her or define her. As she sings on the title track: "Be kind to me, or treat me mean, I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine."

That she is.

We talked to Apple by phone about touring, songwriting, de-stressing — and Columbo.

Question: The SunFest show is the beginning of a few solo dates for you before the start of a longer tour. You were out with Coldplay — what was that like after not touring for so long?

Apple: It was really a lot of fun. It was surprisingly easy, I was thinking about 10 years ago, when I opened for big bands like that. I used to hate it — it was always in these huge places, the sound was really weird, and the people don't know who you are, and the ones who do know don't like you, they're talking through the performance. But everything I hated about it was exactly the reason I wanted to go out this time. It makes it so much easier when you're not headlining. I was using it as a ruler to see how I handled things, because I used to not handle it so well 10 years ago. But the crowds were really great. Coldplay has some very cool people who are fans.

Q: I guess the big difference is that this time, everyone probably knows who you are.

A: I have no idea who knew me out there, but they were pretty responsive. So, I guess it seems that obviously a lot more people did know who I was.

Q: I saw you 10 years ago, actually, opening for Chris Isaak in D.C. And it was pretty obvious that you were very, very talented and very, very uncomfortable.

A: (That situation) was tailor-made — it was torture for me, pretty much. But at the same time, it was exactly what I needed to do to get past some of my insecurities. It was like facing your worst fears in so many different ways — living with people on a bus. It was great for me. I didn't feel that at the time, but it was good for me.

Q: So what's different now?

A: The main thing that is different about it all is that I'm so much more about satisfying myself. I'm having fun, enjoying what I do, rather than worrying about, hoping that everybody is (approving) of me. I wanted everybody to like me and accept me and know me. I learned the hard way that you can't go out there and make people feel about you the way you want them to. You're better off making your own fun. That's the biggest difference.

Q: The new album was your best debut (on the charts), and it wound up on a lot of critics' Top 10 lists, including my own. Does that define success to you? How do you define success?

A: Really, just that it's out and that I did it the way I wanted to do it, and got my way. I feel successful the times in my life when I can look around at the people I have working with me, and know that there's not one person I don't absolutely adore individually, that I don't absolutely trust and respect and admire. That makes me feel really smart and savvy even to have surrounded myself with such wonderful people. I don't know if that answers your question...

Q: No, it does! Knowing the circuitous route that the album took to get out — the "Free Fiona" campaign, the issues with your record company, the sitting around your apartment in your bathrobe watching Columbo — is the acclaim weird?

A: It is; there are certain things that happened, with the people from Sony having problems with things, looking at all the stuff that had to go on. I kind of think it was something that was tailor-made. Everything worked to my benefit. All the times it was all going to Hell, that it wasn't gonna work out, were steps to the best platform for this to happen.

Q: Just wondering — why Columbo?

A: I really, really love Peter Falk. I had never been into that show. I had heard of it, but they started rerunning it on Bravo. I watched one, and I was hooked. It became like my teddy bear, my comfort.

Q: I always wondered about the double-edged sword of wanting to get your private personal thoughts to inform your art and then having to deal with talking about it to reporters like me, or having to know people are talking about it. Is there any way around that without cheapening or diluting your words?

A: I really shelter myself from the outside world when it comes to that stuff. I have a numbness to me. I don't think about the rest of the world seeing my pain. ... I don't read anything about me. If I see anything about me, or if I go and do a TV show, I make sure not to be in the house when the thing is coming on. I've made the mistake of opening my eyes to what's going on, and it icks me out! I have an ongoing battle with my father, who just loves to go on his computer — he has some hook-up where every time my name is mentioned he can see what happened. He was logged on to the chat rooms on Christmas Day. I was screaming at him — I can't imagine what kind of (stuff) he must be reading about me.

Q: Knowing all that you went through in the last 10 years, would you have changed anything about it? And what advice would you have given yourself if you could go back and talk to yourself then?

A: It's funny, now that I'm where I am and how I'm feeling, if I were to change something, I would be in a different place. So, in that sense, I wouldn't (change anything). But when I look back on how miserable I was when I started out... I still beat myself up, but I really beat myself up then. I think I listened, at the beginning, to these people who had their opinions, who told me to change things, or took advantage of my naivete. I think "What were you listening to these idiots for? They need you more than you need them."

I think I would go back and make myself not so stressed about everything... I'm still stressed about everything.