Cover Story: The Adventures of Miss Thing

Asked what initially drew her to Morissette's music, Madonna answers, "Her honesty, her pain, her hopefulness." Morissette returns the compliment. respect Madonna very much," says Morissette. "I respect her strength and her resilience in a crazy business. I still remember seeing her in an interview when I was younger, talking about freedom at a time when I was coming to terms with my own sexuality. She's a great CEO."

Jagged Little Pill came out this past June, and Los Angeles' influential alternative station KROQ jumped on it immediately. "I guess we're all so callous that if people start responding to a record, everyone just assumes it's hype," says Welch, Morissette's manager. "We were just hoping to sell maybe 250,000 or maybe 300,000 albums by the end of the year and build a base. Look what happened."

Jagged Little Pill is now double platinum and shows no signs of slowing down. Obviously the music-buying public approves of the new, grown-up Morissette in a very big way. But more important, what do her parents think?

"They're happy because they know a lot of what I've gone through, and they're happy I got it all out of my system," Morissette says with a smile. "My dad called me up when he heard the record and said, 'So you're expressing a lot of emotion. That's good.' And I laughed and said, 'Yeah, I am, to say the least.'"

Over lunch in New York a few weeks later, Morissette says she's again ready to do a little acting. She says portraying another character would leave her feeling less vulnerable. "It takes a lot out of me, singing every night," she says, "knowing there are people listening to things I never thought you could even share with one person, let alone everyone."

Final preparations for one of the biggest days of Morissette's life are being made as she speaks. Last night she collapsed from exhaustion after an important New York show that she nearly canceled hours before show time. Later this afternoon she's taping The Late Show With David Letterman before rushing to the night's gig in Philadelphia. Tomorrow there's a video shoot for Jagged Little Pill's second single, "Hand in My Pocket." Still to come are the MTV Video Music Awards. But as she chats away in a Manhattan health-food restaurant, the self-confessed bohemian comes off like the calmest person in the Top 10.

Offers are pouring in for tours, soundtracks and movies. "I just have to make sure I do things for the right reasons," Morissette says emphatically. "I've got to remember what brought me to this place, which was being honest. If I stop doing that, I'm disrespecting what got me here."

Already, Morissette has learned that she doesn't want to do more innuendo-laden radio interviews like the one she did on KROQ's Loveline, a sex-oriented listener call-in show. "I owe it to myself and Glen and this album not to demean it," Morissette says. "Jokes about me taking guys out to theaters are not funny." (Not that she doesn't have a sense of humor about her angst-in-her-pants image: One of the slogans on her new tour T-shirts is INTELLECTUAL INTERCOURSE.) Retaining the spirit of the album was also a goal in finding her band, according to Morissette. "We auditioned 50 people just through word of mouth," she says. "The idea was not just to make sure the musicianship was amazing but also that we didn't want jaded people who had done the road thing one too many times and spent their time rolling their eyes. And as you can see, I got real lucky." While traveling around in a crowded van and staying in cheap hotels, the Jagged Little Pill tour mates have shared an authentically grungy experience. Part of the idea of this tour — booked before the album took off — was to give them the chance to become close-knit, which they have. The only thing the band is lacking is a name, although Morissette reports that the boys in the band are pushing for the Sexual Chocolate.

To stay sane on the road, Morissette reads, meditates and exercises. Socially, she says, "I've just been dating a whole bunch of people and kind of making up for lost time." More chastely, she has made a habit of painting the fingernails of many of the men she encounters. She started with her own band mates and has moved onto other men she has met, including the members of Better Than Ezra. "It's a good excuse to get a guy to put his hand on your knee," she says. As its namesake paints away, Morissette-mania spreads worldwide, even to Canada, an early holdout. Apparently some of her old fans initially had trouble with the way in which she has grown up in public. "For obvious reasons, they're a little more apprehensive in Canada," Morissette says. "A number of interviews I did turned into adversarial situations up there. They'd tell me my records sucked and that what I'm doing now is contrived. If it was that calculated, I must be pretty darn smart. Don't give me that much credit."

Other than those bad brushes with the press in her home country, Morissette claims she hasn't encountered much cynicism. Hasn't she heard anyone call her a poseur, a prefab riot-grrrl substitute? "No, I haven't, you bastard," she says with a laugh. Morissette says she has been far too busy on the road to notice being slagged off for any irony deficiency. "I'm pretty insulated these days, which is probably good," she says. "I don't watch TV, I don't listen to the radio, I don't go online, and I don't read the newspaper." She believes critics will get past her pop-diva past and is heartened by both Tori Amos' ability to move on from her metallic pop-tart days of Y Kant Tori Read and George Michael's post-Wham! artistic evolution. Indeed, Morissette may be Listen Without Prejudice Vol. One's biggest fan besides George Michael.

Since Morissette's work is so autobiographical, does she think she has to endure more fucked-up romances and other miseries before she can write another powerful album? "I think it's inevitable that you go through the hard, fucked-up stuff," she says. "If you're alive on this earth, it's going to happen, so I'm not worried."

Her performance of "You Oughta Know" on Letterman goes well Morissette sings the song's uncensored lyrics, knowing full well she'll get bleeped because you really can't do that on television. As she makes her hasty exit out of the studio, Morissette runs into fellow Canadian Paul Shaffer. "Great performance," the bandleader tells her warmly. "Even more anguished than the album version." The next morning — too few hours after returning from the Philly show — Morissette and the Sexual Chocolate gather in their hotel lobby and head out to Brooklyn, N.Y., for the "Hand in My Pocket" video shoot. On the way the rest of the band members scan two newspaper reviews of the New York show. The New York Times is extremely respectful; the Daily News is savage. SHE DOES THE TRITE THING is the News' headline. The piece calls Morissette "pop's latest and most transparent poster girl for female rage."

"You don't want to read that one," Lashley tells her.

"I don't want to read either one," Morissette retorts before quickly offering to paint the guitarist's fingernails black.

Upon arriving at the shoot, Morissette's thrilled to see that the vision she has been brainstorming in recent weeks with director Mark Kohr, known for his work with Green Day, has come to life. An entire picturesque Brooklyn block has been transformed into a colorful, Fellini-esque parade route. An eclectic cast of characters, including skateboarding punks and the police on horseback, lend the scene a nicely surreal feel. The Cadillac that Morissette will drive in the parade awaits her. The locals, meanwhile, are trying to figure out what the hell's going on. "I think it's some foreign group," says an elderly lady standing in front of the All for Paws pet store.

The band members will only appear as bored parade observers. Morissette, on the other hand, has settled in for an all-day shoot that will end with an artificial rainstorm. In a moment of down time, they all sit in a trailer and watch a replay of their Letterman performance. Suddenly there's a knock at the door. A New York policewoman has spotted Morissette and requests an autograph on, of all things, the Daily News review. DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ, Morissette signs.

Before long, its cameos shot, the rest of the band decides to head back to the hotel. Alone now, Morissette kicks back and happily waits for the rain on her parade.

[From Issue 720 — November 2, 1995]