WHERE SHE'S BEEN: After leaving Veruca Salt in early '98, Gordon spent the rest of the year writing and demo-ing the songs that would form Tonight and the first half of 1999 recording them. A victim of label mergers, she was trapped in record company limbo for nearly a year. "I was excited about the record, proud of the record, and I wanted everyone to hear it. It was really hard; it was like having a baby in quarantine. [But] I'm really excited that it's finally, finally out."

THE TURMOIL THAT LED TO TONIGHT: "My life just changed so suddenly and completely at the time when I started writing songs for this album. I had left my band that I was in for six years -- and my six-year partnership with Louise -- and I had also broken up with my boyfriend. But at the same time, I was getting together and falling in love with someone, and I also turned 30 and it was just this really strange, exciting, sad, and difficult time."

ON SINGING SWEETLY: "I could always sing like that. When I was first in Veruca Salt, Liz Phair was out there, Kim Deal from the Breeders -- it wasn't very cool to really sing. It was much cooler to have a cool voice but to not really sing out, and so we pulled each other back a little bit. You know, if I was singing a little too much, she would be like, "Nina, Nina, tone it down; you sound like Annie." [laughs] And on this record I was just like, 'You know what? I'm going to sing; I'm going to sing like I always wanted to.' And I did. People are sort of surprised by that, but that's what I've been doing in my bedroom and bathroom in front of a mirror with a hairbrush my whole life."

THE INEVITABLE COMPARISONS: "The ones that have made me happy have been the Bangles, Aimee Mann, and even Madonna. The ones that have made me unhappy, well, the only one that made me really unhappy was Wilson Phillips. [laughs] That one bummed me out. I listened to the Bangles incessantly when I was growing up, and I worship Aimee Mann -- and Madonna for that matter. But, of course, I do long for the time when I have established myself enough so that other people can put out records and they can say, 'Oh, this sounds like Nina Gordon.' "

IN HER CD PLAYER: "The only recent records that I've really listened to are the Aimee Mann record and the Macy Gray record, I guess the Travis record a little bit. And I do like the Fiona Apple record."

ON COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT: " 'Number One Blind' [from American Thighs] was originally entitled 'Levolor' because it's about Levolor blinds, or pulling blinds and sitting in the dark. I was afraid at the time that we'd get sued by the Levolor company, so we called it 'Number One Blind.' And then the same thing happened [on the new album with the song] 'Polaroid.' I thought, 'I don't want to deal with Polaroid coming after me, so why not call it "Number One Camera," ' -- this reference to the past. And the song is very much about the past and... about Veruca Salt, so it seemed appropriate."

ON COVERING SKEETER DAVIS'S "THE END OF THE WORLD": "That was really an afterthought. It's kind of like a bonus track, because it's not my song and it was recorded almost a year after the rest of the songs were finished. It's a very different experience recording someone else's song -- you feel much less stressed out. It's like babysitting for someone else's kid, or being a grandparent as opposed to being a parent. You just feel like you can do whatever, and you feel very free about it, and much less obsessive."

ON THE REST OF HER LIFE: "In the fall, I'll start doing the real rock show thing, back in that circus." She's not sure, however, what the songs will sound like live. "I know that the heavier songs on the album will be the most fun to play live, and I know that some of the songs that I cut from the album would have been really great to play live. I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to be different because I never really fronted a band on stage by myself, and I'm a tiny bit nervous about that, but mostly I'm really excited about it." We're excited too. --Steve Klinge

July 12, 2000