Pop Quiz: Fiona Apple

Pop Quiz: Fiona Apple

Aidin Vaziri | If you've been wondering if Fiona Apple is going to go bat-crazy in the middle of a song and run off the stage when she plays three shows in the Bay Area this week, stop. After taking six years off to do pretty much nothing, the Grammy-winning songwriter has grown up and mellowed out. After the release of her third studio album, "Extraordinary Machine," in October, Apple spent several incident-free months on the road playing a solo theater tour and supporting Coldplay.

Fiona Apple
Q: You don't drink, do you?
A: Yes, I do. Oh my God, yes.
Q: Hooray! Wait, does that help or make things worse?
A: If I drink too much I can go into being an angry drunk or a very sad drunk. But I can never play that risky game. I can have a little bit of alcohol before the show, and that's fine. It takes the edge off. But just that much.
Q: Was it nerve-racking playing with Coldplay?
A: It was the easiest thing in the world. It was such a short set, you don't even get tired. I didn't even care if people weren't listening. Most of the audiences were really great, but if they were eating their hot dogs or whatever, it didn't matter because then it became this thing where the band and I were just playing for each other. It was the most useful thing to know that I could survive in that situation and not freak out like I used to.
Q: Were there any Apple mix-ups backstage? Like, if someone said, "Hey, Apple!" would you turn around, but they were actually talking to Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow's baby?
A: No. I heard she was actually at the show one day, but I never even saw the little girl.
Q: But it could have been possible.
A: It could have been possible. If I would have been in the same room, I would have turned around.