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Interview
by SashaS
10-8-2003
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| Amy Lee of Evanescence in live action |
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Dark splendour
Amy Lee-led Evanescence stand out and atop
Acoustic, melodic, brooding, heavy, romantic, Gothic, soft, electro, rocking, surprising and exploding all over the world. Evanescence, the Little Rock, Arkansas, based band are succeeding in rehabilitating the city’s reputation after the former President of The USA Bill Clinton’s indiscretions in the White House. The combo in black, with their debut album, ‘Fallen’, have amassed sales of over 1 million copies in less than a month in their native land to become the surprise breakout of 2003 with a rock album that sounds like little else on radio.
The credit for that must go to the 21-year-old singer Amy Lee, whose vocals burn through the band’s macerated metal hit ‘Bring Me To Life’ (Top 5 Stateside but an istant chart topped in the UK) in a way that’s less emo-sista and more vintage Heart-cum-Linkin Park mixed with Gothly-poetical All About Eve. But, as we discover upon enquiring about influences and likes, the band has not really been into either of the outfits but likes Tool, Korn and NIN, with Lee quickly adding, “That is too obvious, because we also like a lot of other things, whether it is rap or R&B, or something strange like Björk. I love Tori Amos. My all-time favourite song is Mozart’s ‘Requiem’, so it (their sound) comes from a lot of different sources.”
Evanescence is the first female-fronted act to top the Modern-Rock chart in the USA in almost five years, since Courtney Love’s Hole achievement in 1998. (Amy is not impressed by this fact, as she is not Mrs Kurt Cobain’s widow fan.) The band’s music evokes a lot comparisons and a number of reference points – she “...sounds like Sarah McLachlan singing over Nine Inch Nails,” was the opinion of New York’s Daily News – but all critics agree that no-one out there sounds like Evanescence.
“A lot of people hated us when we tried to shop our demos,” Lee remembers, “telling us ‘This is ridiculous’, ‘This will never sell’, but we never took them seriously and I don’t know why; for some reason I didn’t care what they thought. It was before Wind-Up (their label) but we were confident… But then, when Wind-Up showed interest all these other labels that had turned us down, started calling us and begging not to sign with Wind-Up. They all wanted us to do showcases and so on but only Wind-Up showed trust in us.”
“It is really funny for us now, we laugh…” Moody states with a Cheshire-cat grin on. “They’ve missed on a tonne of money! It is like a little personal joke with us… All the artists that have stood out sold amazingly, from The Beatles to U2, No Doubt, Madonna, Nirvana, they all broke the mould at their time. People get excited and try to copy it but that is not the way to go, everything gets burnt on the same formula until something as revolutionary comes along.”
The band’s song ‘Bring Me To Life’ originally appeared on the ‘Daredevil’ soundtrack, as one of the band’s two contributions, that brought them to the attention of the world’s listeners, according to Moody who tends to be much more humorous, frivolous and quick-witted. The two of them trip over each other’s answers all the time.
Carry on vamping
Evanescence’s advance onto the global scene may appear to have been smooth and easy, but the two principal members met some 7 years ago. Lee and guitarist Moody have been plugging away since meeting at a summer camp when she was 13 and he a year older. The oft-told tale is that Moody spied her across a room, playing a Meat Loaf tune on a piano.
The two fast became songwriting soul-mates, spending hours with piano and guitars at the home of Lee’s parents; her father, John, a well-known Little Rock radio personality, recalls the two hardly ever leaving the house and keeping on working on songs. And them some, shaping them into artefacts as if for an exhibition but, as we all know – beauty takes time.
“Yeah, he told us to do cover songs,” Amy surprisingly defends suggestions of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton, Bob Seger, “and go out and play Bar mitzvahs, clubs, gig to learn how to be a professional musician. My father was into rock and being a musician back in the 1970s and that was the way you did things back then. And that is still good idea but not in our case. My dad also used to tell us that I need to start smiling when I sing and that was really funny because I am singing about dying, tragedy, and I should smile!? My dad is an entertainer and he believed that’s the way you should do things.”
From the basement music to playing their debut UK/Euro date in front of 50 thousand metal-heads at the recent Download Festival at the traditional home of HM-power, Donington Park.
“For me playing Download was even more significant,” Moody suddenly goes confessional, “because I met Kirk Hammett; I’m a huge Metallica fan, and he’s the reason I play guitar. He is pretty much my hero and it is not only of the Festival, but my whole career… so far. Meeting him, I was so star-struck I couldn’t speak!?”
“I’m too shy to meet people like that…” Lee shows her vulnerable side, “I saw some people there that really influenced me when I was in a Junior High but I just couldn’t go over there and say ‘Hi’, I feel stupid, just like a little kid… You’ve known all these people all your life, you think of them as friends, but they don’t really know you.”
Do you feel like you are not part of that star-elite? Still, who’s the top of your wish list?
“Yeah, I’ll never be them,” Amy remains a fan. “I find it frightening to meet my idols and my major one… it’s very difficult to answer that now. It probably be Björk because, she is not my favourite artist now, she’s always been at the top of my list because she’s endured so much time; she is one artist whose every album I have. She’s been my idol for so many years but to meet her would be amazing and I think we are playing the same Festival in Japan. At least, just to see her play live because I have never seen her concert. She is great and such an inspiration for me, melodically, lyrically, and everything.”
Boys and a girl
Lee – a fragile looking beauty who handles extremely intense, ethereal and dramatic with equal flare – and Ben recorded demos that became an ‘indie’ album ‘Origin’, which now fetches $300 on eBay. “Well, that wasn’t really an album but our demos,” Ben smiles at the deception, “we made it into an album to make it more appealing to the record companies, but it was never an official release. We packaged it like an album, made it look like an independent release, but it was just one-man-operation.”
“We pressed only 500 copies,” Lee almost smiles which she rarely does, “and later on a bit more; the total run was 2,000. Everyone thinks it is an album but it is not. Three of the songs from there are included on ‘Fallen’ and way better recorded.”
“We also did a lot of songs and demos after that,” Moody continues, “it was just a stepping stone for us. So, we tell people to downloaded it rather than pay all that money, get ripped off… We are not getting anything for it, it’s only that one guy and people who sell it on eBay. It is not worth $300, it is a demo we did in my apartment. If I could I’d legally give it away but we can’t do it.”
“It’s not that we don’t love our music,” Lee is well aware of the ‘power’ of misquote to quickly clarify, “and think it is not worth that much because these were our early trials and now it is considered a ‘masterpiece’ while it is only rough demos.”
That’s the release that led to signing to Wind-Up Records, best known as Creed’s label, in 2001. And, it also caused a certain misunderstanding of them being a ‘Faith’ (i.e. Christian) band, for a moment. The fellow mediumists were so desperate to fit the band into a neatly labelled box but none fitted, so they tried to tag it thus but it fell off, pronto.
Lyrically, Lee explores dark, introspective themes of love, desperation, and tragedy. But the group insists its fundamental message is a positive one. Perhaps, but the final destination is the same, whether you are pessimist or a TV-realist. Evanescence, despite its name suggesting fleetingness, ephemera, certainly are heading for a long-distance career to make our daily burden a tad more bearable via a harder-mellower-complex but magnetic music.
*
Evanescence Tour dates:
(Finger Eleven supporting)
30 October – Apollo, Manchester
31 October – Apollo, Manchester
02 November – International Arena, Cardiff
03 November – Civic Hall, Wolverhapton
04 November – Academy, Glasgow
08 November – Hammersmith Apollo, London
09 November – H/Apollo, London
10 November – Brixton Academy, London
[Note: all SOLD OUT]
SashaS
10-8-2003
Evenascence album ‘Fallen’ is available now on Wind-Up/Epic
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