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Interview Given to:
Amy Lee
Interview From:
Popyoularity---Feb. 17, 2003
popYOUlarity: Give me a history of the band to get people reading this a little more familiar with your background.
Amy: Ben Moody plays lead guitar. He and I have been writing music together for a bout 6 years. Rocky and John are from much heavier metal bands. We stole them away to make our own band. Ben and I met at camp one summer in Jr. High, when I was in the sixth grade. We’ve been writing music together ever since.
popYOUlarity: The one thing a lot of people have pointed out so far about you is your voice. What is it like to be put in the position with all the compliments?
Amy: I don’t feel completely comfortable. How do you….if you agree, you’re vain. If you disagree, you’re not supporting your own music.
popYOUlarity: When will your Bring Me To Life video debut?
Amy: It is almost finished and is in production right now. We filmed it in Romania actually in January. It should be done this month for sure.
popYOUlarity: Being on the Daredevil soundtrack must have been huge for you, especially since a nice chunk of each song was actually in the movie itself.
Amy: It was an incredible feeling sitting in the theatre. It was really hard not to cry. One of the scenes that they used was a funeral scene. That’s one of our oldest songs. It was written when we were in high school, early high school. It was mind blowing. I think it goes perfectly with the movie. We are just very flattered to be a part of a movie.
popYOUlarity: In Whisper, there is a Latin chant. What are they saying in Latin?
Amy: We had a choir come in and I actually wrote a directed the choir. I love choir, I’m a choir nerd. I’ve been writing choir for a while actually. It is Latin for "save us from evil" and then "save us from Danger." I think those are the right order.
popYOUlarity: Do you think music nowadays is a little lost and is there too much pressure from everyone looking for some sort of savoir?
Amy: Absolutely not. I don’t think there is enough. I think that music of today has lost a lot of meaning. I think it’s become, it seems to me either pre-packaged, teen angst, you know which is really fake and in genuine .It seems to be what people think will sell. I don’t believe in making music just to sell music. I think a true artist would make a piece of art only to connect with people.
popYOUlarity: So you think that there is a mega difference between those who are only in it for the money, and those who are in it for their passion for music?
Amy: Do I think that there is a difference? Definitely. If you pay attention its pretty clear whose who and what’s going on. Not to be down on anybody, but I ready for music to have some meaning again.
popYOUlarity: Do you think it's kind of difficult to be heard without being painted into a corner now, with the abundance of heavy bands in the mainstream?
Amy: No I don’t feel a lot of pressure that way because I think our music is very different from than anything right now. Simply because we pull from all different kinds of genres. I don’t think we fit into a genre. Hopefully people won’t put us in genres we don’t belong in. Sometimes they do, and that's okay, but I think if you listen to the whole album, then you can see that it’s not like anything else.
popYOUlarity: Not many bands today are fronted by a girl. Do you think that it makes the band get looked down upon, or do you think that it’s seen as a good thing?
Amy: Of course I think that it is a good thing! Many people do view it as a negative. That’s mostly not bands or people that are music buyers. It’s mostly people who are in charge of putting music on the radio or in charge of what sells. It’s people who act like they know all about music, but they actually don’t know anything. I think the main point is that we write music to please ourselves, it sounds good to us. If we didn’t like and weren’t our favourite band, we’d change until we were. At first we did face a lot of prejudice, for me being a female and that our music was rock. This isn’t really rock, it’s tame. When it's not, it's not any tamer than a lot of things. Mainly it's the fact that I’m a female, and on top of that we use pianos and strings. I think it's good that I’m a girl because hopefully that will open the gate for many other female artists to come through, which there aren’t enough of right now.
popYOUlarity: Is determination the key?
Amy: Determination and remembering that it is all about the passion for the music. It shouldn’t be about business, technical stuff, or rules. It should just be about love for the music. We are music lovers. I love my job. I love music more than anything on earth. If we can always keep in mind and remember that’s what it should be about.
popYOUlarity: If a fan were to spend a day with you, can you describe the person they would get to know?
Amy: Personality wise, we’re all different. I am a nature, animal, children lover, very sensitive and passionate. My best friend recently told me that I was the most passionate person she’s ever known. I don’t know if that was a compliment or an insult, honestly (laughs).
popYOUlarity: Do you have any fears of what success will do to you?
Amy: No, because I’m really going to make a point of not getting sucked up into all this. In the end this doesn’t mean anything. This is nothing in the big picture. If you don’t let things get to you and invest everything in you into your career, then it can’t destroy you when it falls, which it always does. Everything goes away, no band survives forever. I’m just glad to be where we are and I’m glad that we’re having a good time and had the success we have. If it was all over tomorrow, it would still be completely different.
popYOUlarity: Do you have anything you would like to say to the readers of popyoularity.com?
Amy: We’re Genuine; we’re not trying to sell anything. Like I said before, it’s just about the music and nothing else.
Interview Given to:
Ben Moody--Lead Guitarist--Songwriter
Interview From:
Stranger Things Magazine--September--2002
The last I heard of Evanescence
was the indie EP you put out in 1998. What have you been doing
since then?
Well, we did put out an EP last summer.
We only made about 50, so few people ever knew it existed. We've
really just been trying to record a full length. We've tried
a million and one different production ideas and arrangements
until we finally found something that we could be proud of. It's
kind of ridiculous to take that long for one CD, but we wanted
it to be the best we could do without a record label. This was
kind of like our baby. We actually didn't start the recordings
that ended up on the album until December of last year. We started
over from scratch when David Hodges joined the band. I think
the most time consuming project has been building our own studio
to accomodate the ridiculous amount of recording we do before
we get a finished product.
What does David bring to
the band? What is the current lineup?
I think it's safe to say that Evanescence
is finally complete. The lineup is Amy Lee, Ben Moody (myself),
and David Hodges. I don't think it would ever work any other
way.
David is probably the only other person
besides Amy that I could work with musically in this band. Amy
and I have always been so protective of Evanescence because it
is our baby, but things just seem to naturally work with David.
He is an incredible pianist and vocalist, and brings alot to
the table as far as production is concerned. Not to mention the
fact that his mom bakes brownies like once a day.
That last EP seemed like
a demo for shopping to labels, with you trying three or four
types of backing instrumentation -- acoustic, goth electronica,
atmospheric metal -- for Amy's voice. Are you still testing different
soundscapes, or have you decided on a favorite?
Our favorite sound would probably fall
under the "goth-electronica" category; however, we
stretch pretty far from that at times. We try not to limit ourselves
to fitting into a specific category. We all listen to such a
wide variety of music that we can't help but to be diverse in
our writing. We'll probably always be trying new things and different
soundscapes. We've already started writing songs that will probably
be on the next album and we're trying to incorporate alot more
choral arrangements as well as really intense strings and world
percussion instruments.
Does Evanescence do any
live shows?
We have played, however it has been a while
due to the fact that the band consists of three people and we
need about 7 or 8 to play live. Our music now consists of a lot
more electronics and loops and stuff, so it's hard to reproduce
live without a lot of equipment and a lot of experienced people
to run it.
How have they gone?
The shows we've played in the past have
been a blast, but they've left us longing to really go all out
and do one right. However, we are moving in August and are trying
to plan an awesome show before we go. We're only going to do
it if we can do it right, but if it comes to be it's gonna be
awesome.
Any idea when the full-length
album will be released? Are you going to do it independently,
or search for a label to release it?
We're not shopping this album to labels.
We're currently retracking some songs at Ardent Studios in Memphis
with the help of Jason Hughes and Chris Gavin from the band Dust
For Life, who are hitting the road with Creed in August. Those
songs will be shopped to labels as soon as we put a live band
together.
What are your influences?
On the original EP, I heard similarities to Euro-bands that have
moved from death metal to female-led heavy atmospherics, like
The Gathering, The Third & the Mortal, and Left Hand Solution.
Are you familiar with any of those?
Our influences are artists like Nine Inch
Nails, Sarah McLachlan, (Ben's a HUGE Living Sacrifice fan),
Sting, Enigma, Michael Jackson, Portishead. I know the list seems
kind of varied, but we like a wide variety of music. I would
have to say that overall, our biggest musical - - I guess hero
would be the right word - - would have to be Danny Elfman. In
our minds he's one of the greatest composers to ever live.
Oh yeah? How did he earn
that title from you guys? What about his composing appeals to
you all?
He just moves us. Everything about his
writing inspires us. He's creepy, he's moody, he's perfect. It
would be a dream come true for us to work with him in the future
on string arrangements for our music.
What does Evanescence hope
to convey, spiritually or otherwise, through music and lyrics?
We're just sick of being bombarded with
catchy riffs that have no depth or meaning behind them. We just
hope people will like our music enough to really listen to what
it's about.
As far as spiritually - the message we
as a band want to convey more than anything is simple - God is
Love. He is a just God, but a gracious God. All anyone seems
to want to do these days is judge other people for things that
they themselves are doing. It's so easy to feel completely and
hopelessly alone. I used to visit a church that happened to openly
support President Clinton. I remember more than once seeing people
on the street in front of the church who were opposed to Clinton's
stand on homosexuality. These people had their small children
with them holding up signs that said "God Hates Fags".
The children weren't even old enought to know what homeosexuality
was, all they knew was that they were supposed to hate them.
The thing that bothered me was not their ignorance or their hateful
standpoint, but that they called themselves Christians. The world
is filled with hateful people who parade the name of Christ like
a badge that grants them immunity to destroy anyone who disagrees
with them and they are turning more people away from the love
of Jesus than any other group of people in the world. The #1
cause of atheism is Christians. We only hope to offset that as
much as we can. God gave human beings amazing amounts of understanding,
but they are still flawed and they make mistakes. God understands
all. He is not flawed. He does not hate. He knows you better
than you know yourself and He understands how you feel. We hope
to express in our music that Christianity is not a rigid list
of rules to follow only out of fear of an unseen deity who will
strike you down at any given moment if you fail. I am a Christian.
I still have fears, I still have pain, I still have sorrow, I
wouldn't be alive if I didn't. The beautiful thing about My relationship
with God is that he understands all that and He has shown me
what life is really for. There are so many things in this life
that are taken for granted because they are overshadowed by all
the hate. We write songs about things that happen in life. All
of our songs are not about rainbows and sunshine. Sometimes it
rains. Who can we help if we won't even talk about it. No one
is alone.
Many Thanks to AppoJuice on Cassem Forums for most of these interviews :) Thanks girl!
