A Lithium Magazine¯ készített interjút az Evanescence fiúival: Will Hunt és Tim McCord válaszol a kérdésekre.

(az interjút a cikk folytatásában - egyenlőre még - angol nyelven elolvashatjátok.)

Alternative rock band Evanescence, currently touring in support of their latest self-titled release, stopped into Toronto on October 25th for a packed-to-capacity show at the Sound Academy. Weather-wise it was a chilly and miserable evening with foggy patches and constant rain. Sporadically, the ongoing drizzle led to heavy downpours which then led to heavy traffic, not to mention a lump in my throat as I considered the strong possibility that I was going to miss my allotted time slot for my interview with band bassist, Tim McCord and drummer, Will Hunt.

As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one that had fallen victim to the dreary weather, as the band was also caught in thick traffic following an on-air interview, and was severely pressed for time. Nevertheless, they were most accommodating. So, after some rearranging of their pre-show schedule, and while opening band Rival Sons hyped the crowd, we slipped outside to Evanescence’s tour bus and warmed up while we discussed everything from the band’s unexpectedly lengthy time out from recording and touring, to their current desire to play a two-night gig at the Apollo Theatre in London. Between times, Tim McCord’s sense of humor kept us laughing.

Laurie: So, it’s been five years since your last album. I know Amy Lee (founder and lead singer of Evanescence) needed some down time to reflect on her life and what she wanted to do, which, in part, created some of the time span, but did the time away from recording and touring worry the rest of the band? Did that time span concern you?

Tim: Yeah, it concerned me in that I went mad broke.

(Laughing together)

Laurie: Well, there’s honesty for you.

Will: I remember because he (gesturing towards Tim) had been here longer than me and I came in midway through the last run (tour) and she (Amy Lee) was very up front with me about what her plan was. She was like, “I need some guys to help finish out this run for another seven months or so, then I’m going to take a break. I don’t know how long it’s going to be and I don’t know what I’m going to do after that.” My hope getting in was: things have happened, she’s had some not so positive experiences with this, but maybe with this line-up we can put a good taste in her mouth so when she takes this break she’ll come back and do it again. But nobody thought it was going to be this long; even she didn’t think it was going to be this long, and it was scary. I remember saying to her before the break, “It’s very hard for people to take that much time off when they have this much momentum and get it back. It’s really hard to pull that off.” She knew that I knew we thought it was tough, but she knew the fans were there.

Tim: Look what happened, everything’s cool.

Laurie: Exactly! Four number ones on Billboard, and number one on their 200 chart! You certainly debuted well.

Tim: I’m really happy that when we did come back it was the same line-up. In my opinion, this is the strongest this band has ever been. I couldn’t be happier about this.

Laurie: There was some buzz from fans online that suggested they’d lost track of the band and possibly had lost interest, but they couldn’t have lost track too much considering the new album debuted the way it did.

So, for the album, you started off with Steve Lillywhite as a producer and then some problems developed that caused a clash. Was it YOUR decision to let him go; was it HIS decision to go?

Tim: Actually, we weren’t really there. Well, a couple of us weren’t really there. Amy had gone into the studio with a guy that she wrote some of the music with, and they started making the record and had been going strong for a couple of months. Then they brought the band in to play, so we did, and we tracked for a week or so and then next thing I knew everyone was like, “Everybody go home, we’re taking a break from this. We’ll call you in a week or so when everything gets figured out”. I really don’t know what the official statement was, that was all pretty cloudy to me.

Will: I think she was doing something that was very different at the time, so I think she was going to make it some kind of a solo record. But then when we played the show in Brazil, it left a good taste in her mouth about doing Evanescence again and she said, “Okay this’ll be an Evanescence record”. It’s very different and it’s amazing material.

Tim: Yeah, I think it was geared to be more of a solo thing.

Will: People would’ve squeezed a bottle of ketchup and mustard would’ve come out.

Laurie: So that’s why she went back and wrote more material?

Will: Yeah, I think she realized and we realized that Evanescence should be Evanescence. She’s so talented and so multi-faceted so she can keep that stuff and revisit it later if she wants to do a solo. But for the band, we started over, and some of the stuff was left over.

Tim: But it all got re-worked. These were songs that were not rock and roll at all, but the band got hold of the material and it was like, “This is how we think this should sound”.

Laurie: So then Nick Raskulinecz was brought in, with a production resume of bands a mile long that includes Foo Fighters, Marilyn Manson, Trivium, Deftones and on and on. Was he brought on because Amy is a fan of the bands he’s produced?

Tim: We were all big fans of the last few albums he made, especially Deftones and Alice in Chains. Its like, “Wow, this is amazing, the tones are so crisp. Sonically, this is exactly how I want my stuff to sound.” So she gave him a call.

Will: She met with three people, and the thing we all agreed about on his last two records was that he brought those bands back to sounding like how they were originally when we fell in love with them. He brought them back to sounding like their true selves, so that’s the guy we wanted for Evanescence.

So it took a while, it wasn’t an easy record to make. He understands bands, dynamic, attitude, ego, he understands everything. That guy’s the gel; he knows exactly how to work with every individual member.

Will: He’s the kind of guy to dive in and get his hands dirty, and because of that he makes everyone else dig in, too.

Tim: He’s a good leader. He leads by example.

Laurie: Nevertheless, he did manage to change things up a bit with an electro-pop kind of infusion this time around. I’m hearing something a little bouncier, a little less dark than before. Was it liberating to be a little bit more experimental this time around, or did you find it stressful to change things up?

Tim: It was absolutely fun, especially for myself and Will. Most of this record, in my opinion, is based off of groove, where the other records are flatter. You can move to this record. You can shake that ass to it if you have to.

Will: Yeah, there IS more of a bounce. Tim and I both like electronic music, hip-hop, funk, whatever. I think the last drummer in the band comes from a completely different school than me and my whole thing was, I wanted the record to swing. Tim and I have come from that groove, so the electro stuff was kind of natural for us anyway.

Tim: There’s always been electro industrial sounds going on in all Evanescence records, but this time it took a different feeling.

Laurie: But the band is in a different place personally now, right? I mean, last time out with the album Open Door, it was pretty dark. Does the band feel the difference now? Does Amy?

Tim: Musically, I think everyone’s having way more fun, including Amy. I definitely am.

Will: She’s having more fun. You know, there’s always these dynamics on tours where there’s the musical side, but then there’s the whole other side where you’re living on a bus like this.

Laurie: It’s a beautiful bus; very cozy.

Will. Yeah, it is. But, you’ve got to have some really cool people that are just mellow and easy going in order to be together all the time.

Laurie: But after five years away from living on a bus and doing the touring side of things, do you find it difficult getting back in the swing of it again?

Tim: No. We’ve all been doing this for so many years; it’s just normal.

Will: I’ve pretty much been on tour since we took the break. I’ve been playing with everybody and their brother. My neck’s still sore. It takes a couple weeks for that to go away. For Amy, she’s singing every night now. Singing comes from the core and she’s pushing so hard. I know the first week or so she was like, “I’m feeling this”.

Tim: We’re all good pals which makes it so much easier this time around. That wasn’t always the case in previous line-ups.

Laurie: Perhaps this is more a question for Amy, but maybe you’ll know the answer anyway……. Recently being named Revolver’s “Hottest Chick in Metal”, to me doesn’t sound like something Amy would aspire to - best album, best lyrics, best band, sounds more like something she’d be on board with. Perhaps even Best Dressed would appeal to her considering she fashions a lot of her own clothes. But Hottest Chick just doesn’t strike me as being something she would take seriously. How is she dealing with that one? Has she embraced it?

Tim: She just thought it was fun, like, “Hey! That’s cool.” She wasn’t like, “Damn right I’m the hottest!” or “I hate it when people make those comparisons”. It wasn’t like that for her.

Will: She had fun with it. I think, like you said, she embraced it and was like, “Hey, check that out!” But it was just sort of fun for her. Any kind of an accolade like that is good.

Tim: And we, both Will and myself, are current runners-up for the Hottest Dude in rock n’ roll on Revolver’s next….

Will: …… their next list.

Tim: Yeah, so vote for us.

(All laughing together)

Laurie: Okay; and how are you with that?

Will: It’s fun. But really, I mean, who cares, right?

Tim: I, on the other hand, DID set out to be the hottest. Let me take my shirt off for you.

(Laughter)

Tim: Would you like to know anything else?

Laurie: (Laughing) Well, just to wrap it up, I was just going to ask if besides touring the album, you have anything special planned? Any one-off shows on the horizon? Any video shoots?

Will: We’re hoping to do two nights at the Apollo, which is a very famous place because everyone has played there – Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Elvis…… It’s not confirmed just yet but it’s being talked about. I’d really love to see that happen because it would be great to capture this line-up. Not that the line-up is going to change or anything, but it would be great to capture it as we are right now.

Laurie: I hope it DOES happen for you. But I realize that right now you have to get going, so I thank you so much, gentlemen. I really appreciate it.

Tim: Thanks boss!

Laurie: I hope you have a great show.

And truly, what a great show it was!! Capturing it for a music video during an appearance at the Apollo would be some thing fans would eat up for sure!!