2006/ Planet Rock Profiles - angol

PLANET ROCK PROFILES 

EVANESCENCE 

Intro Voice Over 1

When Evanescence released their debut album Fallen in 2003.The world didn’t know what was about to hit it. For the singles Bring me to life and My Immortal dominating airplane charts. The album would spend over 100 weeks in the billboard’s top 200, sell fourteen million copies and win the band two Grammy awards. Tellingly it would also top the contemporary Christian albums chart. For it that, that set singer Amy Lee apart from her death metal colleagues. Yes she liked boys and loud music but she also loved him the capital H, the man upstairs .Quickly dubbed American’s favorite Christian zombie vampire girl. Amy Lee was like no other singer on earth and fans of loud music just couldn’t get enough of her. Her influence too has been immense it’s fair to say that without Evanescence it’s hard to imagine either by chemical romance or panic of disco becoming quite so big so quickly. The band had started with school fans Amy Lee and then Moody. Moody is no longer with the band. 

Amy Lee

I have always loved music my family’s musical. My dad played a lot of music when I was, I mean from being born and all my sisters and brothers we all play instruments so yeah it’s definitely my passion but I don’t know I think I can see myself doing a lot of other things as long as it’s something I get to create. 

Terry

That’s what I always wanted to do since I was three. Probably like got serious about it when I was 13 I guess. 

Amy Lee

Well I met Ben when I was like 13 so I didn’t really take any big career steps before that, but I was writing music I started writing probably when I was 10 or 11just piano music and kind of horrible recordings on like guitar and vocals with a double cassette player that I had where you could plug in directly and plug in my air guitar or whatever so yeah been doing it a long time. I like all kinds of music definitely I think what’s cool about the music that we make is that it incorporates all kinds of things from classical to metal to rock to I mean there’s even there’s soul in there. So even then like being I don’t know a young teenager I really liked a lot of different things that were just sort of big as long as there’s big and passion music I loved Danny Elfman as a score composer that was a big influence on me and then also I loved I was like kind of grungier then I was really into Soundgarden and those kind of bands so it just sort of naturally came together but the sound has definitely evolved a lot since then I think if anything its just become more and more open minded for new things and its growing I don’t know like appendages. 
 
 
 

Voice Over 1

Legend has it that Lee met her early music collaborator Ben Moody when he heard her playing piano and singing a Meatloaf song. They formed a band but initially concentrated more on recording demos than gigging. 

Amy Lee

We played gigs but they weren’t there wasn’t very many of them it was more than anything actually recording for me when we were starting out I mean up until really we got our record deal it was more recording in you know in my parents garage or basement and rerecording and rewriting and playing maybe shows two or three times a year. 

Voice Over 2

Too early EP’s and the now much sought after original were released locally before their trip to Memphis to master their demos left them meeting Pete Matthews. 

Amy Lee

I wouldn’t call it an EP I wouldn’t do that, they are really just demos. I would hate people to really think that, that’s something that I put out. Since we recorded literally in our parents houses as teenagers they are our demos they get a little bit of air play in our home town you know I mean small time .We went to Memphis to master the demos and put them in this nice looking package to show to record labels and we also sold at a couple of concerts so when we were mastering a producer down the hall Pete Matthews heard us and took it, some labels just sort of on the fly because he wanted to you know produce us and so it was kind of that easy it was really weird. 

Video 1 – “Bring me to Life” – Fallen 

Voice Over 3

The early Evanescence demo soon led to a record deal with Wind-up Records. Initially the label insisted the band wait to record but the album once recorded and released would change Lee and Moody’s life forever. 

Amy Lee

We continued to write for two years after we got signed which was hard at the time because we thought we were ready but we wrote half the songs on the album during that artist development or whatever you want to call it. So in the end I think it was a really good thing. You never know what’s going to happen with music you can just do your best and love it all you can and hope that other people love it too so the fact that our first album did so well was a big kind of phew… relief and happy surprise its not just like we got lucky though I mean we did work really really hard for a long time so it definitely felt like you know a lot of hard work went to good use and we believed in ourselves and you know it was for a reason because it did so well. It was a pretty crazy time eh touring for that long a lot happened a lot for good a lot for bad it was just eh really just a really kind of insane time of my life so I don’t know that I fully got to appreciate it but at the same time I don’t, I really don’t that it should be that important how many records your selling. It really should be about the music and I don’t know about how you feel on the inside so I don’t know I guess I knew, I mean I knew how we were doing I knew we were doing well I knew we had won some Grammy’s and that was awesome but I think it was always important for me what we were going to do for the second record. 

Voice Over 4

Once Lee’s success started however tensions within the band mounted and soon Moody would depart to pursue a solo career and battle some well documented demons of his own his place not just as a guitarist but as leads music collaborator was to be taken by Terry Balsamo  

Amy Lee

Once Terry joined the band we started having fun but it took really that long to start having fun .Touring was actually really hard before that, cause I don’t know for one thing we were being pushed really really hard to never stop we hardly had a break within that year and a half just because everyone’s thinking you know we gotta hurry hurry hurry and the management you know was definitely pressuring us and the label and everyone else so we almost died it felt like that at least, and then after Ben left the band and Terry joined the band a lot of ,a lot of inner problems were healed and Terry’s an easy going guy and we liked him a lot. 

Terry

Yeah I was in a band called Cold from Jacksonville, Florida. The last tour I did with Cold, was with Cold and Evanescence in the states. 

Video 2 – “My Immortal” - Fallen  

Voice over 5

Writing sessions for the new album The Open Door where C and Lee sat down to write in a very different Evanescence to the one that had released Fallen Moody out, Balsamo in a new manager 14 million sales and Lee herself now a rock icon to teenage metal fans the world over. 

Amy Lee

It was the best writing process that I have, have ever been a part of. Better than writing alone for sure because it was like I didn’t feel like he was judging me, I felt like we were really free to create in front of each other organically like me at the piano, him at his guitar or whatever and it was cool I think we like a lot of the same things and wanted to create kind of a new sound instead of either trying to imitate what Fallen was like or imitate other bands that we liked and we’ve heard in the past it was more like lets just start over lets just create new music it was really cool. I remember the whole time kind of feeling like I don’t know. From the very beginning I really had this feeling like we were on the verge of something that was really big because it was unlike anything I had really heard before and it was coming out of us. It was like he’d do something and I go ooh and be inspired and do something on top of that and then he’d take that to the next step and the next and the next and it was. 

Terry

It just kept getting better. 

Amy Lee

Yeah it was awesome .It was really natural I didn’t know what to expect I knew that I really wanted to just let go and not try to make anything of it but something that I loved and it was cool it wasn’t like there was a lot of pressure because we gained a lot of respect the first time a round and pretty much everybody just left us alone which was great so we spent a full year just writing for the album. and it really came out of nowhere it wasn’t like we were like okay lets do a song that’s like this or I know how to get the kids liking music again. It was just writing for ourselves. Fallen really did so well that I was like cool we sold some records now lets make the best thing we’ve ever made ever. And have that be the important thing. 

Voice Over 6

A recording of the new album was badly marred however when Lee’s new writing partner Terry Balsamo suffered a major stroke. One which thankfully he has know made a full recovery from.  

Terry

Nah luckily I had finished all my guitar stuff and had the stroke two days later so as far as slowing down the process. It really didn’t slow us down a lot. 

Amy Lee

It didn’t slow down the process but at the same time it was definitely kind of a big shock it’s a time that I’ll never  forget like, its like this epic moment I cant believe it was a full it was a year ago. It feels like we were just saying the other day, it feels like 10 years ago because it was just so wild its weird looking back on it but we’re really lucky and Terry’s really lucky and I guess we are a little more grateful of our lives right now. 

Voice Over 7

Recorded in late 2006 at the record plant in Los Angeles The Open Door seized the return of long time friend and producer Dave Fortman. The albums musical elements include a classical infused choir and strings on several tracks. 

Amy Lee

We went to a college actually to record the strings in Seattle and there this big awesome kind of church room that just really made great Natural River doesn’t really go much deeper than that. 

Video 3 – Lithium – The Open Door 

Voice Over 8

The new Evanescence album The Open Door was recorded as the band went through not just great change but also great difficulty you wonder how much of this is reflected in the new songs and how these feelings towards the band have changed since Fallen. 

Amy Lee

I do love this band and I do love this music more than the first album by far so my hearts in it more and I feel I guess a little bit more passionate about the music itself but I guess after touring so much. Tour becomes a little less glorious I think we get tired of tour a little bit faster and want to have normal lives and see our family and kind of feel like regular people more so I think I’ve just toured a lot. I think we want to get off tour more now than we used to, but the album I don’t know my hearts in it even more than the first one. Next years pretty much booked touring but we’re taking it a little easier this time other than that I don’t know what what’s next I really just do want to play it by ear and do what moves us. 

Terry

It’s one or the other tour or write me at least. 

Amy Lee

Yeah, me too a career moment which you would never forget. I don’t know that’s, that’s hard it all kind of ends up feeling like this big explosion world wind crazy time. I’ll look back when I’m like 60 and be like was that really me? is there a moment that stands out for you? 

Terry

I don’t know not just really one there’s a lot of shows and stuff. 

Amy Lee

Yeah we’ve played some amazing huge shows that are a little bit buried in my brain like Rock n Ray and Rockempark and things like that are really awesome feeling, winning the Grammies was pretty cool but the rush definitely is a lot bigger playing a big concert  so probably be some of the shows we’ve played. 

Terry

The shows we made played the first week in sales and all that for this record it’s cool. 

Voice over 9

Part of Amy’s great appeal is the degree to which young fans can identify with her. She sings as every woman and every fan can see themselves in her. It’s a subject the fans expectation and crops up in one song and weight of the world. 

Amy Lee

I’m a big sister I have two little sisters and a little brother that I’ve always felt like a big sister to. So I think if anything all the young women that come to our shows make me feel like big sister sort of like the same role that I’ve always been so it’s not that weird but its cool I think we got a lot of fans from all ages both sexes sort of like a big I don’t know crazy like melting pot of people which is a good thing but I don’t know I don’t think I’m perfect I definitely am a flawed person but at least hopefully these girls are learning to think for themselves and being inspired to sort of think outside the box. 

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