“(Interview) The Open Door: An interview with Amy Lee of Evanescence”.

Group lead singer and founder, Amy Lee appropriately describes her music as a product of her perfectionism, a sound that exemplifies intricate, moving instrumental arrangements alongside her distinguished, unique vocal talent. Over the past seven years, Lee has taken Evanescence from being a small band in Little Rock, Arkansas to a phenomenon of such a characteristic presence that it has become the embodiment of an entire segment of popular culture, where striking visuals and exceptional music come together to create a connecting experience between artist and observer — communicating on an archetypal emotional-spiritual level.
Their new album “The Open Door” easily qualifies as a success — one which stands apart from their previous work, taking the music to another level entirely. From the uninformed standpoint, however, of those outside the inner circle of Evanescence, considering the pressure of creating a new album and competing with 14 million copies of their six-times Platinum “Fallen”, alongside fellow member Terry Balsamo suffering a stroke in November 2005, coupled with the dismissal of their former manager, one may see the pressure as too much for the band to handle. Lee, on the contrary, describes the reality of making of their new album “The Open Door” as something completely different:
“[When creating the album] I did not feel like there was pressure. People ask about the pressure of competing with 14 million copies of Fallen and for me that was not any pressure. I felt like the success we had made it even easier to write the record because we had all this artistic and monetary freedom. We made enough money to take our time and put a lot into the album and just let it come out when it wanted to. The pressure is defiantly on now, because touring, press, and the label … everyone wants something. It is getting a little bit crazy and I defiantly want to pull off live what we did on the album. I know that we can do it, but you can’t just get up on the stage and just do it one day. Terry is doing amazing, but he has to work ten times harder than he has had to before, because of the stroke and he is still recovering. It’s a trip… Everyone in the press lately is looking at the band and seeing so much drama, saying it looks like its falling apart — but it has not been like that all. There defiantly have been challenges, but I think that through every challenge we have come out of it stronger. Everything that has happened to the band has made it a better band. Ben leaving the band was a really positive thing and it needed to happen — his chapter did end and it was the only way for us to grow. All the changes that I have made in the past year with people who were working with me and people that I was involved with, those were very positive changes for me. Terry having a stroke — that is still a challenge that we are overcoming and I know we can overcome it and already the positives that has come out of it has made us all have to rely on one another and appreciate what we have. In the simplest forms in our life we are all very grateful to be here and you just become that much closer.”
Amy Lee suggests that it is through the challenges Evanescence faced that the band was brought to where it is today. The process of creating “The Open Door” has been that of transcendence, moving from the challenges, to the emotion, and then to the triumph. The album itself follows this same lyrical equation. As Lee states,
“Listening to the album and knowing how it was for me, I think it starts out in one place and ends in another. It starts in an angry place and ends in a happy place where I finally let it go. The album is really a journey, going through all these trials and struggles and hurdles that I have to get over through the whole thing and it finally ends with Good Enough, which is this calm after the storm — I just let it all out. I said everything that I needed to say and I feel better now. To me the album is so much more of a journey than “Fallen”. To me what stands out the most is that you can hear the freedom in the music. For the first time, I actually felt open and confident enough to just jam with somebody and make music organically, like we actually had drums going on computer and Terry would play guitar and I would sit at the piano and knock out ideas, recording them into ProTools. It was new for me, because last time it was really different, I was really immature and I was very young and [Ben and I] never sat in a room together, not once. I always had my ideas that I would write on my own, very very secretive, having to be alone all the time and I was very vulnerable — it was scary. Ben too, he would write by himself and we would try to bring our ideas together and make them work. This time I think all the parts intertwine together and make sense. [Though] I am the leader of the band and I do most of the writing… it is so important to have somebody to work with and work off of, because if one of us comes up with an idea, the other can take it to the next level, and the other can take it a level even higher than that. You can keep growing and growing and make things that much better and better. I felt like every song we did, it would just raise the bar and it would be a challenge to top that song.”
Overall, Amy Lee makes the case that the state of the band is as clear as the eye can see — thriving, alive, and ever that much more than they were before. The success that they have enjoyed is only a testament to the talent that embodies Evanescence. Just as Lee says, “We are totally excited.” — So are we.
Published in November, 2006, Skinnie Entertainment Magazine