Evanescence's new songs help singer move forward creatively

Evanescence's new songs help singer move forward creatively

By Gene Triplett
The Oklahoman

Amy Lee does her best work when she's bleeding.

Her life as the goth goddess fronting a platinum-selling band is the stuff MTV reality shows are made of, complete with internal strife, catastrophic illness and rock 'n' roll romance gone wrong. But since there were no camera crews around to record all the melodrama, Lee wrote songs about it, painfully honest ones that fill "The Open Door” — Evanescence's first studio album in three years — with beautiful melodies, Lee's shimmering keyboards and haunting vocals, and the blistering hard-rock riffage of her guitarist/writing partner, Terry Balsamo.

Lee thinks the new album far exceeds the quality of the band's Grammy-winning 2003 Wind-up Records debut, "Fallen,” a double-platinum seller created with former songwriting partner Ben Moody, who co-founded Evanescence with her in Little Rock, Ark., in the late '90s.

"Writing is always pretty intense,” Lee said from a hotel in Auckland, New Zealand, the last overseas stop for the band before beginning the U.S. leg of its tour. "I feel like I've been through a lot, and I had a lot to purge, things that have been building up that have happened over the course of two or three years. I had a lot I wanted to get out of my system.”

The trouble began in 2003, when creative differences between Lee and Moody were boiling over, even as the band was beginning its meteoric rise.

"There were a lot of problems and internal fighting,” Lee said. "It was always butting heads with me and Ben. It was always us fighting for our way, and not really working together so much.”

Moody made his exit late that year and was replaced by ex-Cold guitarist Balsamo, who proved to be creatively compatible with the front woman of Evanescence, helping her to enhance and expand upon the classically influenced shadings of the band's sound. After more than a year of touring and the release of the band's live album, "Anywhere But Home,” in 2004, the new team went to work on new songs, complete with Lee's tell-all lyrics about her turbulent relationship and breakup with Seether lead singer Shaun Morgan. Songs such as the thrashing and soaring album opener, "Sweet Sacrifice,” and the first single, "Call Me When You're Sober,” were cathartic, heart-mending exercises for Lee.

"I was pushing myself to say everything without being masked in metaphor,” she said. "It was all really, really real. That's actually, like, silly. It's just a breakup. But that's the kind of stuff that always inspires my writing. If there's unrest in my life, like if I'm not satisfied and I'm hurting, or if everything is difficult, it feels like there's tons of stuff I want to say and get out of the music.

"And then, in turn, it sort of turns out to be, like, I'm my own therapist, telling me what to do and how to get out of it.”

The sweepingly orchestral "Lithium” is another reflection on emotional entrapment, and feeling versus numbness.

"I feel too much,” Lee said, laughing. "So, I love that song. It's about the choice you have to make when you're in a bad relationship that's poisonous, and you know you have to get out of it, but it's like you've invested so much and you have all these excuses of why it's easier to stay in the comfort zone of being depressed and sorrowful and in pain.”

Lee said she also found new creative freedom working with Balsamo, who "finished my musical thoughts” and helped her complete the project before falling victim to a stroke in October 2005.

"He's all right,” she said. "He's on tour with us now, which is a miracle in itself. When he first had the stroke, he didn't have any use of his left arm at all. ... He started practicing, going to physical therapy. A couple of weeks before the tour started, we went to a practice, and I really hadn't seen him pick up a guitar and play. He was very proud.

"And then we got up and played, and it wasn't perfect, and he was very frustrated. He's a total perfectionist, but I was really moved and started crying. He's getting better all the time, and we're really grateful for him.”

Meanwhile, Lee is getting better all time, as well, and is in a healthier, happier relationship with a new fiance. But fans are not to worry. She's not getting too complacent or forgetting lessons learned, lessons that she feels are still worth singing about in her dark and powerful way.

"It'll sneak up on you,” she said. "You never know what life can bring.”