Amy vs Madonna

Amy vs Madonna...

Amy pics and article from 'Kerrang' below thanx to evanescencewebsite.com

What most notice about Amy Lee in person are her piercingly clear pale blue eyes, almost turquoise.Sat in a room on the 18th floor of the swanky W Hotel in downtown Manhattan, dressed in a Disney ‘Snow White’ T-shirt, the Evanescence front woman is surprisingly sprightly for someone who has spent the last couple of days doing up to 11 interviews a day. “I’m being cooperative because I’m not burned out right now”, she explains. “But if this came in the middle of the tour, I would be like; “No way”The feeding frenzy is unsurprising. October 3 will see the release of “The Open Door”, the Goth troupes long waited first new record since 2002’s “Fallen”, which transformed two unknown Arkansas kids, Lee and since departed writing partner/guitarist Ben Moody, into household names, selling a whopping 14 million albums, an almost unheard of feat in today’s fragmented market.

Last time we met with Lee in LA two years ago, Evanescence were on top of the world, and Lee was in high spirits; since then, it’s been a litany of line-up changes break ups, court cases and illness – guitarist Terry Balsamo was hospitalized after a stroke last November. But right now, Lee seems to be on top once again. She’s recently moved to New York to live in – wait for it – a converted gothic church. She has a new live and a new boyfriend, having split with Seether’s Shaun Morgan earlier this year.And in spite of the doubts over whether Evanescence will come close to replicating “Fallen’s success, the 24-year old star is looking to the near future with hope and enthusiasm.In conversation she’s friendly, chatty and laughs a lot at herself and others, frequently pausing to imitate voices or break into song; a far cry from the cold, controlling siren she’s sometimes portrayed as.

How long have you been living in New York?
“Actually, I stayed in this hotel for like a month, in March, while I was looking at apartments, then I moved into my place – its rad. It’s this old building that used to be a church and they turned it into apartments. It’s got vaulted ceilings, it’s cool. I love New York – there’s so much culture and class. I think my taste is maturing. LA was cool at first, but after a while I was like, ‘Man, I need to get out of here’.”
So how are things going in general?
“Really good. I’m really happy. I kind of had a lot of stuff building and building and weighing me down last year and then I finally just said, ‘That’s it’, changed everything, sold my house, sold a bunch of my stuff and kicked a couple of people out of my life and moved here.”
Are you concerned about coming back with the new album?
“Not really. It’s hard to say. I love the new stuff so much, really, more than the last album. ‘Fallen’ was so successful, I can’t imagine it happening twice – I think having that mindset’s helped me. If it doesn’t work out and 500,000 people buy it instead of 14 million, I’m going to be totally satisfied, because right now I am so happy because it sounds so good. I definitely wrote it thinking about what I wanted, not about what the fans would want, but all the same, at the end, I’m like, ‘The fans are going to love this’. I just hope they do.”
Terry Balsamo joined the band soon after Ben Moody left mid-tour in October 2003. Did you know he’d end up as your writing partner?
“No, we really lucked out. When Terry first joined the band we didn’t even think he would be a permanent member; he was still in Cold and they just weren’t touring at the time, and he came out, played with us for a few months, and then we talked about him and asked him to stay.“I wrote some things and he came over and we clicked, really fast. One of the songs that made it onto the album was the first thing we ever wrote together, ‘Snow White Queen’. I felt insecure and guarded around Ben and it was hard for me to open up and just experiment because I felt kind of not safe. Terry sits there going ‘Yeah, its awesome’, just encouraging me and pushing me to the next level instead of… holding me back.”
The new album sounds more complex and lavish than ‘Fallen’.
“It’s what I wanted. I had so much backed-up creative energy that was just dying to pour out: I’d been dying to write for the whole time that we’d been on tour. And this time I was free to do whatever without having to confine it into what people can swallow, or what’s going to be okay, or what I’m going to get in trouble about or whatever.”
In trouble with whom?
[Adopts a mock stern voice] “Im not going to say” he said this before, so I don’t feel bad saying this now: Ben always wanted to push us in a more commercial direction and I always wanted to pull us in a more creative direction and that’s where we started butting heads more and more towards the end, so I felt I was free to make artistic choices, even more than last time.”
You’ve referred to ‘The Open Door’ as a ‘sexy’ album…
“The song ‘Lose Control’ is what I was thinking of when I said that before, but then again I hate to say that because I don’t want people to think the album is some R&B-like sexed-up pop thing: it’s so hard to describe. I think that just comes from the fact that I’ve grown up and I’m not so insecure. And I’m not afraid to express every emotion – including feeling worthy and feeling like a woman and feeling good about myself; not that the album’s all happy and poppy. There are elements of everything.”
Do you see Evanescence as music people might have sex to?
“No. Hehehe. I hope not, that’s kind of sick. That’s like, er, I dunno. I don’t…really. Maybe ‘Lose Control’. I don’t actually see it that way. I mean I couldn’t because I’d sit there thinking about the bass is too loud or the drum isn’t loud enough or I wish I hadn’t sung that way, hehehe.”
How long have you been seeing your new chap?
“Ah, this guy. I haven’t even been talking about ‘my new relationship’, I’ve been kinda like, ‘Ah, screw it; I don’t want to talk about relationships anymore’. We’ve been together since last November-ish. We’ve known each other for years and years but we’ve been out of touch, so, it’s cool.”
Is he in the rock world?
“No, not at all. Hehee. I’m very happy about it. He’s actually a therapist. So he’s nice, a very good listener very stable a nice change.
You are currently embroiled in a court case with your former manager, including a charge of sexual assault.
“Its really rough, it’s not anything you ever want to have happen because your under contract, so it’s a huge, huge mess and it’s really scary. I’m really not supposed to talk about it because it’s still pending and could work against me whatever I say. against me, whatever I say.”
Might you have to go to court and testify? I hope not. I’ve never been in court. I really don’t want to. I hope it all works out, I really do. But everything’s running much smoother now.”
How do you think you’ve grown? You seem much more in control of everything.
“Yeah, I started seeing a long time ago that decisions that weren’t been made by me, but made around me, for me, weren’t always good decisions. I had to step up and take control or everything was going to blow up in my face. I do everything. The music writing I am a total control freak over, and the mixing and everything we do . ive grown up in alot of ways. ifeel like whe i listen to fallen and i hear me saying "save me from the dark" : now i feel like saying "stop wjining". i dont want to be stuck unhappy; i want to be happy. i want to save the problem and now its about solving the problem not "oh poor me "