"The Open Door" Purifies Evanescence's Amy Lee

By: Music Staff

Sunday October 15, 2006

I definitely feel like the challenges we've been through as a band have made us stronger. Instead of letting the things that happen to us hurt us and let us get separated, we became a lot closer.
Evanescence's The Open Door debuted as the #1 album in The United States, marking the band's first appearance at the top of Billboard's Top 200 sales chart. Combined over-the-counter and digital album sales of The Open Door totaled 447,342 units in the U.S. Fallen, the first release from Evanescence peaked at number three following a debut at number seven. To date, Fallen has scanned 6,571,940 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The lead track from The Open Door “Call Me When You're Sober,” is a multi-format smash at alternative, pop and rock radio, as well as through all major online and music television outlets. The public has responded enthusiastically, with the band's first leg of the tour selling out almost instantaneously. Following the U.S. run, Evanescence will head to Europe for dates across the continent.

“This achievement is a testament to the incredible album that Amy Lee and Evanescence produced; the music connected with fans from the very first notes of ‘Call Me When You're Sober' and delivered a tremendous listening experience all the way through,” said Wind-up Entertainment President Ed Vetri.

The following is a transcription of an interview done with Evanescence's Amy Lee, where she speaks about following up a worldwide smash hit album, the stress of touring, the hardships that brought her and her bandmates together to form a stronger bond and more.

Pardon me if I ask a real obvious question and that is, did you feel pressure to build on the success of the last album in making this one?

It's funny. That's one of the most frequent questions I get and I really felt like it was sort of the opposite effect for me. Fallen did really, really well, better than we expected and a lot has changed for our band in the line-up and everything else. More than anything, it gave us a lot of freedom this time around. I felt like since we'd already established our sound and established ourselves with Fallen and how well it did, we could do whatever we wanted this time around and actually expand the box and do something even more.

Just a follow up on that, did you need time to get the clutter out before you could really write?

Get the clutter out of my head? We toured for a year and a half and we were all really exhausted because it was just crazy. We didn't know what we were doing and I didn't know how to say no back then, so the train just wouldn't stop. When we finally got off tour, I think we all slept for two months straight. After maybe two months, the writing really began. We were pretty fried. We're finally to the point where a tour sounds fun.

I want to talk about about your songwriting. You've had no qualms about writing deeply personal songs, but has there been a time during the recording of this album when you've written stuff that you get nervous about telling too much about yourself?

It's actually really funny that you asked that. This morning, I was reading a couple of - I don't often go back and read interviews that I've given. If it's a big one, like Blender did something on us that was six pages long and I went and looked at a couple today. It's funny, I don't feel like it's too personal to write. Making art out of it is the best feeling in the world for me. I feel like the more I express and the more I share and the more personal it is, the better I feel. It's a bigger weight I've lifted off of myself. But then again, when I go and read back interviews and all the press and everything, that's when I start to feel like — when you're writing the songs, you don't think about how you're going have to talk about it and explain yourself afterwards.

I guess the times that I think I have no secrets is when I'm either reading interviews or write-ups about us because it is really personal and my life in a way really is an open book to the world and sometimes that can be a little scary. But I definitely never pull back from the music because I think I should probably just shut my big mouth sometimes.

"Call Me When You're Sober," that's definitely a very personal song like you were saying. Do you think that that song had any effect on Shaun going into rehab?

I don't know. I honestly couldn't answer that question. I really hope that he's doing great. Sorry, I can't give you a good answer on that one.

What was his reaction to that song? Did you talk to him after it came out?

No, we haven't been in contact.

Now that it's close, and with everything that has gone on in the year and a half leading up to this album. Now that you're here, how excited are you to have the album and the tour here and be able to just concentrate on that?

It's pretty cool. The past few months have really just been promo and a lot of work, actually. It's running around all over the world and giving interviews and talking and doing photo shoots and all the stuff that really stresses you out. So the fact that we're on the brink of actually going on tour and getting to make music the center of attention again and the center of our lives is a really exciting thing. We're all really happy to be going on tour. I don't know, it's been a long time, so I'm a little bit nervous.

We're actually on our way to practice right now, we're in the car. We're practicing out in the country at a venue for the venue we're going to be playing in. So we get to have our lighting guy and everybody is coming out today and so we can feel like we're playing shows for the next four days before tour, which is exciting. It is really fun. I do love that part of my job. But the music is more challenging and it is a lot of practice. There's a lot of practice that I need to get in before we start, but I can handle it. We can handle it. We'll be fine.

One of the things about you guys that I think really stands out is how personal your music can be to your fans. It seems like people really react to you guys in a very personal way. I'm wondering what was the moment where you realized that, where you had a contact with a fan where you really realized you were hitting people that you didn't necessarily know yourself?

I'm trying to think of a good, specific example. That can be hard because we get so many kids. I say kids because it seems like a lot of times, it's teenagers who feel like they really have someone that they can relate to or talk to. I don't know. I'm trying to think of a good specific experience and not waste your time.

Without giving a specific one, I'll say that it is a huge inspiration to feel like people connected with the music that we've written and the words that I've written. It's an incredible compliment. It makes me feel like the whole thing that I'm doing here isn't totally self-indulgent. There's actually some good coming out of it. I feel like there are a lot of people that just want to feel that they're not alone and feel like someone else in the world understands what it's like to go through some hard times.

I don't think my life's been harder or worse or more challenging than anyone else's, but I'm an expresser. I'm a creator, so I'm constantly just putting it out t there and getting it off [of] my chest, so people relate to that. I think that a lot of people appreciate that and it makes me feel wonderful. I feel like I've been able to unload my baggage because not only by releasing it, have I gotten it out of my system, but it's actually helped other people get through the same thing. It's actually a real miracle sometimes.

On the topic of the way that you share a lot of your personal issues and connect with fans, one of the byproducts of that is that people start to want to know more about you beyond just you as a musician. For example, when I heard the first single, I thought 'she's singing about her boyfriend, Shaun.' Does it ever weird you out when you think about how - I guess just the whole fame side of things, that people know things about you that you might not even know is out there?

Again, when I'm writing music, that's never crossing my mind. I feel like I have so many things that are making me feel trapped or angry and I have to get them out of my system, so I write them and I have written even more personal lyrics this time around. I wasn't thinking about it at all when I was writing. But then now I guess I'm starting to feel, not the consequences, but the byproducts of those things, it is a little bit crazy.

It's hard because I just have to keep reminding myself that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about me because they don't know me. The whole thing is really crazy and as much as I share and as much personal information is out there about me, no one that doesn't really know me, nobody knows me I must say or is actually close to me and has hung out with me. It's hard when you open yourself up. You have to know that you're making yourself completely vulnerable to judgment. I am putting my heart on the line and I don't expect everyone to think, that's really great, I'm proud of her.

I think there are probably tons of people out there that think I'm a total bitch. I'm just getting to the place now where I'm aware of that and starting to be okay with that because I'm the kind of person who just wants everyone to love me. It's kind of an adjustment to be okay with knowing that there are a lot of people out there that (feel like they know me), but they don't know me.

So you do feel like you're able to have ownership over your personal life anyway?

I do. I'm feeling better about it now than ever. I'm comfortable with myself and I know the truth and that's enough for me.

Your albums are always so emotionally charged as are your concerts. What do you guys do to wind down? Do you pull any pranks on each other, crack jokes?

To keep it real? Absolutely. Have you seen our DVD? We're completely stupid. It's funny because I really do get to release so much of my baggage. I release so much of my baggage into the music, but I feel like I can be normal and healthy in real life. I don't feel like I'm always wallowing in pain and sad and dressing in black all the time, I'm a goofball. I'm a normal person. The music is just my therapy; it's my outlet for all those negative things.

So, yes, we are silly and we do joke and laugh a lot and I really love the guys. This band wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't for them. I'm on my way to rehearsal right now and I'm going to goof around because I'm going to have to eventually say, 'Alright, everybody stop playing around, it's time to get onstage and practice.'

You said before you didn't know how to say no in your past. How did you finally learn how to say no and draw boundaries?

How did I learn? I think it's life experience. It wouldn't be from one thing or two things or three things. I think through my life from 10 years ago up until now I've been through a lot, definitely known a lot of people and met a lot of people and you learn that everyone isn't just like you. After being taken advantage of a little bit and making enough mistakes and bad decisions, you learn from every mistake.

I guess I don't want to be one to judge too quickly. I still want to leave myself open to people because I love people. I think that's the only way to ever really be happy is to be able to connect with other people, but at the same time, not everyone and not let yourself be trampled on. It's just a lesson in life and it's been a big one for me. It's taken a long time, but I'm finally learning it and I don't want to say no all the time, but sometimes you really do have to say no.

What kind of head space were you in when you wrote "Good Enough"? Were you in a happier head space maybe and was that always going to be the album closer?

Oh, no. I'm here now. This is me now. I think "Good Enough" is the best representation of the new me and it was the last song written for the album, written at the very, very end of the writing process. Actually, we were already in the studio recording and we thought we had all the songs and then that song came out of me. I guess by then, I'd gotten so much out of my system, that I needed to sing, that I needed to write about. I actually had made real changes in my life to separate myself from the negative things that were holding me down. After all the fighting and all the struggle and all the stuff, it was like this calm after the storm and I felt really, really good, better than I felt since maybe my childhood.

"Good Enough" actually came out of feeling good, which is a big first for me because I've always felt like I have to be going through something, struggling with something, to write. Passionate, tragic things inspire my music, but I've realized that I don't have to be sad to write a good song because "Good Enough" I think is a wonderful song. It makes me happy to hear it and it's really funny because for one thing, there are no guitars on it, but for another thing, it's sweet and it's admittedly Terry and John's favorite song on the album. I'm glad I did that.

Does this song mean more because you had to go through all the other stuff, all the other songs, all the other kind of drama to get to that song?

Exactly. And that's why it makes the most sense at the end of the album because the whole album is in a hard place. I'm struggling to find a light and actually trying to work towards it and the battle between, do I stay in the comfort of sorrow, or do I really want to be happy and am I going to make these changes and get there. In the end, it actually does have a happy ending, which isn't something I expected at all when we started writing the album, but it's really something you can plan for. You just have to see where life takes you and write about it and see what happens.

You and the band have dealt with so many changes over the past year, health issues, legal issues, a lot of difficult stuff. I'm just wondering what the impact was of that kind of stuff was on the band being together and making the record in the studio. Was it a different dynamic, a different vibe this time around? Did you have to go through a process to get more comfortable with each other again?

I definitely feel like the challenges we've been through as a band have made us stronger. It's weird, bands break up all the time over things and instead of letting the things that happen to us hurt us and let us get separated, we became a lot closer. There's a lot of sensationalism right now about my whole story, that everything's been really tough and dramatic and hard, and yes, there have been challenges, but this has been one of the best experiences in my entire life. The band really had to lean on each other when Ben left. I felt like in a weird way, we really became a band that day because we knew that we'd be able to survive and continue after the struggle and the negativity was gone.

In one day off, John relearned all the guitar parts to cover the band as a four piece for the rest of the tour without canceling a single show. We all really depended on each other and leaned on each other. We've been close ever since. I don't feel like we were really close before that. With everything else, after Terry's stroke, that brought us even closer together and that's a struggle we've all had to overcome and once again, lean on each other and support each other and everybody is helping out. I think those things that have happened to us have made us a better and a stronger band.

Could you tell me the main difference in the songwriting process for Open Door and the recording process and what Terry brought to this album?

Totally different experience. Terry and I had gotten to be close on tour and we were good friends and we hung out a lot together, so we could trust each other. I actually do feel very vulnerable when I'm writing and in the past, I've never been able to sit and write music with someone, like in the same room, just sit there and make music. This is a first for me.

We actually got in the studio and learned Pro Tools...had an engineer friend help us learn Pro Tools. We'd open a session and just start playing. I'd sit at the piano and Terry would be at the guitar or at the computer doing drums and stuff and we'd just start building off of each other.

I think a big difference other than that about Terry is he's a real innovator. He's really creative and he's constantly wanting to try something that he's never done before or that he's never even heard before, instead of relying on the same basic structures to get the point. [On Pro Tools] He actually uses it like a real instrument, which is so fun for me because I really wanted to take the music in a more creative direction. And we got to do that and the sound definitely came to the table and I think he's a big part of this record.

Since you had such a big part in actually creating the songs more, did you feel nervous at all about showing off more of your songwriting skills?

I felt like I'd finally been given the freedom to do what I'd always wanted to do. So once my ideas weren't being shot down a lot of the time, it wasn't like I had to fight for everything that was mine that came through. It was just free. I was allowed to do whatever and that's where the title of the Open Door really came from.

When Terry and I were in the house studio, early on in the writing process, I thought, all the doors are open. We're free to do whatever we want and not have to worry about breaking into the industry or impressing somebody or trying to establish a sound or anything. We could just do whatever and really be creative and make the best music we can.

I think that Open Door really shows your maturity and confidence as a songwriter and I was wondering since it's been almost two years since you've been on stage, when the tour starts, are we going to see your confidence and maturity expressed in your stage presence as well?

I hope so. It has been awhile and thank you for all the compliments. I'm glad to hear that because I definitely do feel like a more confident writer and more confident musician and hopefully a more confident performer. When we started off, I remember that I was pretty shy and it was hard for me to really even open my eyes when I was singing because I was just concentrating on singing and having a hard time really admitting to myself that I deserved to be onstage instead of just one of the kids in the crowd.

We were playing a lot of shows to a lot of people and having amazing reactions from fans around the world. I did gain a lot of confidence as a performer. I'm hoping that's still there. It has been over two years since I've been on stage. I guess I'm a little nervous, but it'll be cool because we're not starting in huge arenas. We're starting in little theatres and so it'll be able to be us and the fans and the energy will be crazy and we'll be able to just really have a good time. It's sort of like a little bit of practice for us before the big, giant scary tour next year.

Who is filling out the band in terms of bass, is it just going to be the four of you or will someone else be...

We have a bass player. His name is Tim McCord. He used to be in a band called the Revolution Smile and he's awesome. He's a really sweet guy. He's a great bass player and just really down to earth and we like hanging out with him so I think it's going to be rad.

You might have touched on this already but I was wondering if coming off of a Grammy win, coming off of your first album, so it was kind of tough for you guys going into the studio after all that happened and avoiding the cliché of the sophomore slump, trying to keep the same, yet do things different, just some general thoughts on that.

I really didn't feel this weird sophomore record pressure. I felt like I wanted to do something different. I didn't want to make the first record again. I wanted to start from scratch and a lot of people feel like they need to hurry up and release their next record as fast as they can because they want to strike while the iron is hot. I honestly feel like that's a real crime because if you rush music and you rush inspiration, you're not going to come out with something that's as good as you could have, naturally.

Bearing that in mind, we just started writing and I didn't put a time limit on it. I didn't say I want to be done by December or January or March or June or anything. I just started writing and we really didn't know exactly what was going to happen. I'd never written with Terry before. I had a lot of writing I wanted to do on my own and a lot of things I wanted to say. I think it came out pretty quickly considering all the changes and everything and I'm really proud of it and I'm not scared. Bring it on.

I feel like Fallen did amazingly well and I can't expect that the second record will sell the same number of records or more. That really isn't the goal for me. I just really wanted to make a record that I thought was even better that the first one and showed the growth in the band and I think it has. So to me, I've succeeded already.

A lot of these songs, because there are specific things that the songs are about or that inspired the song, you've moved on from that, too, you're down the road a little. You've lived with these songs. So how does the experience of singing them and the perspective you have on them change with time?

That's an interesting question, you mean the new songs, right?

I mean the new songs. Some of them come from very specific places, so what kind of evolution do they have for you singing them?

They're really still not that old to me. I feel like the topics that I'm singing about are still very relevant to my life. It's actually really refreshing to be able to sing something and perform something that's new and it's about feelings I've gone through in the past couple of years as opposed to many years ago. The songs do tend to take on new meanings to you as you perform them many times.

I remember touring Fallen and we must have played those songs thousands of times, at least it felt like thousands of times. And by the end of it, I'm singing lyrics that aren't even relating anymore and they change. The meanings change and apply to your life which I think is a really cool thing because I know our fans have all kinds of different interpretations of what our songs mean to them. It's interesting that now I have different interpretations of what the songs mean to me, too. Just depending on what you're going through at the time, you learn to relate to the same feeling.

I love the new material. We're all excited about the new material because it is more challenging and as musicians it's just more fun to play some thing that's actually a little bit difficult, that's a challenge every night. I get to throw a little opera in there. I'm running over to the piano constantly to playing a little lick on the piano and then coming back to the middle so it's probably going to be full of mistakes, actually.

Can you talk a little bit about the song, "Weight of the World"?

"Weight of the World" is a song about feeling the pressure of that and I love our fans and I don't mean, get off my back, I don't want this pressure. It's interesting, playing shows and meeting fans after the show and going to the different Web sites, the fan sites and seeing all these personal experiences that people are sharing and all the advice and answers to questions that they are trying to get from me. I do answer sometimes and I do want to go on. I do want to be there for people and tell them what I think but at the same time, I'm not a therapist and I'm not a doctor and I don't have all the answers for the meaning of life. That's the thing about our music is that it's deep and I'm trying to find the answers and I guess in that song I was really expressing that this is kind of a lot of pressure sometimes and I wanted to definitely say to all those fans, I'm not a prophet and I don't have all the answers, so you really need to look within yourself and start that journey on your own.

About the fans and our relationship, I love our fans. We have an insane fan base all over the world. We just did a promotional tour in Europe and we haven't been there for a few years now and going back, we did a couple of little acoustic shows and listening sessions of the new album. I was seeing faces that were there for us years ago, I'm seeing people that I know, I'm remembering names and they've been waiting all along. I really didn't actually expect that. So I am really grateful to the fans and they really have stayed with us and waited for us and I think that's awesome.