Click Here For Official Homepage!
Evanescence is an American rock band founded in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1995 by singer/pianist Amy Lee and guitarist Ben Moody.[1][2] After recording private albums, the band released their first full-length album, Fallen, on Wind-up Records in 2003. Fallen sold more than 15 million copies worldwide and helped the band win two Grammy Awards.[3] A year later, Evanescence released their first live album, Anywhere but Home, which sold more than one million copies worldwide. In 2006, the band released their second studio album, The Open Door, which sold more than five million copies.[4]
The line-up of the band has changed several times: David Hodges leaving in 2002, co-founder Moody left in 2003 (mid-tour), bassist Will Boyd in 2006, followed by guitarist John LeCompt and drummer Rocky Gray in 2007. The last two changes led to a hiatus, with temporary band members contributing to tour performances. In June 2009, it was announced on the Evanescence website that the band was working on new material for a third studio album for release in the second half of 2010.
Formation and early years: 1995–2001
Evanescence was founded by singer, pianist and songwriter Amy Lee and former lead guitarist and songwriter Ben Moody. The two met in 1994 at a youth camp in Little Rock, where Moody heard Lee playing "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" by Meat Loaf on the piano.[5] Their first songs together were "Solitude" and "Give Unto Me", both written by Lee, and "Understanding" and "My Immortal", both written by Moody. The songs were edited by both artists, and they shared equal credit.
Two of Lee and Moody's songs were played on local radio stations, raising local awareness of the group and demand for a concert. The band eventually appeared live, and became one of the most popular acts in the area. After experimenting with band names, such as Childish Intentions and Stricken, they decided on Evanescence, which means "disappearance" or "fading away" (from the word evanesce, which means "to disappear").[6]
The band released two EPs. The first is the self-titled Evanescence EP (1998), of which about 100 copies were made and distributed at the band's early live performances. The second is the Sound Asleep EP, also known as the Whisper EP (1999). For their first full-length demo CD, Origin, about 2,500 copies were produced and sold to concert audiences. Origin and the EPs contain demo versions of some of the songs on their debut album, Fallen. During a radio interview, Lee and Moody encouraged fans to download the band's older songs from the Internet.
Fallen and Anywhere but Home: 2002–2005
In early 2003, the lineup was completed by Amy Lee and Ben Moody's friends, John LeCompt, Rocky Gray and Will Boyd, all of whom worked on Evanescence's earlier songs. Meanwhile, Evanescence signed on with their first major label, Wind-up Records, and began work on their first album, Fallen. While they were looking to promote Fallen, Evanescence accepted an offer from the video game company Nintendo to perform on the "Nintendo Fusion Tour" which they headlined in 2003.[10]
Fallen spent 43 weeks on the Billboard Top 10;[11] was certified 7x Platinum in the United States;[12] and sold more than 15 million copies worldwide,[3] including 7 million in the U.S. The album was listed for 104 weeks on the Billboard Top 200, and it was one of eight albums in the history of the chart to spend at least a year on the Billboard Top 50.[13]
On October 22, 2003, Moody left the band during the European tour for Fallen, reportedly because of creative differences.[14] In an interview several months later, Amy Lee said: "...we'd gotten to a point that if something didn't change, we wouldn't have been able to make a second record." This became a point of confusion, as Moody and Lee stated on the Fallen album liner notes that they were best friends.[15] Lee said it was almost a relief that Moody left because of tensions created within the band.[15] During an interview, Lee has said "I don't know I just think it's exactly what I would've expected he's more about kind of the pop influence sort of thing and also you know about being commercial and I mean selling albums that's the part of him we often disagreed on; I wanted to do the more artistic weird thing and he'd wanna do the thing that people would want to hear..." She adds "So that's, a lot of the reason [why] it's been so fun writing now is [that] we're not thinking about that. It's like what do we like, what's fun, like what do we want to do that's different."[16] Moody was replaced by Terry Balsamo from Cold.[17]
Evanescence's major label debut single "Bring Me to Life", featuring guest vocals from Paul McCoy of 12 Stones, was a global hit for the band and reached #5 on the American Billboard Hot 100.[18] It provided Evanescence with their first UK #1 single,[19] where it stayed for four weeks from June-July 2003. The song also became the official theme for WWE No Way Out 2003. The equally popular "My Immortal" peaked at #7 in the U.S. and UK charts,[18] and both songs were featured in the soundtrack for the action movie Daredevil. "Bring Me to Life" was recognized at the 46th Grammy Awards in 2004, where the band won the Best Hard Rock Performance and Best New Artist awards and were nominated for two others.[20] The two other singles off Fallen are "Going Under" (#5 U.S. Modern Rock Tracks,[18] #8 UK Charts) and "Everybody's Fool" (#36 U.S. Modern Rock Tracks,[18] #23 UK Charts); all were promoted by a music video.
Evanescence performing at the concert in Le Zénith, Paris, featured on Anywhere but HomeIn 2004, Evanescence's new lineup released a DVD/CD compilation entitled Anywhere but Home. The DVD includes a concert in Paris, as well as behind-the-scenes features, including shots of the band backstage signing autographs and warming up. Also on the CD are the live songs "Breathe No More" (from the Elektra movie soundtrack), "Farther Away", and the band's cover of Korn's "Thoughtless".
The Open Door: 2006–2009
A spokesperson for the band's label confirmed on July 14, 2006, that bassist Will Boyd had left the band for "not wanting to do another big tour" and wanting "to be close to his family." Amy Lee originally broke the news to the fans in a post on an unofficial Evanescence site, EvBoard.com.[21] In an interview with MTV, posted on their website on August 10, 2006, Lee announced that Tim McCord, former Revolution Smile guitarist, would switch instruments and play bass for the band.[22]
Evanescence performing at a concert in Brazil in 2007The album progressed slowly for several reasons, including Amy Lee's desire to maximize the creative process and not rush production, other band members' side projects, guitarist Terry Balsamo's stroke, and the loss of their former manager.[23] Although Lee stated on the fan forum Evboard that Evanescence's new album would be completed in March 2006,[24] the release was pushed back allegedly because "Wind-up Records...wanted to make a few changes to the upcoming single "Call Me When You're Sober", which hit modern rock and alternative rock radio on August 7, 2006. The 13-track album The Open Door was released in Canada and the United States on October 3, 2006;[11] the United Kingdom on October 2, 2006; and Australia on September 30, 2006.[25] The album sold 447,000 copies in the United States in its first week of sales and earned their first #1 ranking on the Billboard 200 album chart, becoming the 700th #1 album in Billboard since the chart became a weekly feature in 1956.[13][26] The music video for "Call Me When You're Sober" was shot in Los Angeles and is based on the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood. The Open Door became available for pre-order on the iTunes Store on August 15, 2006; the music video for "Call Me When You're Sober" was also made available.
The tour for The Open Door began on October 5, 2006, in Toronto and included locations in Canada, the U.S. and Europe during that year. This first tour continued on January 5, 2007 and included stops in Canada (alongside band Stone Sour), Japan and Australia (alongside band Shihad) and then returned to the U.S. for a second tour in the spring (alongside bands Chevelle and Finger Eleven).[27][28] As part of their tour, Evanescence performed on April 15, 2007 on the Argentinan festival Quilmes Rock 07 along with Aerosmith, Velvet Revolver and other local bands.[29] They also co-headlined on the Family Values Tour 2007 along with Korn and other bands.[30][31] The group closed their European tour with a sell-out concert at the Amphi in Ra'anana, Israel, on June 26, 2007,[32] and finished the album tour on December 9, 2007.[33]
John LeCompt, former Evanescence guitaristOn May 4, 2007, John LeCompt announced that he had been fired from Evanescence, and also stated that drummer Rocky Gray had decided to quit.[34] Wind-up issued a press release on May 17, 2007, stating that two Dark New Day members, drummer Will Hunt and guitarist Troy McLawhorn, would be joining the band to replace LeCompt and Gray.[35] It was initially stated that Hunt and McLawhorn would tour with Evanescence until the end of the Family Values Tour in September 2007,[36] but both continued to play with the band through The Open Door tour.[33]
Third studio album: 2009 onward
In a news posting to the Evanescence website during June 2009, Amy Lee wrote that the band was in the process of writing new material for a new album proposed for release in 2010. She stated that the music would be an evolution of previous works and be "better, stronger, and more interesting".[4] The band played a "secret show" at the Manhattan Center Grand Ballroom in New York City on November 4, 2009, with label mates Civil Twilight. Tickets for the show sold out in five minutes. This performance acted as a warm-up for their headline appearance at the Maquinária Festival in São Paulo, Brazil, which took place on November 8.[37][38]
Evanescence entered the studio on February 22 to begin recording.[39] The new album is intended for an August or September 2010 release and will be produced by Steve Lillywhite.[40][41] Will "Science" Hunt joined the band as primary drummer and programmer, while Will Hunt returned as secondary drummer.[42] David Campbell, who previously worked on The Open Door, was brought back to handle string arrangements.[43]
Having sold nearly 20 million records worldwide, more than 6 million in the U.S. alone, and earning two Grammys® with their major-label debut Fallen, Evanescence continue their meteoric rise with their latest effort, The Open Door (Wind-up Records). The Open Door debuted at the top of the Billboard charts selling more than 447,000 units in its first week and reached platinum status in just over a month. The album is defined by Amy Lee’s beautiful melodies, compelling lyrics, poignant piano and stunning vocals, fused with Terry Balsamo’s urgent yet intricate guitar to form a seamless, ethereal mixture that perfectly channels the band’s hard rock and classical sensibilities.
“Making this record was really intense,” explains Lee. “Terry suffered a stroke in October after recording his guitar parts and thankfully continues to recover, we got a new manager [Andy Lurie at 110 Management in Los Angeles], and I’d come out of a difficult breakup. But everything we’ve been through together has benefited this album.” With Fallen, says Lee, the band had much to prove while defining its identity. This time, finding a cohesive writing partner in Terry Balsamo, “we really took our time crafting this album and had the freedom to express a broader range of emotions: not just pain and sadness, but also anger and, yes, even happiness.”
Written late in 2005, The Open Door was recorded at The Record Plant in Los Angeles and mixed at Ocean Way Studios in March 2006. Marking the return of producer Dave Fortman, the album’s musical elements include a classically-infused choir and strings on several tracks, giving further color to songs of introspection, longing, doubt, self-respect and, ultimately, empowerment. The album opens with “Sweet Sacrifice,” a post-relationship catharsis that head-dives from an otherworldly intro into a hard-driving thrash of hard rock guitars and soaring rock vocals. Its first single, the mid-tempo “Call Me When You’re Sober,” reinforces the moving-away-from-dysfunction theme.
Its tour began immediately after the debut of The Open Door, rewarding hardcore fans with a “sneak peak” at the album with handful of more intimate theater dates in the US and Europe before segueing into much larger arena shows at the end of 2006. Since the album’s release, the band has performed in front of well in excess of one million fans in more than 25 countries, including the US, Canada, France, UK, Spain, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Israel, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
As The Open Door nears sales of 2 million copies in the U.S. and more than 4 million copies worldwide, Evanescence will headline a North American tour, including 3 arena shows in Mexico, this Fall. The tour will begin October 23rd in Miami and conclude on or about December 10th. With the recent additions of Dark New Day’s (Warner Bros. Records) Will Hunt on drums and Troy McLawhorn on guitar, Evanescence is poised to finish up 2007 with a bang. Evanescence has chosen Australian modern rock trio Sick Puppies and electronic rock act Julien-K to support them on the tour.
Evanescence is Amy Lee (vocals, piano), Terry Balsamo (guitar), Tim McCord (bass), Troy McLawhorn (guitar) and Will Hunt (drums). Fallen, their major-label debut, was released in April 2003 to critical and commercial success and has sold more than fifteen million copies. Their second major label debut, The Open Door, debuted at Number One on the Billboard charts and reached platinum status in just over a month.
Originally hailing from Little Rock, Arkansas, the band’s evolving sound – a nearly mystical marriage between rock, goth and classical – was informed by a curious duality. Lee, who spent nine years studying classical piano, explains, “When I was in high school I listened to a lot of death metal bands. Both genres are intricate, complex types of music that are very dramatic, and I’m naturally drawn to that.”
Evanescence self-released two EPs and a first full-length album, the much-sought-after Origin, before finding a home at Wind-up Records. Fallen, their major-label debut, was released in April 2003 to critical and commercial success. The internationally appealing Top 10 singles “Bring Me to Life” and “My Immortal” helped drive airplay and led to two 2003 Grammy Awards (Best New Artist and Best Hard Rock Performance for “Bring Me To Life”). Propelling the band to sales of nearly 14 million albums worldwide, Fallen spent more than 100 weeks on Billboard’s Top 200 chart, was certified gold or platinum in over 35 countries, and sold out arenas globally. Anywhere But Home, their 2004 live DVD release, has sold over one million copies to date.
The inherent drama in Evanescence’s music – a kind of audio odyssey that can turn on a dime from piano-led introspection to hammering guitar – has resonated with listeners everywhere. The band’s aggressive core finds a counterpart in Lee’s passionate vocals, lyrics that forge a connection with audiences searching for identity or struggling with feelings of desire, hope love and loss. The Open Door is a logical (but certainly not predictable) transformation of epic proportions for the band, which, in many ways has only just begun to make its mark on the music world.
For more information on Evanescence, please visit www.evanescence.com or www.winduprecords.com or contact denglefield@bwr-la.com or kestlund@bwr-la.com
