Arkansas goth rocker Amy Lee had a smile in her voice when she described the scene outside her window at a concert stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico, last week.
Blue skies, warm breezes and the bluest ocean. Paradise.
"I'm hitting the beach as soon as we're done here," she said.
After years of tumult with her band Evanescence - a bad break with longtime friend and co-founder Ben Moody in 2003 and a revolving door of lineup changes in the years since - Lee is finally in a good place.
"This is the strongest lineup we've ever had. Will (Hunt) is the most amazing drummer in the world. He brings insane amount of punch to the band. I remember when he first joined it was like everything just jumped into 3-D all of a sudden," Lee said, then lavished praise on other band members.
"I guess part of this whole thing right now is we all like each other," she said, which was not the case for much of the band's early years.
Despite selling 17 million copies worldwide of their 2003 debut album "Fallen" and winning a pair of Grammys for the effort the following year, Lee and Evanescence were very much a dysfunctional family.
Even after Moody's abrupt departure midway through a European tour in 2003, the band struggled to regain its footing. The departure, ironically, led the band to pull out of its 2003 Tucson show with KFMA's Butter Ball - the second Tucson no-show for the band that year. The KFMA show was to have launched the band's U.S. tour.
On Tuesday, Evanescence released its third album, "Evanescence," a project that Lee believes puts the band back on track creatively.
"I definitely feel a great sense of teamwork, togetherness. We're in this thing together," the 29-year-old classically-trained pianist says. "I would never want to say that we weren't good before. We made a lot of amazing music. But we are in a place right now that is very significant. We wouldn't be calling the album 'Evanescence' if I wasn't ready to put that stamp in time."
The record comes five years after Evanescence's experimental multiplatinum sophomore album "The Open Door," an album Lee said was almost too dark. That's saying a lot for a woman who has built her reputation on solid goth credentials, from her often handmade Victorian-style clothing to her streaked black hair and tatts.
" 'Open Door' was, I think, very heavy, but also very dark and moody and almost slow and drudging in its heaviness," she said. "('Evanescence') has got a lot of energy. I think part of these songs with that energy and that speed and that intensity comes from working with the band and jamming together and working with the drummer sitting there. I think that the band really has a new tightness. I think all those things push it to a more energetic level."
The album's first single, "What You Want," already has gone to radio, where it was inching its way into Billboard's Top 10 on the rock charts. It was at No. 15 this week.
"I think the first single is a good representation. The music is dynamic. It's all over the place. When you get into it, you're going to hear the deep tracks. There's the epic heart-breaking moments and some things that I think are classics for this band in a way, but just stronger," she added.
Evanescence recorded the album in Nashville, Tenn., at Martina and John McBride's Blackbird Studio, which Lee said also contributed to its softer attitude.
"It felt like we were off the grid a little bit," Lee said of the six months the band spent in Music City, living in an apartment together and riding into the studio every day. "It felt like we could really just create. It made for a little bit of an escape, honestly."
Lee said she will play several cuts off the album alongside the band's early hits - including "Where Will You Go," "Imaginary," So Close," "Understanding," "Bring Me To Life," "Going Under" - at their long-awaited Tucson debut concert Saturday at Casino del Sol's AVA. The show will pay passing nods to the band's past as it introduces fans to its future.
"We just have fun out there. We get out there and leave it on the stage," Lee said. "There's a lot of energy in our show. It's the album on the next level."
Source: azstarnet.com
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