Amy Lee is a harp nerd. Or at least one in training.
“I’m a nerd in that I own and play the harp,” the Evanescence frontwoman says, laughing. “I think that’s enough.”
Adding to her instrumental repertoire is only one of many musical changes on the goth-tinged alt-rock band’s new self-titled album.
Lee, Evanescence’s sole remaining original member from the band’s 2003 breakthrough debut Fallen, has added more edge, synthesizers and programming to the rock mix, making “an even heavier version of Evanescence.” The singer had to learn “really hard” piano parts for the band’s just-launched U.S. tour that runs through Nov. 1 before heading to Europe.
“I always want to do something that’s bigger and better and more interesting than before,” Lee says “I guess partially, that’s just for my own indulgence. The vocals are higher and the piano parts are more complicated. So I’m doing my best! It’s like playing a harder level of a video game.”
Many of Evanescence’s fans have remained loyal to the group over the years, and Lee hears a lot from them on Twitter. What remains to be seen is how this new album will sell compared with the previous two.
Released when Lee was just 22, Fallen sold a healthy 17 million copies worldwide, buoyed by the hit single Bring Me to Life and two Grammy Awards, including best new artist. But Evanescence’s 2006 sophomore effort, The Open Door, sold only 6 million. All the while, Lee weathered a bandmate merry-go-round, the key loss being the resignation of fellow founding member and childhood friend Ben Moody.
Moody, who left the band after its debut album, released a solo effort in 2009 and founded We Are the Fallen with American Idol finalist Carly Smithson and two former Evanescence members. The current Evanescence lineup includes ex-Cold guitarist Terry Balsamo (who has been with the band since Moody’s departure), rhythm guitarist Troy McLawhorn, bassist Tim McCord and drummer Will Hunt.
Lee acknowledges struggling with the attention from media and fans. “It’s different than real life. You have to be really careful and sometimes it feels like you just can’t ever be alone. And other times, it feels like you can only be alone in a weird way.”
With her 30th birthday approaching in December, Lee looks back now with a healthy sense of humor, and even jokes about using dry ice, fan-powered wind whipping through her hair and “Michael Jackson smoke” in her new shows.
“You’re still figuring out who you are at that point, so I did a little bit of growing up in front of everybody, which is fine. I’m great with it now,” Lee says of the band’s early days in the spotlight. “I needed to be an adult without being onstage — I needed to just be Amy and not the lead singer of Evanescence for a little while, and want this and do this because I couldn’t help it and because I had music that I was so in love with that I couldn’t stand not to share with the whole world.”
Lee began working on new songs after Open Door, first just for fun and later deciding to turn them into a proper record. Some were acoustic and Neil Young-inspired, and then she moved into an electronic phase. On the new album, the song Swimming Home came out of that tinkering with ambience and different sounds and feelings, she says, while Made of Stone was a fully electronic song that Lee turned into a “big, rocking Evanescence song.”
Her personal life was changing in that time, too. Lee married Josh Hartzler, a New York therapist and “awesome dude,” in 2007, and she also started taking harp lessons on a lark. Lee liked it so much, she began using the instrument in her songwriting and played it on the new record.
“It is not easy,” she says. “I had a little head start because I could play the piano and they’re in the same family. It’s cool to have something different, though, when you’re writing. A different instrument will make you write a different way.”
Raised in Arkansas, Lee studied music theory and composition at Middle Tennessee State University before leaving to focus on Evanescence, but she’s maintained a love for learning, which crosses over into passions such as painting, cooking and being a harp master.
OK, well maybe not a master. “My instructor is incredible. I’m like a level 2 — she’s like a level 10,” Lee says.
“When I’m writing music, I like to sit at the piano and put my fingers on the keys and not think. Even though it’s difficult to execute perfectly, there’s still some cool freedom in just rocking the harp without a lot of thought going into it.”
Source: tucsoncitizen.com
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