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Con este último álbum; la banda logró un éxito jamás esperado en países que ellos ni siquiera conocían. Grabaron un concierto corto en Japón para incluirlo en una edición limitada del álbum y como adelanto de lo que serían los shows del otro lado del Atlántico.
Con este último álbum; la banda logró un éxito jamás esperado en países que ellos ni siquiera conocían. Grabaron un concierto corto en Japón para incluirlo en una edición limitada del álbum y como adelanto de lo que serían los shows del otro lado del Atlántico.
La banda ganó prestigio y fans en toda América, visitando Estados Unidos y México. Pero nunca supieron el éxito que les esperaría en Sudamérica, cuando descubrieron tierras nuevas con su gira sudamericana, visitando países como Colombia, Brasil, Argentina y Chile; todos con entradas agotadas y estadios repletos.
La banda ganó prestigio y fans en toda América, visitando Estados Unidos y México. Pero nunca supieron el éxito que les esperaría en Sudamérica, cuando descubrieron tierras nuevas con su gira sudamericana, visitando países como Colombia, Brasil, Argentina y Chile; todos con entradas agotadas y estadios repletos.


== Evanescence in Blender ==


Arkansas rock band Evanescence went double-platinum with their debut album, 2002’s Fallen. Singer Amy Lee and guitarist Ben Moody met in their early teens, and together with John LeCompt and Rocky Gray, started making moody, goth-inspired rock for Wind-Up Entertainment, home to fellow rockers Creed. Like their label mates, Evanescence were originally marketed as Christian, but their use of profanity got them pulled from religious stores.

Because Amy Lee won’t heed municipal warning signage, it seems we are going to be pecked to death.

Blender and the petite, raven-haired Evanescence lead singer are sitting in the lovely City Botanic Gardens in Brisbane, Australia. It’s summer in the Queensland capital, and it’s also the day of Evanescence’s debut Australian show. We have strolled to the Gardens Café to talk. Blender had spotted it earlier in the day and felt that its collection of macabre banyan trees, plus the eerie squawking and cackling in the undergrowth, would provide an appropriately gothic setting for our meeting.

Signs, however, clearly forbid the feeding of birds.

“But holding out a hand with a piece of food in it isn’t strictly feeding, is it?” Lee reasons, waving her muffin.

Within seconds, our interview is an avian battle zone as parrots, pigeons and specimens of the mighty ibis swarm for a bite of her blueberry-flavored lunchtime snack. It’s clear these animals have read the script to Hitchcock’s The Birds and waste no time re-creating the arrck! arrck! and associated flapping and pecking of the classic film.

Blender is not ashamed to say that we find the situation quite scary. But not Lee. She is watery-eyed with pleasure.

“See that? They fed off my hands!” she exclaims as Blender wards the last of the marauding little bastards off the table.

“Having animals feeding off me moves me to tears,” Lee says, “if that’s not being a little…dark.”


Being a little dark, it turns out, is kind of her job. Just a year ago, the 22-year-old Lee and her co-songwriter and lead guitarist, Ben Moody, had finished recording Evanescence’s debut album, Fallen, in Los Angeles. The Little Rock, Arkansas, natives were playing gigs to crowds of 200. Since then, Lee’s skyscraping voice and macabre lyrical world — crystallized in the single “Bring Me to Life” — and Moody’s goth-metal stylings have pushed Fallen to 3 million– plus sales and made Lee one of the biggest female rock stars in the world.

But there has also been considerable intrigue and controversy. Evanescence are former stalwarts of the Christian-music circuit, but Fallen was removed from Christian record stores when the band told Entertainment Weekly last April that the album wasn’t aimed at the faithful. Lee says she has never been formally religious. Moody, though, had publicly declared his strong beliefs.

“I have to blame that on Ben,” Lee says now. “Even back when we were 15, he was saying, ‘Jesus saved my soul,’ and I knew it would bring trouble.”

Then there was Lee and Moody’s relationship. Fallen’s sleeve dedications (She: “Thanks for bringing me to life”; He: “You will always have all of me”) suggested they had been lovers, but with success came rumors that Moody was unhappy with Lee’s growing profile and domineering approach.

Then, in October, while on tour in Europe, Moody left the group before a scheduled show. He has not spoken to his former bandmates since. Evanescence have continued without a pause, but with little explanation. There have even been rumors that Moody will return.

Savaged by birds or not, it’s clear Lee is here to set the record straight.

“You know what I did this morning?” she begins. “I was writing a check as part of Ben’s settlement for quitting the band. He’s gone for good. We can all breathe again.”

She smiles.

“Ben leaving was a very good moment. We got to the point where the band was really unhealthy. I can’t explain, because I don’t yet totally understand it myself, but Ben and I pretended that we were friends when really we were business partners. We didn’t talk. We never stayed on the same bus. We weren’t friends. We were friends when we met and I was 13 years old, but…you don’t expect that to survive until you’re 22.” (Moody declined to comment.)

On the night of Moody’s departure, Evanescence were in Stockholm, and Lee was suffering from viral bronchitis. Moody called the band’s management in the U.S. and said he was quitting. Again, via management, Lee asked him to stay until the end of the tour. Otherwise, everything they had worked for — the tour, the band — would collapse.

But by the next morning, Moody was on a plane home.

At 8 A.M. the day after that, Lee called a band meeting. With steely resolve, she said she planned to improvise — guitarist John LeCompt would now play lead. She wouldn’t cancel a single show.

“Ben knew I was ill,” she says. “He knew what he was doing. That made me angry. I wanted to prove we could come through the challenge.”

And they did. Then, afterward, they threw a party.

“We’re all incredibly grateful that Ben isn’t with us anymore, Ben included,” Lee says. “As far as I know, he’s back in Little Rock now, doing what he wants. Working out of his home.”

In fact, reports suggest that he has joined forces with Avril Lavigne for her next record. Lee says rumors that he was unhappy with her stardom and willfulness are untrue.

“It’s a lot more than that,” she says. “Ben had issues that had nothing to do with the band. I don’t understand Ben. I never really have. I thought I did when we were kids, but that changed. He’s very difficult to figure out. One day he’s one person, the next he’s someone else.”

You formed this band with Ben when you were 13. And yet you didn’t want to call him the night he left?“To be very honest, it would have been weird for me to call him. I don’t want him to read this and hate me forever, so I’m not going to say why I never went to see him.”


You don’t need to watch the lead singer giggle as she’s being eaten by birds to realize that Evanescence are a little bit weird.

It began with the intense teenage bond of Lee and Moody, two introverts who met in 1995 at summer camp in Arkansas. She was 13, he 14. Lee had studied piano since fourth grade and represented Arkansas in its state choir. Moody was a budding guitarist. They began writing songs together.

They played occasional gigs in Little Rock with guesting musicians, but they kept their music mostly to themselves. By the time Lee was 19, they had made a demo that was overheard by an engineer while being mixed in a Memphis studio. The tape went to New York, and the band was signed by Wind-Up Records, the home of Creed.

Wind-Up unveiled an unorthodox plan for its charges: old-school artist development. Lee was 19 when she, Moody and keyboard player David Hodges were sent to live in Los Angeles, in an apartment in the Studio City neighborhood. They received $25 a day for expenses. Lee did the washing and cooking.“I felt like an angry housewife sometimes,” she says, laughing.

But she got a room to herself; Moody and Hodges had to share one. To combat her chronic shyness, she was sent to acting classes. Lee’s increasingly dark writings belied that shyness, though, and she had to attempt to find a way to communicate with an audience.

Fallen is no easy listen — the gothic lyrics wrestle with themes of death and suffocation, crushed spirits and the search for redemption. Teenagers have identified and responded to Lee’s purple melodrama the way they do to Anne Rice’s haunted novels. When her mother heard the songs, she asked Amy if she wanted to see a therapist.

Lee has been mostly evasive about where her angst springs from. In the ’80s, her parents, John and Sara, moved around among several states. While still in their twenties, they started a family. First came Amy, and then, three years later, a little sister. Amy adored her. In 1987, when Amy was 6, her sister contracted an unidentified illness and died at age 3. Even now, Lee says, doctors have been unable to explain exactly what occurred.

“When that happened, my whole perception of life changed,” Lee says. “It sounds stupid, but that was when I became an artist. The music is my attempt to heal myself. Things like that can destroy you, or you can get through it.”

Lee’s gray-blue eyes fill with tears. Her voice wobbles. The kids at the next table stop slurping their drinks. She says she won’t reveal her sister’s name, because it would be too weird to see it in print. It would upset her mother, she says, and — you never know — fans might try to find her grave. But listen to the song “Hello” on Fallen, and you feel the grief.

“My sister’s death taught me how short life can be, and it has driven me to achieve things,” Lee says. “I have a list of 50 things I want to achieve. Not necessarily in entertainment, just personal goals. Life’s fragility drives me on.”

It is this drive that forms the paradox at the heart of Evanescence. Where Lee’s lyrics are forlorn and stricken, she is remarkably dynamic, energetic and precociously self-possessed for a woman who is only 22 years old.

“I wanted to be an artist, but it turns out I have to be director and owner of Evanescence LLC too,” she says. “I can handle it.”

Thus far, she’s handled it well, by most accounts. But there have been some bumps along the way.

For example, there was the now-infamous dress she wore at a September 2003 show in New York, which she designed and embroidered with self-hating words like BITCH, NOTHING and USELESS. At the time, she said that the dress was a riposte to an ugly, abusive comment from a New York DJ who introduced the band to the crowd at the city’s Webster Hall that past April. He said he had been jerking off to the picture of Lee’s face on the cover of Fallen. She was so disgusted, she says, she designed the dress and wore it at the band’s next show at the venue.

“I said it was a comment on tainted innocence,” she recalls.

But it wasn’t at all, it turns out. It was her statement against a boyfriend who physically and verbally abused her during a three-year relationship that ended relatively recently.

“Most of Fallen is inspired by that relationship,” she says, declining to identify the ex. “I never want to say his name or see him again. It was verbal and physical abuse. But like a lot of women in that situation, I spent my time protecting him and persuading people that everything was OK.”

So why did you say that the dress was a response to what the DJ had said?

“The next time we played Webster Hall, it was Fashion Week in New York, so I knew I could use it and get some press for it,” she says with a shrug.

She has changed, she says. She’s become tougher. If a boyfriend hit her now, she’d leave. If the DJ repeated his stupidity, she’d scream, “Fuck you!”

Lee now clearly aligns herself with riskier performers, such as her “idol” Björk, more than with pop’s current sensationalists. “I don’t see that you can even put an artist like Björk and someone like Christina Aguilera in the same category,” she says. “I mean, is it possible to strip and not be compromised as an artist? As a woman? Everything you say is upstaged by the fact that everyone is checking out your ass.”

Lee has heard that Howard Stern recently said she needs to lose 50 pounds.

“His show is just negative shit,” she replies.


But things are changing for Amy Lee. Fallen is becoming a hard album to tour behind, she says, because the lyrics relate to the abused, depressed person she used to be.

Two nights ago, she finished a new song during sound check in Auckland, New Zealand. The track is tentatively called “The Last Song I’m Wasting on You.” She utters a giggly laugh. She won’t say who it’s about.

Fans can expect a brighter outlook in other new songs, though. Since last June, Lee has been dating Shaun Morgan, lead singer for the South African hard-rock band Seether (also signed to Wind-Up). She was unsure at first whether another rock star, especially one from a band called Seether, was the best choice after an abusive relationship. “I went through a time hating men and being a feminist, but that’s not me,” she says.

For Lee’s birthday, Morgan gave her a silver heart-shaped locket with a photo of the couple at her platinum-record party in New York. For Christmas he gave her a ring. She bought him something more practical: a vintage Hasselblad camera. They took it to South Africa on safari together over Christmas. She thought the baboons were kangaroos. He was kind and funny about setting her straight.

She wants to show Blender her journal. It’s full of new lyric fragments, chords, photos and some sketches: of Morgan asleep, of seahorses she drew at an aquarium in New Zealand.

She has recorded some dreams in it as well. Last night, she dreamed she was dying of thirst. Her father gave her water, but her thirst was unquenchable, and it became clear that she would die. Her father told her to calm down, that she still had a few hours to live. She wasn’t sure if he cared.

An unusual dream, she says. Typically, she’s not a victim in her dreams — she’s the murderer, the monster.

“But I’m not like that,” she protests. “I really love people.”


Later that evening, Evanescence open their Australian tour at Brisbane’s Convention Center. A poll in today’s local newspaper declares Brisbane residents the happiest in Australia. Blender is curious to see how Evanescence fare in front of such an audience. What can the band possibly have to say to these jolly people?

The drapes fall away, and beneath their logo — a lethal-looking Frisbee — Lee and her band work their dark spell. Without her, Evanescence might be mere nü-metal journeymen. But Lee’s near-operatic voice and spellbinding, wraith-like presence raise them above the ordinary. The first chords of “Bring Me to Life” are greeted with a roar, then awed silence. Covering Soundgarden’s “4th of July,” she struts, poses and tosses her hair. Her drama coach would be proud.

“Once, I couldn’t even raise my eyes to people,” she had said earlier. “But I’m ready to face anything now.”
Exit, Stage Right
Just because your main songwriter quits doesn’t mean your band is doomed, does it? Ask these guys!


In good news for easily-offended Maryland goth-rockers (a unique breed, surely), a recent court ruling entitles disgruntled shoppers a refund on the Evanescence album, Anywhere But Home, if purchased at a Wal-Mart in that state. This is the result of a successful lawsuit brought by a buzz-killing Brownsville couple against Wal-Mart for stocking the album without a parental advisory label. The track that caused all the commotion was "Thoughtless," which contained the following risqué lyrics:

"Why are you trying to make fun of me?
You think it's funny?
What the screw you think it's doing to me?"


I’m just, like, Jesus Christ! What the fuck?” blurts guitarist Ben Moody. He’s talking about the speculation currently surrounding his band, Evanescence. Specifically, their relationship with God.

Like their labelmates Creed, the Little Rock, Arkansas, goth-rockers have been accused of downplaying earlier associations with the Christian-music scene by uttering foul language and sporting rebellious clothing.

“Apparently, my Christianity was in question because I wore an Evil Dead T-shirt on Jay Leno,” the 21-year-old Moody grumbles.For the record: Moody is Christian; the band isn’t. And he claims that the “Christian music” tag, which Evanescence first started hearing years ago when they were independent, was inappropriate from day one. As a result, their label has recalled all Evanescence products from Christian stores.

Moody and 20-year-old singer Amy Lee have been writing and recording together since their mid-teens, when they would lay down tracks at Moody’s parents’ house. His closet doubled as their vocal booth.

“That’s where I spent a lot of my high-school years — in the closet,” Lee says. “It wasn’t too cramped, but you do get really hot.”The pair, augmented onstage by guitarist John LeCompt, bassist Will Boyd and drummer Rocky Gray, recorded their debut, Fallen, in Los Angeles last year. The result is as accessible as classical-inspired songs about purple skies, tears, pain and death ever get. The rap-rock/goth-rock crossover “Bring Me to Life” grabbed attention on the Daredevil soundtrack. Shortly after, Fallen entered the Billboard charts at an astounding number 7.

It’s a feat, as far as Lee is concerned, that proves female singers don’t have to be “dirrty” or naked to be successful.“I don’t want to be Christina Aguilera,” she explains. “I want to be Amy Lee, rock queen — not sex queen.”


We know Evanescence isn't real goth-metal (or whatever) but this is ridiculous. Tori Amos for junior high crybabies? We wish. "Good Enough" is a piano ballad so formless and maudlin we were shocked it made the last Evanescence album ... and now it's a single. How bad? Too corny for Vanessa Carlton, too sophomoric for Jewel, too whispy for Enya. And the video makes singer Amy Lee's soul bearing that much more drawn-out with ill-advised slow motion shots of (yep) decay and destruction. (Oh, look at the record melt!) Redemption? You got it in the form of CGI tree roots, a breaking sunrise and a sudden wet t-shirt contest. And this is supposed to help the kids get over rough break-ups?


Is it hot in here, or is it just you?
It’s me. But it’s a little warm in my apartment, too.

When’s the first time you realized you were hot?
It’s a new realization. I was insecure most of my life, but being on stage with my band made me feel better about myself.

At what age were you least hot?
Thirteen. I had braces, my hair was big and poofy, I was a little overweight and just hated myself.

What’s your advice for people out there who aspire to hotness?
Work your ass off. You don’t need to be born hot. I’ve worked really hard and gotten what I wanted.

Who’s on your personal hot list?
Keane. They’re softer than what I usually listen to, but they’re really good.

Hot or not: hot topic?
Mmm … hot. I still get stuff there.

Fake tans?
Ha-ha-ha! Definitely not. I’m a big fan of spray-on white!

Cocaine?
Not. Big turn-off.

Paris Hilton?
Screw it, not! No, no — hot. My New Year’s resolution was not to be mean about anybody.

Hot new catchphrase?
“Get that corn out of my face,” from Nacho Libre. I am obsessed with Nacho Libre. It’s just stupid and awesome.

What’s your fallback plan for when you inevitably lose your hotness?
I plan on getting four cats, wearing my favorite purple sweater permanently, knitting clothes for my cats and lowering a basket of biscuits from my window down to frightened children.

Two days ago, Amy Lee was dying in a cemetery.

“It was a shoot for the new Johnny Cash video,” she explains. “The concept is all these celebrities — Justin Timberlake, Tony Hawk, P. Diddy — dressed in black like Johnny Cash. You know, expressing the pain of the world. They said I could do whatever I wanted, so I said, ‘Why don’t I go to a cemetery and lay some flowers on a grave?’ We shot it at Trinity Church,” she says, referring to the soaring neo-Gothic cathedral three blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. “It was really creepy,” which, coming from her, is high praise.

Lee, 24, is the singer from Evanescence, the most popular goth-rock band in the world. Sitting in a park on a blindingly sunny July day, however, she couldn’t look less like a princess of darkness. She’s wearing pink shades, a purple-and-white-striped tank top, a flowing black skirt and flip-flops, and her raven tresses are pulled back into a loose ponytail, revealing a pale, pretty face. She’s nibbling on a double-meat turkey-and-cheese Subway sub — a foot-long, because “I’m going to save the second half for dinner,” she says. If it weren’t for the silver death’s-head pendant dangling from her neck, she could be any NYU coed lazing away a summer afternoon.

“Anyway,” she says about the video shoot, “I really wanted to wear this coat I’d just bought — long-sleeve black velvet, very dramatic. But it turned out to be the hottest day of the year, like a hundred degrees. So I’m walking around in this 10-pound coat buttoned all the way up, tail dragging behind me, just so, so hot. But I had to wear it — it used to belong to Tim Burton.”

She looks up from her sandwich and lets out an ironic laugh: “God. I am so goth.”


For the past three years, Lee’s life has been straight out of a Lemony Snicket novel — one unfortunate event after another. First she broke up with her boyfriend. Then her band imploded. Next came stalkers and therapy; then another breakup; a bandmate’s stroke; an alleged sexual assault and ensuing seven-figure lawsuit; another bandmate’s retirement …

“It’s been an eventful couple of years,” she says, grinning and tossing crumbs to some pigeons.

Back in 2003, Evanescence were the unlikeliest success story in music. Five shaggy kids from the aptly named Little Rock, Arkansas — a town whose most famous musical export up to that point was a certain sax-blowing ex-president — they were either dismissed as a cash-in gimmick (Linkin Park with a cute chick) or ignored altogether. But then their “Bring Me to Life,” a monster collision of snarling guitar riffs and Lee’s icy, ring-wraith vocals, landed on the Daredevil soundtrack, and faster than you could say “Bennifer II” they were skyrocketing to the top of the charts. Lee became an overnight icon for legions of 14-year-old girls with Emily the Strange posters on their walls and black lipstick in their purses, and Evanescence’s debut, Fallen, went on to sell 6.5 million copies, win two Grammys and park in the Top Ten for nearly a year.

But it all came crashing down in October 2003, when Ben Moody, the band’s guitarist and Lee’s co-songwriter, decided­ he’d had enough and quit the band mid-tour. It was a doubly painful blow for Lee: She and Moody had been best friends since 1994, when they met at church summer camp. The pair dated briefly but eventually grew to be more like siblings — a rock & roll Pugsley and Wednesday. Lee soldiered­ on after the split, insisting it was a long time coming and best for everyone, but at the time she was devastated.

“I don’t hate Ben,” she says today, eyes glistening. “I just don’t ever want to speak to him again. He was truly kind of poisonous. Some people just aren’t good for you — it doesn’t mean they’re Satan, but you can’t have them in your life.” She says they haven’t spoken in nearly two and a half years, since the night of their Grammy triumph. Moody has left her a few voicemails, but she doesn’t respond. “It’s manipulative. We need to just live our separate lives.”

Lee has been staring intently at her fingernails, slowly chipping away at the dark blood-red polish. Suddenly she looks up, embarrassed. “Wow, I’m being so bad right now. I’m going to burn for it. I’m going to get a pig heart in the mail from his mother after this interview. But it’s the truth.

“Relationships are fascinating to me,” she continues. “You pour your heart into someone, share everything, and it feels so good at first. But then you realize, ‘I am completely vulnerable. This person can destroy me.’ That inspires me.”

If she’s right, then last winter must have been inspirational beyond belief. In late November, Lee and the band fired their longtime manager, Dennis Rider, just one album into a three-album deal. When Rider sued Lee for breach of contract, seeking $10 million in damages, she struck back with a countersuit detailing exactly why he was being given the boot — and it’s a doozy: It alleges Rider “neglected Lee’s career and business and focused his efforts on having extramarital affairs … becoming intoxicated during business meetings, physically­abusing women and boasting about it … and using Lee’s corporate card to purchase gifts for his mistress,” one of which was an $18,000 car. And there’s more: The suit also accuses Rider of making “overt and unwelcome sexual advances” toward Lee, including once when he “put his head in Lee’s lap and ran his hand up her leg” and another time when he said “he wanted to perform a gynecological examination on her.”

When we ask about the case, Lee goes even paler. “I should absolutely not talk about it,” she says. “It’s possible I could have no money by the end of this thing. I could be destitute.”

Rider had been the band’s manager since 2002; he shepherded them through every step of their career and wielded enormous power. “I was very young and vulnerable,” Lee says. “And to have my trust be completely dashed and thrown back in my face — that’s what hurts the most.”

(Rider strongly denies the allegations and quickly issued a statement calling them “appalling,” “untrue” and “disappointing­ beyond words.” When reached for further comment, his attorney told Blender, “I think we will stick with our previous policy of allowing the matter to play out through the court system.”)

“Dennis was a good guy, and I think he meant well,” says new guitarist Terry Balsamo. “I personally didn’t see a lot of that stuff going on, but he and Amy obviously had their differences.”

Emphasizing that she’s speaking generally, and not about anyone in particular, Lee admits that she has “allowed people to take advantage of me. I’m learning as I grow up that some people are really hurtful and mean and evil. People aren’t always going to have a conscience and be good to me. They’ll put their heart on a shelf and do what they have to do to get ahead.”

But as sordid as all this is, the suit’s most startling revelation might have come in what was essentially a footnote: a copy of Rider’s termination notice that Lee’s attorneys included as evidence. “As you are well aware,” it reads, “Ms. Lee was recently in an abusive relationship with Ben Moody. She has no intention of associating with any persons who engage in that sort of … illegal conduct.”

Does that mean Ben was physically abusive, we ask?

Lee inhales sharply: “I’m not going to answer that. Sorry.”


In February 2005, Amy Lee vanished. Evanescence had just finished another exhaustive round of world touring to promote a live CD and DVD, and the label was already pressuring her to start making the next album. Overwhelmed, she retreated to her house in L.A.’s Topanga Canyon, locked the door and pulled the phone out of the wall.

Lee spent the next 10 months writing songs. “That’s my favorite part,” she says. “I go into this kind of weird, dark, obsessed-with-my-own-sadness funk.” She painted — stuff like the five-by-six-foot anatomical heart spewing a fountain of blood that currently hangs in her apartment. She composed some music for the Chronicles of Narnia movie, only to have Disney brass reject it as “too dark” and “too epic.” And she did something her mom had been asking her about since the last album: She started going to therapy.

“For the first, I don’t know, lots of sessions, I’d just go in and cry,” Lee says. “Every time. I guess I was letting out all the ghosts of my past.”

It’s a slightly surprising admission, if only because she’s already so fearlessly confessional in her lyrics. Evanescence’s debut was largely about an abusive boyfriend, full of tortured screams and pleas for salvation; it may have sounded like typical teenage Sturm und Drang, but there was real anguish underneath.

The band’s new album is also intensely personal. But where Fallen was a cry for help, The Open Door is a liberation statement. “It’s so clear now that I’m unchained,” Lee sings in the very first verse, and more than one song sounds laser-targeted at Ben Moody.

Much of the album also addresses Lee’s breakup with Shaun Morgan, singer for the South African hard-rock band Seether, whom she dated from mid-2004 until last fall. “It was good for a while,” she says. “But it ended really, really wrong. It’s just that fatal thing — girls are so attracted to assholes.” Morgan recently announced he was canceling a tour to enter rehab, and The Open Door’s first single, “Call Me When You’re Sober,” addresses his troubles — a sassy, almost flirtatious kiss-off to a manipulative lover.

On Fallen, Lee was like a vampiric­ Kewpie doll, haunted by her demons but also fragile and sexless. “When you’re young, you’re so awkward about yourself and your body,” she explains. But now she’s getting less shy about embracing her feminine side — and about being sexy. “I feel so much better now, so much more confident. So free.”

The black cloud that’s haunted Lee hasn’t blown over completely, though. Balsamo suffered a stroke in November, when a blood clot in one of his neck arteries entered his brain; he says he’s only about 60 percent recovered and still has some paralysis in his left arm. And in July, bassist Will Boyd announced he was quitting to spend more time with his family, leaving the band scrambling for a replacement.

But Lee isn’t worried. “I’ve really broken down the door of being afraid all the time,” she says. “I’m not going back to where I was — ever.”


The next afternoon, Lee phones Blender. It’s a wet, gray Friday, and she’s playing the piano and listening to the drizzle on her window. “I love it,” she says, laughing. “I’m only happy when it rains.”

She’s at her brand-new apartment near Manhattan’s tony Gramercy Park that she shares with her cats, Shermie and Stella. (Her last pet, a kitten named Zero, was eaten by coyotes before the move from California.) The building is part of a converted 19th-century church, complete with turrets, a spire, stained-glass windows and her favorite, a massive marble bathtub. “It’s like you’re being baptized,” she gushes.

Lee also has a new boyfriend, Josh, a 28-year-old therapist who lives in New York. They’ve been friends since Lee was a teenager, and she’s always kinda-sorta had a thing for him but could never bring herself to admit it. “To be honest, I felt like I wasn’t good enough for him,” she says. “He’s kind, he’s a good listener, he makes me do breathing exercises when I freak out. It’s the first stable relationship I’ve ever been in.”

Josh is also, she admits, at the risk of sounding “like a stupid obsessed weirdo­,” her secret muse. She wrote “Bring Me to Life” about him, and he inspired one of The Open Door’s most touching moments, a tender, album-closing ballad called “Good Enough.” It’s the sound of a woman who may have finally found true love — probably as close to contentment as a death-obsessed goth princess is going to get.

“When I first heard it, I was worried — like, ‘This is corny, it doesn’t fit our image,’” Lee says. “But you know what I’m realizing? Sometimes it’s okay to have a happy ending.”

More intent on stoking the pit than massaging the brain, today's metal bands seem to have forgotten that Metallica's best songs weren't just hard but pretty too. Like a cross between Kittie and Snake River Conspiracy, Little Rock foursome Evanescence combine majestic, Scandinavian-style heavy metal, noisy industrial pop and keening melodies belted by 20-year-old goth chick Amy Lee. Guitarist Ben Moody's judiciously unleashed chords, sleek as vinyl and anvil-heavy, whip layers of wistful piano, drum-machine jitter and sweeping strings into something akin to a thunderstorm rolling through a very expensive studio. And while the occasional folk guitar, double-bass-drum rolls and epic key changes echo Euro greats like Opeth, Lee sounds like little else when she rides the lightning.

Amy Lee isn’t just drawn to melodrama; she thrives on it. Evanescence’s dark-angel singer has certainly had her share of turmoil: Guitarist Ben Moody, who cowrote the band’s breakout album, Fallen, with Lee, quit only a few months after its release. Lee’s personal life doesn’t seem so settled, either. The hopeful sentiments that buoyed “Bring Me to Life” have bitten the dust, and Lee now sounds trapped in one long couples-therapy session. Either she’s swearing off her reliance on a certain guy (likely Seether’s Shaun Morgan, who recently checked into rehab), explaining why the relationship won’t work or hoping (in the tough-love single “Call Me When You’re Sober”) that he’ll crash and burn and finally learn a lesson.

Four years back, the very thought of goth Christian nü-metal with a twist of melancholic Enya sounded downright hellish. But Fallen’s matching of rivet-gun guitar and high-ceilinged hooks to Lee’s soft-focus soprano brought something genuinely fresh to metal: It lulled and body-slammed at the same time, as if it were its own mash-up. The novelty of that sound may be gone, but Evanescence still know how to make the most of it. Denser and more scuzzed-up than Fallen, the album amps everything up to gloriously epic, over-the-top proportions. The bone-crushing “Weight of the World” and the extreme-power-ballad maelstrom “Lithium” are rare instances of pop metal that does justice to both genres. Even the choirs, which sound like they want to shout down Satan, are divinely overheated.

Moody’s absence becomes apparent when the album bogs down in ballads centered around hypersensitive pianos, as if Lee is pining more for the return of Lilith Fair than for next year’s Ozzfest. (Those songs also portend the inevitable Lee solo album, especially since Evanescence, which has been shedding employees faster than the Bush administration, has become more brand than band.) Subtlety doesn’t become Lee; she’s best when she lets her band create a sonic apocalypse and then tries to soar above it.


== Miembros ==
== Miembros ==

Revisión del 04:07 7 may 2009

Within Temptation

Westerholt, van Haestregt, van Veen, Spierenburg, den Adel, Jolie.
Datos generales
Origen Países Bajos Países Bajos
Estado En activo
Información artística
Género(s) Metal gótico
Metal sinfónico
Rock sinfónico
Período de actividad 1996- Presente
Discográfica(s) DSFA Records
GUN Records
Roadrunner Records
Web
Sitio web http://www.within-temptation.com/
Miembros

Sharon den Adel (voz)
Rudolf Adrianus Jolie (Guitarra)
Jeroen van Veen (Bajo)
Stephen van Haestregt (Batería)
Martijn Spierenburg (Teclados)
Robert Westerholt (Guitarra)
[editar datos en Wikidata]

Within Temptation es un grupo holandés formado en el año 1996. Su estilo ha evolucionado desde el metal sinfónico hasta el rock sinfónico como ellos mismos dicen.

Historia

Inicio (Enter-The Dance)

Antes que la banda fuera completamente formada el actual guitarrista, Robert Westerholt, formaba parte de un grupo llamado Voyage, con el cual lanzaron CDs como Embrace, que contenía un tema (Frozen) con la participación de Sharon den Adel. En 1996, por razones desconocidas, Voyage se disolvió. Ese mismo año Robert formó con Sharon una nueva banda a la que dieron el nombre de "Within Temptation". Algunos de los miembros de la antigua banda Voyage se incluyeron en esta nueva agrupación.

Within Temptation se dio a conocer fuertemente en el año de 1997. Tan sólo dos meses después de su lanzamiento la banda firmo un contrato con DSFA Records. En abril del siguiente año publicaron su primer álbum, "Enter", clasificado como Doom metal, con toques de black y gothic metal. El álbum contaba con voces guturales, un poco de coros e instrumentos de distinto tipo. El gran uso de sintetizadores hacía de Enter un álbum con una atmósfera oscura, y la mezcla entre la voz femenina y gutural daba un clima aún más "terrorífico". Las letras tenían un punto de temática fantástica con temas como el amor, la magia oscura o la muerte. Enter tuvo un éxito considerable en Europa y en noviembre se embarcaron en una gira por Alemania y Austria. Su único single promocional fue "Restless". También fueron invitados al Festival de Dynamo 1997

En el año 1998 publicaron su primer EP, "The Dance", que aun continuaba la linea de Enter, pero con un toque más gótico y enérgico

Sharon den Adel, cantando en el festival de M'era Luna.

Nuevo Estilo (Mother Earth)

Permaneciendo inactivos durante todo el año 1999, en diciembre de 2000 publicaron un nuevo disco, "Mother Earth", con el cual partieron a un rumbo totalmente distinto, se desplazaron del Doom Metal, directamente al Metal Sinfónico y melódico, apartaron y dejaron de lado las voces guturales, tomaron sonidos mas melodiosos y rítmicos. La temática y sentimiento de las canciones dejo la influencia oscura y triste de Enter, para adecuarse a un clima más innovador y comercial. Como bien se llama el disco, muchas letras tratan generalmente de temas como la tierra, la naturaleza, el calentamiento global o historias fantásticas o mágicas. Las baladas contenían temas con más ternura y mucho menos depresivos y tristes. Mother Earth fue un disco de éxito muy grande en la escena del metal sinfónico, e hizo aumentar en gran cantidad el número de sus fans, lo que le llevó a una serie de exitosas giras con grandes conciertos llenos. Por esta época habían publicado tres singles: "Our Farewell", "Ice Queen" y "Mother Earth". Todos con sus respectivos videos exceptuando "Our Farewell".

2002 fue el año de su despegue. El single "Ice Queen" se colocó número uno en las listas de ventas de Holanda y Bélgica. El disco "Mother Earth" llegó a ser platino en Holanda y disco de oro en Bélgica. En ambos países recibieron el premio TMF/MTV Awards. El grupo tocó en grandes festivales en el Benelux (Ozzfest, Lowlands, Dynamo, Rock Werchter, Pukkelpop, Parkpop), así como en Alemania (Rock im Park, Bizarre, Summerbreeze). En Francia, Within Temptation hizo una gira por todas las ciudades importantes (París, Lyon, Lille, Burdeos) vendiendo todas las localidades. También visitaron México en una ocasión[cita requerida].

En el año 2002, lanzaron un single DVD llamado Tour in France, que contenía el video de "Mother Earth" y un pequeño concierto en Francia, que se constituía por solo 4 temas en vivo, Restless, Mother Earth, Ice Queen y Caged. En el mismo año, la banda promocionó su primer DVD común, llamado "Mother Earth Tour " el cual se compone por 2 DVD y un CD. El primer DVD contiene los 3 videos musicales "The Dance", "Mother Earth" y "Ice Queen", junto con un extenso concierto en vivo, en distintos lugares o festivales, como Pukkelpop o Lowlands. El Segundo DVD, contiene distintos Backstages, making of, entrevistas,premios,extras y los créditos. Por último, el CD contiene el mismo concierto en vivo del primer DVD, pero solo en formato de Audio.

En el año 2003, Within Temptation lanzó un inesperado sencillo, el cual era un cover de Kate Bush, del tema Running Up That Hill. El single fue exitoso, lo que ayudo a la banda a la nominación de los Edición Awards.

El Guitarrista Robert tocando en vivo.

Alejandonos del Metal (The Silent Force)

Pero el gran éxito les llegó, sin lugar a dudas, en 2004 con el lanzamiento de su tercer disco (Sin contar el EP The Dance),llamado The Silent Force, el cual, cambió totalmente la perspectiva de la banda, el disco fue un cd mucho más melodioso y menos rítmico, y con el especial uso de coros (80 personas para el coro).The Silent Force es un disco mucho más preparado que los anteriores, muchísimo más trabajado (4 años en sacar un disco), usa instrumentos para los toques claros para darle un clima a los temas. La atmosfera del disco es mucho más comercial y digerible por otros estilos musicales. La gran preparación del disco hizo de The Silent Force un disco mas repetitivo y más emocional que el anterior. El tracklist es más largo y tiene unas tantas re-ediciones y ediciones especiales, con las cuales se incluyen otros temas. Para este cd se lanzaron 3 singles con sus respectivos videos, Stand My Ground, Angels y por último Memories.

La comercialización del disco despertó la crítica de mucha más gente, así empezaron las comparaciones o rumores de "copias" a artistas, por así decirlo "similares" como Evanescence. Los rumores sobre el parecido entre el video Stand My Ground de Within Temptation y Bring Me To Life de Evanescence decayeron sobre la banda. Sharon den Adel declaró muchas veces que Evanescence no era una banda que la influenciara de alguna manera, también, dijo que la gente que los comparara con dicha banda, era gente de música mas comercial, del mainstream.

En el año 2005 sacan a la venta su segundo DVD normal,The Silent Force Tour el cual esta confeccionado de la misma manera que el anterior (Mother Earth Tour), obviamente con distintos videos musicales, makings of, backstages, entrevistas o todo lo demás. La única diferencia fue que en este DVD se lanzáron dos ediciones, una que incluye solo los dos DVDs y la segunda que incluye los dos DVDs y el CD.El éxito logró que la banda se abarcara a distintos paises o se incluyera en otros festivales Europeos. En 2005 hicieron una gira por toda Europa, visitando España en dos ocasiones.

Sharon den Adel cantando en el concierto de Rotterdam,Ahoy.

Estilo más propio (The Heart Of Everything)

En marzo de 2007 publican su cuarto disco el cual fue llamado "The Heart Of Everything", un disco de éxito no muy superior a su anterior trabajo, pero si en distintos sectores. El álbum deja el sonido melódico y lento de su anterior disco, para obtener un sonido mucho más metalero, rítmico y fuerte. El disco es en general, mucho más acústico que los anteriores, el uso de guitarras es mayoritario al de teclados o piano. La generalidad del disco es menos repetitiva que el anterior, más original y con el que empiezan a crear una música más propia, con menos influencias.

Un disco más trabajado que los anteriores, más personal, hacia un nuevo estilo. Encontramos temas como Frozen u Our Solemn Hour, que reflejan más madurez en sus canciones. Sharon den Adel, declaró que utilizaron coros, pero los necesarios. Gracias a este cambio, muchos fans se disgustaron con el nuevo álbum, ya que muchos de ellos estaban acostumbrados a su generalidad de coros o sinfonías. El estilo Metal Sinfónico que presentaba su anterior disco no dejo de apreciarse en este, pero los sonidos más fuertes y rápidos que predominan han dado lugar a un estilo más "gótico y rockero" . El enojo hacia el álbum por algunos fans era generalmente hacia un tema en particular, uno de los temas más comerciales del álbum, What Have You Done el cual no comprendía para nada el estilo que alguna vez llevó la banda, si no que tiene un nuevo sonido mucho más heavy, poco melodioso, digerible y también, cuenta con la colaboración de Keith Caputo (Life of Agony). Pero, a pesar de ello, la madurez reflejada en las canciones, el estilo novedoso, más metalero y rápido, logró captar la atención de numerosos fans, y reconocieron que Within Temptation logró un magnífico trabajo. Este disco, apartó bastante las comparaciones con otras bandas, ya que Within Temptation estaba creando un estilo mucho más reconocible. Sharon den Adel declaró en una entrevista, que cada vez que escucha el álbum, está completamente convencida de que es el mejor que han confeccionado. Como todos los álbumes, tuvo sus singles promocionales, siendo el álbum del que más singles o videos han sacado en toda su carrera discográfica, los singles son:

"Within Temptation" fue la agrupación de la banda sonora para el videojuego "The Chronicles of Spellborn", para el cual confeccionaron dos temas. The Howling y Sound of Freedom. Gracias a esto, fueron invitados a la "Games Convention 2007" de Alemania. La gira mundial acabó a finales de 2008, pero la continuaron con un corto "Theatre Tour" para finalizar así su gira completamente en 2009, en la que, Stephen van Haestregt no estuvo presente, sustituyéndolo temporalmente por Mike Coolen (Brotherhood Foundation, Daybroke).

Conciertos

Con este último álbum; la banda logró un éxito jamás esperado en países que ellos ni siquiera conocían. Grabaron un concierto corto en Japón para incluirlo en una edición limitada del álbum y como adelanto de lo que serían los shows del otro lado del Atlántico. La banda ganó prestigio y fans en toda América, visitando Estados Unidos y México. Pero nunca supieron el éxito que les esperaría en Sudamérica, cuando descubrieron tierras nuevas con su gira sudamericana, visitando países como Colombia, Brasil, Argentina y Chile; todos con entradas agotadas y estadios repletos.

Miembros

Ex-miembros

Discografía

Albums

EPs

  • The Dance - 1998 (considerado por el mismo grupo como CD oficial)

Singles

Del álbum Enter(?):

Del álbum Mother Earth(?):

Single independiente:

Del álbum The Silent Force(650.000):

Del álbum The Heart Of Everything(?):

Del DVD Black Symphony

DVD

Videografía

Videoclips

  • The Dance (1998)
  • Ice Queen (version original) (2000)
  • Ice Queen (version internacional) (2003)
  • Mother Earth (2000)
  • Running Up That Hill (2004)
  • Stand My Ground (2004)
  • Memories (2005)
  • Angels (2005)
  • What Have You Done (version europea) (2007)
  • What Have You Done (version inglesa) (2007)
  • Frozen (2007)
  • The Howling (2007)
  • What Have You Done (version americana) (2007)
  • All I Need (2007)
  • Forgiven (2008)

Otros Videos

  • Our Farewell (video en directo) (2000)
  • Never Ending Story (video en directo para promoción del DVD Mother Earth Tour) (2000)
  • Making of Mother Earth (detrás de las camaras) (2000)
  • Making of Running Up Thath Hill (como se hizo) (2004)
  • Making of Stand My Ground (como se hizo) (2004)
  • Making of Memories (como se hizo) (2005)
  • Making of Angels (como se hizo) (2005)
  • Jillian (I'd Give My Heart) (video en directo para promoción del DVD The Silent Force Tour) (2005)
  • The Howling (trailer para el videojuego The Cronichles of Spellborn) (2006)
  • Making of Frozen (como se hizo) (2007)
  • Making of The Howling (como se hizo) (2007)

Enlaces externos

Notas

I. ↑La plantilla {{note label}} está obsoleta, véase el nuevo sistema de referencias.Este sencillo sólo fue para radio.
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