RAVEN ROSE'S CORNER: EVANESCENCE

Evanescence is an American rock band founded in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1995. 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. 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.

The members line-up of the band has changed several times. David Hodges left in 2002, co-founder Ben Moody left in 2003 in the middle of their tour, bassist Will Boyd left in 2006, followed by guitarist John LeCompt and drummer Rocky Gray in 2007. The last two changes led to a much needed hiatus, with temporary band members contributing to tour performances. In June 2009, it was announced that Evanescence was working on new material for a third studio album for release in the second half of 2010.

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. 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 demands 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". The band released two albums. The first is "Evanescence" (1998), of which about 100 copies were made and distributed at the band's early live performances. The second was "Sound Asleep" or also known as "The Whisper" (1999). For their first full-length demo CD, "Origin", about 2,500 copies were produced and sold to concert audiences. "Origin" contain demo versions of some of the songs on their debut album, "Fallen". The band's signature font was created when "Fallen" was in development. The label designers used slightly modified versions of each character to make the track titles look unique.

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. "Fallen" spent 43 weeks on the Billboard Top 10. It was certified a 7 time Platinum in the United States alone. It sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, 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.

On October 22, 2003, Moody left the band during the European tour for "Fallen", reportedly because of creative differences. 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 had stated on the Fallen album liner notes, that they were best friends. Lee said it was almost a relief that Moody left because of tensions created within the band. During an interview, Lee has said "I don't know, I just think it's exactly what I would've expected. Ben's more about the kind of pop influence sort of thing and about being commercial. 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. It's been so fun writing now. It's like what do we like, what's fun, like what do we want to do that's different." Moody was replaced by Terry Balsamo from Cold.

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. It provided Evanescence with their first UK #1 single, where it stayed for four weeks from June-July 2003. The song 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, 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. The two other singles off "Fallen" are "Going Under", #5 U.S. Modern Rock Tracks, #8 UK Charts and "Everybody's Fool" #36 U.S. Modern Rock Tracks, #23 on UK Charts, all were promoted by their music videos.

In 2004, Evanescence 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".

A spokesperson for the band's label confirmed on July 14, 2006, that bassist, Will Boyd, had left the band because he did not want to do another big tour and wanted to be close to his family. Amy Lee originally broke the news to the fans. In an interview with MTV, on August 10, 2006, Lee announced that Tim McCord, former Revolution Smile guitarist, would switch instruments and play bass for the band.

The album progressed slowly for several reasons, number one was Amy Lee's desire to maximize the creative process and not rush production, other band members had side projects, guitarist Terry Balsamo's suffered a stroke, and the loss of their manager. Amy Lee had stated that their new album would be completed in March 2006. But the release was pushed back 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, the UK on October 2, 2006, and Australia on September 30, 2006. 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. 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 available.

The tour for "The Open Door" began on October 5, 2006, in Toronto and other locations in Canada, the U.S. and Europe during that year. This first tour continued on January 5, 2007 and included stops in Canada, Japan and Australia and then returned to the U.S. for a second tour in the spring. 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. They co-headlined on the Family Values Tour 2007 along with Korn. The group closed their European tour with a sell-out concert at the Amphi in Ra'anana, Israel, on June 26, 2007 and finished the album tour on December 9, 2007.

On May 4, 2007, John LeCompt announced that he had been fired from Evanescence, and stated that drummer, Rocky Gray, had decided to quit,too. 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. It was initially stated that Hunt and McLawhorn would tour with Evanescence until the end of the Family Values Tour in September 2007, but both decided to continue to play with the band through The Open Door tour.

On June 2009, Amy Lee stated 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. 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. Evanescence entered the studio on February 22, 2010, to begin recording. The new album is intended for an August or September 2010 release and will be produced by Steve Lillywhite. Will "Science" Hunt joined the band as drummer and programmer, while Will Hunt returned as secondary drummer. David Campbell, who previously worked on "The Open Door", was brought back to handle string arrangements.

MUSICAL STYLE

Critics dub Evanescence a rock/metal band, but most identify them as a gothic band. Publications such as The New York Times, Rough Guides, Rolling Stone and Blender have identified Evanescence as a gothic metal act. They have been compared to a variety of bands from differing genres, such as nu metal ensembles like P.O.D. and Linkin Park, gothic metal groups like Lacuna Coil, and symphonic metal acts like Nightwish and Within Temptation. David Browne of Blender, offers an elaborate description of the band goth- Christian nu metal with a twist of melancholic Enya. Adrian Jackson of My Dying Bride stated that he feels Evanescence is doing something similar to his own gothic metal group, only in a more commercial direction. Other genres and influences used to describe their sound include alternative metal, alternative rock, hard rock, post-grunge, and electronica.

Evanescence was originally promoted in Christian stores. Later, the band made it clear they did not want to be considered part of the Christian rock genre. Terry Hemmings, CEO of Christian music distributor Provident, expressed puzzlement at the band's about-face, stating they clearly understood the album would be sold in these Christian music stores. Many Christian stores began to remove the band's music from their shelves, Wind-up Records chairman Alan Meltzer then issued a press release in April 2003 requesting that they wanted their music removed from the Christian stores. In 2006, Amy Lee told Billboard, that she always had been opposed to being identified as a Christian band from the very beginning.