- For the saxophone player with Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band, see Amy Lee (sax).
Amy Lynn Lee (born December 13 1981 in Riverside, California) is an American singer and songwriter. She is a founding member and lead singer of the Grammy award winning rock band Evanescence. She is an alto but can also sing soprano.
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Biography
Early life and the founding of Evanescence
Lee was born to parents John Lee, a DJ, and Sarah Cargill, a homemaker. She has one brother, Robby, and two sisters, Carrie and Lori. Lee had a third sister, who died at the age of three from an unidentified illness. The song "Hello" from the Fallen album was written in her memory. [1][2] She took classical piano lessons for nine years. Her family moved to many places, including Illinois, Kansas, and Florida[2], but finally settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Evanescence started. She graduated from Pulaski Academy in the year 2000 and also briefly attended Middle Tennessee State University.
She founded the band with Ben Moody. The two met at a youth camp when Lee was playing Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That)" on the piano. [3] Within a month, the pair was playing acoustic sets at Arkansas book stores and coffee houses[4] before recording two EPs, Evanescence EP (in 1998) and then the Sound Asleep EP (in 1999). Another song, "You", was written by Amy Lee, but was meant to be a personal song for her friends and family and was never intended to be released. When "You" was leaked, she asked people to stop distributing the song and its lyrics[5]. In 2000, they recorded the longer EP Origin. This demo contains three songs which were used on the debut album Fallen and was written by Lee and Moody: "Whisper", "Imaginary", and "My Immortal". Whereas "Whisper" and "Imaginary" underwent further modifications before being included on Fallen, "My Immortal" is virtually identical.
Fallen and lawsuit
Her first major album Fallen has been certified 6x Platinum[6] , spent 43 weeks in the Billboard Top 10 and has sold over 14 million [7] copies worldwide.
Then on October 22, 2003, guitarist Ben left the band stating the reasons for his departure were "creative differences." In an interview several months later, Amy said: "We'd gotten to a point that if something didn't change, we wouldn't have been able to make a second record." She also said "We're finally a real band, not just Ben and I and a few others thrown together" [4]
On December 1, 2005, former Evanescence manager Dennis Rider filed a lawsuit against Lee for breach of contract. The suit claims Rider was prematurely and unjustly terminated from his position as manager of Evanescence.
In return, Lee filed a counter-suit against Rider for "breach of fiduciary duty, sexual assault and battery, professional negligence, currency conversion, and other charges". The suit also claims Rider "neglected Lee's career and business and has focused his efforts on having extramarital affairs, hiding them from his wife, becoming intoxicated during business meetings, physically abusing women and boasting about it, making repeated unwelcome sexual advances toward Lee, receiving fees in excess of what was provided for in his management agreement and using Lee's corporate credit card to purchase gifts for his mistress."
Rider's attorney, Bert Deixler, claimed in a statement that Rider had fully performed all of the duties and obligations owed by the firm under the management agreement, and that he had always conducted himself by the highest professional standards. [8]
The Open Door
Lee was working on the opening theme of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and writing additional music for the film, but the music was rejected. However, Lee has been quoted as saying that the material she didn't use for the movie is "just more great stuff for the new album" [9].
There was some speculation that the song had been cut and used in several tracks though Lee has stated that this is not true [10]. In fact, the song will not appear on the album in its entirety, but part of it is used as the introduction to "Good Enough"[11]. The album is entitled The Open Door, confirmed in the May 2006 issue of the music magazine Blender. The album is stated to be released on October 3, 2006, confirmed by the official Evanescence website [7]. The album was leaked on September 4, 2006, almost a month before its slated release.
Image
Lee has a trademark neo-goth style, marked by her occasional use of gothic make-up and taste for Victorian-styled clothing. She also designs many of her own clothes, including those worn in the music video for Going Under and the dress she wore at the 2004 Grammy awards. After she designed it she chose Japanese designer H. Naoto to make it for her [12], although she does sometimes make her own clothes. In concerts, she often wears a corset and fishnets, and has a notable piercing on her left eyebrow which is visible on the cover of Fallen.
Many fans praise Lee for her refusal to emulate other celebrities by using sex appeal in her music. She has stated on a number of occasions that she would never flash her breasts or engage in other publicity stunts that would draw attention to herself. In fact, in the music video for "Everybody's Fool," she aimed to mock such artists by suggesting celebrities who use sex to appeal to an audience are "everybody's fool" and are in fact, merely peddling "lies" (the unifying theme of the music video).[13]
Other projects
In 2000, Amy sang guest vocals on David Hodges (former Evanescence keyboardist) songs Breathe (on The Summit Church: Summit Worship CD) and an unreleased song called Fall Into You. [1]
She also did backup vocals on a song called 'Missing You' on Big Dismal's 2003 debut album, 'Believe'.
Lee is featured on the hit Seether track "Broken" (a duet with ex-boyfriend Shaun Morgan), which is featured on their album Disclaimer II as well as the soundtrack for the 2004 film The Punisher.
Quotes
"I think that our lyrics are definitely dark, but I know for a fact that we pull our inspiration from a million different influences. We listened to everything growing up. Our music isn't just 'opera metal' or 'gothic pop' it's just Evanescence"
"As a woman I feel offended because these artists portray women as people that can only do well in the world by selling their bodies. I'm determined to help prove that to be false"
"When you go through tragedy, you can either let that destroy you and you become bitter and never let it go, or you can let it make you stronger and let it make you grow. And that's what I did. My lyrics are coming from a place that I want people to relate to and feel that they're not alone"
"If all we ever sang about was how happy we are, we would be lying to ourselves. People try to escape their problems by getting drunk, partying and dancing them away. What really heals me is to sit down and think, face the facts, then you can get over it and be happy"
Discography
- See main article Evanescence Discography.
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Evanescence EP (1998)
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Sound Asleep (1999)
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Origin (2000) -
Fallen (2003)
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Anywhere But Home (2004)
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The Open Door (2006)
References
- ^ "www.blender.com". Blender Magazine article.
- ^ a b "www.outoftheshadows.com". Amy's story - Bio. Cite error: The named reference "www.outoftheshadows.com" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ "www.mtv.com". MTV article- The Split.
- ^ a b "www.smh.com.au". SMH interview with Amy Lee.
- ^ "www.getlyrics.com". Notification and reason for removal of lyrics for the song "You". Retrieved 2006-09-18.
- ^ "www.billboard.biz". List of Multi-Platinum artists.
- ^ a b "www.evanescence.com". Official Evanescence website press release.
- ^ "www.mtv.com". MTV article- Evanescence's Amy Lee Sues Former Manager.
- ^ "www.evboard.com". EvBoard official forum, a post by Amy Lee.
- ^ "www.evboard.com". EvBoard official forum, another post by Amy Lee.
- ^ evanescencetheopendoor.com
- ^ "www.mtv.com". MTV news- All up in the Grammys.
- ^ "www.mtv.com". MTV article- Rages Against Cheesy Female Idols.
External links
- Evanescence - Official Evanescence site
- Out of the Shadows - The Amy Lee Fund for Epilepsy
- Amy Lee at IMDb