This
week’s hot topic is about favorite famous bands.
Evanescence
Evanescence is an American
rock/metal genre band that was founded in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1995 by the singer/pianist
Amy Lee and the guitarist Ben Moody. The two first met in 1994 at a youth camp
in Little Rock. Their first songs together were "Solitude" and
"Give Unto Me" written by Lee and "Understanding" and
"My Immortal" written by Moody. After having two of Lee and Moody's
songs played on local radio stations, more and more became interested in them
and consequently this led to the band eventually appearing live, and thus becoming
one of the most popular acts in the area.
The band name was established
after some experimenting with different names, such as Childish Intentions and
Stricken, in the end they decided on Evanescence (from the word evanescence, which
means "to disappear")
The band released their first
complete album, Fallen, on Wind-up Records in 2003, after recording some independent
albums. Their album Fallen sold more than 17 million copies worldwide and increased
the band’s reputation by helping the band not only win two Grammy Awards but
also seven nominations. In addition, thanks to Fallen Evanescence managed
scoring No. 6 in CBS's "Top Bestselling Albums of the Last 10 Years"
in 2008.
On October 22, 2003, Moody left
the band during the European tour for Fallen due to creative differences.
Afterwards Amy Lee stated in an interview: "...we'd gotten to a point that
if something didn't change, we wouldn't have been able to make a second
record." This incident caused confusion, because Moody and Lee stated on
the Fallen album liner notes that they were best friends. Lee also said that it
was almost a relief that Moody left because of the tension that was created
within the band. Another time during an interview, Lee has said: "I don't
know, I just think it's exactly what I would've expected. He's more about kind
of the pop influence sort of thing and also, you know, about being commercial
and 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..." Moreover she adds "So that's a lot of
the reason [why] it's been so fun writing now, is [that] we're not thinking
about that. It's like 'what do we like?', 'what's fun?’ like 'what do we want
to do that's different?'
Evanescence's
characteristic debut single "Bring Me to Life", featuring guest
vocals from Paul McCoy of 12 Stones, was the band’s most famous song that reached
number 5 on the American Billboard Hot 100. Furthermore it provided Evanescence
with their first UK number-one single, where it lasted for four weeks from
June–July 2003. The song also became the official theme for WWE No Way Out
2003.
Moreover, "Bring Me to Life" was recognized at the 46th Grammy
Awards in 2004, where the band won not only the Best Hard Rock Performance but
also Best New Artist awards and in addition were nominated for two others. The
two other singles off Fallen that were also well-known are "Going
Under" (#5 U.S. Modern Rock Tracks, No. 8 UK Charts) and "Everybody's
Fool" (#36 U.S. Modern Rock Tracks, No. 23 UK Charts). Not mentioning that,
Fallen is No. 6 at the "Top Bestselling Albums of the Last 10 Years".
That result is given as after selling more than 7 million copies in the United
States alone and 17 million worldwide.
The Open Door an album that included 13-track, was released in Canada
and the United States on October 3, 2006, the United Kingdom on October 2, 2006
and Australia on September 30, 2006. “Coming back together is such a
beautiful and happy thing,” Lee says of making “Evanescence,” the group’s first
album since 2006’s “The Open Door.” “We’d bring a song to the whole band and
arrange it in a group. That’s something that really stands out against the
other records. There’s a tight band at the center of everything, giving it a
very tangible energy.” This album sold approximately
447,000 copies in the United States and only in its first week of sales it
earned their first No. 1 ranking on the Billboard 200 album chart, becoming the
700th No. 1 album in Billboard. 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.
During June 2009, in a news post to the Evanescence website Amy Lee
wrote that the band was in the process of writing a new album dated for release
in 2010. Evanescence entered the studio on February 22, 2010, to begin
recording. During that time the band began recording the album which was intended
for an August or September 2010 release. However on June 21, 2010, Lee made an announcement
on EvThreads.com that Evanescence had temporarily left the studio in order to
work further on the album and “get our heads into the right creative space”. Lee
also mentioned that record label Wind-up Records was going through
"uncertain times", which meant that would further prolong the delay
of the release of the album. The band reentered the studio in early April 2011
with producer Nick Raskulinecz to continue the work on the third album.
Afterwards was reported that the album would be released in late 2011. Later, on
July 11, 2011 there was a report by MTV News that the date of the release for
the album had been pushed back to October 11, and also that the first single
from the album will be "What You Want". During the time in an
interview Lee revealed that the new album's title will be Evanescence. Finally
their third album was released on released on October 7, 2011.
In October 2013, Wind-up Records sold part of their catalog of artists,
including Evanescence and their master recordings, to Bicycle Music Company.
On January 3, 2014, an announcement was made that Amy Lee had filed a
lawsuit against their former record company Wind-up Records, wanting in return
$1.5 million due to unpaid copyright owed to the band. In March 2014, through
her Twitter account, Lee announced that she and Evanescence had been dismissed
from their record label and were independent artists.
Recently Amy Lee was interviewed by Leah Adamby on 22 Oct 2014:
- Will Evanescence again be making more music together in the future?
"I don’t know.
I really don’t know. A big part of the philosophy I’m creating is having a
totally open mind, because I find myself going down a thought path too early
and then changing my mind constantly. I gotta go with what I’m inspired by in
the moment. And right now, this feels really good but I have no idea what I’m
going to be feel like a year from now. I’m a fickle person as far as that goes
but when I get inspired by something, I just usually go for it. Guns blazing."
Sources:
- http://evanescence.com/biography/
- http://music.allaccess.com/an-interview-with-the-evanescence-singer-now-turned-solo-artist-amy-lee/
Yet another fantastic piece Fenia!!!Well done!!
ReplyDeleteYet another fantastic piece Fenia!!!Well done!!
ReplyDelete