As arguably one of the best voices in music today, Amy Lee manages to add a unique element to any music she touches, through her skillful vocals, unbridled creativity, and emotionally engaging songwriting that fans across the world have grown to love since 2003.
But while many may appreciate Amy Lee for her range, it is not just only her voice that sets her apart from the crowd, as I found out in our first interview last October when Amy had a three minute off the record conversation with me about my father, who passed away unexpectedly in April 2016.
While the exchange was not included in the printed interview, the experience was humbling and I left that interview feeling an even deeper admiration for Amy Lee as a person. When I recently was contacted to interview Amy Lee again to promote her latest track Speak To Me, it was an opportunity I accepted without a second thought.
Read below as Amy Lee and I discuss her creative process, her inspiration for Speak To Me, and the upcoming Evanescence music set to drop later this year.
Derek Oswald [AltWire]: Letโs start off by talking about Voice From The Stone. How is it that you first became involved with this project?
Amy Lee [Evanescence / Solo Artist]: Man, itโs so cool when it happens like this. The director felt inspired about me and thought of me and had this idea to have me try to do a song for his movie. So he got hold of me and showed me the film while they were still working on it to see if I liked it or if I had an idea, and I was immediately just sucked into the story. Itโs so beautiful, so unique and you donโt know whatโs happening next, and itโs just a really good film.
Being a new mom I had an extra level of inspiration about it, because basically this film is about a boy who lost his mother, and in his ัะบะพัะฑััะธะน, he hasnโt spoken since her death. So Iโm from the perspective of the mom, on the other side, singing to him. It’s sort of like their bond is so great, and their love is so big, that itโs bigger than death.
That to me was such a great inspiration that instantly I had ideas. I knew what I wanted it to feel like, and I spoke to Eric the director, and also Michael the score composer on the phone right after watching it. We talked about what they were imagining and what I was imagining and it was just really lining up. I was super excited, and I got off the phone, ran over to the piano, and had the initial idea that night, mocked up. Just the basics of it.
Usually, the hard part is showing off that thing that youโre quietly in love with, and hearing them go, โYeah, itโs nothing like what I wanted.โ But that didnโt happen. They loved it and we were really on the same page from the beginning. Thatโs just the beginning of the story. I could go on and on about the whole thing, but thatโs really how I got into it.
AW: This is certainly not your first foray into contributing to a soundtrack, as you previously provided music to the films War Story ะธ Indigo Grey. But this time seems a lot more personal to you. Was there a stronger personal connection this time around? How would you say the creative experience for this song differed from your work on those other films?
Amy Lee: Iโll always get into it and try and find ways to be able to get myself where I need to be, but yes, this one I was literally connecting with in some ways, and it really just felt like it was meant to be. And you know what? Not only was it about a mother (and Iโm a new mom) but also the mother in this film was a famous classical musician. She was a singer and a piano player. So I was like โCOME ON!โ [laughs] โThis is totally and in every way me!โ Like, I could just see myself in this part.
So that was really cool because as much as you could do with the song, I felt like I really was invited in to be a character in the film. You never hear her sing, but itโs all in the backstory about her life. So when the song comes in and it begins with nothing but the vocals, no piano or anything, itโs like youโre hearing her voice for the first time. I feel itโs so powerful and cool to be able to play that part a little bit.
AW: Your soundtrack and film score portfolio has grown consistently since 2013. Career-wise, do you see your future self musically heading more towards film scoring, or is there a part of you still hungry to record more solo records and Evanescence records?
Amy Lee: Iโm hungry for both! I make these big projects – like an Evanescence album โ and itโs easy to get stuck in the process of it where it really does take a year and a half from the beginning to the very end of it. And thatโs awesome, but somewhere in the middle of that year and a half, there are all these moments where you feel like, โMan, I wish I could do something completely different right now. I wish I had another outlet.โ And that for a lot of my life has been the part where I paint, or do designs for clothing Iโm going to wear on stage or in a videoโฆ stuff like that.
I have a lot of paintings in my house where youโd never think it was โthe girl from Evanescenceโ doing them because theyโre very colorful. Itโs the opposite, almost like kidsโ stuff! The kidsโ album Dream Too Much incorporated a lot of my art design. They were renditions of my paintings, all those characters like the sheep, those are all paintings in my house.
And the reason all those paintings really started is that Iโd be off making this huge, very dramatic, very soul-wrenching Evanescence album, and somewhere in the middle of it at some point, I just badly needed to be able to express the opposite emotion!
So itโs really nice for me to be able to be in this place where I feel like I can do anything at any time. Like, if I have this crazy idea to do a cover of Led Zeppelinโs Going To California, or do a solo song because I heard it on the radio in Italian and I love it but I really want to do it in English and in a different way, I can do that and not feel like Iโm trapped inside a giant monster and Iโm only allowed to do that one thing. Or that the people around me only know how to market that one thing.
I feel a lot of freedom right now! I feel like anything is possible and it makes me enjoy the Evanescence part a lot more because I feel like the only reason Iโm doing it is that I want to be doing it, not because I have to in any way. So weโve been having a lot of fun doing the Evanescence stuff. Weโve gotten together to play shows the last couple of years off and on, and itโs just been more and more inspiring. So thatโs why weโre getting creative again!
“In life, sometimes your emotions are a huge hurricane of stuff and other times itโs just one little simple thought….” – Amy Lee
AW: With the recent re-emergence of Evanescence, naturally the question on everyoneโs minds is: Whatโs coming next? Youโve been hinting a little bit lately about a โuniqueโ project with the band thatโs different from the normal Evanescence fare. While I understand your desire to remain tight-lipped, are there ANY details you can spare on this project?
Amy Lee: I am going to spill all of the details on this project in about a month – I just need to give it some time. I know thatโs annoying for a journalist, but the core of it is getting to hear Evanescence in a new way. It really is. Itโs not just โthe next Evanescence albumโ – itโs something else, and itโs definitely challenging.
Itโs from a place where it still connects absolutely to the core of what the band is, but itโs forcing everyone to try new things and work outside of our comfort zone completely, and work in new elements. So Iโm very excited about it, and thatโs what Iโve been spending the majority of my time doing during all of this stress for all of the other things in the background. Iโm just working over a bubbling cauldron of stuff over here! Iโm very excited about it, and I really hope the fans are too when they hear what it is, but I canโt give any other information than that right now.
AW: While the upcoming project is still very hush-hush, perhaps you can give your input on this: Now that you have a strong new lineup, do you have an idea of what direction youโd like the band to head in? Not exactly just with this album, but what you would like to achieve with future Evanescence material over the next few years?
Amy Lee: Um, I see how youโre trying to be tricky and just get more information out of me about the โthingโ!
[We both burst out laughing]
Amy Lee: BUT [laughs] I feel that would just be giving it away! So, this is just a very general statement, because I donโt have a specific direction for the next-next-thing – although weโre starting to formulate that already โ but Iโm starting to learn that less is more, in a way. Evanescence, for me, has always been this place where every single thing you can imagine is in there.
Weโve used so many tracks that pro tools canโt handle it, and itโs an issue. So with all the strings, the programming, the guitars, the background vocals, and all of these things that go into our music, as wonderful as that all is, Iโve come to realize that sometimes youโre not hearing all that weโre doing because of all that is going on. Iโve come to sometimes enjoy being able to hear just one thing at a time a little bit.
That being said, thatโs not meant to really describe anything other than that my headspace right now is that I can appreciate moments of simplicity, and I think thatโs important. I think thatโs an important direction for us to think about in the future, that everything doesnโt always have to be so full or so complicated. Because in life, sometimes your emotions are a huge hurricane of stuff and other times itโs just one little simple thought.
AW: Lost Whispers was well received by the fan base, but there have been a few songs over the years that were performed live but not released, such as Your Love ะธ Find A Way. Some fans were hoping to see these on Lost Whispers, but they were not included. Will these songs ever see the light of day?
Amy Lee: You knowโฆitโs one of those things. Those are a couple of songs that have made it out a little bit, so youโve heard parts of themโฆ like Take Cover, thatโs a B-side of ours that weโve played live only, and what you donโt know is that thereโs this huge pile of songs like that. Weโve got this cool playlist of songs that weโve got to draw from, of music that didnโt quite make it. Music that got sort of pushed to the side over the years, the ones that didnโt quite make it enough to be recorded.
Like Find A Way ะธ Your Love, for example, those donโt have full recordings, at least at this point. But thatโs not to say that they arenโt any good, and I do hear whatโs cool about that music. But itโs nice to have that big bank of stuff because honestly, sometimes the reason it didnโt make it out is because itโs not as good as another song thatโs kind of like it. Iโve gotten like that about a few things, and thatโs what happened with Your Love. Iโm trying to think of what it reminded me of where we thought the other one was better, but itโs kind of like that.
Will they ever see the light of day? Well, I have heard a rumor that Legends and Lyrics is planning on releasing the performance we did with Your Love on it, so if they do that would be cool! I donโt control it – if I did, I wouldโve done it myself. But itโs kind of funny coming out now because it was so long ago! My hair was chopped off, it was in 2009 or 2010. So weโll see! It would be nice to watch it actually; Iโd like to see it again.
Find A Way is a cool song! Thatโs a song that I wrote for a film, I was just trying to get on the soundtrack of this Middle Eastern kind of movie a few years ago and it didnโt make it. I do that all the time. Iโve got a nice pile of โOh that didnโt work, oh well! Maybe Iโll come back to that when it makes sense.โ
When we go to the next place, or the next album, itโs always like that. We go to the pile! Even if itโs not that we use a whole song, sometimes itโs like, โOh, the verse of this song is great but the chorus could be betterโฆโ and then we can use it, you know? Iโve definitely done that quite a few times.
So weโll see what happens with those two specifically, Iโm not really sure yet. Donโt be shocked if they change! If the chorus is done and all of a sudden it has a different name, well thatโs just too bad [laughs].
AW: Beyond what weโve already discussed, what can fans expect from both you and Evanescence in the year ahead?
Amy Lee: We will be releasing something this year! So there is definitely stuff to be looking forward to in the very near future. In two weeks weโre going to be going on a tour in South America, and then shortly after that weโre going to be playing a European tour, and itโs a pretty significant and kind of long one. So weโll be seeing fans, and you can come see us live, and meanwhile weโll be working on this new thing that will be out this year. So I think thereโs a lot on the horizon for the band.
I do plan on doing more solo stuff, but itโs kind of nice that itโs been sort of piecemeal, because like I was talking about before, the recording process gets to be this big thing and I need an outlet from it. Itโs nice to be able to record a song for a film every once in a while, and do a song on my own, and I definitely have some ideas about my next covers EP. So Iโll be doing that at some point when I have a free momentโฆ
AW: [deadpan]โฆwhich never happens.
Amy Lee: NEVER! All free moments I spend with Jack. [laughs]
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