Amy Lynn Lee's Journal

Welcome to the world of Amy Lynn Lee
Blank pages or areas are always so intimidating. So much free space makes me feel like I don't have enough, or anything good enough to say. Since this is my first entry perhaps an introduction would be best.

Who Am I?: Everyone has a name, mine just happens to be Amy Lynn Lee, born in Riverside, California and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. Needless to say my earliest childhood memories took place in Little Rock. Ah yes it's true Amy Lee is really a southern belle at heart. Haha bet you wouldn't have guessed it huh? Anyhoo I am the oldest of 4 kids. Two younger sisters Carrie, who's 17, Laurie, who's 15 and a younger brother Robbie who is at that oh so lovely age of 12. 12 year old boys are so weird sometimes. I was supposed to be the oldest of 5. When I was 3 years old my parents had a daughter named Bonnie but when she was just 3 years old she got sick and passed away. I don't talk about it much. It's not something I often share with the outside world but for you I'll make the exception. Being so young I don't think I fully understood what was happening. I just remember wanting to play with her as any big sister would do and my parents' telling me that I could not. I remember them telling me that she was sick and that she probably wouldn't survive it, but at that age I didn't know what that meant. I thought she was going to get better as I had done when I had gotten sick in the past. I remember trips to the hospital. I remember the whole house having to be quiet 24/7 so that Bonnie could rest. Then I remember the day she died and my mother trying to explain to me that she was in heaven now. Even with being so young the loss of Bonnie affected me in a way few could understand. To this day I still feel like a part of me is missing and I've been told that that will never go away. It's gotten easier over time. I've grown up now, but still it hurts to think about...

As for the teen years I was a very solitary person. I wasn't one of those sitting in the corner all dressed in black, slitting her wrists kind of teens as so many people think I was, not even close. I definitely wasn't popular as a teen but that was mostly because I didn't want to be. I'd much rather be in the band room practicing piano or singing or in the art studio drawing or painting rather then going out to the mall and gossiping about boys or the latest fashion magazines. That stuff just didn't really appeal to me. I just kind of wore what I wanted to wear and even made most of my own clothes. I still do make a lot of my clothes. Much more fun to me to be myself rather then look like everyone else.

The beginning of Evanescence: One day while at a youth camp back in 1994 I was playing my own version of Meatloaf cover songs in the rec room, I noticed a guy watching me out of the corner of my eye. I didn't really pay much attention to him at first. I just went on playing my music and singing softly to myself. After I was done playing, while I was gathering my things, this guy came up to me and introduced himself to me, telling me that what I was playing was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. In case you couldn't already guess it this guy was Ben Moody, fellow creator of Evanescence. Over the next several months we became inseparable. We would spend long afternoons in that very wreck room playing piano together and writing songs. We became the best of friends. Eventually we were spotted by a gentleman at BigWig Enterprises who offered us a small record deal. It was about that time that we met up with Rocky and Will and although they hadn't yet become permanent members of the band yet they did appear on our first self titled EP. With our first EP released we managed to score a few gigs here and there at local venues in and around Little Rock. It was at one of these shows that we hooked up with song writer David Hodges who helped us write music for and release our first full length EP "Origin" in 1999. It wasn't until we were heard on the Dare Devil soundtrack released by Wind Up Records that we started getting more publicity. By that time Will and Rocky, as well as John were made permanent members of Evanescence. We were completely amazed with the amount of people who wanted to hear more from us. We had never really expected to become anything big. A year later Wind Up Records granted us our ultimate dream come true. Our first full length album. "Fallen" was released in mid 2003 and bought us even more publicity then we could ever imagine. Along with publicity came endless tour dates and the pressures of life on the road. As stressful as it is sometimes being up there on that stage every day doing what we love most in front of thousands of people makes it all very worth it.

Disaster Strikes After about a year and a half of touring problems started to arise. In the beginning me and Ben were getting along fantastically. We agreed on everything and creativity between the two of us was amazing, but suddenly things weren't going as well as they used to be. He wanted everything scheduled and planned minute to minute where as I wanted to wait things out and see where time took us. He had his idea of what he wanted and I had mine and suddenly they weren't matching up anymore. We just weren't getting along anymore. We had kind of talked about the possibility of one of us leaving the band but there was never any sure plans that it would happen. One day while on tour me and the rest of the guys came back from getting a bite to eat when we discovered that Ben had just up and left. No word, no note no nothing he just quietly packed up all his things and left. As much as I wanted to just break down and cry, seeing as how we had been so close over the past few years I had much bigger problems to worry about. We had to find a new guitarist and FAST! Thankfully we found a friend to fill in for the rest of the tour and not long after the tour ended we found Terry Balsamo. Big lovable Terry to the rescue. As soon as he tried out for the spot he immediately fit right in with us. By the way, if you really want the details on me and Ben's real relationship all you have to do is ask me. I'm not one to put all of my personal issues out in the open. I never have been, but if you want to get to know me better and you want to know more, just ask me in person and I will fill you in on the answers.

Evanescence Anywhere But Home Era: In November 2004 our live CD/ DVD "Anywhere But Home" was released. The CD part of it is the music from one of our live concerts in London, featuring a few previously unreleased tracks and new versions of some of our songs from our first 2 EPs. The DVD side is wacky look at Evanescence from behind the scenes. Wanna see how dorky I really I am? Check out the DVD. You'd be surprised at how silly we can be at times.

The Open Door: In December 2004 we originally set out to take only a few months time to write new material and record our second full length album. Unfortunately we ended up hitting several bumps along the way. First Terry had a minor stroke in Fall of 2005 which obviously set us back a bit and then not long after that we decided to fire our manager after he tried to sue me for breach of contract, even after he tried to make sexual advances on me several times and came to several meetings drunk and disorderly so I, of course counter suited and guess who won that one? Definitely not him! Thankfully, we were able to find a decent, non assholish manager and with that mess over by the beginning of 2006 we were able to continue with the album once again. I think we must have interviewed like 100 people before we found the right one. On October 3rd 2006, The Open Door was finally released world wide. Our fears of being forgotten after being away for so long were finally relieved and much to our amazement TOD sold 447,000 in the US alone in the first week and also landed us our first #1 spot on the Billboard 200 album chart. As far as touring for the record went, the tour for The Open Door began on October 5, 2006 in Toronto and included locations in Canada, the U.S. and Europe during that year. This first tour continued on January 5, 2007 and included stops in Canada (alongside band Stone Sour), Japan and Australia (alongside band Shihad) and then returned to the U.S. for a second tour in the spring (alongside bands Chevelle and Finger Eleven). As part of tour tour, we performed on April 15, 2007 on the Argentinan festival Quilmes Rock 07 along with Aerosmith, Velvet Revolver and other local bands. We also co-headlined on the Family Values Tour 2007 along with Korn and other bands. We closed the European tour with a sold-out concert at the Amphi in Ra'anana, Israel, on June 26, 2007, and finished the album tour on December 9, 2007. Right now we're busy working away on a new album for all of you fine people out there. So far no date has been set for it's release. I hate constricting ourselves with time limits, but don't worry guys and gals it'll be out before you know it.

More line up changes and misunderstandings: On July 14, 2006: Will officially made the decision to leave the band for good. He just didn't want to do the whole big tour thing anymore. He wanted to spend more time with his family and we all completely understood that. Just for the record there was absolutely no hard feelings as far as his leaving went. We'd known for a long time that he wasn't happy being on the road all the time so in the end his decision to leave was for the best. He was replaced by a dear friend of ours Tim McCord, former Revolutionary Smile guitarist. As far as John and Rocky go, well that's a bit of a different story. I'm sure you've all heard by now that I supposedly called John on his cell phone and fired him from the band and that Rocky left because he was angry at me over the whole thing. If you're really that stupid and choose to believe that then go right ahead and believe it but I can tell you right now that that is far from what really happened. The truth was they hadn't been happy with the way things had been going for a long while before any decisions were made. I don't even know how exactly it started any more, but the bottom line is we just weren't getting along anymore. Maybe it was just too much time spent in too small of spaces. Who knows. All we knew was that something had to be done and since they weren't being man enough to admit something was wrong and that they needed to break off and do their own thing I gave them a little push and put an end to things. No I didn't call them on their cell phones and fire them I called a meeting and WE all agreed it was for the best. For the rest of The Open Door tours we were lucky enough to barrow close friends of ours the very awesome drummer Will Hunt and the extremely talented guitarist Troy McLawhorn from the band Dark New Day. No they were not made permanently members of the band but that was by their choice of course. They didn't want to leave their band permanently and we didn't want to steal them away from their bandmates. Just recently, however, they did make the final decision to become part of the band. So now the current line up for Evanescense stands as me on vocals and piano, Terry on guitar, Tim McCord on bass, Troy McLawhorn on guitar, and Will Hunt on drums. As of right now this will be a permanent line up. I am hoping that this time things will last, but who knows. No one knows what the future will bring. If it turns out that this line up isn't what's best than that's okay too. I am always open to trying out new things.

More personality stuff and last note: Personality wise I'd like to think I'm a fairly easy person to get along with. I'm friendly if you approach me but I do have a shy side to me at times. I'm not the type to gossip or start problems. What's the point in it? Oh and did I mention I love to party. Well not always but the occasional party is always nice. If you watch the DVD you'll see that I'm not at all ashamed of getting drunk and doing off the wall things once in awhile. Currently I'm living the single life. That's right peoples AMY IS SINGLE! I'm not dating Shaun Morgan anymore. It's true we were dating for quite awhile and we were even thinking about getting engaged for a brief time but things didn't work out and we realized that we're a lot better off just being friends. And NO I AM NOT MARRIED! Yes, me and Josh Hartzler were married for a very short time but let me just tell you, NEVER EVER marry a therapist. You just end up with them analyzing every thing you do and making excuses for the way you are acting. Currently we're in the process of getting a divorce and I'm in the process of putting my life back together yet again. Needless to say I have very bad luck in the way of romance and yet for some stupid reason I still have faith in the fact that some day I will find my prince. Now all I have to do is hope that that didn't scare you off too much.

Well, I think that about covers everything. I'm single, I'm friendly and I'm a goofball. I'd love to make friends and talk to people so YourStarAmyLee hit me up sometime. Being off tour is boring. Give me something to do.

Peace,
Amy Lee
YourStarAmyLee

Current Mood: hopeful