Evanescence

Evanescence is an American rock band founded in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1995 by singer and pianist Amy Lee and guitarist Ben Moody. After recording independent albums, the band released their first full-length album, Fallen, on Wind-up Records in 2003. Fallen sold more than 17 million copies worldwide and helped the band win two Grammy Awards out of seven nominations. 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 lineup of the group changed several times over the course of the first two studio albums' productions and promotions: David Hodges left in 2002, co-founder Moody left in 2003 (mid-tour), bassist Will Boyd in 2006, followed by guitarist John LeCompt and drummer Rocky Gray in 2007, and Terry Balsamo in 2015. As a result, none of the band's three studio albums feature the same lineup. The latter two changes led to a hiatus, with temporary band members contributing to tour performances. The band reconvened in June 2009 with a new lineup; their next studio album, Evanescence, was released in 2011. It debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart with 127,000 copies in sales. The album also debuted at number one on four other different Billboard charts; the Rock Albums, Digital Albums, Alternative Albums, and the Hard Rock Albums charts. The band spent 2012 on tour in promotion of their latest album with other bands including The Pretty Reckless and Fair to Midland. Troy McLawhorn also became a full-time band member during this time. Following the end of the album's tour cycle in 2012, the band entered another hiatus. In 2015, Evanescence emerged from hiatus and announced they would resume touring; however, they denied that new Evanescence material was being produced, as Lee was focusing on a solo project instead. In addition, Balsamo left the band and was replaced by Jen Majura. Late 2016 saw additional touring from the band and a statement from Lee that Evanescence would continue. In March 2017, Lee stated Evanescence was working on a fourth album for release later in 2017. Synthesis was released worldwide on November 10, 2017, and marked a stylistic change in the band's sound. 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 a Meat Loaf song on the piano. The band became popular after performing in coffee shops around the Little Rock area. After experimenting with band names, such as Childish Intentions and Stricken, they decided on Evanescence, which means "disappearance" or "fading away" (from the word evanesce, which means "to disappear"). The band released two EPs. The first is the self-titled Evanescence EP (1998), of which about 100 copies were made and distributed at the band's early live performances. The second is the Sound Asleep EP, also known as the Whisper EP (1999). There was also a third EP called Mystary EP (2003). For their first full-length demo CD, Origin (2000), about 2,500 copies were produced and sold to concert audiences. Origin and the EPs contain demo versions of some songs on their debut album, Fallen. During a radio interview, Lee and Moody encouraged fans to download the band's older songs from the Internet, rather than purchase them from online sources such as eBay where the material had been selling for over US$250. 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. 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; was certified 7x Platinum in the United States; and sold more than 17 million copies worldwide. The album was listed for 104 weeks on the Billboard 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. In addition, Fallen is number 6 at CBS's list of "Top Bestselling Albums of the Last 10 Years". 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 number five on the American Billboard Hot 100. It provided Evanescence with their first UK number-one single, where it stayed for four weeks from June-July 2003. The song also became the official theme for WWE No Way Out 2003. "My Immortal" received similar success, peaking at number seven on the US and UK charts,[20] 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 awards for Best Hard Rock Performance and Best New Artist and were nominated for two others. The two other singles off Fallen 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); each was promoted by a music video. 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 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. 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..." 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?'" Moody was replaced by Terry Balsamo from Cold. In 2004, Evanescence's new lineup released a DVD/CD compilation titled 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". The album has sold more than a million copies worldwide. A spokesperson for the band's label confirmed on July 14, 2006, that bassist Will Boyd had left the band for "not wanting to do another big tour" and wanting "to be close to his family." Amy Lee originally broke the news to the fans in a post on an unofficial Evanescence site, EvBoard.com. In an interview with MTV, posted on their website on August 10, 2006, Lee announced that Tim McCord, former Revolution Smile guitarist, would switch instruments and play bass for the band. In a news posting to the Evanescence website during June 2009, Amy Lee wrote 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. Will Hunt returned as drummer while a second drummer and programmer, Will "Science" Hunt, was brought in to assist in writing but ultimately did not join the band. David Campbell, who previously worked on The Open Door, was brought back to handle string arrangements, and the album was scheduled for release by the producer Steve Lillywhite. Lee later said that "Steve wasn't the right fit" and was replaced by producer Nick Raskulinecz. At the time the band began recording, the album was intended for an August or September 2010 release. However, on June 21, 2010, Lee announced on EvThreads.com that Evanescence had temporarily left the studio to work further on the album and "get our heads into the right creative space". Lee also indicated that record label Wind-up Records was going through "uncertain times", which would further delay the release of the album. The band reentered the studio in early April 2011 with Raskulinecz, who had produced music for Alice in Chains, Deftones, and Foo Fighters, to continue work on the third album. It was reported that the album would be released in late 2011. Over the course of the month, Seether lead vocalist Shaun Morgan announced that Troy McLawhorn was reported to have rejoined Evanescence as a primary guitarist after leaving Seether, but Evanescence's management later stated that this was not the case. On June 12, 2011, Amy Lee announced through her Twitter account that McLawhorn was officially back with Evanescence and that the release date for the new album would be October 4, 2011. Later, on July 11, 2011, it was reported by MTV News that the release date for the album had been pushed back to October 11, and that the first single from the album will be "What You Want". The band recorded the album at Blackbird Studio, Nashville. During an interview with Kerrang!, Lee revealed that the new album's title will be Evanescence. Lee said that the decision for the title of the album was her love towards Evanescence, as well as the record being written more collaboratively than albums from the past. Other themes are the ocean, quest for freedom and falling in love. On April 27, 2015, it was announced that the band would perform at Japan's Ozzfest on November 21, 2015, as the second headline act, making it the band's first live performance since their hiatus. Prior to Ozzfest, Evanescence would play three shows in the United States. On August 7, 2015, Lee announced that long-time guitarist Terry Balsamo had departed the band. His position was filled by German singer and guitarist Jen Majura, bassist for folk metal band Equilibrium. In an October 2015 interview, Lee stated that the band would continue to tour in 2016, but that when it came to recording new music, she was focusing on recording a solo album rather than a new Evanescence album. In late 2016, the band toured select cities in the United States, choosing alternative rock band Veridia as their opener. On September 13, 2016, the band announced a vinyl box set titled The Ultimate Collection that includes all of their albums (including Origin) and a new version of "Even in Death", a song which first appeared on Origin. The set was released on December 9, 2016. During an interview with Loudwire, Lee stated "there is Evanescence in the future" and that there had been work on another pre-Fallen song which would be released later. On February 18, 2017, a compilation album titled Lost Whispers was made available for streaming and downloading on Spotify, iTunes and Anghami. It contained the rerecorded "Even in Death", previously released B-sides, the four deluxe edition bonus tracks to Evanescence, and the new song "Lost Whispers". On March 20, 2017, Lee spoke to AOL Build about her solo single, "Speak to Me"; during the interview, she spoke of "a new album" in the works by Evanescence, saying "We're working on something. It's not just a straightforward 'next Evanescence album'," implying a stylistic change. In a March 23 interview with Metal Hammer, Lee stated that "It's something unique, something complex, something a little bit beyond that - and it's definitely new territory for all of us." The album was intended for release later in 2017. In March 2018, Evanescence announced that Lindsey Stirling would be joining the second North American leg as part of Evanescence's Synthesis Tour. While their focus would remain on touring, Lee stated during a July 2018 on WRIF that the band would begin working on their next studio album.