Amy Lee of Evanescence’s personal life and band struggles she faced during her career
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I cite my sources and they may differ than other people’s accounts, so I don’t guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.
Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee has never been afraid to speak up about what she believes in.
And this has gained her…what I falsely believe…a reputation as being a difficult person in the music industry. It may also have something to do with the fact that the band has gone through a lot of lineup changes and the band has had their fair share of controversy.
Today, I’m going to dive deeper into why she may have been categorized as one of the most difficult women in music. A lot of the evidence against Amy rides on the fact that two of her exes are also musicians who have spoken up about her and their breakups very publicly.
But let’s face it, when a couple is both in the public eye, things often end in a very messy way. (insert johnny depp/amber heard trial fecal matter).
So let’s get into the feuds and battles Amy Lee has found herself in during the course of her 20 plus year music career.
AMY AND GENE SIMMONS
Things can get heated when your willing to go head to head with one of the biggest rock stars of all time. And that’s exactly what happened when Evanesence frontwoman Amy Lee spoke up against Gene Simmons.
Here’s exactly what went down.
Gene was asked about his musical tastes in an interview with Gulf News and he made a couple of pretty bold statements. The first was “rock is dead” and revealed that he actually prefers pop, hip-hop and EDM these days.
The second was when he called female-fronted rock bands a “genre.” This comment in particular is what really got Amy going. She criticized his comments in an interview with Altpress. Her reply was summed up like this:
“Everything else you ever say, I’m done listening to you. Eventually, the way that we fix this is that [people like you] will no longer be involved in this community, and the young generation and trailblazers like all of yourselves will continue to support this message of: ‘F**k it, don’t ‘female-front’ me.’ That’s not a genre.”
Did you know that the band’s first album almost wasn’t released, after the label and band came up against creative differences?
It’s true. Wind-Up Records, who also had rock group “Creed” on their roster was insistent that the band needed a full-time male co-vocalist, and that they wouldn’t release “Fallen” without that condition being met.
Amy has dropped out of college to pursue the band full-time and had a lot riding on this. Yet, she told the label she was willing to walk away because she strongly disagreed with their suggestion.
During an interview with 93X radio, she said that:
“I was really, really against having any male vocals in our music. That was really hard. And it was an idea that came from the label. They came up with this idea about having something in there that would be familiar to listeners in order to get us on the radio.”
The band eventually compromised and vocalist Paul McCoy was brought on for one song “Bring me to Life” from their debut “Fallen” album.
Amy and guitarist Ben Moody met as teenagers in Arkansas and officially formed the band in 1994, after ditching other names they considered for the band including Childish Intentions and Stricken. Ten years later, in 2003, they released their multi-platinum deut album “Fallen” through Wind-Up records.
In a 2007 interview with the Santa Barbara independent, Amy had this to say about the process of making “Fallen.”:
“Fallen really is a lot of compromise. It definitely leaned toward what [Ben Moody] wanted a lot of the time.”
Unfortunately, this was also the year that their relationship imploded. Creative differences were a huge reason for the split as Moody favored a more commercial sound, and Amy was more focused on creative freedom and artistic integrity. The relationship had also turned toxic after many years together as a couple.
In a profile with music connection, Lee recalls a conversation with friend and future husband Josh Hartzler who asked her if she was happy at the time.
“I remember just looking down, kind of malfunctioning, and saying something quick to change the subject—but it affected me.”
That conversation later inspired her songs “Bring Me to Life” from 2003’s Fallen album and “Good Enough” from 2006’s The Open Door. Lee would
