1998 Enclave Interview

[AeternusAmatorius]

This was from the fall of 1998, a few months before the first EP was issued. Gabe interviewed Ben & Amy for Enclave.

Gabe: Who are you guys? Where are you from? How’d you meet? you know, bio stuff…

Ben: Evanescence consists of two people; Amy Lee and myself, Ben Moody I was born in Arkansas and Amy was born in Florida. Several years ago Amy and myself were attending a youth camp. I was playingwith the praise and worship group and Amy was a camper. During some kind of break/recreation time I was sitting in the gym watching a basketball game. On the other side of the court was a stage for plays and a piano. I was just sitting there bored to tears when all of the sudden I was given a quick jolt as my ears were filled with the sound of the piano intro to Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love.” I looked over at the piano and there was this girl effortlessly displaying emmence amounts of talent. After my initial envious rage subsided I hopped to my feet and ranright through the basketball game straight to the piano and introduced myself. She then impressed me further with songs that she had written. I thought I was in heaven. But then she sang. I nearly died. coming from this tiny little youth camp reject was one of the most powerful, beautiful voices I’d ever heard. So I somehow convinced her to never play with anyone else again and she’s been mine ever since. We’ve had the same dream from the beginning; to write with everything in us and totally do the music we love while at the same time using that as a tool to share with others what Christ has done in our lives.

Gabe: Who are your influences musically, lyrically and otherwise?

Ben: We have a huge list of influences. Musically we’ve been influenced greatly all the way from Living Sacrifice and Type O Negative to Portishead, Counting Crows, and Sarah McLachlan. One of our biggest influences (and one of our favorite bands) is Garbage. We try to take a little something from everthing that we get in to. Believe it or not, we’re HEAVILY influenced by stuff we loved in the eighties. Lyrically, though, we’re more influenced by authors and poets that we like. Alot of our lyrics stem from short stories that we’ve written or books that we’ve read or movies we’ve seen. We try to put originality and meaning first when when writing lyrics.

Gabe: How do you feel being Christian musicians when Christian music is sooo dominated by talentless hacks who provide no challenge in their music? (CCM)

Ben: It’s not like it was a concious choice, actually. We’re musicians who write about things that affect our life. If I was taking the trash out and was suddenly struck with the inspiration to write a song about it, I’d probably do it. Our relationship with Christ is one of the biggest parts of our lives so of course we tend to be heavily lyrically influenced by that. We didn’t just decide to become “Christian musicians”, it just happened that way.

Gabe: So far Arkansas’ contributions to the Christian Music scene have been darker types of bands (Living Sacrifice, Mindrage, Eso Charis) and you obviously fit into dark, but far from metal. How did you get interested in goth music?

Ben: It’s funny you should ask that. We happen to know all those bands personally. Alot of our musical background is rooted in metal. The majority of my inspiration to use the style of music you love to glorify God comes from Living Sacrifice. I’ve Loved them for years and so has Amy. They have one of the most incredible ministries I’ve ever seen. At the moment I happen to be going to Bible college with the bass player from Living Sacrifice. So I wouldn’t really say that we’re far from metal, we just desguise it. We kind of took what we felt were the best parts. We blended what’s pretty close to the structure of traditional pop songs, the dark, melodic chord structure and agression of metal, threw in catchy melodies and an occasional catchy rock riff, and then we sat back and thought of all the ways to make it scary and we pretty much had our style. Although almost of our songs include all these things but one particular style normally dominates the others and the dominate style varies with every song so there’s kind of something for every mood.
That’s really all we try to do is make music that magnifies whatever mood your in.
There’s nothing more iritating than turning on the radio right after you’ve just been hurt or betrayed and hearing some stupid pop song about standing by you or sunny days or some crap like that. When you’re sad, you wanna hear from someone who’s been there and understands. And you certainly can’t turn to Christian music. We want people to know that your salvation is not going to keep people from hurting you and it’s not going to stop you from feeling pain. But you are not alone. God made you the way you are for a reason. There are other people who think, feel, and dream the same way you do and Christ will never abandon you whether you go through trials or not. I think that’s why we fell into the “goth” category. We’re just emotional and we find that embracing your “dark emotions” and not denying them brings you one step closer to happiness. You’ll never be able to love other people and share the love of Christ with others until you look at yourself through Christ’s eyes and aceept yourself they way He accepts you.

Gabe: When’s the album coming out and can you tell us who the label is yet?

Ben: I can’t tell you the label yet but I can tell you that the album will be done through ABC Productions and will be produced by Michael Tate (of dc Talk) and Chad Chapen. Our goal is to release it in the summer.

Gabe: I’ve heard you’ve added some more people to the band. Who are they and how does this change the band’s sound?

Ben: Actually, we lost a few people. Amy and I have spend endless hours triyng to put bands together so that we could play big shows but it has been borderline impossible. So we decided it would be best to stop trying and we decided to go back to just the two of us until we signed to a label and could hire a band.

Gabe: How do you describe the band’s sound or what genre would you say it is?

Ben: refer to # 4 (sorry, i guessed I gave you more info than you wanted on 4)

Gabe: What bands do you listen to now, both Christian and secular?

Ben: We listen to the same old stuff really. Sarah McLachlan, Sacrifice, Mindrage, Portishead, Type O Negative, alot of classical music, alot of Garbage. I really like Savage Garden, Tonic, and Tool.

Gabe: It’s 2am. You’re hungry, what do you snack on?

Amy: Bread w/ honey, hot cocoa
Ben: Cereal. Love cereal, and anything with caffiene

Gabe: Where do you see the band going in the future? How do you think the sound will evolve?

Ben: Being that this will be our first cd on a major label, we’re going to have to pay our dues before we can do everything we want. This first album is going to have a little more structure. We’ll have to stray a little from the “rock opera” stuff where there’s “movements” in the song and countless riffs and lots of theatrics. However, we eventually would like to perfect the art of portraying the entire human emotional process in one album. We see ourselves still being radio friendly, but continually growing in creativity. We are always searching for new ways to make people feel our music instead of just listening to it. As time goes by our style will evolve and though we can’t predict how at this time, we can tell you that we will always retain the sincerity and emotion in every song we write.

Gabe: Okay, standard question. It’s your fantasy dinner what four guests (dead or alive) do you invite?

Amy: Janis Joplin, Ben Moody, Bjork, and Beth Gibbens
Ben: The Mendoza’s, Amy Lee, Jimi Hendrix, Weird Al Yankovich

Gabe: Do you have a website?

Ben: I’m pretty good with computers but unfortunately I haven’t had enough time to get even the slightest bit good at making websites so we don’t have one as of yet.

Souce: www.enclaveonline.org/
Thanks to NotAChristianBand.com

Source

[Andromeda - Evanescent-Killjoy]

so i guess we know where all the christian rock labelling started...

i bet Wind Up put a stop to it. I doubt ev would have been twice as successful if they had stuck with being called and marketed as Christian rock but i can see the influence in fallen for sure,

... lol wow i would have been 7 or 8 when they did this they would have been around 17 -18 or even 19 wow.

[ladylollydragon (Kazlan)]

I remember reading this ages ago and getting kind of annoyed because Ben was answering all of the questions. Lol. But I think that Andromeda - Evanescent-Killjoy could be right about the Christian band thing. It's possible that Wind-Up wanted to take them out of the Christian market. Although, considering they'd already blown up, perhaps they'd grown up a little and decided that they didn't want to be considered a Christian band at all. Maybe they felt they'd be taken less seriously if they were marketed that way. I mean, I remember Amy saying that she considers herself to be Christian even though she doesn't go to church, but she doesn't seem like the kind of person who would preach about God in her music even if he was a massive influence in her life, so I don't know... I think that maybe they grew up a little bit and decided that they didn't want to focus on religion in the music.

[Lycrymosa]

My understanding is that wind up originally started marketing them as a Christian rock band and it really annoyed Ben and Amy because although they were Christians they didn't want to limit thier music and listeners by it, that's the big mix-up thing Amy talks about when ever people ask her about it in interviews, that windup tried to market them like creed, she also seems to get really annoyed when people ask her about it in interviews or still refer to them as a Christian rock band lol

I guess in the early days they really started off with the Christian influence but then decided against it later on

[Andromeda - Evanescent-Killjoy]

I think may be the Christian influence was more Ben judging by this interview but perhaps as they grew up and matured the influence changed.
They would never have been able to reach out to such a world wide audience if they hadn't made the decision to go against marketing as a Christian rock band and that is basically because the world is made up of people who believe different things.
perhaps as they started to get big they must have realised that they would be limiting there reach. Im sure the label would have realised hay we can make more money world wide if we do it this way. There are some countries that wouldn't touch any music marked with a Christian rock label, its funny cause we were talking about a similar thing today in class about certain artists having to look and sound and be a certain way to be Authentic in the Genre of music that they are. Also how certain countries don't play certain artists because of the way they are marketed or something they were associated with.

I guess what i'm trying to say is perhaps there is a larger market for Christian Rock in America and i'm sure there are some states that the genre is more popular in but i can say that in a country like Australia there is not a big market for it to be a big enough popular thing that radio stations here would even consider playing something labelled in a genre that is not widely popular unless the song gaind world wide sucess .. like Gangnam style being kpop.

[Worm Baby]

I know I read this many years ago, but its like reading it for the first time again right now. It's weird how much Ben talks about the Christian stuff, especially when I feel like hardly any of their songs can even be interpreted as being about that. Only "Tourniquet" (in a messed up way) and "October" have ever seemed religious to me. Any other mentions of god or heaven or whatever in their songs have seemed purely figurative to me.

It's also interesting to know that it was always his intention to start off as more commercial and radio-friendly, before going into any heavier or more experimental stuff. He was one smart kid. His plan worked perfectly!

[thelastghost]

Sweet interview. Ben certainly had a very clear vision of what he wanted Evanescence to be (at that time).
It's also funny to read how Amy answered the trivial questions and not the music related ones haha.
By seeing this 15 years later you can definitely notice Amy has Evanescence under control now. I like the fact that she is doing with Evanescence what she feels to. And taking it the direction she wants.

[rionka]

^^ thelastghost i'm still wondering why didn't she express herself more at that time. It pisses me of, though the interview is interesting. She had also certainly something to say about her music. But maybe it's just because, as she said recently, she was formerly "very shy".

[Andromeda - Evanescent-Killjoy]

id say this interview was way before wind up put the band through artist development which is why amy didn't contribute much to this interview

[rionka]

That may be true, they supposedly sent her to some vocal training and courses of stage presence so she gained more confidence. Sometimes I can't believe it's the same person, because there are old interviews where she was so much holding back herself. Her progress is amyzing

[fishbowl]

I wonder if they even had the same band name at the time. I read on Wikipedia that they had different names before Evanescence (Childish Intentions and Stricken) but this information could be false considering it's from Wikipedia. did Amy ever say anything about this?

[ladylollydragon (Kazlan)]

Feb 9, 2013 15:08:46 GMT -5 fishbowl said:

I wonder if they even had the same band name at the time. I read on Wikipedia that they had different names before Evanescence (Childish Intentions and Stricken) but this information could be false considering it's from Wikipedia. did Amy ever say anything about this?

I don't know if Amy or Ben has ever said anything about those first band names, but I read an unofficial Evanescence biography written about the band's roots and then the Fallen era and it had those first band names in it. It sounds really plausible to me, because I doubt there's a single band that has had the same name since the beginning (Well, maybe back in the day, but I doubt there are any from the last twenty years).

[carolexodus]

In an old interview (i guess it's on Youtube, an MTV interview i think) Ben and Amy were asked about the early names of the band and i think they said they had other ideas before picking Evanescence, but they didn't want to disclose any because they thought they were terrible names.

[Thomas]

There's this interview where Amy says they got some stupid band names and then they looked for it on a dictionary to find a word which would describe their sound.

[AeternusAmatorius]

Feb 9, 2013 2:39:27 GMT -5 Andromeda - Evanescent-Killjoy said:

id say this interview was way before wind up put the band through artist development which is why amy didn't contribute much to this interview

Yeah. The interview was conducted in 1998 before the first EP was "released".

Feb 9, 2013 15:08:46 GMT -5 fishbowl said:

I wonder if they even had the same band name at the time. I read on Wikipedia that they had different names before Evanescence (Childish Intentions and Stricken) but this information could be false considering it's from Wikipedia. did Amy ever say anything about this?

If you read the information on the EvRef, then it should be almost true. I'd say 96% of the material on EvRef is true. But I'm sure by 1998 hey had their name. Why else would the EP have "Evanescence" on it if it wasn't their band name?