Stranger Things interview with Ben Moody (September 2000)

[Ring]

Just found this on EvBoard (here) and I thought I'd post it here.

The last I heard of Evanescence was the indie EP you put out in 1998. What have you been doing since then?

Well, we did put out an EP last summer. We only made about 50, so few people ever knew it existed. We've really just been trying to record a full length. We've tried a million and one different production ideas and arrangements until we finally found something that we could be proud of. It's kind of ridiculous to take that long for one CD, but we wanted it to be the best we could do without a record label. This was kind of like our baby. We actually didn't start the recordings that ended up on the album until December of last year. We started over from scratch when David Hodges joined the band. I think the most time consuming project has been building our own studio to accomodate the ridiculous amount of recording we do before we get a finished product.

What does David bring to the band? What is the current lineup?

I think it's safe to say that Evanescence is finally complete. The lineup is Amy Lee, Ben Moody (myself), and David Hodges. I don't think it would ever work any other way.

David is probably the only other person besides Amy that I could work with musically in this band. Amy and I have always been so protective of Evanescence because it is our baby, but things just seem to naturally work with David. He is an incredible pianist and vocalist, and brings alot to the table as far as production is concerned. Not to mention the fact that his mom bakes brownies like once a day.

That last EP seemed like a demo for shopping to labels, with you trying three or four types of backing instrumentation -- acoustic, goth electronica, atmospheric metal -- for Amy's voice. Are you still testing different soundscapes, or have you decided on a favorite?

Our favorite sound would probably fall under the "goth-electronica" category; however, we stretch pretty far from that at times. We try not to limit ourselves to fitting into a specific category. We all listen to such a wide variety of music that we can't help but to be diverse in our writing. We'll probably always be trying new things and different soundscapes. We've already started writing songs that will probably be on the next album and we're trying to incorporate alot more choral arrangements as well as really intense strings and world percussion instruments.

Does Evanescence do any live shows?

We have played, however it has been a while due to the fact that the band consists of three people and we need about 7 or 8 to play live. Our music now consists of a lot more electronics and loops and stuff, so it's hard to reproduce live without a lot of equipment and a lot of experienced people to run it.

How have they gone?

The shows we've played in the past have been a blast, but they've left us longing to really go all out and do one right. However, we are moving in August and are trying to plan an awesome show before we go. We're only going to do it if we can do it right, but if it comes to be it's gonna be awesome.

Any idea when the full-length album will be released? Are you going to do it independently, or search for a label to release it?

We're not shopping this album to labels. We're currently retracking some songs at Ardent Studios in Memphis with the help of Jason Hughes and Chris Gavin from the band Dust For Life, who are hitting the road with Creed in August. Those songs will be shopped to labels as soon as we put a live band together.

What are your influences? On the original EP, I heard similarities to Euro-bands that have moved from death metal to female-led heavy atmospherics, like The Gathering, The Third & the Mortal, and Left Hand Solution. Are you familiar with any of those?

Our influences are artists like Nine Inch Nails, Sarah McLachlan, (Ben's a HUGE Living Sacrifice fan), Sting, Enigma, Michael Jackson, Portishead. I know the list seems kind of varied, but we like a wide variety of music. I would have to say that overall, our biggest musical - - I guess hero would be the right word - - would have to be Danny Elfman. In our minds he's one of the greatest composers to ever live.

Oh yeah? How did he earn that title from you guys? What about his composing appeals to you all?

He just moves us. Everything about his writing inspires us. He's creepy, he's moody, he's perfect. It would be a dream come true for us to work with him in the future on string arrangements for our music.

What does Evanescence hope to convey, spiritually or otherwise, through music and lyrics?

We're just sick of being bombarded with catchy riffs that have no depth or meaning behind them. We just hope people will like our music enough to really listen to what it's about.

As far as spiritually - the message we as a band want to convey more than anything is simple - God is Love. He is a just God, but a gracious God. All anyone seems to want to do these days is judge other people for things that they themselves are doing. It's so easy to feel completely and hopelessly alone. I used to visit a church that happened to openly support President Clinton. I remember more than once seeing people on the street in front of the church who were opposed to Clinton's stand on homosexuality. These people had their small children with them holding up signs that said "God Hates Fags". The children weren't even old enought to know what homeosexuality was, all they knew was that they were supposed to hate them. The thing that bothered me was not their ignorance or their hateful standpoint, but that they called themselves Christians. The world is filled with hateful people who parade the name of Christ like a badge that grants them immunity to destroy anyone who disagrees with them and they are turning more people away from the love of Jesus than any other group of people in the world. The #1 cause of atheism is Christians. We only hope to offset that as much as we can. God gave human beings amazing amounts of understanding, but they are still flawed and they make mistakes. God understands all. He is not flawed. He does not hate. He knows you better than you know yourself and He understands how you feel. We hope to express in our music that Christianity is not a rigid list of rules to follow only out of fear of an unseen deity who will strike you down at any given moment if you fail. I am a Christian. I still have fears, I still have pain, I still have sorrow, I wouldn't be alive if I didn't. The beautiful thing about My relationship with God is that he understands all that and He has shown me what life is really for. There are so many things in this life that are taken for granted because they are overshadowed by all the hate. We write songs about things that happen in life. All of our songs are not about rainbows and sunshine. Sometimes it rains. Who can we help if we won't even talk about it. No one is alone.

[AeternusAmatorius]

I agree. It seems to be from 2000. That's a nice little interview! Thank you for finding and posting! 

[Deleted]

Ring You deserved to get more likes for posting this. 

[Ring]

I found the interview on the Stranger Things Magazine website using the magic of Wayback Machine. :D