Interview with Virgin Radio Italy (25/3/2024)

[rionka]

www.virginradio.it/video/video/1366041/evanescence-guarda-l-intervista-a-amy-lee.html

Alteria met with Amy Lee of Evanescence and invites for the concert on June 12th in Milan.
Evanescence plan to work on new music!

Posted on 25 March 2024.

LQ mirror on youtube (i didn't get a better resolution): youtu.be/3P9Yhkfhse0






Interview with Virgin Radio Italy (25/3/2024)


Virgin Radio’s Alteria: Welcome back on Virgin Radio, Amy Lee from Evanescence!

Amy Lee: Thanks for having me back! How are you!

V: Fine, thanks, and you?

A: I’m great, I’m beautiful, i’m ready to rock, I’m missing it a little bit. It’s been a few months, it’s been nice, but we’re excited to get back on the stage again soon.

V: Yes, yes. On June 12th, for an unique and special show here in Italy at Milano, right?

A: Yeah!

V: You have a powerful connection with your fanbase and, well, Italian fans are very warm… What is your first memory about Italy? I don’t know, maybe you can remember your first show here?

A: I love Italy so much. I remember first meeting fans, like Evanescence fans, and that being just a really powerful experience in Italy where they were pressed against the barricade, and so kind and calling to us and knowing our music, and i was like, this is crazy, is this real? I always really felt so much love and support coming from Italy about our music from very early on. There were some of the first fans that really just came out for us.

V: Wonderful! We are very happy to have you back this summer. You said “There’s something beautiful about people coming together in the name of music”. And I think you were talking about live dimension, right? During an interview you said that’s wonderful - that special phrase. Can you describe to us the feeling on being on stage for you?

A: There’s nothing like it. There’s nothing like it in the whole world. There’s something truly special, there is, about what happens whether you’re onstage or in the audience, you know - being a part of music, where we’re all feeling the same thing that is bigger and more universal and able to go deeper than just language can, you know. It’s been a really incredible thing to be able to play music in countries where many people I know don’t speak English or at least it’s not their first language, but feeling that we are connected just as deeply regardless. And that feeling of not just experiencing music by yourself, not just playing guitar in your room, not just listening in your headphones by yourself but sharing it - it’s meant to be shared. It brings us together on a level that I think very few things on Earth can bring us together. So i feel very fortunate to have music be such a big part of my life.

V: Wow! Amy, a few days ago I watched a documentary focused on female musicians, saying how is difficult to plan a tour around the world especially if the musician is a mother, for example an artist like Pink - she decided to bring her children with her during the tour. What is your experience? Is it possible to coexist, in a private life and the life of a rockstar?

A: It is… but it takes help, I don’t know how it would be possible without my husband, who’s an amazing father and really puts his life on hold a lot. So that we can do what we do and that Jack can have his parents. We do bring Jack out on tour sometimes, he loves it, he would rather be nowhere than just with the tour all the time, it’s his favorite, but he has to have a life too, and he’s in school, he’s getting older. It’s actually in a weird way a little bit easier when they’re just toddlers and there’s no school to miss. They can just come with you everywhere. But then they start to have a life and you wanna respect their life too. And there isn’t any perfect way or solution to make it work other than to just be flexible and live in the moment. And sometime’s he’s with us and sometimes he needs to be here, and you have to really try and book the shows and a studio time and a creative time and all those things in such a way that you are still present. I wanna be really present in my son’s life. He’s the best part, I don’t wanna miss it, it’s not gonna last forever. But at the same time I love my job, I’m lucky to have support, I’m lucky to have my family supporting me and wanting us to work out.

V: The right balance, yeah. Talking about women in music - I’ve read an interview where you said that in 2003 Download Festival you were probably the only female on stage. Iron Maiden and all that metal bands and you, the only female… Is it different now, the scene of music, and metal music?

A: It is. It’s been a really beautiful and refreshing encouragement to see it change. So many things in life as you go through it feel like they’re just getting worse But i feel like it that is one thing that i’ve watched progress and it makes me really happy. You know, it’s a challenge to be different, when you’re around. If you’re a part of the scene like in my experience - obviously it’s this heavy music scene, and being a woman in that, being a young, 21, 22 year old woman, in the midst of all that starting out was… eye opening. You have to just watch a lot, keep your mouth shut and just watch and learn the way. And like, okay, i’m gonna fit into the way in all these ways, and then there’s all the other ways where i’m not gonna try to fit in. I’m gonna make my own path. Because it’s different. It’s hard to explain in a nutshell but i think there’s a beauty and value in being different too. I’m lucky that I always thought that from the beginning, I was sort of taught that, and I had good, cool, supportive parents. But I also kind of came up through this time in music with the alternative scene where to me, from my perspective, the more unique an artist was the more I loved it. So I always saw this as an asset: the fact that our music was different. Not just for me being a girl, but what kind of girl. It was sort of the other side of the story. And I always saw that instead of being a negative thing as a positive thing, you know: We’re going to stand out! And just be ready to stand out! But it is such a wonderful comfort to be here 20 plus years later and feel so much support and togetherness from the women in the rock and metal and music community where it’s not so strange. It’s one of those things we all had to kind of come up through that by finding our own way, so we have more in common because of that journey. It really is a pretty tight-knit world of girls of rock.

V: This means that you did great, absolutely great!

A: I cannot take credit but I made my own way just as they did and now we have each other.

V: Last year was special for Evanescence because in 2023 Fallen celebrated 20 years. What is your relationship with this album now, today?

A: Oh my god!... Just imagine a relationship with somebody who is your greatest enemy and your best friend at the same time.

V: Why, why? I’m curious, why “enemy”?

A: I don’t really mean that. It’s been such a beautiful thing. But it’s a journey, you know. It’s been such a big part of my life whether I always wanted that or not. So all the wonderful things that came from and all the opportunities and all the people that we’ve met, you know, the fact that we’re able to still do this today, it started in everything with that album and in that time. But I didn’t have everything worked out in that time, our band wasn’t completely formed at that time. It was just this miracle that happened and it was in the middle of a lot of growth. So there are some painful memories… some things that I was just like, I was just a kid. But it’s such a beautiful thing to be here now, and have all that that music has come to mean over the last 20 years. You know, writing an album, recording an album, those kind of happen relatively fast. It’s the life after that really has been so beautiful and powerful for me.

V: Absolutely. But in your opinion, when the success of Evanescence has exploded, in 2003, 2004, the Grammy Awards, the Best New Artist… What was the magical element of Evanescence? The element that captured everyone, in your opinion?

A: That’s sort of a mystery, I guess, with all things that end up really reaching through and touching people. But I think there really is a special magic in the true finding of yourself, for the first time, the very first time you put your hand on a piano, there’s a magic there. There’s no anticipation or fighting against not doing something you’ve already done, there’s nothing there but pure discovery, with nothing to fight against. It’s hard to explain but it’s just pure, it’s just your pure voice without trying to fix… does that make any sense? I think that’s part of it. It’s just the findin, learning music for the first time, like try and saying a combination of words for the first time, and feelin like, yeah, that, that little thing in there, that’s me.

V: It’s a pure energy, it is the first energy, that’s kind of… Okay, okay.

A: To be fair, like, every time we go in and write, everytime it’s time we’re like let’s make new music, let’s make a new song, let’s make a new album, I always try to recreate some element of that for myself and that has to include an open mind about the music and what it might become. I’ve never gone into an album for Evanescence thinking I want this Evanescence to sound like anything. I don’t ever think it has to sound like our old ones, I don’t ever think it has to not sound like them. It just needs to be a pure fresh idea and that’s where the fire and excitement comes in. It’s that you feel like you’re saying something for the first time or doing it in a whole new way, starting on a different instrument. I learned the harp one time just because I thought it would be interesting to start a song that way and it was, it made some cool music!

V: You are a talented musician and your voice is incredible. I’m curious, do you spend time training your voice? Every day, today, or not?

A: No.

V: No? Really?

A: Actually, after all the singing I’ve done in my life I find that rest is really good. I sing because I love to sing, so it’s happening whether… I don’t sit and do scales. For a show, you know, and when we’re on tour, I think there’s a lot of environmental stressors of travel and sleeping in different places and dehydration and just things that wear you out and mostly overuse. So I spend a lot of time on tour really focusing on preserving my voice and trying to be good to it. But when I’m home, I think, actually, the best way to care for my voice is to not think about it too much.

V: Okay! It makes sense! You created an aesthetic imaginary and you said: “The sound always to me translates into an idea with fashion, it is a mixture of something beautiful and something broken.” In what sense?

A: Imaginary, you’re saying?

V: The aesthetic, your image, your style catch with music.

A: Yeah. I don’t know, I feel like there’s so many ways to express what you’re expressing. For me music is the center but it’s not the whole picture so whether it’s in a production design, or the music video or the album artwork, or the fashion design, all those different elements are an opportunity to like fill in the colors of the picture.

V: Okay, talking about fashion and your clothes - who is Masa Akasato? He’s your friend in New York, right, who works with you on your style?

A: Yeah, he’s incredibly talented, he’s a pattern maker and a fashion designer, and just a really creative friend. We’ve spent a lot of time together making stage clothes. I’m lucky to have them.

V: Wonderful. Can’t wait, Amy, to see you on stage on June 12th here in Milano, Italy. Can you tell us something about the show? What can we expect?

A: Well, as our fans know, we’re just coming off of a couple of years of really pretty solid touring on The Bitter Truth, our last album, which we’re all still just really high over, we love that album. I’m really proud of it. So, we’ve been touring a whole bunch and the end of last year in my mind is like, okay, that’s the end of this chapter, being about this, and I really want the next chapter to be about creating the next thing, whatever that’s going to be. So this year is mostly us getting in the head space of creativity and sharing ideas and working our way towards more music, new music. It’s time to play some new music! But meanwhile we need to fill in some shows, we have to remember who we are and remember our fans and have an excuse to get together and all those things. So we’re just picking up shows and places that we love and festivals that we could be a part of to stay in there. And actually, the way we’re doing it there are a lot of little one-off shows, like we have this show in Milan and we have a show in Portugal and then there’s a festival but there’s like days in between where we’re already together and I’m working on like booking a house and putting our gear in there and writing music in the inbetween days.

V: So, see you there! Can’t wait, really. Thank you so much for your time, Amy!

A: Thank you! We’re very excited, always, always to come back to Italy. Please, let me stay. Forever.

V: Wow, grazie grazie! Ciao Amy, thank you! See you very very soon.

A: Ciao!



[Transcript by rionka]