100.3 The Bear: Interview w Lzzy & Amy (23/4/2024)
Transcript:
Jess Jackson: Edmonton's best rock 100.3 The Bear! This is very exciting to have both Lzzy Hale and Amy Lee together. And why the heck would I have these two amazing women in rock and roll together? Do you guys just want to tell us why?
Lzzy Hale: Why not! (smiles) Because we're coming to Edmonton on the 20th.
Amy Lee: We're coming to your town!
L: And it's it's going to be amazing. We were talking before about how we came we got the amazing opportunity to link up right after the pandemic, and what a great way to come back out, but you know…
A: We didn't hit Canada!
L: We didn't hit Canada so we got to cross that off the list.
A: Unfinished business. Always looking for opportunity to work together. It’s just being really indulgent for us.
L: You're the excuse for us to hang out. (laughing)
J: That's a nice little feather in our cap! So Roger’s Place, October 20th. Tickets are going to go on sale this Friday. This is very exciting. So as you mentioned, you guys had toured together, was it 2021 I believe, so you're used to being on the road with each other. Have you learned anything about each other's bands before you head to Canada? Or something about the other like going into this tour I guess?
A: I feel closer to your band than maybe any other one.
L: Really?
A: There's a couple, but…
L: I feel that way too. I feel like it used to be that way, where it's like there was this over, when we first started touring. There was always somebody that would be like oh yeah, we hang out on days off, or we have aftershow with karaoke or something and that kind of stopped. For like a good, maybe 15 years, where everyone's just like I got my own thing, I’m working. There have been so many tours where I will have to seek everybody out, because then I feel bad if I haven't met everybody on tour. Or where you haven't even seen the lead singer!
A: 100%.
L: The entire tour! I'm like, where are they hiding?
A: Okay, sorry, but: Why would you want to go be in a band a rock band and tour around and do this for a living, if you're not going to like have any fun with the people around?
L: I know!
A: We're in for a good time, so if you want to know what it's like to be on tour with us, with them, we're hanging out! Maybe not every night, you know, vocals are a thing, but if there's a day off the next day… (points out)
L: But there's a mutual understanding with that, because if you're chilling out, you're like, okay, it’s a show tomorrow, duh! And maybe I should do that too, because… (laughing)
A: Right.
J: Will this be a a co-headline tour where you guys switch nights who opens and who finishes off?
A: I don’t know yet.
L: I don't have the answer for that, but I'm good either way. (laughing)
J: it's been 15 years since Evanescence has been to Canada. The last time in Edmonton, I looked it up, it was January 16th 2007, with Stone Sour, in our old barn Rexall Place, and Lzzy, you were here last year with Volbeat. So is there anything - maybe Amy, that you remember from the last time you were in Edmonton? Have you been up here since and we just didn't know about it?
A: It's funny because I keep doing these interviews and they give me a date with “it was the last time” and I just I can't believe it!
L: I know.
A: I feel like I was just there! I do remember that tour. It was cool to play with Stone Sour and see that other side of Corey. Honestly, I'm a big Canada fan. We have been through quite a bit and something that's personal in my heart is, in our early days of before Fallen, when it was just us making our own demos and putting them up on the internet, before social media and stuff - I mean, Myspace existed, but I don't know, I didn't have an account - we started getting picked up in Canada. Canada was really the first place that started listening to our music. We had fans from like...
another country?! And I was shocked and excited and in high school and it was like a big deal um so you guys are like our really old school original supporters. That's cool!
J: Yeah, I love that.
L: When we were in Canada with Volby, we did - and this is not “rockstar” at all, this is not debauchery but we would have wine and cheese parties after the show with the guys and so everybody would bring like some and somebody would always have some stinky foot cheese and everyone would have to try it.
A: You're talking about that specifically, is it a Canada thing?
L: No, that's just what we did, for some reason.
A: That's what we do, that’s what I do everytime. That's
my rider *! (laughing)
L: I know. Can we do that again? I could live off that.
A: The party usually starts in their room because you guys have the record player and all the music stuff, but then a few minutes in, I come in with the cheese and veggies and a bottle of wine under my arm.
L: It's a full thing.
J: There you go.
A: Yeah, I’m done with the talking. We're not partyers. I'm a mom. I'm just saying what I'm looking forward to! (laughing)
L: If you would talk to me in my early 20s [it was] like,
yeah we'll finish the bottle of tequila and then we'll do it again! Now it's like:
oh, I brought the cheese and the crackers. (laughing)
A: [cheese snob face]
I brought the blue cheese! 
L: I brought the blue cheese! [*dying with laughter*]
J: [cheese snob face]
This pairs really nicely with this red, have you tried it?A: Yes!
J. Yeah, okay. I like it. Very very cool. I noticed that you're both playing Rocklahoma as well, so how you were talking about how…
A: (*grining with anticipation*)
L: I don't even know. (laughing)
A: I was like:
are you playing Rocklahoma? and I was like: (*shaking her head No*) - [and them:]
Oh, okay! J: That was one of those things too where I thought, would you hang around for the full weekend? I think you're both playing the Friday night, would you stick around and like? There's some amazing bands playing that.
A: There are, and I am not. We are going on, we have a couple of other shows right after that.
L: Yeah, same. We end up peppering some things [events] in… It's funny, I thought Rocklahoma was not on the list… You know what? It was already announced and I really should pay more attention!
A: (laughing) I thought I saw you got it.
L: (laughing) I got
LSD - the lead singer disorder, it's hard. It's tough to be me right now.
But yeah, that's going to be fun, and I love Rocklahoma. That's just a family reunion at that point.
A: Festivals are something I look forward to at this point, because we have friends and get to have a reason to see each other. It's hard to get your schedules ever to line up, so when you have a show together, it's like guaranteed good time.
J: When you're planning things out like this, like going on the road and going to Canada, I assume it's labels and managers and doing all the organizing, I don't know if this is a dumb question, but do you ever just pick up the phone and say
hey, do you wanna to go on tour with us? Or is it kind of in The Backroom I guess?
A: Yeah!
H: Yeah, it usually starts there. And then we have to like, then equally like, just course everybody to like Oh no, this is a good idea, we're doing this and then they can make an official email be like
We’re officially invited.
A: Well I think because of last time, because what we did in 2021 did really well, so this time the agents were like really excited about it.
L: There was no question.
J: I think you had mentioned to the 20th anniversary of Fallen last year, you guys did a re-release and remastered some bonus tracks. When you have an anniversary like that, that big and that long, do you kind of go back and and reminisce and you know,
I haven't listened to this album in its entirety in a long time?
A: Yeah, I mean, I didn't have a choice. Because we wanted to like - I wanted to do something special for the fans, it's a big milestone. So we decided to do a remaster, but I wanted that to be special, and I wanted that to include a whole bunch of extra content, and blah blah blah - so I mean, anything that we put out I have obsessed over. So I had to really listen just to the album. I really haven't listened to Fallen, like just
listen to Fallen in many years. I'm not sitting around doing that. We play a handful of those songs every show, so I don't feel like I've ever been too far from it. But at the same time like the ones that we don't ever play live, yeah, I haven't heard them in forever. So not only to hear them, but to like listen to them and study them, and to have to like write out all the lyrics again for the booklet stuff. It was definitely like, I don't know… it's surreal. And it's too familiar. Just a lot of feelings and old memories and things came back to me. It gave me some, I realized, I still had some pent up emotions and I actually wrote a song, [to Lzzy:] I have to show you after! But anyway, it's a beautiful thing. I'm so grateful, more than anything. It's given more to me, you know, in my life and in my heart and my spirit, than any kid in a band making music in their parents' basement could imagine. Even when it came out and everything was happening, and the Grammys and blah blah blah, in like 2003 and 04… It's something else now. It's something that has brought me so much love. And being able to tour the world and make more music and have it be my actual job. We're - both - so grateful and recognize what it means to be able to be a musician, being in a rock band, be a singer, for your job. That’s really cool.
J: My last question. I actually asked this on the air a few weeks ago and everybody kind of had their own answer and their own favorite moment to share with this question, which I thought was really cool. What do you think's more important at a show? Your very first song or your very last song?
A: Do you want to go first?
L: I think it's the first song.
A: Oh wow! Okay, great, we got two sides of the same.
L: Because in my mentality, I look at things very much like
okay, nobody knows who I am. So how am I going to get those people? For me it's important to start out in a way that even if somebody doesn't want to like you, as when we have a lot of those where it's like [angry]
I don't know, I got to sit through Halestorm because someone's coming up next 
- or if they absolutely adore you, you want to give them something new - so it's that weird combination that I really like doing, where it's like, okay, how are we going to start the set so that everybody is like wait, okay, what is this?! And then you get to win them over. That's one of the things that I think are important.
A: Thats okay! That's important. First song is definitely important. I feel like first and last song are the two most important, but it's a tough call.
L: It is a tough call. (laughing)
A: Because what do you think, do you think it's more important to play? Something new, make the fans excited, new energy, the thing that makes you guys excited - or like, play a hit?
L: I don't think it matters. I think it's - do you make a moment? That's live.
A: That’s a good answer.
L: To me it's like we've done both where we've done like, I just start out acapella with some random chorus, or we've done let's start with an old one that actually not a whole lot of people know, but it has THAT part in it.
A: Right. Draw them in.
L: Almost the mentality of I'm in this smokey bar “The Rusty Nail” in Harrisburg PA… (laughing)
A: And the guy who doesn't want to be there, wakes up and *shows finger*
L: Exactly, and there's like two people and the sound guy… like, how do you get [them]?
A: Yeah, i get that.
L: It's still very much that.
A: But I think the last song. Because no matter what happens, if you end nailing it, give them the greatest moment… whatever you end on is what they're going to walk away. That is in their head. So we always just end with Bring Me To life. And usually confetti cannons. You know.
L: Confetti cannons are the best!
A: I know!
L: Hey Canada, it's Lzzy Hale from the band Halestorm.
A: And I'm Amy Lee from Evanescence.
L: And we are playing Rogers Place on October 20th, come out and see us, it's going to be a great time.
A: See you there!
J: Thank you!
Note:
* Rider is a document that the band will send over to the booker relating to their requirements for performance. Most performers will have certain essential items that they need to do their job to the best possible standard. (Amy is joking here too.)
Thank you for reading, Englsh is not my 1st language but i had so much fun. 
But yeah, that's going to be fun, and I love Rocklahoma. That's just a family reunion at that point.
- or if they absolutely adore you, you want to give them something new - so it's that weird combination that I really like doing, where it's like, okay, how are we going to start the set so that everybody is like wait, okay, what is this?! And then you get to win them over. That's one of the things that I think are important.