Amy Lee
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Amy Lynn Lee (born December 13 1981 in Riverside, California) is an American singer and songwriter. She is a founding member and lead singer of the Grammy award winning rock band Evanescence.
History
Early life and the founding of Evanescence
Lee was born to parents John Lee, a DJ, and Sarah Cargill, a homemaker. She has one brother, Robby, and two sisters, Carrie and Lori. Lee had a third sister, Bonnie, who died at the age of three of an unknown cause. The song "Hello" from the Fallen album was written in her memory. While in high school, Lee was president of the choir council and was involved in the all-region choir, mixed chorus, select ensemble, spring musical, and art club. She has had no voice-training lessons and she is a mezzo-soprano with a high top. She has had classical piano lessons which she took for nine years. Her family moved to many places, including Illinois, Kansas, and Florida, but finally settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Evanescence started. She graduated from Pulaski Academy in the year 2000 and also briefly attended Middle Tennessee State University.She founded the band with Ben Moody. The two met at a youth camp when Lee was playing Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That)" on the piano. Within a month, the pair were playing acoustic sets at Arkansas book stores and coffee houses before recording two EPs, Evanescence EP (in 1998) and then the Sound Asleep EP (in 1999). Another song, "You", was written by Amy Lee, but was meant to be a personal song for her friends and family and was never intended to be released. When "You" was leaked, she asked people to stop distributing the song and its lyrics. In 2000, they recorded the longer EP Origin. This demo contains many songs which were used on the debut album Fallen and was written by Lee and Moody.
Fallen and lawsuit
Her first major album Fallen has been certified 6x Platinum , spent 43 weeks in the Billboard Top 10 and has sold over 14 million copies worldwide.Then on October 22, 2003, guitarist Ben left the band stating the reasons for his departure were "creative differences." In an interview several months later, Amy said: "We'd gotten to a point that if something didn't change, we wouldn't have been able to make a second record." she also "We're finally a real band, not just Ben and I and a few others thrown together"
Lee in the music video for Bring Me to Life
On December 1, 2005, former Evanescence manager Dennis Rider filed a lawsuit against Lee for breach of contract. The suit claims Rider was prematurely and unjustly terminated from his position as manager of Evanescence.
In return, Lee filed a countersuit against Rider for "breach of fiduciary duty, sexual assault and battery, professional negligence, currency conversion, and other charges". The suit also claims Rider "neglected Lee's career and business and has focused his efforts on having extramarital affairs, hiding them from his wife, becoming intoxicated during business meetings, physically abusing women and boasting about it, making repeated unwelcome sexual advances toward Lee, receiving fees in excess of what was provided for in his management agreement and using Lee's corporate credit card to purchase gifts for his mistress."
Rider's attorney, Bert Deixler, claimed in a statement that Rider had fully performed all of the duties and obligations owed by the firm under the management agreement, and that he had always conducted himself by the highest professional standards.
\"Out of The Shadows\" Campaign
Amy has become a spokesperson for the [Epilepsy Foundation] and has launched a campaign called ["Out of the Shadows"]. The goal is to help spread awareness about epilepsy and to show others that people with it deserve to be treated fairly and not be discriminated against. This campaign is important to Amy, as well as her family, because her younger brother has epilepsy and she has seen first hand the effect it has.The Open Door
Lee was working on the opening theme of and was writing additional music for the film, but her music was rejected due to it being too dark and epic for the movie. However, Amy has been quoted as saying that the material she didn't use for the movie is "just more great stuff for the new album." There was some speculation that the song had been cut and used in several tracks though Lee has stated that this is not true.. The album is entitled "The Open Door", confirmed in the May 2006 issue of the music magazine Blender. The album is stated to be released on October 3, 2006, confirmed by the official Evanescence website,Image
Lee has a trademark neo-goth style, marked by her occasional use of gothic make-up and taste for Victorian-styled clothing. She also designs many of her own clothes, including those worn in the music video for Going Under and the dress she wore at the 2004 Grammy awards. After she designed it she chose Japanese designer H. Naoto to make it for her , although she does sometimes make her own clothes. In concerts, she often wears a corset or fishnet, and has a notable piercing on her left eyebrow which is visible on the cover of Fallen.Many fans praise Lee for her refusal to emulate other celebrities by using sex appeal in her music. She has stated on a number of occasions that she would never flash her breasts or engage in other publicity stunts which would draw attention to herself. In fact, in the music video for "Everybody's Fool," she aimed to mock such artists by suggesting celebrities who use sex to appeal to an audience are "everybody's fool" and are in fact, merely peddling "lies" (the unifying theme of the music video).
Other projects
Lee is featured on the hit Seether track "Broken" (a duet with ex-boyfriend Shaun Morgan), which is featured on their album Disclaimer II as well as the soundtrack for the 2004 film The Punisher. The first soundtrack that drew international attention to Lee was for the movie "Daredevil". The successful duet "Bring Me to Life", featuring Paul McCoy of 12 Stones, was inspired when she met a friend of a friend. A total stranger who did not know her, somehow could see inside her and when he spoke his words, "woke her up inside". This encounter with a true Word of Knowledge inspired the hit that would launch her career.Discography
- See main article Evanescence Discography.
References
- Anywhere but Home (2004 Live DVD) behind the sceens.
External links
- [Official Evanescence site]
- [Out of the Shadows] (The Amy Lee Fund for Epilepsy)
| Evanescence |
| Amy Lee | John LeCompt | Terry Balsamo | Rocky Gray |
| Discography |
|---|
| Albums and extended plays: Evanescence EP | Sound Asleep EP | Origin | Fallen | Anywhere but Home | The Open Door |
| Singles: Bring Me to Life | Going Under | My Immortal | Everybody's Fool | Call Me When You're Sober |
| Related content |
| | |
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