A new beginning for Evanescence

Now that guitarist Ben Moody is gone, the writing process has changed.
By CARYN ROUSSEAU
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Evanescence has sold more than 10 million copies of its debut album and won two Grammys, but it hasn't been easy for lead singer Amy Lee.
She endured a very public split with her lead guitarist and a battle with radio stations nationwide that believe women can't rock. Now, after finishing a huge tour, Lee finds herself back where she started -- writing the lyrics that catapulted the Arkansas rock band to the world stage.
Lee was 14 when she founded the band with Ben Moody after they met at summer camp. They wrote music together and played at small Little Rock venues before landing a deal with Wind-up Records, which released "Fallen" in the spring of 2003.
Moody abruptly left the band about seven months later, leaving Lee to work on Evanescence's sophomore effort. So this time, things will be different.
More freedom
Lee is the words of Evanescence, and Moody was the music. She says not having him around gives her liberty.
"Ben has a certain kind of pop structure that he follows that I wouldn't," the 22-year-old singer said backstage before her tour wrapped up in August with a hometown Little Rock show. "He would always be corralling my ideas. It's going to be cool this time to have more freedom, just in that there's more people writing like a real band. Everybody's involved and we have a good successful album under our belt, so there's less pressure."
Moody has been working with pop stars Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne and on several movie soundtracks.
"When Ben left the band we were all relieved," Lee said quietly. "It was a really uncomfortable situation for everybody. It was completely unstable and unhappy. It was a scary time before he left the band because I knew something was going to happen and I didn't know what and I was afraid everything we worked for had the potential of going down the toilet."
There's no word on when the next album will be released. Lee hopes to quell fans' demands for new material with a DVD release of tour footage, possibly around Thanksgiving.
Tour
The demands of nonstop touring kept Lee from writing, but for fans the treat of seeing an Evanescence show may stave off the desire for new material. To see the band on stage is to realize how unique it really is in today's pop-heavy music scene.
The most recent tour had Evanescence topping a bill that also featured rock band Seether, headed by Lee's boyfriend, Shaun Morgan. At the last show in North Little Rock, she knelt backstage as Seether played, cheering and clapping for the band, crawling forward to get a better look before walking onstage for a duet of "Broken," which she and Morgan wrote.
When Evanescence comes on, Lee is a woman obsessed. Her long black hair flies everywhere as she jumps and pumps her fist in the air to punch the meaning of her lyrics home. Her haunting wail and strong voice echo in the arena after she's finished singing.
Her magic is an ability to draw her fans into the music. A piano rises from the stage and the crowd quiets as she sits and plays her solo -- no singing. The audience slowly begins to go wild. And the thing is, she wrote it herself.
That, some argue, makes Lee a strong role model for women.
"I never saw myself as a role model. It's a word I hear a lot now," she said. "What am I going to say? I'm a good role model? I make tons of mistakes. It's funny. You always have a vision for your music and you think, 'Who's going to like it?' And 14-year-old girls are never what I had in mind. But I think that's awesome."
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