Amy Lynn Lee

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Amy Hartzler

Amy Lee (born December 13, 1981 in Riverside, California) is the co-founder and lead singer of Evanescence. Her family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, Rockford, Illinois, and finally stopped in Little Rock, Arkansas. Responsible for many of Evanescence’s hard hitting lyrics and is the main songwriter on the new album, The Open Door. Amy provides the image for the band and does most of the interviews. Ben Moody discovered Amy Lee’s voice in summer camp in 1994 when she performed a few lines of Meatloaf’s "I'd Do Anything For Love." After that, the rest is history. She is currently one of the most popular and sought after voices in music today.

Image

Lee has a trademark neo-goth style, marked by her use of gothic make-up and taste for Victorian-styled clothing (her favorite era of time). She dyes her hair jet black, though her hair is actually dark brown. Her eyes are green but she used to wear blue contacts (Fallen era). 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 and fishnets. Amy used to have a notable piercing on her left eyebrow which she had taken out and had re-pierced a few times, but she took it out for good sometime in mid-2005.

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 that 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, in fact, merely peddling "lies" (the unifying theme of the music video).

In her personal life, she enjoys being a girl. Her clothing style is quirky and marked by her frequent use of not-so-goth clothes (she stated in an interview with AOL that she was wearing "something floral"). She explains it as a professional thing, saying that her image onstage is so different from her normal clothes because it completes the image; if she were to come out onstage in pink boots and a track suit and sing about despair, it would totally ruin the image.

Kerrang Magazine readers voted her #1 Sexiest Rock Women with Hayley Williams from Paramore comming in 2nd.

Amy Lee will be honored with National Music Publishers' Association Songwriter Icon Award for 2008. She will recieve the award on June 18 in New York City. This award is very priviledged as only one person gets it per year out of the whole music industry. She will also perform for them. The Icon Award recognizes outstanding songwriters for personal achievement and who personify the vision of NMPA and the goals of its members. Former recipients include Jimmy Webb and Neil Sedaka. To see the official page, click here:[1]

Style

Lee, the principal lyricist and composer of Evanescence, employs simple yet expressive melodies that stand alone or intertwine with accompanying guitars. Many melodies involve a submelody or return to a base note or sequence, as in the choruses of "Good Enough," "Breathe No More," and the live Korn cover "Thoughtless" as well as the intro and bridge of "Imaginary," among others. Many of the piano parts are comprised of melodies with minimal chords and left-hand accompaniment, both when played with guitar parts ("Lithium," "Like You," "Your Star," "Going Under," "Thoughtless," among others) and alone or featured with minimal backing ("Lithium," "Lose Control," "The Only One," "Good Enough," "Bring Me To Life," "Imaginary," "Taking Over Me," "Hello," "Breathe No More," "Thoughtless," among others).

Range

Lee has an impressive recorded vocal range, stretching from E3 (“Snow White Queen,” 0:40/2:04) to C#6 ("Weight of the World," 2:46/2:51). On an MTV Diary special, Lee is shown warming up for a show where she sings a D#6 (4:35/4:37, as timed from the beginning of the Evanescence section), giving her an exhibited range one semitone short of three octaves.

Out of the Shadows

In 2005, Amy became a spokesperson for the Epilepsy Foundation and launched a campaign called Out of the Shadows. The goal is to help spread awareness about epilepsy and to encourage people to not discriminate against people with epilepsy. 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.

Amy is currently supporting too To Write Love on Her Arms, a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. Her husband, Josh Hartzler, has a counseling background. Amy was wearing a T-shirt of the movement on 11/12/2007, in Nissan Live on Yahoo! Music.

Other Appearances

In 2000, Amy sang guest vocals on David Hodges' songs 'Breathe' (The Summit Church: Summit Worship CD) and unreleased song of his called 'Fall Into You'.

She did back up vocals on Big Dismal's song 'Missing You' off of their 2003 debut release CD, Believe.

Did some vocals on the Underworld soundtrack in 2003 but after some issues with her record label her voice was never used. Her name still appears in the credits though.

Amy is featured on Seether's song Broken. The song was released as a single in 2004 and can be found on The Punisher soundtrack and on Seether's Disclaimer II album.

She appears on Korn's 2007 MTV Unplugged album on the track 'Freak On A Leash'. The song was also released as the first single.

Amy also appeared with Finger Eleven live. It is one of the two videos favorited by the official Evanescence YouTube.

Tools of the Trade

On tour, Amy uses a Baldwin baby grand piano with a keyboard insert (a baby grand piano shell with an electronic keyboard instead of an acoustic piano on the inside). She also uses a stand-alone Baldwin keyboard and Shure Microphones.

      At the 50th Grammy Awards, Amy disclosed that she was working hard learning the harp, practicing two hours a day.

MySpace

Amy Lee does not have a MySpace page. There are several impostor MySpace pages claiming to be Amy Lee. They are not real.

The Evanescence MySpace page is operated by the label (Wind-up Records).

General Facts

Personal

• She was born at Parkview Hospital and is a Sagittarius; she was born in The Year of the Rooster.
• She is named after the 70's song "Amie" by Pure Prairie League.
• She didn't really have any childhood names, it was always either Amy, Ames, or Amers.
• She's said that her heritage is mostly Scottish and English.
• When she was in middle school, she insists that she was "overweight and had poofy hair."
• In high school, she was active in choir and drama. She was also president of the choir (hence her name for herself, "choir nerd"). While there, she wrote the song Listen To The Rain, which was performed by the Pulaski Academy mixed choir.
• Her immediate family includes father John Lee, a well known DJ on K106.3 in Little Rock, mother Sarah Lee, brother Robby, and sisters Carrie and Lori. Lee had a third sister, who died in 1987 at the age of three from an undisclosed illness, who is known to be the inspiration for a few very personal songs. "On the last record, I wrote Hello about her. Like You is her place on this record The Open Door."
• Past romantic relationships include Ben Moody and Shaun Morgan.
• She currently is married to a long time friend, Josh Hartzler, who is a 29-year-old therapist. She wrote Bring Me To Life about him and he also inspired the song Good Enough, the last song on The Open Door. The two were engaged on January 8th, 2007, and Amy made the first official announcement on January 9th. They were married on May 6th, 2007.
• She currently lives in Manhattan.
• Related to Robert E. Lee (Her great, great...) uncle.
• Knows how to snowboard.
• Her favorite The Open Door song is Your Star.

Professional

• Some of her influences include Björk, Portishead (Beth Gibbons), SoundGarden, Nirvana, KoRn, Carole King, Michael Jackson, Janis Joplin, Tori Amos, and Mozart.
• Her favorite Fallen song is Going Under.
• She loves performing Your Star live.
• She took acting lessons for stage presence before they started recording Fallen.
• She would prefer to stay at home and play in one place, but she still likes to tour.
• She can play the guitar, as demonstrated in the The Cartoon Network Song.
• If she wasn't in show biz, she would help people by being a nurse or social worker. Especially helping abused kids.
• Before Evanescence took off, she was about to start part-time work as a waitress
• Received the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) 2008 Songwriter Icon Award.

Music Likes/Dislikes

• The first album she owned was the California Raisins tape.
  
• Michael Jackson was her idol growing up.
  
• Her favorite 80's song is "Everything She Wants" by Wham!. She has sung the song karaoke at least five times.
  
• She hates "Who Let The Dogs Out" by the Baha Men.
  
• She admits to listening to Mariah Carey.
  
  

Movie Likes/Dislikes

• One of her favorite movies is An American Tail.
  
• Her favorite movie is the Nightmare Before Christmas.
  
• Her favorite zombie movie is Dead Alive.
  
• Her favorite Johnny Depp film is Edward Scissorhands
  
• Her favorite actors are Giovanni Ribisi and Johnny Depp.
  
  

Amy and her cat.

Pets

• She used to have a cat named Fievel. She found him in a ditch, and he now lives with Amy's family.
• She later had a cat named Zero, until it met a coyote.
• She now owns a few cats, one of which (in the photo) is a Bengal cat.

Miscellaneous

• She is allergic to lobster. If she eats it, she'll go into a coma.
  
• The beach is one of her favorite places - she loves the ocean.
  
• Her favorite holiday is Halloween.
  
• Her favorite era is the Victorian era because they had such cool clothes.
  
• The one thing she would bring with her to a deserted island would be a piano.
  
• She is the shortest member of the band, past or present.
  
• She's been to the Haunted Mansion at Disney World "a million times."
  
• Her most embarrassing celebrity crush is Corey Feldman from The Goonies.
  
• She thinks pirates are better than ninjas.
  
• Her favourite color is aqua
• Her favourite drink is Red Wine
  
  

See also

• Amy dresses
• Snow White

External links

• Evanescence Official site
• Out of the Shadows
• BMI Repertoire Listing for Amy Lee
• Baldwin pianos
• Shure Microphones