Amy Lynn Lee
Co-founder and lead singer of Evanescence. Born in Riverside, California on December 13, 1981, 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. John Lee, her father, is a well-known radio DJ on "The River" in Little Rock. 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 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.
Also see, Snow White.
Past romantic relationships include Ben Moody, Shaun Morgan. Currently, she is in a relationship with an long time friend, Josh, who is a 28-year-old therapist. According to Amy, she wrote Bring Me To Life about him and he also inspired the song Good Enough, the last song on The Open Door.
Her Immediate family includes parents; father, John Lee, a well known DJ in Little Rock, and mother, Sarah Cargill. She also has one brother, Robby, and two sisters, Carrie and Lori. Lee had a third sister, Bonnie, who died in 1987 at the age of three from an undisclosed illness. Bonnie 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]."
Some of Amy's influences include Björk, Portishead, Nirvana, Garbage, and Mozart.
Image
Lee has a trademark neo-goth style, marked by her occasional use of gothic make-up and taste for Victorian-styled clothing. She dyes her hair jet black though her hair is actually darkish brown. Her eyes are greyish blue but she is roumored to use blue contacts. 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 has taken out and had re-pierced a few times, but she took it out for good sometime in 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, but 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 clohthes (she stated in an interview with AOL that she was wearing "something floral" <Full Quote Missing>). 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 dispair, it would totally ruin the image. <Full Quote Needed>
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.
Other Projects
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.
