In November, after a long break forced by the covid, you started performing again. How does it feel?
One now values it more. I have always loved concerts and have been able to appreciate them, but we have two years behind us when we could not be absolutely sure that we would ever function normally again. Last year we released the record we love and put our hearts into it in the worst of the pandemic. It’s amazing that we can finally introduce her live to people now.
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We finally hope it will be good again, we are back. I feel like I’m rediscovering what a gift it is to make music, to see so many people together again who are experiencing something together.
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Please try to remember what music meant to you nineteen years ago, when you and your bandmates released their first album, and what it means to you now. Do you perceive a big difference?
I was twenty-one when we started and released the single Bring Me To Life. It happened a lot at once, and I remember it as an exciting time. It was a big deal, but I can’t say I could appreciate it then as I do now.
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Only now do I see what it has meant for my life. Twenty years later, I realize that I had to fight for this band many times. For enduring, and for being able to make the music I wanted. Evanescence managed to survive many periods, but I often had to make difficult decisions.
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What?
I was constantly striving for some development. I wanted the band and its music to become stronger so that two decades later we could proudly look back at what our music means not only to us but also to our fans. They constantly come to us and tell us what songs they experienced with them or how they helped them overcome difficult periods of life. In fact, I often have the same relationship to those songs. I feel that something far greater than myself has come into being. Being a part of it is a blessing.
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You say you had to fight to make the band the way you wanted it to be. When was it the hardest?
Various challenges have been present throughout. It’s just not easy to keep a rock band going for this long. We were constantly under pressure to please someone else. Either we wanted to make more money, have a hit on the radio, or maybe repeat something that was already there, because that’s a safer way. But I already feel that we have broken this restriction. But it was here for a long time.
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I’ve always stood up for art and our visions, and the people around us didn’t always like it. Fortunately, we now have a great team that supports our wishes, and thanks to it, I feel that I can flourish in a way that did not happen before, for example ten years ago.
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Isn’t it the hardest thing to compare it with yourself and stand up for your vision?
I just had to do it that way. I felt that it should be so. I love creative collaborations and working with the band. I like to create with an open heart. But all this is great only when you approach it with the pure intention of creating something amazing.
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You have to do it so that you love the result and hope that this is why someone else will like it. You must not speculate on how to make it to please everyone. I’m not a marketer, I don’t do marketing, I have no clear idea how to sell our music. All I know is that it must have arisen without calculus. Business can ruin great projects.
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You know, I don’t feel pressured today to create. It’s not that I have to write, I can live without it. But I want to do it. From time to time, however, I need to take a step aside and imagine that I may not make another record. And at that moment, I need to feel that what we have behind us made sense. Then when they start creating again, I know I’m doing it out of pure love and I have something to say. It’s great to turn around and see that this band represents who I am. That it’s not a role I’d play.
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You started the band when you were about fourteen. It is so?
Somehow. I just started making music with my friends. Anyway, I was pretty young.
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Was there a dream to become a singer then?
I knew very soon that I wanted to devote myself to music. I didn’t have a clear idea of how exactly, I only know that at first I imagined that I would compose music for films, which, by the way, was also a bit fulfilling for me.
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In any case, I was strongly inspired by classical music, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart. Subsequently, composers of film music, Hans Zimmer or Danny Elfman. Therefore, I wanted to make mostly instrumental music, the singing came later. But at the same time I loved poetry, language and words in general. And suddenly I realized that you could add lyrics to that music. Today I find it interesting that singing is such an important part of our band because it was not my original desire. I just wanted to create.
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Since the first album, you have gone to great lengths in your lyrics and have also dealt with very personal topics. Have you ever regretted revealing too much?
Only when I did interviews and had to talk about songs. But I never regretted pouring my heart out of the songs and revealing my whole soul. That’s a really great feeling. But it’s like poetry, the lyrics of the song are all I want to say. Singing is easy. It’s hard when you reveal something very inner and have to explain it to someone.
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Last year’s album was created at special times. What was the best thing about it?
I needed that recording. I felt like the whole world was falling apart. By 2020, everything was upside down and we didn’t know if the world would be the same. In a way, we still don’t know, but the uncertainty about whether we would ever leave the house with a sense of security was so strong that I had a strong sense of urgency and found meaning in my work.
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When I say that I was afraid this might really be the last music we would ever make, because the end of the world could come, I know I would sound pathetic and crazy. But I believe I’m not the only one who has. That’s why the record is not just about my own world, but about the desire for contact, fear, anxiety and other emotions that almost everyone experienced. I didn’t just speak for myself, but for everyone.
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