Amy Lee Biography

Amy Lee (born on December 13, 1981 in Riverside, California) is an American singer and songwriter. She founded the band Evanescence 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.

Biography

Amy Lee's father (John Lee) works as a DJ, and her mother (Sarah Cargill) works raising Lee's three siblings: her brother Robby and her two sisters, Carrie and Lori. Lee had a third sister, Bonnie, who died at the young age of three due to an unknown cause, and the song Hello from the Fallen album was written in her memory. [2] At school, Lee was president of the choir council, and appeared in a number of plays. Amy Lee has had no voice-training lessons and she is an alto singer. Amy Lee 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. Amy Lee also briefly attended Middle Tennessee State University. The musical influences of Lee are: Björk, Tori Amos, Korn, Soundgarden, Portishead, Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails.

Amy has a trademark neo-goth style, marked by her occasional use of gothic make-up and taste for Victorian-styled clothing. Amy Lee is known to design her own clothes and even sews them herself. Starting her own clothing line has not been ruled out, according to her, although Amy Lee has expressed concerns about the viability of such an endeavor; she has said that she prefers to create unique hand-crafted costumes rather than mass-produced fashions. 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 (Evanescence's sophomore album, though it is commonly thought of as their debut album).

Many fans praise Amy for her refusal to emulate other celebrities by using sex appeal in her music. Amy Lee 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," Amy Lee 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).

Lee 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 Lee, as well as her family, because her younger brother has epilepsy and she has seen first hand the effect it has.

Lee once stated in an interview while on tour that 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.

Another song, "You", is a song written by Lee. It is a personal song for her friends and family and was never meant to be released. Although Lee encourages people to download previous songs by the band [citation needed], which are unavailable to buy in stores, when "You" was leaked she asked people to stop distributing the song and its lyrics.

Amy 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.

Amy was working on the opening theme of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and was writing additional music for the film, but Amy Lee's 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 material for the new album , which is entitled "The Open Door", confirmed in the May 2006 issue of the music magazine Blender.

On December 1, 2005, former Evanescence manager Dennis Rider filed a lawsuit against Amy for breach of contract. The suit claims Rider was prematurely and unjustly terminated from his position as manager of Evanescence.

In return, Amy 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 Amy'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 Amy 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.