Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Wefts. That's fivecast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only Amy Amy.
Speaker 1: You're in your old studio. Your people say that you're
Speaker 1: very technologically savvy, so tell me about that.
Speaker 2: That's really funny considering that I was just saying I
Speaker 2: always messed this up, and for once I had it
Speaker 2: working right from the get go. Yeah, I guess I started.
Speaker 2: You know, what can I say? Like, we make our demos.
Speaker 2: Been doing that for twenty plus years at this point.
Speaker 2: So learning pro tools and all that, it's been a
Speaker 2: major instrument in my life.
Speaker 1: So in the old days, you used to have a
Speaker 1: Portis studio, et cetera. How'd you start recording?
Speaker 2: Well, when we were in high school, the guy that
Speaker 2: we started the band together, Ben Moody, it was all
Speaker 2: about whatever we get our hands on. It wasn't like
Speaker 2: pro tools back then. It was like an eight track
Speaker 2: or a sixteen track recorder where you record some and
Speaker 2: then you bounce them down, you know, until you run
Speaker 2: out of room and just like making songs like that.
Speaker 2: So that just has evolved over the years as technology
Speaker 2: has changed and become something where I can use more
Speaker 2: and more from home on the actual records.
Speaker 1: So today you record in pro tools or logic? What
Speaker 1: do you use pro tools?
Speaker 2: I've actually been using pro tools since like right after
Speaker 2: we finished our first big tour, which was fallen. We
Speaker 2: got home and I had our in your monitor guy
Speaker 2: come over and just like spend a day. I was like,
Speaker 2: just teach me how to do this so I can
Speaker 2: do it myself. And then I've always had wonderful engineer
Speaker 2: type dudes in my life that I can call and
Speaker 2: be like, help, I'm stuck. So here I am.
Speaker 1: Are you generally good with tech?
Speaker 3: It's really just a necessity thing.
Speaker 2: No, I kind of I'm where I would call myself
Speaker 2: an analog girl in a digital world. But when you
Speaker 2: care about something enough, you know you find a way.
Speaker 1: So so, how much equipment do you have at home?
Speaker 2: I got this lovely Telefunken Mike that I've been using
Speaker 2: this year. Now you forty seven. I really I've got
Speaker 2: a lot of keyboards. I've been using the profit more
Speaker 2: than any of them in the last couple of years
Speaker 2: as we've been working on this new music. What else
Speaker 2: have I got? Just lots of keyboard stuff, a good
Speaker 2: little pro tool set up, I don't like it to
Speaker 2: get too complicated because I get bogged down in that.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like you spend too much. I hate it.
Speaker 2: It's the worst thing ever when you come out you
Speaker 2: want to work on something and the stuff won't work
Speaker 2: and you just want to get your idea down and
Speaker 2: not deal with you know, when you're fiddling with the
Speaker 2: remote how it's the most annoying thing in the world.
Speaker 2: Just drains your energy. So I try to keep it
Speaker 2: fairly simple.
Speaker 1: So when do you get your ideas all.
Speaker 2: The time, all the time? Anytime? Sometimes it takes a
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, okay, so you're coming up with ideas
Speaker 1: all the time some people. For me, I get good
Speaker 1: ideas in the shower. It's like, if I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: front of the computer and trying to come up with ideas,
Speaker 1: that's hard. Yeah, But if I'm.
Speaker 3: Doing something else, why I totally agree with that.
Speaker 2: Usually, like I guess, driving in the car, I like
Speaker 2: to walk in the woods, walk down the street. I
Speaker 2: lived in Brooklyn for thirteen years, and it was always
Speaker 2: really inspiring to me. If I ever felt like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, I needed inspiration or just to clear my head,
Speaker 2: to just get out of the house and walk put
Speaker 2: headphones on or not, and just walk around the neighborhood
Speaker 2: and like smell other people's cooking and hear the music
Speaker 2: they're playing and overheard conversations and all that.
Speaker 1: So when Amy Lee walks down the street to people recognize.
Speaker 2: Her sometimes not all the time, probably not as much
Speaker 2: as you'd think, you know, it kind of depends it. Actually,
Speaker 2: it is dependent on if we're like actively have a
Speaker 2: single out at the moment, because it's like if you're
Speaker 2: in somebody's mind, they're like, oh, hey, there she is.
Speaker 2: But I generally like to go pretty young. I don't
Speaker 2: wear the black eyelander in like real life very much.
Speaker 1: Okay, And how do you deal with it when someone
Speaker 1: comes up to you?
Speaker 2: I think people, honestly, people are mostly pretty nice. People
Speaker 2: are if they're I don't know if it's like specific
Speaker 2: to like our type of music or what, but usually
Speaker 2: it's people being cool, just being like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I've loved you since high school or like that one
Speaker 2: song changed my life, and you're just like thanks and
Speaker 2: you go on your way. It's it's not so good
Speaker 2: when they follow you home. That's that's the part where
Speaker 2: you got to kind of go, okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, being a woman in music to what degree or
Speaker 1: stalker is a problem.
Speaker 2: It's it's been a problem. It's been a real problem
Speaker 2: from from early days.
Speaker 1: Actually, Okay, are these people just mentally ill or they infatuated?
Speaker 2: I I do, honestly like the ones that have been serious,
Speaker 2: you know, like a serious problem. It is mental illness,
Speaker 2: and it's it's you kinda. I mean, I've learned how
Speaker 2: naturally what you want to do is what are they thinking?
Speaker 2: You know, like get inside the head of somebody and
Speaker 2: you can't like something's broken in there. So I try to,
Speaker 2: you know, we have as much grace as possible at
Speaker 2: the same time, like there is there is a line
Speaker 2: that has to be drawn, and it is. It is
Speaker 2: different being being a woman, and it's different having a family.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not just about protecting myself. There's a
Speaker 2: bigger layer there where security has become you know, really
Speaker 2: just important. Obviously it's important. But yeah, it's funny you
Speaker 2: brought that.
Speaker 3: Up quickly in the interview.
Speaker 2: It's definitely very real in my life and I will
Speaker 2: talk about it very much.
Speaker 1: So having these bad experiences, does that make you anxious
Speaker 1: about getting close to your fans.
Speaker 2: H I I have Well there, I think it's more
Speaker 2: like just knowing the balance, knowing line, knowing the balance
Speaker 2: of you know, where's the line where there's a there's
Speaker 2: a difference between people that really know you and that
Speaker 2: you really know and the fans. And I love our fans,
Speaker 2: but you do have to be careful. You definitely do
Speaker 2: have to draw that line. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, let me give you an example from my own life.
Speaker 1: The people who send the longest emails are the weirdest people,
Speaker 1: and the people have to be afraid of They're passionate,
Speaker 1: as opposed to someone to just send you a couple
Speaker 1: of sentences or apparently sure. Sure, My point being the
Speaker 1: way I say, you know, ten percent of the public
Speaker 1: is certifiably nuts. You just don't know what ten percent
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: It's true, It's true. Yeah, I can get a lot
Speaker 2: worse than a long email.
Speaker 1: To what degree are you available online?
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm less available online than most people
Speaker 2: these days. It didn't used to be such a sort
Speaker 2: of I don't know, essential piece being constantly you know,
Speaker 2: engaging directly because it well, it didn't used to really
Speaker 2: be possible. But when we started out it was like
Speaker 2: there was my Space, and I feel like Facebook was
Speaker 2: maybe just beginning, but it wasn't even like I didn't
Speaker 2: even there was chat rooms like we would do like
Speaker 2: a fun like I don't remember what we called him,
Speaker 2: like a log thing like a little thread we can
Speaker 2: go and you could always see the conversation like frozen there,
Speaker 2: which was cute. But for the most part, that sort
Speaker 2: of started happening later. And there's I feel like there's
Speaker 2: a really good side as well as a dark side
Speaker 2: to that. And the good side is I used to
Speaker 2: get I don't know, a lot of anxiety doing interviews, honestly,
Speaker 2: because I found, you know, we came out to see
Speaker 2: when I was twenty one, honestly, just a couple years
Speaker 2: at high school, and you just, you know, suddenly like
Speaker 2: in this big arena with everybody looking at you and
Speaker 2: talking about you and judging you and whatever, and trying
Speaker 2: to see, okay, is this legit? Or I love you
Speaker 2: so much?
Speaker 3: Whatever it is?
Speaker 2: So all these interviews, you know, when it gets put
Speaker 2: in print and on a big platform and your face
Speaker 2: is on the cover and all those things, and you
Speaker 2: don't have any control over like how that comes across
Speaker 2: it's different. It's school that we're doing a podcast because
Speaker 2: you can hear the tones of our voices and like
Speaker 2: what we're saying. But I feel like so often, you know,
Speaker 2: things get sort of misunderstood or translated in a different way.
Speaker 3: I written down wrong, and I oftentimes.
Speaker 2: Felt like people felt like they had a story to
Speaker 2: write in their mind before we ever really spoke, when
Speaker 2: it was like, you know, just summon us up, who's
Speaker 2: this new kid in town kind of thing. Now I
Speaker 2: feel like I can just say something or clear something up,
Speaker 2: or if something's a misunderstanding or any drama, it's like, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: here's a deal.
Speaker 3: You know it's not don't have to be a big thing.
Speaker 1: Well, I will say the press always gets it wrong
Speaker 1: basically dealing with me and I without telling my own examples.
Speaker 1: But let's go back to the anxiety. Obviously you were
Speaker 1: on the stage before. I mean it's sometimes tens of thousands.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to high school or maybe your regular life. Now,
Speaker 1: do you have social anxiety of any degree talking to people?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't really feel that way, but
Speaker 2: maybe we all do to some degree. Yeah, sure, there's
Speaker 2: times when you don't want to be on and you
Speaker 2: have to be on. But I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe you deal with that too. It's just one of
Speaker 2: those things where you have to get in the right
Speaker 2: mindset of like, all right, it's just talking. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Oh ky, social anxiety.
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean after pandemic listen, after that, having to
Speaker 2: go back on stage again was weird. It was really
Speaker 2: really weird at first, even masked up alone in your
Speaker 2: house wearing pjs for like a year and a half,
Speaker 2: and then it's like, cool, get on stage in front
Speaker 2: of like seven thousand people, no problem.
Speaker 3: I feel like we're back though.
Speaker 1: Okay, at this point in time, other than your husband
Speaker 1: and your child, do you have any people who were friends,
Speaker 1: forget business, who you're in contact with on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course, Well not necessarily, of course there
Speaker 1: are people. Okay. Oh, so would you call one of
Speaker 1: those people and say, hey, assuming they live near you, hey,
Speaker 1: let's get together and say are you more waiting for
Speaker 1: them to suggest it, and you'll say yes or no.
Speaker 3: It's definitely both.
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't I wouldn't be me if I didn't have
Speaker 2: real people and real friends in my life that I
Speaker 2: wanted to be around and called up and hung out
Speaker 2: with My best friend is maya hair and makeup artists
Speaker 2: for the last twenty years, trying to think when she
Speaker 2: actually came on the road. We met in high school
Speaker 2: and we're friends. And I went on the road and
Speaker 2: I was out for like I think six months without her,
Speaker 2: just doing our thing, and it was lonely and stressful,
Speaker 2: and I was the only girl ever all the time.
Speaker 2: I remember, I forget why it came up. And somebody's like,
Speaker 2: why don't you just have somebody, you know, do your
Speaker 2: hair and stuff? And I was like, I could do that, really,
Speaker 2: They're like, uh yeah, and I was. I called her
Speaker 2: and I was like, Hey, would you want to like
Speaker 2: quit the salon like for a year or whatever and
Speaker 2: like come on tour and do my hair and makeup
Speaker 2: and we get to hang out and see the world.
Speaker 3: And she was like, yes, hell, yes, I would love
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 2: And we've been doing that ever since. I couldn't do
Speaker 2: it without Beth Wilson.
Speaker 1: How do you decide how much to pay a friend?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's hard. I would say, always overpay your friend.
Speaker 1: I would think so, but you know, it's weird when
Speaker 1: you mix friendship and money.
Speaker 3: Sure, it is, of course it is. That's why it's
Speaker 3: a true friendship.
Speaker 2: Like and I think you know, we're all in that
Speaker 2: situation being in a band together and working together. We
Speaker 2: are we are making money, you know, and that is
Speaker 2: a part of it. But we also have to have trust.
Speaker 2: We also have to really love what we're doing and
Speaker 2: love each other and want to I feel like that.
Speaker 2: When it's not like that, that's when things start breaking down.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm beating a dead horse with anxiety thing.
Speaker 1: But since you mentioned I want to focus. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you were in high school, You're going to class like
Speaker 1: anybody else. Are you more of you know, there's some
Speaker 1: people who are constantly talking, they're the life of the party.
Speaker 1: Than the other extreme, there's the loner. Obviously you're not
Speaker 1: that person. But are you the type of person who's
Speaker 1: more Aggressive's got a bad connotation, but more putting yourself
Speaker 1: out there in social situations, not work situations or not
Speaker 1: bearing your music.
Speaker 2: I'm more I'm yeah, I'm a natural introvert. Like I
Speaker 2: I not because I'm afraid. It's not about anxiety. It's
Speaker 2: because I love being by myself or like with one person.
Speaker 2: I'm just sort of an intimate person. So, and I
Speaker 2: love to make stuff. I love to be quiet and
Speaker 2: be by myself create It's usually music, but also art
Speaker 2: and crafting and or just being with a bestie. Having
Speaker 2: a deep conversation is so much more me than go
Speaker 2: into a show or go into a party where there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of people talking and it's noisy and you
Speaker 2: gotta keep your brain constantly moving from one thing to
Speaker 2: the next. That, yes, my my favorite is definitely the
Speaker 2: calmer one.
Speaker 3: But I do both, I mean right, right, But.
Speaker 1: You answered the question being a naturally introvert, et cetera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So how does a natural introvert wanting a loane time
Speaker 1: cope with having a child?
Speaker 2: Aw, he's he's my favorite. There's I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you have kids, but I do not have kids.
Speaker 2: I you can't be prepared for, like how much love
Speaker 2: for me personally? Like I didn't know that I had
Speaker 2: that extra chamber in my heart just waiting to open
Speaker 2: up and love somebody so much. I love my son.
Speaker 2: I would love to be around him all the time.
Speaker 2: I need space for my brain to be quiet. Or
Speaker 2: we're actually wired kind of similarly He likes it quiet too,
Speaker 2: so like we can just sit and be quiet and
Speaker 2: enjoy something together without constantly mommy this, mommy that he's
Speaker 2: not like that.
Speaker 3: He's a cool kid.
Speaker 1: Is he aware that you're Amy Lee performer? Yes?
Speaker 2: And he has just over the past like year or
Speaker 2: so maybe two, really reached that age where he thinks
Speaker 2: it's really cool and realizes that it isn't normal. I
Speaker 2: don't know if maybe in the beginning he thought every's
Speaker 2: mom was a rock star, but now he knows it's
Speaker 2: special and it's really cool and he likes to tell everybody.
Speaker 1: So how does he deal with that with his friends?
Speaker 3: He has one friend that like teases me. He's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I have a nesscence is here.
Speaker 1: I'm like, shut up, Okay, I gotta stop right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: in that I know you've been at. Evan Essence is
Speaker 1: a word I've used since college. Okay, not regular the public.
Speaker 1: How did it become evanescence?
Speaker 3: Well, that's why.
Speaker 2: That's why it was one of those things where every
Speaker 2: every every word that or or a couple of words
Speaker 2: that we were trying to think of to name the
Speaker 2: band back in those early early days reminded us of
Speaker 2: something else, and I think, you know, we really wanted
Speaker 2: something that was like nothing else. We wanted to be
Speaker 2: like nothing else, and we didn't want there to be
Speaker 2: any like previous connotation with the words. It was literally
Speaker 2: just became this like okay, just start looking for cruel
Speaker 2: words in the dictionary.
Speaker 3: And you know the meaning is important.
Speaker 2: You know, it's something about it, but it's it's more
Speaker 2: of just like it's almost like an adjective.
Speaker 1: But evanescence has a specific meaning. Yes, the concept of evanescence.
Speaker 1: Is it really just about the cool word, or it
Speaker 1: is about something being here and disappearing whatever.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't it wasn't that deep as far as the
Speaker 2: meaning of it, to be very honest, I think it's
Speaker 2: come to mean more over time, Like a lot of
Speaker 2: the stuff from back then just sort of like searching,
Speaker 2: you know, making sounds and figuring out what my voice
Speaker 2: sounds like, and taking the things that we're into, you know,
Speaker 2: from movie scores to like contemporary nineties music and all
Speaker 2: kinds of stuff classical and then making sounds that I
Speaker 2: don't know, Naming that is hard. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: like stick it in the box of any particular genre
Speaker 2: or connotation. So it's like, just find something beautiful and
Speaker 2: it's interesting. It's kind of funny, I don't it certainly
Speaker 2: wasn't intentional, but it's interesting because like over time, we
Speaker 2: are definitely a band who has like appeared and been
Speaker 2: doing our thing and been very active and all that,
Speaker 2: and then just sort of disappeared for a while and
Speaker 2: come back, you know, when when when the time is right,
Speaker 2: when when it's in my heart, you know, and when
Speaker 2: when things line up like they're supposed to. So I
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe it's it's gotten a meaning over the years,
Speaker 2: but no, there's not a huge one, not really.
Speaker 1: Okay, people are interacting with you all the time, can
Speaker 1: they spell eminescence?
Speaker 2: Not always, you know, not always usually usually by now,
Speaker 2: come on, we've got time.
Speaker 1: Okay, back to you know, being an introvert. So I
Speaker 1: realize you have a child, but left to your own devices,
Speaker 1: you a morning person, night person.
Speaker 2: Oh night very much vampire hours naturally, but yeah, you
Speaker 2: can't be that when you're a mom.
Speaker 3: So I was up six twenty this morning.
Speaker 1: So you say that you have ideas all the time,
Speaker 1: but do you find late night more inspiring than during the.
Speaker 2: Day generally, yeah, because it just feels like extra time.
Speaker 2: It's like nobody's waiting on me. There's not something else
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be doing. You know, this is the
Speaker 2: free secret out. So I feel like naturally things kind
Speaker 2: of come to you then. But I don't know. I
Speaker 2: all throughout the day, like I'll think of a little
Speaker 2: melody idea or some like hear like a little bit
Speaker 2: of a song or something in my head and just
Speaker 2: grab my voice notes and stick it in there. And
Speaker 2: I've got I mean, there's over a thousand in here.
Speaker 2: So then when it's time to go into the studio
Speaker 2: and play, it's like, oh, what was I thinking about earlier?
Speaker 2: Scroll through the notes, find whatever that was, or just
Speaker 2: come in here.
Speaker 3: And when I don't have an idea, I.
Speaker 2: Love to just play with with keyboards, play with somethcizors,
Speaker 2: turn it on, find an arpeggiator, hold one note and
Speaker 2: start singing stuff.
Speaker 3: That's always fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, people have different styles. What would trigger you wanting
Speaker 1: to make an album?
Speaker 2: It's interesting you say album because it doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be that anymore, right, like make a song, and it's
Speaker 2: but we do we make albums. I think that that's
Speaker 2: something that the fans want. I think that it's beautiful
Speaker 2: when you can come up with a full book of
Speaker 2: music and put it out, it feels really good.
Speaker 3: It's also a big undertaking.
Speaker 2: So my thought isn't usually ever like I'm gonna go
Speaker 2: sit down and we're gonna make a whole album right now.
Speaker 2: As much as I, you know, want that, that seems daunting.
Speaker 2: So for me, it's getting inspired about a single idea,
Speaker 2: about a song by a cool collaboration, you know, or
Speaker 2: you know, we we came up with something that feels new,
Speaker 2: and it's like, oh, let's make more music that sounds
Speaker 2: like that, finding a great producer, lots of things. We're
Speaker 2: in the thick of it right now. And honestly, the
Speaker 2: last few years years from us have been I have
Speaker 2: really felt like this upward trajectory this many years in
Speaker 2: so like playing shows, I'm trying to think when to
Speaker 2: start the timeline from, but honestly, coming from the pandemic,
Speaker 2: let's start there. Like we kind of just ramped up,
Speaker 2: like each tour was like a bigger one and a
Speaker 2: bigger one and a bigger one for whatever reason, and
Speaker 2: we had the bitter truth, which is our last album
Speaker 2: that we loved so much, having new music to play,
Speaker 2: having something fresh to say. We had I felt like
Speaker 2: I had so much to say when we were making
Speaker 2: music in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, that was that was
Speaker 2: the big thing. And all of a sudden we were
Speaker 2: down this path and getting things out that felt like
Speaker 2: they're putting something good into the world, something useful, something
Speaker 2: where we could connect and bring people together in a
Speaker 2: positive way. But I now like at this point, running
Speaker 2: off of that, I don't want I want to keep playing.
Speaker 2: We're having a great time, the band is in a
Speaker 2: great place, the shows are bigger than ever, and I
Speaker 2: need new songs, Like I don't want to play those
Speaker 2: same songs anywhere. They're awesome, But like I'm I'm changing still.
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm asking the Stones legendarily come in, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I have an idea. The Eagles did that
Speaker 1: a certain way. It's talking about classic acts. I guess
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is you could come in with a song,
Speaker 1: platform fully formed, you got a verse, ro out of chorus, whatever.
Speaker 1: But it's different from sitting Well, let me go to
Speaker 1: my notes app and see what I have.
Speaker 2: Well, see those both exist in my life for sure,
Speaker 2: Like if we're gonna get together, hey guys, let's get
Speaker 2: there and do some writing. We do that all the time,
Speaker 2: just like honestly, I've been getting more into like camps.
Speaker 2: Like we have a tour and we have a show
Speaker 2: on Friday and Saturday, and then we don't have another
Speaker 2: show until like the next Thursday. I'll be like, well,
Speaker 2: instead of everybody going home, why don't we grab an
Speaker 2: Airbnb set up in the living room, you know, at
Speaker 2: like a listenable level, and like jam and see what
Speaker 2: we got. Whenever we do those sessions, it's fun to
Speaker 2: just jam out of nothing. But I always show up
Speaker 2: with ideas like I got this cool chorus, like let's
Speaker 2: make a song.
Speaker 1: You know. Will you ever sit there you're all in
Speaker 1: the living room and you say, let's go through the notes.
Speaker 1: App this sounds good?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like what about this idea? Hold on?
Speaker 3: Well, all listen to it and be're like okay, and
Speaker 3: then like jam it on the piano.
Speaker 1: Well, recently you've done a certain number of collaborations.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Collaboration and working alone is very different. What are your
Speaker 1: feelings there?
Speaker 2: I I feel like I've grown into it more and
Speaker 2: more loving it, embracing it.
Speaker 3: I think after falling.
Speaker 2: And the guy that I started the band with, he
Speaker 2: left like in the in the tour on our first album,
Speaker 2: and that was a good thing for us.
Speaker 3: It was the only way.
Speaker 2: But it there was I just felt that I had
Speaker 2: so much to prove and I was excited to like
Speaker 2: I was ready to prove it, but I had a
Speaker 2: ton to prove because the easiest thing to say is, oh, well,
Speaker 2: it's not the original thing anymore, Like she can't do.
Speaker 3: It by herself.
Speaker 2: So I had to. I had to prove that I
Speaker 2: could do it myself. So it was super important to
Speaker 2: me back then to do everything myself. I didn't want
Speaker 2: any help, and immediately, of course the label saying, okay,
Speaker 2: we need co writers. Now, let's go and do it
Speaker 2: the way everybody does it. And I was like, I
Speaker 2: don't want that. I'm not just the singer upfront, I'm
Speaker 2: I'm that let me do that, and you know, used
Speaker 2: my band, you know, and that was it really important
Speaker 2: for me at the time. It was.
Speaker 3: It's still important. It's still a big part of me.
Speaker 2: But I at this point after our second album, which
Speaker 2: I love and I'm so proud of and it was
Speaker 2: such a journey where I felt like I got this
Speaker 2: you know kind of attitude. And then the third one
Speaker 2: where you know, our self titled album was very much
Speaker 2: a band album for the first time. Like that whole
Speaker 2: situation I described about sitting in a room and jamming together.
Speaker 2: I never would have done that back in high school.
Speaker 2: That wasn't what it was. We were a studio of
Speaker 2: bad or just a couple of kids making stuff and
Speaker 2: recording it as we went. We sort of had to
Speaker 2: build the band to make the album, so you know,
Speaker 2: at that point it was like, oh we went to
Speaker 2: rock school. Nick Raskilnic sat and was like, all right, guys,
Speaker 2: play me a song, no tracks, no nothing, just you guys,
Speaker 2: just jam in the room. Let's hear, I don't know,
Speaker 2: bring me to life. And uh, it.
Speaker 3: Was so funny because we hadn't played.
Speaker 2: Like in a year or year and a half, and
Speaker 2: we certainly wouldn't do like no no no synth, no
Speaker 2: no tracks, no nothing, okay, and we sucked. It's not terrible,
Speaker 2: it was so bad and we were all just like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I don't even want to work with us,
Speaker 2: and he was like, all right, all right, we got
Speaker 2: some work to do, and it was such a good
Speaker 2: exercise because it forced us to really like grow as
Speaker 2: musicians in that setting. If you can make it sound
Speaker 2: great like a garage band, then whatever else is going
Speaker 2: to go on, you know, as a part of it,
Speaker 2: that's great, but that's gravy, like the band is strong.
Speaker 2: And to even just like be in that setting and
Speaker 2: write write some songs or even pieces of songs like
Speaker 2: in that way was really inspiring to me at the
Speaker 2: time because it was it was new and that that
Speaker 2: so then Bitter Truth fast forward another bunch of years,
Speaker 2: because it always takes me forever. Then it was like
Speaker 2: this beautiful combination of remembering the roots of being a
Speaker 2: studio artist and using all the elements and the production
Speaker 2: and making sauces in here in my studio and together,
Speaker 2: but also being able to jam in the room and
Speaker 2: write like that and have the best of both worlds
Speaker 2: was really awesome and cool and inspiring. And now like
Speaker 2: we're still on that, that's still where we are. But
Speaker 2: this music that we're making now is once again more
Speaker 2: studio focused. More it's taking me back to the beginning
Speaker 2: in all of the best ways and making me feel comfortable.
Speaker 2: Your question was about collaboration. I don't feel like I
Speaker 2: have to prove that anymore. Like I know what I
Speaker 2: can do. I've proven what I can do. I'm great
Speaker 2: at what I do. But there's nothing but gain that
Speaker 2: can come from trying to work with other people and
Speaker 2: see what they can bring to the table, you know,
Speaker 2: and see what can happen when you write together. And
Speaker 2: I've had a lot of writing sessions, some about you
Speaker 2: know me and.
Speaker 3: Some about other people's projects over the.
Speaker 2: Last ten years, honestly, which have been so life giving
Speaker 2: and such a great experience and education for me to
Speaker 2: learn seeing the window in other people's process and learning
Speaker 2: new things to try. You know, it can only make
Speaker 2: you grow. You can always say, you know what, this
Speaker 2: isn't working, and sometimes it doesn't work.
Speaker 3: But when you catch lightning with somebody, that's great.
Speaker 2: You just I don't I have no ego about that anymore.
Speaker 1: Okay, If you write the song yourself, it's completely uncompromised,
Speaker 1: it's what you want to do. Then there's the concept,
Speaker 1: which is really how most people do it. They have
Speaker 1: a song, but then the band adds something. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: that's one stuff. Then there's the other thing. Two people
Speaker 1: are going to sit in the room or else they're
Speaker 1: going to send stuff back and forth with email, right,
Speaker 1: and no one's going to agree one hundred percent of
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: And in addition, inherently having someone else, it's not completely
Speaker 1: your vision. Let me go once. I know a guy
Speaker 1: in publishing forever, he's a big believer. There's all the
Speaker 1: great slaw you know, songwriters a collaboration. I don't always
Speaker 1: agree with him. So is collaboration? Do you sometimes say wow,
Speaker 1: I would never have come up with that, this is
Speaker 1: so great, or what we have is good. It was
Speaker 1: give and take, or that's good. But really I like
Speaker 1: what I do myself the best.
Speaker 2: I think I've done everything you just describe by the
Speaker 2: way and all of it recently, Like I've done every
Speaker 2: style I like. I like to not be stuck to
Speaker 2: one process. But it absolutely depends on who you're writing
Speaker 2: with or working with whoever it is that you're inviting
Speaker 2: into that very intimate space, like what's going to happen
Speaker 2: and the arguments, you know, I want to say arguments.
Speaker 2: They're usually fun arguments, But all of that push and
Speaker 2: pull is either going to be something where there's trust,
Speaker 2: you know, and you get to and awesome place, or
Speaker 2: there's not and you don't really like what the other person's.
Speaker 3: Prying at the table, and then that you know that
Speaker 3: it's not working.
Speaker 2: But I feel also like it is important to have
Speaker 2: somebody who's the leader and who's going to at the
Speaker 2: end of the day say you know what I like
Speaker 2: a not be and that's what we're gonna go with.
Speaker 3: We're not going to sit here and argue about it.
Speaker 3: And that's me.
Speaker 2: So whether it's writing with the band, whether it's doing
Speaker 2: something with the producer, whether it's co writer's situation, or
Speaker 2: we're doing things together, I'm gonna at the end of
Speaker 2: the day and make the call, you know, pretty much.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, like if you're bringing in
Speaker 2: people that you respect and you want them in the mix,
Speaker 2: you know, and they're feeling then it's not like I'm
Speaker 2: shooting stuff down that much. It's more like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: except go over here and then we do this and
Speaker 2: everybody's loving it.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's be No. You've had a couple of big
Speaker 1: successes recently with collaboration. How did these come about and
Speaker 1: how did you actually do it?
Speaker 3: They're all different. Where do you want to start?
Speaker 1: I'll leave it to you.
Speaker 3: You want me to pick something?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, wait, when's this going to come out?
Speaker 1: Whenever you want?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, i'm a I have a really awesome collab
Speaker 2: coming out in just a few days.
Speaker 1: It's not going to come out before a few days,
Speaker 1: so okay.
Speaker 2: So uh this, I'll just start with my most recent one.
Speaker 2: Courtney La Plant and Poppy and me have this three
Speaker 2: way cool collab. And it's also a clab with Jordan Fish.
Speaker 2: I feel like it really came from him. It came
Speaker 2: from him and Poppy, and it started because Jordan and
Speaker 2: I have been working together quite a bit. We worked
Speaker 2: on the Halsey song I did earlier this year together. Uh.
Speaker 2: We met a few years ago when he was a
Speaker 2: premier The Horizon, and now we've been working on songs for
Speaker 2: our album together, which has been incredible. He's like a
Speaker 2: missing piece in my life.
Speaker 3: Anyway. He called me a round I don't know Christmas
Speaker 3: time and was like, hey, I have this idea.
Speaker 2: Check it out.
Speaker 3: Like I was just thinking, wouldn't be so awesome? On'm
Speaker 3: I working with?
Speaker 2: We're talking about a colah blah blah, and he just
Speaker 2: it was just an idea of of the three of
Speaker 2: us on a track. It's kind of where that whole
Speaker 2: thing started. And I was like, I mean that would
Speaker 2: be amazing. We gotta, you know, think of a song.
Speaker 2: And I think he's kind of the master of just
Speaker 2: like whipping stuff up really quick that sounds hypey and good,
Speaker 2: but it's fast, just on his laptop and coming up
Speaker 2: with he's just a good songwriter, so and making it
Speaker 2: sound saucy enough in the bedeo that you can imagine,
Speaker 2: you can imagine what it's going to be. And he
Speaker 2: sent a song starter idea. Oh my god, the weirdest thing.
Speaker 2: So this is a first. So he sent me this
Speaker 2: the beginning of the song. It's called the end of
Speaker 2: You Now, End of You. So it starts with this
Speaker 2: really cool ambient stuff and a vocal and the idea
Speaker 2: is it would be my voice, and he he, I
Speaker 2: don't know what the app is. Apparently there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of them, but you can just like type Amy Lee
Speaker 2: like the sound of my voice.
Speaker 3: And he sung it.
Speaker 2: He like sung a melody you know, no no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: no whatever, but like type my name in. So it
Speaker 2: sounded kind of like me, and it was wild, like
Speaker 2: because I was laughing. I was like, how did you
Speaker 2: do that?
Speaker 3: What did you do? And he was like, that's my voice.
Speaker 3: I just put it through. And I was like, that's
Speaker 3: amazing because it's convincing.
Speaker 2: I guess it's made up of pieces of things that
Speaker 2: I've done and I don't know how it worked, but anyway,
Speaker 2: he just like could show me that vibe and they
Speaker 2: had that start going. That was a really good start already,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I love it.
Speaker 3: Let's do this.
Speaker 2: So when I get home and I've got my pro tools,
Speaker 2: I'm like, send me you know, the instrumental and you know,
Speaker 2: by itself and if I need anything else whatever, and
Speaker 2: I just play and come up with ideas and cut
Speaker 2: and paste and whatever, and we send back and forth
Speaker 2: a bit.
Speaker 3: We were kind of the same.
Speaker 2: And then later on after we had a solid start going,
Speaker 2: he and Poppy came over to my house that came
Speaker 2: in this room and.
Speaker 3: We just sat here.
Speaker 2: It was it was interesting because the beginning was for
Speaker 2: me to sing, and it was like mostly they're already
Speaker 2: like the first verse and the start of the chorus,
Speaker 2: and then it's like okay, like let's wrap up this
Speaker 2: chorus and we figured that out and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now let's work on the second verse. This will be
Speaker 2: Poppies verse. And it was fun because it was like
Speaker 2: she wrote like a lot of the lyrics that I'm singing,
Speaker 2: and I wrote a lot of a lot of the
Speaker 2: lyrics that she is saying.
Speaker 3: And then it's like, okay, we need a bridge. Let's
Speaker 3: bring Courtney and let's do this whole thing.
Speaker 2: And Courtney's band got involved a little bit, and it
Speaker 2: was just sort of this everybody in the pool, very
Speaker 2: collaborative but very remote process. And those can work like
Speaker 2: if everybody's savvy, you know, and everybody can kind of
Speaker 2: throw their shit in the computer and throw it in
Speaker 2: for demo land until we do it for real or whatever.
Speaker 3: I think that works great.
Speaker 2: So we made this really killer song and it really
Speaker 2: just came out of just a concept and then make
Speaker 2: it come true with whatever tools available wherever we were,
Speaker 2: like throwing down vocals from around the world.
Speaker 1: There you go, so you you don't do it Nashville's style,
Speaker 1: where we're meeting at ten in the morning, we're all
Speaker 1: shit in the room. By one pm, we're going to
Speaker 1: have a song.
Speaker 2: I cannot do that. That is not in my DNA.
Speaker 3: I can.
Speaker 2: I have put myself in situauation similar to that to
Speaker 2: write for other people, and they have been productive. But
Speaker 2: the part that you said where it's like we're gonna
Speaker 2: be done in a couple, there's no way I have
Speaker 2: to walk into a writing situation, whatever it is, with this,
Speaker 2: with my band or with somebody else, thinking it's okay
Speaker 2: if nothing happens, like it's okay.
Speaker 3: If you go home tonight and you don't.
Speaker 2: Have a song, like, don't feel like a failure, because
Speaker 2: I think you have to just try things. You just
Speaker 2: have to go down the road and don't shoot everything
Speaker 2: down that comes into your head, allow it to live
Speaker 2: for a minute before you decide, ah, this is garbage,
Speaker 2: let's start over. So sometimes you go down a lot
Speaker 2: of roads that could have been cool but didn't work
Speaker 2: out like you wanted, and you just got to just
Speaker 2: keep playing until it happens. And I think opening your
Speaker 2: heart is the greatest ingredient. Just have an open heart,
Speaker 2: don't have worry or a schedule so much like, oh
Speaker 2: I can't do this, Just relax, open your mind, think
Speaker 2: about something else. If you don't feel like like, go
Speaker 2: take a walk, go do something else. Come back to
Speaker 2: it later when it's night and you're feeling moody, like,
Speaker 2: just allow the spirit to move you, because I feel
Speaker 2: like that ingredient is the most essential ingredient and it's
Speaker 2: it really is an ingredient that's beyond my control, which
Speaker 2: makes it magic. The magic comes from something beyond me
Speaker 2: saying this is what I want to write. That's not
Speaker 2: really how it is. It's not math. It has to
Speaker 2: sort of come from something.
Speaker 1: Okay, before we get back to the magic. Does it
Speaker 1: make any difference if you're collaborating in person as opposed
Speaker 1: to online sending things back and forth.
Speaker 3: There's something pretty cool about being in person.
Speaker 2: I will say I again, I've had cool success with
Speaker 2: remote after life was a totally remote thing. Alex Seber
Speaker 2: and I were apart, like laying stuff down and writing ideas.
Speaker 2: But when you can be together in the moment and
Speaker 2: somebody says how about this, you know, and you're like, ooh,
Speaker 2: do that, but go up not down, and then I'm
Speaker 2: gonna jump in. It's just different when you have the
Speaker 2: instant back and forth because you can try it four
Speaker 2: ways before agreeing on which way. You're going to go
Speaker 2: with that particular turnaround before going to the next section,
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Yeah, there is definitely something
Speaker 2: special about being in the room.
Speaker 1: Okay, the magic this is I feel you can separate
Speaker 1: the artists from everybody else. There are a few people
Speaker 1: going back to ancient history Steely Dan Eagles, who build
Speaker 1: things step by step. But you know when you create
Speaker 1: an eleven, but you can't create an eleven every day.
Speaker 2: No okay.
Speaker 1: So as you say, you don't have to have an
Speaker 1: album today, but your audience wants an album. If you
Speaker 1: were waiting to put out an album with elevens, that
Speaker 1: might be eleven years right, So how do you deal
Speaker 1: with As I say, it comes rarely, we go this
Speaker 1: is unbelievable, and as you say, you channel it. It
Speaker 1: just comes from some place you don't know, and you say,
Speaker 1: I gotta be buy a keyboard right away, I gotta
Speaker 1: lay it down. It's fah okay. How about the rest
Speaker 1: of the stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, we talked about time in between. Like my
Speaker 2: standard that I've always held myself like two is it
Speaker 2: has to be at least as good as falling in
Speaker 2: my head to me, Like whether or not anybody else
Speaker 2: thinks so. So I've never allowed time to pressure me
Speaker 2: into putting it out until I really truly did feel
Speaker 2: like there were all elevens for me. And sometimes that
Speaker 2: takes five years. So I have to live with it forever.
Speaker 2: I love all of our music that we put out.
Speaker 2: I don't have to sit back and go, oh, except
Speaker 2: that one.
Speaker 1: But you really, you're typical. You don't listen to your
Speaker 1: old records.
Speaker 2: To you, I mean, I don't really have a choice
Speaker 2: because I mean, well, we're playing them live, and that's different.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of stun.
Speaker 1: That's different. You're playing it live. It's different from dropping
Speaker 1: the needles, so to speak, on an old rerec.
Speaker 2: I don't usually drop, but once in a whiles were like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember that thing. I'm gonna listen to that right now.
Speaker 2: Not usually because I've listened to it. I have listened
Speaker 2: to it like thousands of times as we were making it.
Speaker 2: I'm a total perfectionist in the recording process.
Speaker 1: Okay, but let's say, for whatever reason, you listen five
Speaker 1: to ten years later, do you WinCE and say, oh,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have done that, or I wish i'd put
Speaker 1: this in whatever I mean not yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, the answer is yes, But I mean mostly
Speaker 2: I'm not going, oh my god, I hate it so
Speaker 2: much like now and any of that stuff. Really it's
Speaker 2: from the first one. It's it's only then because I
Speaker 2: can really hear.
Speaker 3: The child.
Speaker 2: I can hear me as a little kid. I can
Speaker 2: hear me just figuring stuff out and being nineteen and
Speaker 2: not really knowing necessarily how that structure is supposed to work,
Speaker 2: but just doing something close, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I hear lyrics sometimes too, when you're younger, you're like,
Speaker 2: oh God, you were young.
Speaker 1: How do you end up working with Halsey?
Speaker 2: That one was out of nowhere. I have to back
Speaker 2: it up to Fight Like a Girl because that's how
Speaker 2: it started. So this movie Ballerina where those that song
Speaker 2: and fight like a Girl uh with KFLA were both
Speaker 2: for this movie Ballerina from the John Wick world. So Tyler,
Speaker 2: Tyler Bates, he's awesome.
Speaker 3: Do you know who that is?
Speaker 2: He's a he's a well he's the score composer for
Speaker 2: all the John Wicks, but also like Sucker Punch and
Speaker 2: just a whole bunch of stuff, and he's just a
Speaker 2: very cool, cool music I don't know how I'm not
Speaker 2: describing it well. He's awesome.
Speaker 3: Anyway.
Speaker 2: We've been friends for a long time and always would
Speaker 2: like talked about we would like to work together, but
Speaker 2: hadn't had a reason or found the opportunity, and just
Speaker 2: one of those things. So he called me around in December,
Speaker 2: also same time, everything just at once. This time. It
Speaker 2: was just like so many things kind of came at
Speaker 2: me at the same time, and I just was just yes,
Speaker 2: just saying yes, working really hard, saying yes to all
Speaker 2: the good stuff. Tyler was like, Hey, I think I
Speaker 2: found our thing, you know, working on this thing for Lionsgate.
Speaker 2: It's about a chick kicking ass and Lionsgate actually mentioned you,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh my god, they'd be perfect.
Speaker 2: And I actually know her so and I was like okay.
Speaker 2: So we started working on a song that he came
Speaker 2: up with the start for remotely and sent to me,
Speaker 2: and I came up with the you know, melody stuff
Speaker 2: over here, and Halsey was in the conversation that I'd
Speaker 2: heard like Lionsgate talking about to you, like oh, wouldn't
Speaker 2: it be cool? And I was like, Yeah, that would
Speaker 2: be cool. So it was just one of those things
Speaker 2: where I tried to reach out to her, but I
Speaker 2: had I don't know her or I didn't so I
Speaker 2: hadn't gotten a hold of her and just sort of
Speaker 2: moved on. And then halfway down the road on that song,
Speaker 2: she reached out to me and she was like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I have a song idea like that we should do,
Speaker 2: like for this movie. And I was like, well, I'm
Speaker 2: already working on one, you know, please don't take my job.
Speaker 2: But she was like well whatever, She's like, I honestly,
Speaker 2: I'd just like to work with you, whether it's for
Speaker 2: the movie or not, Like I think it'd just be
Speaker 2: really cool to do something together. And here's the start,
Speaker 2: and she had the verse the first person chorus like
Speaker 2: demoed of the Hand that Feeds and I thought it
Speaker 2: was so good, Like right away, I was like, well,
Speaker 2: this is a hit song, okay, And I was like
Speaker 2: I'd love to I'd love to finish this with you
Speaker 2: and sing this with you. So that was it was
Speaker 2: just her coming out of nowhere. And I've, you know,
Speaker 2: of course, behind this. He's like, hey, we can.
Speaker 3: Have two right? Can we have two songs like please?
Speaker 2: And they were like yeah, we'd love to have two twos.
Speaker 3: Even better, and it was just this cool thing.
Speaker 2: So now at the end of the movie, there's two
Speaker 2: in a row that I got to be a part of,
Speaker 2: two different really cool collaborations. And I think it just
Speaker 2: comes from artists. And Kaflay is me on the other
Speaker 2: end of that, reaching out to her because we're, you know,
Speaker 2: working on this song and I love her. I'm a
Speaker 2: big fan, and she's in my head. She's in my
Speaker 2: heart because I listened to her and I heard her
Speaker 2: voice when we started writing the Bridge. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: wouldn't that be cool? So I just found a number
Speaker 2: and called her and that ended up being an incredible thing.
Speaker 2: So I think like we all get inspired by each other,
Speaker 2: you know, and when you have your heart open and
Speaker 2: have that maybe a little bit of a magical, I
Speaker 2: don't know, spunk, like you can think, hey, anything's possible.
Speaker 2: Why not? Why wouldn't Why why should I just call?
Speaker 2: Why should I just try? And then you do, and
Speaker 2: you know, so much of the time it's been more
Speaker 2: than I would have guessed. Like ten years ago, people
Speaker 2: want to work together, like they're like, yeah, hell yeah,
Speaker 2: I'd love to make something with you.
Speaker 1: So okay, you talk about not knowing Halsey, are you
Speaker 1: the type of person who's just in your own vertical?
Speaker 1: You've certainly been on the road with people, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: do you tend to know and stay in contact with
Speaker 1: other The musicians are really in your own world. Unless
Speaker 1: it's business, you don't know them.
Speaker 2: I make connections with people and stay in touch with them,
Speaker 2: like you meet. All kinds of you have, all kinds
Speaker 2: of you know, fun friends, acquaintances. On tour, we love
Speaker 2: to hang out with bands that we play with. We
Speaker 2: do we hang out backstage. We're not the people that
Speaker 2: stay by ourselves. We're the people coming around. Like I
Speaker 2: My rider on tour is like three bottles of wine,
Speaker 2: a cheese plate, and a veggie tray. And after the show,
Speaker 2: everybody gets cleaned up and does their thing. I grab
Speaker 2: all that stuff and I walk to wherever I hear
Speaker 2: somebody's playing music.
Speaker 3: It's usually the other dress room of.
Speaker 2: The band, the guy's room, and it's Will, our drummer.
Speaker 3: We call it club.
Speaker 2: Willis playing whatever eighties metal to today future rock.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, all right, and I'm bringing this stuff.
Speaker 2: And we hang out and we leave the door open,
Speaker 2: and I want I want to have an experience where
Speaker 2: I get to know whoever we're playing with. I care
Speaker 2: about the bands that if we're headlining, like the bands
Speaker 2: that we choose to come out with us, I really
Speaker 2: put thought into that. That's my opportunity to like curate,
Speaker 2: to show something great, you know, to our fans that
Speaker 2: maybe they haven't heard before that is, you know, up
Speaker 2: and coming, or something that maybe they missed that I
Speaker 2: love that I want to uplift or somebody that is
Speaker 2: inspiring to me because I'm hearing that before our show too.
Speaker 2: I want it to be something great. I want to
Speaker 2: give them a great show from start to finish. So
Speaker 2: we generally like hang out with people that we like
Speaker 2: with music.
Speaker 1: That okay, that's on the road. When you're at home,
Speaker 1: are you emailing these people or it's til you go
Speaker 1: back on the road and you see them again at home.
Speaker 2: I have people that are that are close to my
Speaker 2: heart that I have stayed close with.
Speaker 3: Emma Emma are bass player.
Speaker 2: Now we've been like that for many years before she
Speaker 2: entered this band. We met on the road in seven
Speaker 2: when she was playing with Sick Puppies and we played
Speaker 2: together on a tour and we just clicked like, especially
Speaker 2: when it's it's especially women in my life.
Speaker 3: We're kind of you know, we're still the rarer breed
Speaker 3: on the road.
Speaker 2: And when you meet in the heavy world and when
Speaker 2: you meet somebody in like heavy rock music, that's we
Speaker 2: end up having a lot in common. Nine times out
Speaker 2: of ten just because of the experience. It's just different.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've been doing this for a couple of decades now, yeah,
Speaker 1: but when you first go on the road, if you're
Speaker 1: a guy. Now we live in the cell phone camera error, Jeff.
Speaker 1: They say they want to you know, sex, drugs in
Speaker 1: rock and roll, and there are a bunch of guys.
Speaker 1: I know, some people legendary people never left the hotel room,
Speaker 1: didn't drink, didn't drug whatever. But generally speaking, people like
Speaker 1: to have a good time. What's it like being the woman?
Speaker 1: Do you feel forced to be one of the guys?
Speaker 1: Do you feel the other what's it like? Certainly when
Speaker 1: you started out.
Speaker 2: That's different. I was gonna say, I don't feel any
Speaker 2: of that. I feel happy and surrounded by people that
Speaker 2: I trust. But in the beginning, no, absolutely not. In
Speaker 2: the beginning it was dangerous. There is a lot more
Speaker 2: situations where you kind of need it. Be smart and
Speaker 2: be aware and remove yourself from the situation. Sometimes that's
Speaker 2: just being young and being female. And I we didn't
Speaker 2: start out with security either, and we learned. I learned
Speaker 2: Beth and I together learned the hard way why we
Speaker 2: have to have security. And that's that's every everybody should
Speaker 2: have have that.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, generally speaking in the music business. To what
Speaker 1: degree of you encountered sexism?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean what can I say from I
Speaker 2: don't know where to start. I started anywhere a high
Speaker 2: degree from the industry. I think the suits, Like that
Speaker 2: was the first place that I started to recognize it.
Speaker 2: For that just in the idea of how to market
Speaker 2: me and why it was a challenge and what I
Speaker 2: needed to change, like all all those all those thoughts
Speaker 2: were so wild to me. It's like I never thought
Speaker 2: of any of this. This is rock and roll. I'm
Speaker 2: not trying to go up there and be a pop star, Like,
Speaker 2: why are we talking about this? So that was the
Speaker 2: first element. But I think also I definitely was in
Speaker 2: a situation where I was young and surrounded by not
Speaker 2: people that necessarily like were thinking at all about me
Speaker 2: or what was good for me. I was surrounded by
Speaker 2: people that started seeing the opportunity and we're thinking a
Speaker 2: lot about what was best for themselves. So you know
Speaker 2: where that plays into sexism, I guess is the way
Speaker 2: that they treat you to keep you down and keep
Speaker 2: you from thinking that you have too much power. And
Speaker 2: that got in my head real hard in the beginning.
Speaker 2: It was something to overcome.
Speaker 1: So when you experience sexism to what degree was ignorance
Speaker 1: of your viewpoint and what deg we was sort of
Speaker 1: bullying and keeping you under their thumb.
Speaker 2: I felt the under the thumb part a lot, a lot.
Speaker 2: It's like, I don't know, when you're just naive and
Speaker 2: doing everything you can't. It was hard for me for
Speaker 2: a while to see the difference. And it is a
Speaker 2: blurred line between that I was a woman, that I
Speaker 2: was a girl, and that I was young, like because
Speaker 2: people just treat you like you're stupid and you don't
Speaker 2: know any better, and you okay, all right, yeah right,
Speaker 2: Well let me explain to you how this works. Here's
Speaker 2: what you're gonna do, this is what everybody does, and
Speaker 2: you've never done this before, so you have to trust me.
Speaker 2: So here's what's going on. Like that kind of attitude
Speaker 2: is hard when you're brand new and you are supposed
Speaker 2: to okay, like I just signed a contract, I'm supposed
Speaker 2: to whatever.
Speaker 3: But it's not.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to put it all on the label
Speaker 2: because there was a much bigger, darker thing that I right,
Speaker 2: I really try not to let be my story. There
Speaker 2: was a big part of my story in the early days.
Speaker 2: It was tough within the band in the early days.
Speaker 1: Okay, but the member who is no longer in the band,
Speaker 1: you had a lot of history just you and him
Speaker 1: making music before, right, Yeah, yes, So what was that
Speaker 1: dark force there from the beginning? And it just became
Speaker 1: either bigger or you recognized it or did something change.
Speaker 3: With success, it definitely grew.
Speaker 2: But yeah, success definitely makes everything more complicated.
Speaker 1: Okay, But this is a classic rock and roll story.
Speaker 1: There is a separation between the original members, and one
Speaker 1: member continues to have success and the other member does not. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, do you think about it? Is the other
Speaker 1: person contact you and is bitter? Does the other person
Speaker 1: disappear completely? Is it something you don't even think about?
Speaker 2: It's it's honestly, it's been it has been that long
Speaker 2: where I do feel like I'm in a place where
Speaker 2: that's not motivating anything that I do. Like I definitely,
Speaker 2: you know, felt like a big reaction to the fallout
Speaker 2: between us, like I.
Speaker 3: Needed to react.
Speaker 2: I needed to react in the music, you know, I
Speaker 2: needed to react with the way that I was making
Speaker 2: the music. And I think the harder part was just
Speaker 2: you know, the hurt inside me, Like I hated it.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to feel hurt. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: feel anything like about him about that. I wanted to
Speaker 2: just have my own story that wasn't like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: messed with, but it is what it is. Like you
Speaker 2: come from where you come from, and the things that
Speaker 2: we overcome, I really do. I'm positive make us stronger.
Speaker 2: So to me, like the storyline like for me, like
Speaker 2: moving forward really came. It was about overcoming it for
Speaker 2: a good while, and then there was then life became
Speaker 2: more complicated and there's more to the story, and there's
Speaker 2: so many other people and gosh, that stuff was so
Speaker 2: long ago. It's part of what shapes you and and
Speaker 2: and makes you see people a certain way. But also
Speaker 2: it's something that I'm really at a place at this
Speaker 2: point in my life that I'm ready to like really
Speaker 2: let go of and and see the beauty of what
Speaker 2: we had as well. It's taken the longest for me
Speaker 2: to really look at the early music and and hear
Speaker 2: it and not always have like a pang of ouch
Speaker 2: about something like I'm I'm really at a place now
Speaker 2: where I'm I I remember that love, I remember the
Speaker 2: love in the music of all of that, and you know,
Speaker 2: see what what was special about that that had to
Speaker 2: that had to happen like that, And I am I'm
Speaker 2: grateful for a lot, you know. But yeah, it was
Speaker 2: quite tumultuous behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: Okay, do I have it right? There's history where you
Speaker 1: went to church camp and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: We met at church, Yeah, we did when I was
Speaker 2: like thirteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what's your viewpoint on religion? Now?
Speaker 2: Oh it's fucking complicated. How do you sum up your
Speaker 2: viewpoint on religion? I am a spiritual person with an
Speaker 2: open mind on a lot of things, and I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's funny, like I spent a long time really defensive
Speaker 2: about this conversation as well in the early days, because
Speaker 2: it was just this thing that was like penned on
Speaker 2: us about religion. And you're a Christian band or we
Speaker 2: really weren't, but we met at church. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of music at church, and yeah, like I guess world
Speaker 2: of it was like cringey to me because you get
Speaker 2: older and you're like, oh my god, Like it wasn't
Speaker 2: that quit it but spirituality. If I wasn't a spiritual
Speaker 2: person who went deep to make our songs, it wouldn't
Speaker 2: sound like they do. Like I'm definitely trying to channel
Speaker 2: always like something that's bigger than myself. I do believe
Speaker 2: there's absolutely more than just this.
Speaker 1: Okay, jumping around a little bit. How'd you end up
Speaker 1: working on the rehearsal? Uh?
Speaker 3: That is fun? I don't know, they asked me.
Speaker 2: I got I got an email that was describing kind
Speaker 2: of what the rehearsal was, which I didn't know the
Speaker 2: show personally, like I hadn't seen it before, and the
Speaker 2: description like of what it was was like fascinating because
Speaker 2: I don't even know how you how how I was
Speaker 2: trying to explain what it was to my parents and
Speaker 2: I couldn't do it. I was like, it's like you
Speaker 2: know what, You're just gonna have to watch it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: at the beginning, I think it is just a really incredible,
Speaker 2: the coolest license we've ever had. I feel like it's
Speaker 2: part of the story, you know, in an unusual way. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was literally just like asked for a license request
Speaker 2: that was really really wild. And then months later they
Speaker 2: were like, oh, yeah, hey, that show is going to
Speaker 2: come out that you know you approved the license for,
Speaker 2: and there's a journalist is asking to speak to you,
Speaker 2: like the next day after you watch it, And I
Speaker 2: was like really, And I was like, Okay, I hope
Speaker 2: this is good. Uh yeah, screaming, crying, throwing up. I
Speaker 2: love it so much. I thought it was so good.
Speaker 2: And I watched a bunch more like I watched that
Speaker 2: whole season and I mean came to tears a little
Speaker 2: bit in there.
Speaker 1: You've had some success in this world, Does that lead
Speaker 1: to more opportunity?
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course always.
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, well, I mean.
Speaker 2: You mean just for working with people, and yeah.
Speaker 1: You would a couple of things. Now since these are
Speaker 1: successful productions, other people say, I'm a Netflix show, want
Speaker 1: you to write a song?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That's honestly, that was what I was dreaming of twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, even fifteen years ago. I was just wishing,
Speaker 2: like to get into that world when I started making music,
Speaker 2: Like when I started really getting into music when I
Speaker 2: was my son's age. Actually, I saw the movie Am
Speaker 2: Dais and I was obsessed with Mozart and his genius
Speaker 2: and I wanted to be that whatever that is, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to be a composer on a piano player,
Speaker 2: and I got I got piano lessons like the next year.
Speaker 3: It was a gift from my grandparents. It was a
Speaker 3: big deal.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because like my siblings, like we all
Speaker 2: took piano lessons. I'm the oldest. But it was different
Speaker 2: for all of them than it was for me because
Speaker 2: I begged for it. I cried for it. I wanted
Speaker 2: it so bad and it wasn't a given. It was like, please,
Speaker 2: how do we make it work? I really I need this.
Speaker 2: I know this is what I want to do with
Speaker 2: my life kind of thing. When I was like ten
Speaker 2: and having you know, okay, you got them, you better
Speaker 2: take this seriously. I really did, like I loved it.
Speaker 2: And then you know, my parents are like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: this is great. Everybody's going to take piano and we're
Speaker 2: all musically inclined. We all played piano, wheel sing for
Speaker 2: everybody else was like work kind of a little bit more.
Speaker 2: Not that I didn't treat you know, some of the
Speaker 2: assignments that way and most exhausting, but it's different when
Speaker 2: you like are dying to do it, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, I took piano lessons. Everybody took piano lessons. In
Speaker 1: my family, we didn't want to practice. So you're taking
Speaker 1: piano lessons, are you practicing?
Speaker 2: I started off taking that very seriously and being excited
Speaker 2: about practice, And as I got older and got into
Speaker 2: high school, I would neglect practice, but I could kind
Speaker 2: of get away with it because I have a good
Speaker 2: year and I could hear what it was supposed to
Speaker 2: be and figure it out without really doing all the work.
Speaker 2: So I would sort of cheat, which was bad. And
Speaker 2: my teacher was an amazing piano player at concert pianist,
Speaker 2: and she could tell, so I kind of get in trouble.
Speaker 2: She'd be like, yeah, you're doing that right, but that's
Speaker 2: not what it says. I'm like, what it's like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what it sounds like when that one guy did it.
Speaker 2: I know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at this lead day, can you still read?
Speaker 2: I can? But I mean I'm out of practice real bad.
Speaker 2: I've got cheat music in there, songs that I like,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I'm going to learn, like last Christmas,
Speaker 2: I'm going to learn this song, and I absolutely have
Speaker 2: not finished that song. So it's hard, you know, you start,
Speaker 2: you get to where like I can just play now,
Speaker 2: like I can hear something in my head and make
Speaker 2: it come true in a minute.
Speaker 3: Once you have.
Speaker 2: That, it's hard to just sit there and force yourself
Speaker 2: to like read in another language.
Speaker 3: It takes discipline.
Speaker 1: Okay, you see on the day as you're inspired to
Speaker 1: take piano lessons, are you listening to music at that point?
Speaker 1: Is there music in the home?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, my dad. My dad's almost plays everything, but
Speaker 2: was a DJ and program director all growing up, So
Speaker 2: I grew up around the radio station and a lot
Speaker 2: of he worked at all different formats, but kind of
Speaker 2: like classics, oldies, that sort of thing was a lot
Speaker 2: of my growing up, the sort of music that he
Speaker 2: was knew about and was playing on the air and
Speaker 2: was the guy about. So I definitely just got a basic,
Speaker 2: like especially rock like music education from Neil Young the
Speaker 2: Beatles to honestly like four Tops and Temptations and you
Speaker 2: know Stevie Wonder and Marvin get just all kinds of
Speaker 2: music in the house. So that's the kind of music
Speaker 2: that I was exposed to first, just like great classic music,
Speaker 2: but then the dark drama of like Mosa that was
Speaker 2: what was different for me when I hit that age.
Speaker 3: Where you're just starting to have all those.
Speaker 2: Like feelings and emotions and then this dramatic like classical
Speaker 2: music hit me in a way that was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is what this is me, this is deep, you know.
Speaker 1: So then what we I mean, Mozart's not new, So
Speaker 1: what new recordings or you know, contemporary recordings. Did you
Speaker 1: then start to listen.
Speaker 2: To It's it's it's all over the place. It's so
Speaker 2: mixed up together because it was like classical hit And
Speaker 2: then I start what I really got into wasn't listening
Speaker 2: to old classical music as much as it was film scores.
Speaker 2: I was really really into the the emotions of film.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to think of some of the first
Speaker 2: movies that I saw that was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: oh my god, this is a funny one. This is
Speaker 2: different because it's soundtrack. But The Bodyguard was like the
Speaker 2: first R rated movie I got to see. If you
Speaker 2: get to see The Bodyguard because you love music, and
Speaker 2: that was big and inspiring. But like I would listen
Speaker 2: to film scores like like the Batman score, like the
Speaker 2: Danny Elfman Batman score, or like like the Lion King,
Speaker 2: like the cartoon, like just music in general. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I was kind of a nerd to listen to weird music.
Speaker 2: But also at the same time, it was like grunge
Speaker 2: started happening a couple of years later for me, and
Speaker 2: I heard I Forget What I can't say the first song.
Speaker 2: I like Nirvana and Soundgarden, and then Smashing Pumpkins and
Speaker 2: Garbage and then b York. All these really interesting alternative
Speaker 2: artists really started happening, and that opened my mind even
Speaker 2: wider to like wanting it all at the same time together.
Speaker 2: So I think that that's why the band started becoming
Speaker 2: a thing of like, oh, maybe I'm maybe I'm the singer,
Speaker 2: maybe I'm in a band.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're talking about early nineties grunge. You're going on
Speaker 1: tour in Australia with Metallica. That's a couple of steps
Speaker 1: beyond grunge.
Speaker 2: Mm hm. I liked Metallica then, too, Well, that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's a whole Yeah, ruled there without mentioning every band
Speaker 2: in that world.
Speaker 3: That's so true.
Speaker 1: Is that music say, oh yeah, I want to listen
Speaker 1: to that music at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, Metallica was probably, I want to say,
Speaker 2: the first like heavy band that I that I was
Speaker 2: really into. But my heart is more that sound garden world.
Speaker 2: That's dark and heavy to me big time. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that there's different ways to look at like
Speaker 2: what's metal or what's heavy, and for me that there
Speaker 2: was a big crossover in the darkness of the alternative
Speaker 2: scene in the nineties, like the Hardsheet Box is super dark.
Speaker 2: I don't know, there's there's a lot of music from
Speaker 2: back then that I feel like the whole the time
Speaker 2: was dark somehow musically and long, like long journeys through places.
Speaker 2: But for some reason that really resonated with me.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're talking about the darkness in music. Is that
Speaker 1: an element of your life today? Not the music, the darkness.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I think that's part that's a part
Speaker 2: of the world.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, wait wait wait, we can talk about politics.
Speaker 1: One might be disillusion with politics, well, might be disillusion
Speaker 1: with their own social situation, their own business situation. Then
Speaker 1: there are other people you talk about who are introverted,
Speaker 1: who are also introspective, and they're in touch. I can't
Speaker 1: believe I'm verbalizing it this way. They're in touch with
Speaker 1: the darkness. Does that start to resonate with you and go, No,
Speaker 1: that doesn't fit.
Speaker 2: No, it does, of course it does. I've lost big
Speaker 2: in my life. I've lost people that are very close
Speaker 2: to me that I love. I lost my little sister
Speaker 2: and I lost my brother, and I think that that happening.
Speaker 2: You know, I was six years old and my sister
Speaker 2: passed away. That touched me in a way that big
Speaker 2: time shaped the way that my mind works and the
Speaker 2: way that I look in, you know, look in and
Speaker 2: look out.
Speaker 1: That happens these tragedies. How do you metabolize that and
Speaker 1: get past it to the degree you ever do.
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 2: That is why, that is how this started. I feel
Speaker 2: like it started from needing an outlet, Like I think
Speaker 2: that's why hearing that music, you know, hearing Mozart and
Speaker 2: hearing the drama and.
Speaker 3: That darkness that was it was more adult.
Speaker 2: You know. There was something about that that touched me
Speaker 2: in a way that I couldn't describe and I wanted
Speaker 2: to tap into that. And I think before it was
Speaker 2: even that, before it was music, it was poetry. It
Speaker 2: was just writing in my journal. From very young, I
Speaker 2: always was just like writing my feelings down and trying
Speaker 2: to I don't know, like making them, not just writing
Speaker 2: in my diary, but like kind of writing poetry, like
Speaker 2: writing prose because it felt good. It felt like it
Speaker 2: turned something that I couldn't explain into something that said
Speaker 2: what I wanted to say that I couldn't say, or
Speaker 2: that or that was beautif like taking something really really
Speaker 2: painful or really dark and making it into oh that
Speaker 2: could that's not worthless. It turned into something beautiful. At
Speaker 2: least there's this little thing that I made that's beautiful
Speaker 2: that couldn't have existed if I didn't feel those feelings.
Speaker 1: Do you feel you're misunderstood as a star artist? Evan
Speaker 1: Essence is known for a certain style of music. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like, oh, yeah, I have a tory aimed
Speaker 1: as solo piano thing more demure and reserved, or no,
Speaker 1: this is what I do, this is who I am.
Speaker 2: I it's a great question because I have gone through
Speaker 2: phases in my life where I felt very like I
Speaker 2: needed to search and like maybe this didn't sum it up,
Speaker 2: Like maybe evan Essence was a piece of something. And
Speaker 2: I really feel home in the music that I'm making
Speaker 2: at this point. I feel like I know who I am.
Speaker 2: But another reason for the time between albums, another reason
Speaker 2: for that that time of searching and introspection is allowing
Speaker 2: it to die in my mind, like I had to
Speaker 2: do that a couple times, like go, Okay, I might
Speaker 2: never do this again, so let's just be me and
Speaker 2: see what that looks and sounds like. And usually when
Speaker 2: I when I'm just sitting around and I want to
Speaker 2: make music, I'm not thinking, Okay, this is going to
Speaker 2: be for Evanescence or this is going to be for
Speaker 2: It's just I just let it happen and don't give
Speaker 2: it those parameters. That's how I really enjoy making music.
Speaker 2: And what's a beautiful thing about that is that it
Speaker 2: it has, this is what it sounds like, this is
Speaker 2: what it sounds like. And Evanescence is a collaboration. It's
Speaker 2: always been that, but but it's that is really that
Speaker 2: is really me. So I don't because of that, I
Speaker 2: am here this many years later and feel ultimate satisfaction
Speaker 2: when we play our music, and we put our music
Speaker 2: because it is one from the heart and write on
Speaker 2: the money of who I feel that I am, you know,
Speaker 2: and that is varied. I feel like our band honestly,
Speaker 2: Like if you listen to it all, it's kind of
Speaker 2: it's not all over the place, but it's a pretty
Speaker 2: broad spectrum of stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the lyrics. Twenty years on, do you
Speaker 1: feel a need to convey your inner thoughts to the
Speaker 1: degree you did previously?
Speaker 2: It feels good to do. The more you can say,
Speaker 2: the more you can express, Like, the more release you get.
Speaker 2: I mean, and I definitely feel like I'm a lot
Speaker 2: better at putting stuff, putting the depth, you know, putting
Speaker 2: my darkest fears and my deepest feelings into music than
Speaker 2: I am at just saying them in a conversation.
Speaker 3: That's hard.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have this makeup artist, very good friend of yours,
Speaker 1: but forget the fans. That's something different. Generally speaking, are
Speaker 1: you guarded or are you waiting to feel the right
Speaker 1: vibe that you say what you really think?
Speaker 2: I guess that depends. It just depends on the situation.
Speaker 2: I can definitely be a person who's just like just
Speaker 2: totally stick my foot in my mouth, like I'll just
Speaker 2: blurt stuff out and be like, why did I say
Speaker 2: that out loud?
Speaker 1: Okay, going back to career stuff, how do you end
Speaker 1: up on wind Up Records?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, kind of like I was saying before,
Speaker 2: we weren't really a band at the time. We were like,
Speaker 2: you know, songwriters, Like we were just creating music and
Speaker 2: recording it and making demos and you know, pulling together
Speaker 2: people you know locally from bands, you know, to put
Speaker 2: on a show once in a while. And when what
Speaker 2: happened with wind Up is I'm trying to think how
Speaker 2: old I must have been. We signed when I was nineteen,
Speaker 2: so I guess I was probably eighteen. And we had
Speaker 2: taken our demos, which people talk about as if it's
Speaker 2: an album. It's really not. But we put our demos
Speaker 2: into like a homemade album. It's called Origin, and we
Speaker 2: had I think we spent five hundred dollars to go
Speaker 2: to Memphis and have it mastered, so like it sounded
Speaker 2: really good. And while we were there, you know, working
Speaker 2: with the guy who was mastering it for us, Pete Matthews,
Speaker 2: was down the hall. It was really really nice and
Speaker 2: like heard it through the door and was like, what
Speaker 2: who are you guys? And you know, we told them
Speaker 2: we're just kids and this is our band. He's like, wow,
Speaker 2: that sounds really cool. He's like, I'm going to New
Speaker 2: York to talk to this label about this other band
Speaker 2: I'm dealing with, and do you want me to show
Speaker 2: it to people? I could love to show that around.
Speaker 2: Like he sat and listened to everything we were doing
Speaker 2: and thought it was cool, and we're like, oh, yeah, cool,
Speaker 2: yeah I do that. So it was really literally like
Speaker 2: the first people we talked to and what the song
Speaker 2: that got us signed was my Immortal because they just
Speaker 2: something about that song, just love that song.
Speaker 3: That was the thing.
Speaker 2: And it all kind of.
Speaker 3: Happens sort of fast.
Speaker 2: We we you know, we knew that the right thing
Speaker 2: to do is like to shop around, but honestly, like
Speaker 2: all the other labels wanted like a showcase and for
Speaker 2: us to come in and play it live and see
Speaker 2: how and that's just not that wasn't we weren't there.
Speaker 2: That's just not really who we were. So it was
Speaker 2: just one of those things like look this this label's
Speaker 2: right here right now. They've got a success story. They're
Speaker 2: passionate about it. Why don't we just do this? So
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know, we're kids. We signed a
Speaker 2: record deal.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're kids. You know this is sort of well
Speaker 1: known stuff. There's Don Passman book, et cetera. Are you
Speaker 1: sharp enough to know we should get a music business lawyer,
Speaker 1: we should get a manager, or you basically walk into
Speaker 1: the quagmiring it rape? Shall we say?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I feel like we kind of knew the roles and
Speaker 2: just didn't do what we were supposed to do. We
Speaker 2: we got a lawyer, but I mean it was definitely
Speaker 2: like what do you want me to say? Like this
Speaker 2: is this is a deal that you know, this is
Speaker 2: this is kind of you're committing your entire career here,
Speaker 2: that's what this is.
Speaker 3: But you also have no leverage.
Speaker 2: It's not like you're going in there saying, oh, well
Speaker 2: we've already succeeded this and that you have nothing. So
Speaker 2: if you want to go give it a shot, you know,
Speaker 2: give it a shot. The worst thing that can happen
Speaker 2: is you become really successful and then you're in trouble.
Speaker 3: But I mean, we made it out alive, like it.
Speaker 2: I will say this, like there there were definitely struggles
Speaker 2: with that relationship. That was difficult. But looking back, there
Speaker 2: are things that they did for us that I see
Speaker 2: now as really valuable and rare, which was they made us.
Speaker 2: First of all, they made us. We thought we were done,
Speaker 2: and they're like, no, no, no, you're gonna have to like
Speaker 2: write more songs, like do your thing. They sent us
Speaker 2: to la and put us in the oak Woods, and
Speaker 2: we're like, you're gonna, you know, like write more songs,
Speaker 2: you know, and also, you know, we work with this
Speaker 2: producer guy. Maybe something cool come out of that, uh,
Speaker 2: like gave us. We didn't we didn't have much money
Speaker 2: to live off of, but like everything was kind of
Speaker 2: taken care of.
Speaker 3: It was like you have a gym membership.
Speaker 2: And they even got me like acting classes because it
Speaker 2: was super shy. It was every time I'd performed live before,
Speaker 2: I just had to keep my eyes closed, like the
Speaker 2: entire set, like just stand there with my eyes shut
Speaker 2: and couldn't talk to the crowd. And what they did
Speaker 2: was they they put me in with this guy. It
Speaker 2: was so awesome actually lose. I remember when we broke through,
Speaker 2: I would bring my boombox. He taught an acting class
Speaker 2: and at the end of the class, like he let
Speaker 2: me sit in if I wanted to. Everyone would leave
Speaker 2: and I'd have my stereo with our songs that we
Speaker 2: were working on, and he would sit in an empty
Speaker 2: little theater and I I would be on the stage
Speaker 2: and I would have to just cringingly sing my songs,
Speaker 2: looking at him, like just sing and do my thing
Speaker 2: and rock out and not have my eyes closed and
Speaker 2: try to get comfortable.
Speaker 3: It was super awkward.
Speaker 2: And then one day I remember just kind of I
Speaker 2: don't know, something clicked where I was like just I
Speaker 2: stopped caring what he was thinking, and he saw it
Speaker 2: and he was like, there, you did it.
Speaker 3: That's it, You're good.
Speaker 2: And I was like we literally had I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe seven seven sessions together and he just like helped
Speaker 2: me get to a place where I felt more comfortable.
Speaker 2: That's so valuable. That is something that I needed that
Speaker 2: I couldn't see that I needed. So I'm not sitting
Speaker 2: here to say how wonderful it all was. It was
Speaker 2: a real struggle, and the biggest thing we struggled about
Speaker 2: was creative control. Because I knew what I wanted, I
Speaker 2: knew what I wanted it to look like. I knew
Speaker 2: the words I wanted to sing. I needed to develop
Speaker 2: like my identity, and it was a struggle, not just
Speaker 2: for the first album, but after we had one Grammy's
Speaker 2: and proven so much. I constantly had to fight just
Speaker 2: to prove that I could do what I had already done.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're talking about performing, but having this success, did
Speaker 1: you have or still have any imposter syndrome? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, all the time? Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't know how to how to elaborate
Speaker 2: on that, but for sure, I definitely goes.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. You hear your father's in music,
Speaker 1: You're exposed to all this music, you go to si Ahmedaish.
Speaker 1: At what point do you say, this is what I
Speaker 1: want to do for a living.
Speaker 3: I felt like that struck me back then.
Speaker 2: I mean, but learning what that's what I want to
Speaker 2: do for a living was grew and changed over time
Speaker 2: because at first I didn't even think about myself as
Speaker 2: a singer.
Speaker 3: It wasn't that my.
Speaker 2: Idea was ooh, I want to be the center of attention.
Speaker 2: That that wasn't really me. I wanted to create, I
Speaker 2: wanted to write music. I wanted to make music, and
Speaker 2: I really thought I was going down the road to
Speaker 2: write music for film. So when I went to college
Speaker 2: for a hot minute right before you know, we signed
Speaker 2: that deal. It was theory composition because I knew that
Speaker 2: I could play by ear and I knew that I could,
Speaker 2: you know, write a song. But what I wanted to
Speaker 2: get good at was the hard stuff, you know, learning
Speaker 2: the real technicality of music and instrumentation and you know, orchestration. Okay,
Speaker 2: but then you know, like you know, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 2: didn't really finish like I was thinking that. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, like my heart was going towards this
Speaker 2: place of contemporary music that was moving me so much,
Speaker 2: like the sound gardens and the U Yorks and the
Speaker 2: Smashing Pumpkins and the garbages.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're in high school with this, say oh Amy, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's that girl. She's the one who plays the piano.
Speaker 1: She's one into music or was it a more private thing?
Speaker 2: They those who knew me at all, like did know that.
Speaker 2: But it's not like I was famous at school. I
Speaker 2: was just I was just an art kid. I was
Speaker 2: choir president.
Speaker 1: Okay. So all these years later, with all this great success,
Speaker 1: have you gone to any reunions? Have you heard from
Speaker 1: any of these people.
Speaker 2: Uh, oh, I've heard from them. Yeah, I've seen some
Speaker 2: of them since. Yeah, I actually have one, my bestie
Speaker 2: from junior high.
Speaker 1: I'm actually talking about the other people. I don't know
Speaker 1: how many people in your high school class, the people
Speaker 1: who gave you a hard time, et cetera. Have they
Speaker 1: come out of the woodwork with different opinions.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I haven't really focused on that too much.
Speaker 2: There definitely were the people, Like you know, I feel
Speaker 2: like I have.
Speaker 3: A different heart about it now.
Speaker 2: When things felt like such a huge deal when you're
Speaker 2: in middle school or high school, they really start to
Speaker 2: not feel like such a big deal. Later it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: we were all just kids. I don't hate you, You're
Speaker 2: just a dumb kid like me. But at the time, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I don't have that.
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, are you choosing not to go
Speaker 1: to reunion where the stars have not lined up?
Speaker 2: I did hear about the tenure union decide not to go?
Speaker 2: I feel I not for any reason. I just feel awkward.
Speaker 2: I just feel awkward. I feel like, especially if I
Speaker 2: hate feeling like in a situation, people are going to
Speaker 2: think that I think I'm better than everybody or something,
Speaker 2: and I feel so awkward, like walking into that situation.
Speaker 2: I don't know where they're like expecting me to like, hey,
Speaker 2: look at me, I made it, check it out. So
Speaker 2: I don't know, just feels awkward.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you're in high school, to what degree are
Speaker 1: you playing out?
Speaker 2: I think we played like twelve shows ever before we
Speaker 2: got signed.
Speaker 1: Okay, you graduate, you go to college. How long did
Speaker 1: you stay in college?
Speaker 3: One whole semester?
Speaker 1: Okay, just to get the timeline right, Yeah, you make
Speaker 1: this album with this other guy, You go to Memphis
Speaker 1: to get it mastered. When that's happening, are you already
Speaker 1: in college? Oh yeah?
Speaker 2: I why shoot, No, that was before that was still
Speaker 2: high school.
Speaker 1: Okay. From the time you go to Memphis to the
Speaker 1: time you end up in La how much time is that.
Speaker 2: It's a really short amount of time. We were in Memphis,
Speaker 2: Well we went back to that's such a weird it's
Speaker 2: foggy now, Like we went there to do the mastering thing,
Speaker 2: and then we went back.
Speaker 1: Home and then let me let me ask questions a
Speaker 1: different way. From the time wind Up heard it, how
Speaker 1: long until you had signed contracts?
Speaker 3: It was within a year. It was probably it was
Speaker 3: a matter of months.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: Okay, did they move you out to Los Angeles before
Speaker 1: the contracts were signed?
Speaker 2: I think that was after after I think it's sign
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, we're putting you in like artists development.
Speaker 1: Okay, Just to go back from the time wind Up
Speaker 1: first heard your music, how long until you end up
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles? A year?
Speaker 2: So, while maybe.
Speaker 1: Didn't happen fast, what's going through your mind during that year?
Speaker 2: I don't know, just making music, just music. It's like
Speaker 2: always had to be better, make more, and make something wright.
Speaker 1: I mean there are two things. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a long shot business under the best of circumstances. So
Speaker 1: you could be chomping at the bit saying I'm ready
Speaker 1: to orse he say, is this really gonna happen? Or man,
Speaker 1: I just can't wait anymore.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, here is where the word is anxiety
Speaker 2: comes to mind. There was so much pressure all of
Speaker 2: a sudden because there it's like, oh my god, people
Speaker 2: are they're putting money into us, like we have to
Speaker 2: make it, like this has to be good. I left
Speaker 2: school for this, like everything is on the line, and
Speaker 2: it definitely felt like this is my job, like is
Speaker 2: it is not just the thing that you love. It's
Speaker 2: your job to make this work for more than just you,
Speaker 2: like for everybody involved. So pressure, major pressure is what
Speaker 2: it felt like.
Speaker 1: What did your parents say when you said you're dropping
Speaker 1: out of college?
Speaker 3: They were really cool.
Speaker 2: My dad, you know, I said, he was a musician,
Speaker 2: he was in a band before I was born, and
Speaker 2: he knew how rare and special it was that we'd
Speaker 2: even gotten too that place like that they wanted to
Speaker 2: sign us. And it was always with this attitude of like, hey,
Speaker 2: like you know, keep perspective in your heart, of like
Speaker 2: how it's gonna go, you know, like you know, keep
Speaker 2: up your studies. But like, you know, when that happened,
Speaker 2: it was they were one hundred in my corner and cheering, and.
Speaker 3: It was it.
Speaker 2: Really you said it was a long It wasn't. It
Speaker 2: didn't feel like a long time. It felt fast. It
Speaker 2: was like one minute we're in school, the next minute
Speaker 2: we're out of there and working on music, and we
Speaker 2: have a career that we're working on and making, you know, music.
Speaker 2: And then a year and a half after that, Fallen's
Speaker 2: coming out and then the Grammys and my parents were
Speaker 2: they had a big party and we're like watching that.
Speaker 2: I just was looking at the picture of the day.
Speaker 2: It's so cute, Like I had all their friends over
Speaker 2: and they're all sitting living and watching the Grammys. When
Speaker 2: we won.
Speaker 1: Okay, you go to LA, they say they need more songs.
Speaker 1: So what did you end up doing in LA? I
Speaker 1: mean you talk about the acting less, you talk about writing,
Speaker 1: you talked about a producer. But at a more granular level,
Speaker 1: what was actually going on in that period.
Speaker 2: Well, not a lot that I mean that that was
Speaker 2: the focus for me. I don't know.
Speaker 1: You'd cut a record. Did they say we want a
Speaker 1: to those records and we want to remix that record
Speaker 1: and we want new material.
Speaker 2: No, we were writing and demo ing stuff, so we
Speaker 2: had like, uh, it was just our job to like.
Speaker 3: Come up with stuff, and they told until they told
Speaker 3: it was us talk about it.
Speaker 1: Was there a specific producer or multiple producers?
Speaker 2: There were the I hate to mention somebody if I
Speaker 2: can't remember their name. What really happened? What once we
Speaker 2: really started getting.
Speaker 3: There were a couple of people.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, but I want to say like two because
Speaker 2: when we kind of came time to like, okay, we've
Speaker 2: got you've got the songs, now you know it. We
Speaker 2: met with Dave Fortman because their their thought was Jay
Speaker 2: Bongerner and Dave Portman, who is formerly an ugly kid
Speaker 2: Joe and then became an awesome producer. He was just
Speaker 2: kind of starting out his producer career as well. He
Speaker 2: was like under Jay's wing, and uh, I think it
Speaker 2: was the kind of thing where Jay wasn't available and
Speaker 2: and Dave was. And we met with Jay, and we
Speaker 2: really really I mean with Dave, We really really liked
Speaker 2: him a lot.
Speaker 3: Hit it off.
Speaker 2: I felt like he understood something about it and was
Speaker 2: going to bring cool stuff to the table, even though
Speaker 2: he didn't have a bunch of records to say, here's
Speaker 2: all the things I've already done. We were all kind
Speaker 2: of going in trusting each other and that relationship was
Speaker 2: really important and great. Like having Dave for both Fallen
Speaker 2: and the Open Door was it was so essential for
Speaker 2: me personally.
Speaker 1: How long after you go to LA do they say
Speaker 1: you have the songs, let's cut them? Or are you
Speaker 1: cutting them as you're writing them?
Speaker 3: No, we weren't cutting as we were writing.
Speaker 2: We're just demoing. We were just demoing. And then it
Speaker 2: was like okay, we agree, like on your songs, like
Speaker 2: you can go in. But it was very much like
Speaker 2: you know, it was my schooling. It's like the traditional method,
Speaker 2: like you go in. Time is money. You know we're
Speaker 2: going to record, you know, first get make sure we
Speaker 2: know we've got everything mapped out before we're paying for
Speaker 2: student a time in like a pre production sort of zone,
Speaker 2: in a rehearsal space at where Dave was with us,
Speaker 2: like kind of mapping things out. We've already decided this
Speaker 2: is the tempo, you know, this is how long the
Speaker 2: bridge is, all the pretty much had it all mapped
Speaker 2: and then it's like you go into the studio and
Speaker 2: you do all the drums and then you do all
Speaker 2: the bass, and then you do all the guitar and
Speaker 2: then you know, just in order like that.
Speaker 3: So it's pretty typical.
Speaker 1: Okay, to the degree you can remember, you land in
Speaker 1: LA you end up working with Dave Fortman. How long
Speaker 1: a period of time is that.
Speaker 2: From landing to working with him? We spent at a
Speaker 2: solid year I almost want to say a year and
Speaker 2: a half in that limbo like still writing songs, pre
Speaker 2: production zone.
Speaker 1: I okay, you're a young woman essentially a coupler student.
Speaker 1: Do they give you a car? Do you hang out?
Speaker 1: Do you go to shows? Do you go to the beach?
Speaker 1: Or you just sitting in the would writing songs.
Speaker 2: I went to the beach, sure, and I had my
Speaker 2: family all come out, like during spring Breaker something, and
Speaker 2: we all went to Universal. And I felt like the
Speaker 2: cool person who like took into Venice Beach and went
Speaker 2: to Universal Studios. And I'm the big sister who's like
Speaker 2: about to be a rock star with all the my
Speaker 2: sweet little sibs just like that, making them think I'm
Speaker 2: super cool.
Speaker 1: So nobody doubt.
Speaker 2: Of whether or not we were going to run success.
Speaker 2: Oh of course though, Well you can't think about that.
Speaker 2: That's all cass you up.
Speaker 1: The record is now done. Are you a happy with
Speaker 1: the record? And B do you believe it's going to
Speaker 1: be commercially successful?
Speaker 2: I absolutely believe that. I think.
Speaker 3: For the most part, like you have to you have
Speaker 3: to be good. Things are made.
Speaker 2: When everybody believes in it and everybody's excited about it
Speaker 2: and working for it, as if there is no possible
Speaker 2: way it could fail, Like you have to operate that way,
Speaker 2: like that's the passion just driving you. I always leaved
Speaker 2: in it like that. But what I couldn't have foreseen
Speaker 2: or maybe believed or comprehended at the time was where
Speaker 2: I'm at now. I think, like the whole the whole
Speaker 2: thing in my head at the time was about that
Speaker 2: album and that music and that moment and us existing
Speaker 2: in a way. Where are we going to be a
Speaker 2: band that can like exist and I can I can
Speaker 2: be a musician like this, you know, for my career,
Speaker 2: it wasn't long term, Like I never would have imagined
Speaker 2: that at forty three we be at a better place
Speaker 2: by far than we were at on our first album,
Speaker 2: which which did so well, and have fans around the
Speaker 2: world and all those things. Like it's definitely a degree
Speaker 2: that isn't something you can plan for or expect. You
Speaker 2: just I don't know. You just have to make what
Speaker 2: you love and believe in it and give it, give
Speaker 2: it your everything all the time.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's a different era twenty years ago, but the
Speaker 1: record is done, the record is released. From your perspective,
Speaker 1: did it just take off or did they say let's
Speaker 1: see if it happens, or did they put you on
Speaker 1: the road. What happened.
Speaker 2: In my mind now, it all felt pretty fast, but
Speaker 2: It was a tumultuous time for sure. Like it was
Speaker 2: like there was big success that felt fat. It was
Speaker 2: fast radio stations like Seattle I think was like the
Speaker 2: first one that picked it up. And then it was
Speaker 2: like ky rock and it just spread and it was
Speaker 2: this thing where it was charting, and I had a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of conflicting feelings going on at
Speaker 2: the same time, excitement and all that, of course, also exhaustion.
Speaker 2: We were touring way hard and in between, you know,
Speaker 2: starting to do the awards show stuff and everything all
Speaker 2: this like that stuff like it was all it was
Speaker 2: kind of all at once, and at the same time
Speaker 2: I was worried. I remember what it was bringing to
Speaker 2: life was our first song and there was a guest
Speaker 2: vocal on it. I was really really worried about that.
Speaker 2: That wasn't what I wanted. And I was concerned that
Speaker 2: people wouldn't understand our sound. But they was think there
Speaker 2: was two singers in the band, and how are we
Speaker 2: going to overcome this like this this thing that we
Speaker 2: had to do, you know. And Paul, by the way,
Speaker 2: was wonderful. I really love Paul. He did everything to
Speaker 2: just come into the stshure. We go okay, like I'll
Speaker 2: do this and and nailed it, and then at the
Speaker 2: same time I'm struggling with like it was that wasn't
Speaker 2: my original vision and are people gonna I don't know,
Speaker 2: but you know, only a few months later, which felt
Speaker 2: like a million years in the moment, Going Under happened
Speaker 2: and it was really successful too, and then my mortal
Speaker 2: and I was just it was this relief that people
Speaker 2: understood who we were. At the same time, my brother
Speaker 2: was sick at home having brain surgery that year, and
Speaker 2: it just it was just a time where there was
Speaker 2: a lot of emotion in me and a lot of
Speaker 2: me feeling like I needed to present strong, and inside
Speaker 2: I felt like I didn't have a lot of control
Speaker 2: over anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, you do have this great success out of the
Speaker 1: box you've been working. You know, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: cliches here. You've been working on your first album for years. Second,
Speaker 1: you have success. Now what you have to follow it up?
Speaker 3: Exactly?
Speaker 2: How do I? How do I start that one?
Speaker 1: What do you? You know? What do you even do?
Speaker 1: Are you on the road saying, fuck, I gotta write
Speaker 1: songs or when the tour is over, I'll write songs
Speaker 1: and yeah, I gotta have songs as good as a
Speaker 1: previous album.
Speaker 2: I wanted all of that, but writing on the road
Speaker 2: wasn't possible for me. That was way too hard at
Speaker 2: the time. I'm able to come up with ideas better
Speaker 2: now I have a little portable rig and I'm comfortable
Speaker 2: with multitasking. It's like I can only think about one.
Speaker 2: Those are two opposite sides of my personality. There's the
Speaker 2: you know, the creative introvert who's you know, writing songs
Speaker 2: and only thinking about like the inside. And then there's
Speaker 2: this extrovert side that I have to be this showman
Speaker 2: and doing interviews and standing on stage and telling the
Speaker 2: crowd to rally and all those things. So for me,
Speaker 2: it was like I could only do one. So we
Speaker 2: toured fall In for a really good amount of time,
Speaker 2: like when all over the world. It was exhausting by
Speaker 2: the time I got home and I was tired, but
Speaker 2: I had it definitely in my heart that I was
Speaker 2: dying to prove myself and I knew, you know, what
Speaker 2: it meant, and it was like, well, this is survival
Speaker 2: or not, and I have to show like what is
Speaker 2: me and what my worth is because you know, even
Speaker 2: the people around me don't know. And I have to
Speaker 2: give some credit to Terry Balsamo, who became our guitar
Speaker 2: player in the middle of that Fallen tour. He's from
Speaker 2: a band Cold, and I remember at the time like
Speaker 2: he was struggling in his situation with his band, and
Speaker 2: when I don't know, when things hit the fan, it
Speaker 2: was like, Hey, you want to be in a band
Speaker 2: with me? You want to come like fill in. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll fill in, And then we ended up really connecting
Speaker 2: musically on a lot of things. He sort of it
Speaker 2: was kind of like I made him love and appreciate
Speaker 2: you York, and he made me love and appreciate Pantera
Speaker 2: and the Deaf Tones. So it was like this nice
Speaker 2: like mashup of like opposite worlds that was really beautiful.
Speaker 3: And he's a great musician.
Speaker 2: So we spent a bunch of time after the end
Speaker 2: of tour at my place in California, just the two
Speaker 2: of us writing the second record. He stayed with me
Speaker 2: for weeks at a time and we would just be creative,
Speaker 2: hang out, night, swim, go, get drunk, all that stuff,
Speaker 2: and it was just a really it was an important
Speaker 2: time for me to feel like and and he was
Speaker 2: honestly just extremely supportive of me and uplifting me about
Speaker 2: my ideas. It wasn't that he was always going, yeah
Speaker 2: that's not heavy enough, or yeah that could be cooler
Speaker 2: if we did this. He really listened to me and
Speaker 2: followed me and respected me. Even though I feel like
Speaker 2: it was it was something that was different. We had
Speaker 2: different talents. It's hard to explain, but I got very,
Speaker 2: very lucky meeting him at the right time, and we
Speaker 2: made that album and worked on the next one together
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, you referenced this earlier, but let's go a little
Speaker 1: deeper into the five years between the second and third albums.
Speaker 1: M So you said earlier you got to a point
Speaker 1: where you said, I don't know if I'm even gonna
Speaker 1: do this anymore. I mean, was this exhaustion anger or
Speaker 1: like I did it, I want to take a break?
Speaker 1: What was it?
Speaker 2: There was a lot of things. I was struggling with
Speaker 2: the label. I was also struggling with management. I had
Speaker 2: to go through a couple of lawsuits. There was just
Speaker 2: a mess. There was a mess behind the scenes, and
Speaker 2: it was stuck in all the fun out of it
Speaker 2: for me, Like every time I had a cool idea.
Speaker 2: I feel like it was being not appreciated shot down,
Speaker 2: Like I just you have I have learned the incredible
Speaker 2: difference of surrounding yourself with people who truly like believe
Speaker 2: in you. I didn't have that for a while, and
Speaker 2: when we got to the end of touring the second one,
Speaker 2: there was a mess and I just it just didn't
Speaker 2: want to spend my life arguing and fighting for everything.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to make great music, you know, and
Speaker 2: it's just not It wasn't that simple. So I definitely
Speaker 2: spend some time like in court and like cleaning up messes,
Speaker 2: like behind the scenes. And also like Terry had a
Speaker 2: stroke and it was really difficult. It had become really
Speaker 2: difficult for him to play and tour. So it was
Speaker 2: like I lost that thing that it helped me, you know.
Speaker 2: So there was just it felt at the time like
Speaker 2: there was a lot against me. And I was also
Speaker 2: kind of having an identity crisis about what it was
Speaker 2: and what it looked like. And I could see elements
Speaker 2: of like it's like the picture on the fall and cover,
Speaker 2: it was like a cartoon of myself.
Speaker 3: It's like that's a character that's not me.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a caricature. It's it's not the whole me,
Speaker 2: and people don't understand like that there's a lot more
Speaker 2: to this than that. And I was still, I don't know,
Speaker 2: at a place in my life where that was that
Speaker 2: was difficult.
Speaker 3: I want everybody to know me all the way.
Speaker 2: I know that people can't know me all the way,
Speaker 2: but like as an artist, I think there's something in
Speaker 2: there that's like we're striving. We want to be known
Speaker 2: like as openly as possible. That's what feels good is
Speaker 2: feeling that that connection with people. And I kind of
Speaker 2: had to just like not make that kind of music
Speaker 2: for a while. I did some solo stuff, I made
Speaker 2: music by myself in my house. I don't know, I
Speaker 2: just I had to get back to a place where eventually,
Speaker 2: like my heart showed me that it was still I mean,
Speaker 2: it was what I wanted naturally, I wanted it really bad.
Speaker 2: By the time we made more music together, and it
Speaker 2: was just like come over to my house, let's make
Speaker 2: music at the house, and everybody come over. I don't know,
Speaker 2: do it however?
Speaker 1: Make it happen so exist when you start going to therapy.
Speaker 2: No, I have been to therapy, But I started a long,
Speaker 2: long time before that. It was definitely before the album,
Speaker 2: before the first album ever came out.
Speaker 1: Okay, So before the first album came out, like right before,
Speaker 1: years before.
Speaker 2: No, like right before, like like during during that process.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what stimulated going to therapy?
Speaker 2: Stuff in my personal life current but also uh just
Speaker 2: past past trauma, dealing with you know, grief and how
Speaker 2: that manifests in the present.
Speaker 1: Well, there good therapist and bad therapist. How do you
Speaker 1: find a therapist?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I haven't actually, I haven't been to therapy in a
Speaker 2: really long time.
Speaker 1: So did it help you at the time?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did, absolutely. I needed to be fair, I
Speaker 2: needed a woman to talk you and it just wasn't
Speaker 2: something I had.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's a lot of money generated when you have
Speaker 1: this level of success in music. It all doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: come back to the artist, and even the money that
Speaker 1: comes back to the artist can be very delayed. Lawsuits
Speaker 1: are very expensive. So how did it work with the money?
Speaker 1: Did you see the money and say, oh, I want
Speaker 1: to go out and buy X or did the money
Speaker 1: never really come through? You know, there's successful acts. I'm
Speaker 1: both into the spectrum wait.
Speaker 2: Are you talking about in the beginning, Like how long
Speaker 2: did it take to see money? No?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And did you get the money you thought you deserve them?
Speaker 1: Did you spend it or what'd you do with it?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Well that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's a long answer. I don't It
Speaker 2: took a while, yes, to come in for sure. And
Speaker 2: you always have to chase it. They're not going to
Speaker 2: just pay you. You're gonna have to audit every time.
Speaker 2: And you know, when you don't have the money to
Speaker 2: begin with, you know's that's where artists get taken advantage
Speaker 2: of so much. Because I feel like Fallen and the
Speaker 2: success of Fallen gave me the luxury of being able
Speaker 2: to when I can't get what I want, When I
Speaker 2: can't get the advance or whatever, I can't get the
Speaker 2: label to sign on, I'll be like, Okay, fine, I'll
Speaker 2: spend my own money.
Speaker 3: I'll do it myself.
Speaker 2: And I still operate that way when thinks if I
Speaker 2: need to do something and I want to do something,
Speaker 2: I just do it I can. That has really been
Speaker 2: an incredible gift and I but that said, I'm not
Speaker 2: a person who spends a lot of money on shit
Speaker 2: for myself and I'm a person that spends money on
Speaker 2: our band. I really do spend I have always invested
Speaker 2: back into the thing that made it in the first place.
Speaker 2: So when we made our second record, I remember we
Speaker 2: went to the record plant in La and I was like,
Speaker 2: money's no object. We're staying here and we're gonna write
Speaker 2: in the studio and we're not going to feel that
Speaker 2: pressure of time like we did last time. We're gonna
Speaker 2: make all the choices that feel good and take time
Speaker 2: to really listen back and just make this great. And
Speaker 2: that was a great process. I feel like I probably
Speaker 2: spent more on that album than any of them, just
Speaker 2: because it's like I was just like learning, like I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, how long were you in it? How much did
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 2: We were in the studio for over a million dollars.
Speaker 2: We were in the studio for I don't know record plants.
Speaker 2: I want to say six months. Long time.
Speaker 3: It was awesome.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're there that long. The label's not happy if
Speaker 1: forget them, forget the money. The label only wants another
Speaker 1: record immediately. Yeah, So you second guessing yourself? Are you saying, no,
Speaker 1: I know exactly what I'm doing. It's taking the time it's.
Speaker 2: Taking, I was saying, fuck the man, and I made
Speaker 2: you that money, so don't tell me what to do.
Speaker 2: And at the time, I think that whatever they were feeling,
Speaker 2: they did know that they were gonna make it back
Speaker 2: just through fallen royalties anyway. So sure they don't like it,
Speaker 2: but I was definitely that was my rebellious teens moment.
Speaker 1: And to what degree are you as student of the game.
Speaker 1: Your first album comes out in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: The recording landscape is completely different today. You know, you
Speaker 1: were like at the tail end of music television, the
Speaker 1: power of terrestrial rio. Something goes, it goes big. Nothing
Speaker 1: is that big anymore. Nothing absolutely okay. And in addition,
Speaker 1: unless you have something a certain track, the odds of
Speaker 1: making a lot of money streaming or not high. Right,
Speaker 1: So where do you sit on all this?
Speaker 2: I just feel like you if you have to open
Speaker 2: your mind about how you're making your money, Like we
Speaker 2: just spent you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars on
Speaker 2: a music video game like that doesn't make money.
Speaker 3: Used to get.
Speaker 2: Paid in like like like streams, like every time MTV
Speaker 2: would play it, you get something it's like radio play.
Speaker 2: And now you literally just put it up for free
Speaker 2: on YouTube. You have to recognize that when you when
Speaker 2: you invest in your band, in your brand, in whatever
Speaker 2: it is, and show them what it's worth, then it's
Speaker 2: gonna come. I have found that it comes back to
Speaker 2: you in other ways, whether it's that whether or not
Speaker 2: that's you know, a commercial, like a placement somebody wanted,
Speaker 2: Oh cool, I saw that, that was awesome, Let's use
Speaker 2: you for this, or come write a song for my
Speaker 2: this or that, and or most importantly, I would say,
Speaker 2: is touring, like how you make it this awesome event,
Speaker 2: this thing that people want to experience. Then you can
Speaker 2: go play shows you know, and have a big audience
Speaker 2: and there's plenty of money. It's still to be made
Speaker 2: on the touring side, for sure, and that takes work,
Speaker 2: and that takes leaving your family and all of those things.
Speaker 2: So you definitely have to be willing to put the
Speaker 2: work in. But I have a great band, and playing
Speaker 2: live is also really really fun, So I mean knowing
Speaker 2: that we're gonna go out there and have a good
Speaker 2: time is different the old cliches.
Speaker 1: You're on stage one hour day, they're paying you for
Speaker 1: the other twenty three hours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you gotta make it fun.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of I to make it fun.
Speaker 2: I make it fun like I like, we're gonna go
Speaker 2: on a booz peruise. I already booked it. Let's go
Speaker 2: required everybody come, like if we have a day off,
Speaker 2: like I'm gonna put us, you know, in Paris, not
Speaker 2: in whatever random talent you can't pronounce, if I can,
Speaker 2: if I can.
Speaker 3: You can't always make that happen.
Speaker 2: Of course, there's boring days, you know what, when we're
Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere in Utah, like at a
Speaker 2: I don't know what hotel name to use, but something
Speaker 2: not great.
Speaker 3: We barbecue in the parking lot.
Speaker 2: We're friends with our crew, like we have a lot
Speaker 2: of our crew that have been that are our close
Speaker 2: friends that we've been with for years doing this together.
Speaker 3: You have to make it your family like.
Speaker 2: You have to make it fun so that you don't
Speaker 2: feel like you're just wasting your time twenty three like
Speaker 2: you said, however, long out of the day you're not
Speaker 2: actually doing your job. I don't want to live a
Speaker 2: life where I'm just like sitting in my hotel room
Speaker 2: not talking to anybody, And would it be better for
Speaker 2: my voice if I did, yeah, probably, but like what
Speaker 2: about your soul? You know, so if you're gonna especially
Speaker 2: if you're going to be in it for the long haul,
Speaker 2: like surround yourself with people that don't that love you
Speaker 2: for who you are, not your money, and with people
Speaker 2: that you want to spend time with and be around
Speaker 2: and hang out. Like I there are nights when I'd
Speaker 2: absolutely have to stay in and be good and be quiet,
Speaker 2: But other nights, I'm I need to hang out for
Speaker 2: my heart.
Speaker 3: I think, actually, I think that's really important.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's say you're in a legendary place Paris, Rome,
Speaker 1: whether New York in Chicago. Are you someone say I
Speaker 1: am here. I have to get it out of the
Speaker 1: hotel room. I have to go to this museum or
Speaker 1: eat at this restaurant. I mean, I know, if you've
Speaker 1: been around the world and told me I have seen nothing, Okay,
Speaker 1: I like it.
Speaker 3: I like to go see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like to get out and I I you know,
Speaker 2: it's not always a big group thing, like I like
Speaker 2: to just go wander. It's hard to think ahead on
Speaker 2: stuff like dinner reservations like I like to you know,
Speaker 2: we get to a place and we've got the afternoon No,
Speaker 2: I don't want to stay in my hotel room usually
Speaker 2: the whole time. I'll just go take a walk, I said,
Speaker 2: I lived in New York for a long time. I'm
Speaker 2: comfortable of being in a city by myself, with my
Speaker 2: hair back and the glasses on. But I like to go,
Speaker 2: like just experience the world, like go go, pretend you
Speaker 2: live there for a minute. I actually find that really fascinating.
Speaker 2: I find other languages fascinating and other culture is fascinating.
Speaker 2: And it's been a real gift to get to travel
Speaker 2: the world. I honestly, we all feel that way. It's
Speaker 2: it feels good to get out and see something outside
Speaker 2: yourself inspiring.
Speaker 1: Where's the coolest place you've been? Mmm? Ah?
Speaker 2: Man, picking one place?
Speaker 1: Oh, you could pick two.
Speaker 2: That's impossible. I mean I mentioned Paris, but I love Paris.
Speaker 2: I love London too. Ah, how do I do that?
Speaker 2: We we've had a lot of fun in South America.
Speaker 1: Well, I was gonna say, for me, if they don't
Speaker 1: speak English, the more exotic, Like I went to Bogata, Man,
Speaker 1: it was so vivid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we went. We went like ziplining in Costa Rica
Speaker 2: one time. I'll never forget. That was so fun.
Speaker 3: It was so high up, like way above the trees.
Speaker 2: And speaking of Beth, she scared heights and she didn't
Speaker 2: really realize what we were doing until we were up
Speaker 2: there and there was no way down but zip lanning.
Speaker 2: She was discarded for life, like it's completely terrified. I
Speaker 2: was loving it, but also feeling sorry for her.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're in a band, you give it all on stage,
Speaker 1: there's all this love that comes. Then you're with the
Speaker 1: same people you've known for years. It's very hard to
Speaker 1: calm down. How do you deal with sleep when you're
Speaker 1: on the road.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's hard. Sleep is definitely one of the top
Speaker 2: two most important ingredients for having a good voice the
Speaker 2: next day. I know that's going to sound like an
Speaker 2: old lady thing to say, but taking magnesium before bed
Speaker 2: is actually really helpful. I only discovered that in like
Speaker 2: the past five years, and it's it really does something
Speaker 2: for me. I don't have a big answer. It is hard.
Speaker 1: You said, it's a problem. We're in this timeline. Do
Speaker 1: you meet your husban, Well, that's funny.
Speaker 2: A long time ago. I met him around that time,
Speaker 2: like when we were either I don't know if we
Speaker 2: were signed yet and working on it or we were
Speaker 2: about to be in Arkansas, where I'm not really from there.
Speaker 2: We moved around a lot as a family, like my
Speaker 2: dad's radio job took us all over the place. But
Speaker 2: we moved to Arkansas when I was thirteen, and Josh's
Speaker 2: dad was like a superintendent at the school and they
Speaker 2: moved around all the time too. So for this one
Speaker 2: period in both of our lives, we were in the
Speaker 2: same town at the same place, I mean the same
Speaker 2: town at the same time, and we met through a friend.
Speaker 2: Like the friend was actually in the band at the time,
Speaker 2: and it was his like college buddy, and it was
Speaker 2: just one of those things where we didn't know each
Speaker 2: other well, but I liked him and the timing wasn't
Speaker 2: right and actually browed me to life about him. It's
Speaker 2: pretty storied. I don't know how much longer we have.
Speaker 1: We got enough time to tell just a couple of
Speaker 1: these stories. But okay, you meet him at this you know,
Speaker 1: when the stars aligned and you meet him, but then
Speaker 1: you both go your separate ways. How does it end
Speaker 1: up becoming a romance?
Speaker 2: He pursued me and I, well, I should say this
Speaker 2: part like when we were first hanging out, like it
Speaker 2: was one of those things where he came around and
Speaker 2: then he'd be gone for a year because he was
Speaker 2: in college somewhere else, and he came back and I'd say, oh, yeah, hey,
Speaker 2: I remember you.
Speaker 3: Cool, he'd be gone for a while, and when we.
Speaker 2: One of those times, it just I was in an
Speaker 2: abusive relationship and it wasn't anything that I talked about
Speaker 2: with anybody on earth. It was absolutely my private thing.
Speaker 2: And we went to go grab a table at a
Speaker 2: restaurant while the other guys parked the car, and he
Speaker 2: we really didn't know each other very well, and he
Speaker 2: just looked at me and the eyes across the table
Speaker 2: and was like, so are you happy? And it just
Speaker 2: sent this like shock wave down into my heart and
Speaker 2: my heart started beating fast, and I just felt like
Speaker 2: he knew something.
Speaker 3: And I don't think he really did.
Speaker 2: I think he was just being nice and he was
Speaker 2: you know, he's a mental health counselor, so he's just
Speaker 2: talking to me, but I don't know. I just sort
Speaker 2: of malfunctioned it didn't give him a great answer, and
Speaker 2: stalled until people came in. But it stuck with me,
Speaker 2: and it made me kind of realize my own feelings
Speaker 2: about how I wasn't and then I just started writing
Speaker 2: the beginning of every Redy to Life, how can you
Speaker 2: see into my eyes? Like open doors like and all
Speaker 2: of that, and then he was gone again. You know.
Speaker 3: It was just like this person in the back of
Speaker 3: my mind and he was in another.
Speaker 2: Relationship and I was in a relationship, and yeah, he
Speaker 2: just he just kept calling me, like a year later, like.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm in town.
Speaker 2: I'm like, how did this guy get my number? Like
Speaker 2: I didn't even save your number, Like, please don't call
Speaker 2: me because I knew I liked him. And it was
Speaker 2: always like I'm not gonna I don't I don't have
Speaker 2: an energy for this. I can't deal with this person,
Speaker 2: like I don't I don't want to see you because
Speaker 2: I like you.
Speaker 3: And he's like, hey, I'm leaving town. You know, we're
Speaker 3: gonna see.
Speaker 2: Me, and we hooked up and it was just forever.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, fine, just finally gave in. But
Speaker 2: like before all that, like I remember telling him and
Speaker 2: like a mic drop ridiculous, very juvenile kind of way
Speaker 2: that I wrote Bring Me to Life about him, right
Speaker 2: before it came out, was like we were going it
Speaker 2: was during that pre pro time in La and we
Speaker 2: were going to go pick up like taco bell or
Speaker 2: something for everybody, Baha Fresh probably, and we come back
Speaker 2: and it was like okay, thanks bye, you know, when
Speaker 2: he was leaving town again, and I grabbed the stuff
Speaker 2: and like I was halfway out the door and I
Speaker 2: just dropped it on him. I was like, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: because Bring Me Life was going to be the single,
Speaker 2: was the one that all the focus from the label
Speaker 2: and everything we were doing was all about bring Me
Speaker 2: to Life. And I was like, listen, I just I
Speaker 2: just feel like I should tell you, like I just
Speaker 2: wanted you to know I wrote me to I mean,
Speaker 2: like I don't feel this way now, but I did
Speaker 2: write bring Me to Life about that one time in
Speaker 2: the restaurant when you asked me if I was happy,
Speaker 2: and I just want you to know that. But I
Speaker 2: got out of the car and closed the door before
Speaker 2: he could say anything, and I was reversy in his
Speaker 2: face in the window, like like looking like searching for
Speaker 2: words to say something, and couldn't think of anything to say.
Speaker 2: And then time went by again and I didn't see
Speaker 2: him for like another six months or something. This is
Speaker 2: really weird and then finally he called me and it
Speaker 2: was just like like I told you before, Like the
Speaker 2: timing was finally like, okay, I give in. So we've
Speaker 2: been married for eighteen years.
Speaker 1: Okay. When he then called you, you have some success
Speaker 1: at that point, right, So at what point does it
Speaker 1: become a one on one thing and what point do
Speaker 1: you get married?
Speaker 2: It was a one on one thing. As soon as
Speaker 2: I saw him that time. He reached out like it
Speaker 2: was right at the end of like another relationship, and
Speaker 2: I was still just like I was still in the
Speaker 2: sadness of the breakup. That's why I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not ready for this.
Speaker 3: But you know, we.
Speaker 2: Saw each other and it was literally like that night,
Speaker 2: it was like, dude, I'd like you a lot. I
Speaker 2: don't know. It was kind of instant, but it was
Speaker 2: different because like with him, it was never like that
Speaker 2: about the famous part that wasn't yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you say, now you're going and disappearing for
Speaker 1: all this time. Yeah, so how does does it sustain
Speaker 1: and then continue and then lead to marriage.
Speaker 2: Well, when we got together, that's when I moved to
Speaker 2: New York. He was in New York and we were
Speaker 2: talking about how we could be around each other.
Speaker 1: And move to New York because he was New York.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and I did. So that was that was
Speaker 2: after falling. But at this point, it was when I
Speaker 2: was writing for the Open Door and he was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'll come to La I can move there.
Speaker 2: I I'll do it, you know whatever. And I was like,
Speaker 2: please don't. I don't want to be here. I'm tired
Speaker 2: of this down I had visited him before. I was like,
Speaker 2: I'd rather come to you. Like everything that I'm doing
Speaker 2: I can probably do from anywhere. Like, I don't have
Speaker 2: to be here. I was here before, you know, because
Speaker 2: we were trying to make it, but we made it now,
Speaker 2: Like I think I can probably live wherever I want.
Speaker 2: So I moved to New York and really fell in
Speaker 2: love with New York. You know I was. I was
Speaker 2: falling in love with him. It was kind of all
Speaker 2: wrapped up. I miss it very much.
Speaker 1: Okay, what does he do all day?
Speaker 2: Well, at this point, he spends most of his time
Speaker 2: making it, making this possible, and taking care of her baby.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how long after that moment when you say
Speaker 1: that leave the car do you get married?
Speaker 3: We dated for a year and a half.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we got married in seven relatively soon.
Speaker 1: How did you decide to have a child, or maybe
Speaker 1: you didn't decide.
Speaker 2: We always knew that we wanted that, but we actually
Speaker 2: we waited. So we hung out and had a nice
Speaker 2: time for seven years before going there.
Speaker 3: And it was fun.
Speaker 2: But like we all, we always knew that we wanted
Speaker 2: a child if that was going to be possible for us,
Speaker 2: and there was nothing but excitement and happiness when that
Speaker 2: finally happened. We waited for a while though, we were like,
Speaker 2: come on, let's go, let's be kids before we have
Speaker 2: the kid.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to Arkansas. I grew up in the northeast.
Speaker 1: We're very judgmental Arkansas in our minds. Ultimately, Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: came from Arkansas. But explain Arkansas to me.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I before Arkansas, I was, uh, we
Speaker 2: were living in Rockford, Illinois, and I was, yeah it
Speaker 2: was I thought Rockford was cool and I was just yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: and I was.
Speaker 3: And my dad worked at the cool station that year,
Speaker 3: like he was at.
Speaker 2: Like, uh, the pop rock actually playing Cats in the
Speaker 2: Cradle and stuff like that. Really funny like talking point later,
Speaker 2: but moving to Arkansas was like devastating to me, Like
Speaker 2: I absolutely hated the idea was so cringe, and also
Speaker 2: I didn't know anybody. Just like happing to start over
Speaker 2: when you're kind of starting to become a teenager is the.
Speaker 3: Most horrible, just horrible feeling. I did not want to go.
Speaker 2: So yes, I I tend to agree with your feeling
Speaker 2: on that going into it, But I mean that as
Speaker 2: kind of paid off because there was nothing to do
Speaker 2: and I didn't have any friends at first, you know,
Speaker 2: and I was just like the new weird kid and
Speaker 2: like you know, thirty, so felt like everything about myself
Speaker 2: was stupid and awkward and embarrassing. And I just leaned
Speaker 2: way into like the poetry and the music, and you know,
Speaker 2: found my awesome piano teacher, Missus Twombly and choir, got
Speaker 2: really really into choir and not art nerds and stuff.
Speaker 2: So yeah, being an Arkansas meant that you have to
Speaker 2: make your own fun and starting a band and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. It all really came out of Like it
Speaker 2: wasn't like there was so much stuff to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've lived in New York. Time keeps marching on
Speaker 1: the internet, cable TV, every It's not the same like
Speaker 1: it used to be. But give me your take on Arkansas.
Speaker 2: Well, I love going back there now to visit my parents.
Speaker 2: They settled there and they'd live kind of in the
Speaker 2: woods and it's really peaceful. And you know, obviously by
Speaker 2: now too, I have so many memories there.
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you decide to move from New York
Speaker 1: to Nashville.
Speaker 2: Well, after my brother passed away, my family, so to
Speaker 2: drive there from here is like five hours. And actually
Speaker 2: it's just one of those things, like I love New
Speaker 2: York so much, like just.
Speaker 3: It's hard to sum.
Speaker 1: Up, but it's a hard place to live.
Speaker 3: It can be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, some days it kicks your ass, but there's
Speaker 2: always something going on, Like there's inspiration everywhere. And I
Speaker 2: never felt lonely, Like it's hard to explain. And I
Speaker 2: also having grown up like being in Arkansas, Like as
Speaker 2: a teenager, I always felt weird. I always felt like
Speaker 2: the weird one. You don't feel like that in New York.
Speaker 2: I never felt like that. I always felt like I
Speaker 2: was exactly in just a world with a whole lot
Speaker 2: of other people, and everybody was different, and nobody was
Speaker 2: looking at me for wearing weird. Giant fuzzy shoes or
Speaker 2: whatever stupid thing having black hair. So I felt like
Speaker 2: a real sense of belonging to New York, like I
Speaker 2: didn't feel anywhere else.
Speaker 3: But after my brother passed away.
Speaker 2: It was like all that magic, all the inspiration and
Speaker 2: all those things about New York that I loved so
Speaker 2: much just didn't seem as important as being together with
Speaker 2: my family and being close to them. Just felt like
Speaker 2: time was passing and was precious and going home, you know,
Speaker 2: to Arkansas from New York is it's a hassle. You're
Speaker 2: taking two flights. You know, you stay for your chunk
Speaker 2: of time and then you go home. It's not kind
Speaker 2: of like you can pop over anytime. And I guess
Speaker 2: it's not really like that here either, but it is
Speaker 2: more like we could just get in the car. So
Speaker 2: I just I was just done. I just I just
Speaker 2: wanted to be close to my family really bad right then.
Speaker 2: That was the real reason. And also, you know, we
Speaker 2: found a place here where the studio like is in
Speaker 2: the it's separated from the house, like it's in the back,
Speaker 2: like it's like the pool house or whatever.
Speaker 3: And in New.
Speaker 2: York once, you know, when it was just us, it
Speaker 2: was one thing, but once there's like a baby sleeping,
Speaker 2: I can't like sing late at night and do my
Speaker 2: thing like I really need to and feel like nobody
Speaker 2: can hear me or it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: It was it was harder.
Speaker 2: So the idea of moving to a place where I
Speaker 2: could have my like studio structure and scream at the
Speaker 2: top of my lungs at three in the morning and
Speaker 2: sound like shit and not feel like anybody's judging me
Speaker 2: or anything, I just completely alone. Was It really has
Speaker 2: been an incredible thing to feel the space here. So
Speaker 2: both of those reasons, mainly I want to be close
Speaker 2: to family, but also it's cool to have a space
Speaker 2: like this. And it was lucky too because pandemic hit
Speaker 2: right after we moved.
Speaker 1: Nashville is not the only place closed to little rock
Speaker 1: and Nasha is a big music city, that's.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, And we actually we've been rehearsing here. We've
Speaker 2: we've rehearded. This has been our spot to get together
Speaker 2: and work and record and rehearse for a long time.
Speaker 2: And we're spread out all over the country at this point.
Speaker 2: I've got one in California, to in Florida, one in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: and now I'm here, so our stuff's here.
Speaker 3: I run down to.
Speaker 2: Our rehearsal space all the time and like grab a keyboard,
Speaker 2: come back here and go, Like I get to leave
Speaker 2: two days later for tour.
Speaker 1: It's the best, Okay, But Nashville used to be country
Speaker 1: people twenty years ago, people in La studio, musicians, other people.
Speaker 1: They all moved to Nashville.
Speaker 4: Then everybody moved to Nashville. So now are you Amy
Speaker 4: Lee in your house and it's Nashville. It could be Knoxville,
Speaker 4: it could be you know, Chattanooga, or are you intersecting.
Speaker 1: With what's going on in Nashville.
Speaker 2: Uh? Well, I have a lot of friends here, like
Speaker 2: like more than half of our Brooklyn community moved here
Speaker 2: before we did, Like we were some of those music once.
Speaker 2: We're not music people, ah friends, Yeah, most of them
Speaker 2: are music people. We've got some really close I don't
Speaker 2: know if you know their bands. We have some close
Speaker 2: friends that are the Lone Bellow. They're really good Zach Williams,
Speaker 2: and we've been friends with them forever. They were one
Speaker 2: of like our close family friends. We've got another music
Speaker 2: industry family friends that were very close with that moved
Speaker 2: here first. So and Beth live's here also, so it's
Speaker 2: like we already have like a community of friends there.
Speaker 2: That was the other thing that made it safe. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we didn't just pick a random town. It was kind
Speaker 2: of what was given to us. Like, look, this is
Speaker 2: where your people are. Just go be with your people,
Speaker 2: because that's really the truth. Home is where your heart is, Like,
Speaker 2: that's where your family is.
Speaker 1: Uh okay, pulling back as we said earlier, the landscape
Speaker 1: is changed. You can shoot somebody in the morning, it's
Speaker 1: not in the news the next day. Do you say
Speaker 1: I'm an artist, I just create and do what I want.
Speaker 1: Or are you psychologically managing your career all the time?
Speaker 1: Are you saying, well, you know, I haven't been in
Speaker 1: the public sphere, or I need to come back. They're
Speaker 1: going to forget me. What's your attitude about the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I don't think about that side of it too much,
Speaker 2: Like what do I want want to present? What I
Speaker 2: want to project? As far as like staying in it
Speaker 2: and striking while all the iron so hot, I've kind
Speaker 2: of broken all those rules enough to where I don't
Speaker 2: care about it anymore. I have found in my own
Speaker 2: experience that I can disappear for a few years and
Speaker 2: come back when I have something great to say and
Speaker 2: if the music's good enough that people will show up
Speaker 2: for it. We have really cool fans and they a
Speaker 2: lot of them have really just been around. And I
Speaker 2: will say too, like artists that I love and I
Speaker 2: have been really inspired by my life, a lot of
Speaker 2: them do that. They don't put out an album every
Speaker 2: year like one of my top bands, as Porta said,
Speaker 2: they have only made a handful of albums and each
Speaker 2: one is so good and special to me and worth
Speaker 2: the wait. And I never stopped being a fan or
Speaker 2: loving them in all those years that they weren't around,
Speaker 2: Like I just I've found out the good news. One
Speaker 2: day they were coming out with the new album and
Speaker 2: I went and picked it up. So I feel like
Speaker 2: I don't care about that part of it obviously. The
Speaker 2: thing about that now that is in my heart is
Speaker 2: about life and how long is my life? And you know,
Speaker 2: like that thought of like how long do I really
Speaker 2: have where.
Speaker 3: We can keep doing this?
Speaker 2: And it is very life giving to me in this time,
Speaker 2: like it is giving me life.
Speaker 3: I feel happy.
Speaker 2: I feel like when I'm working on something, that's when
Speaker 2: I feel the best. I really do, like I can't
Speaker 2: just sit around and do nothing. I feel like this
Speaker 2: I'm good at. This is what I was born to do.
Speaker 2: It gives me joy, it gives other people joy. I
Speaker 2: want to do it. So now there's an urgency for
Speaker 2: me that isn't really about my career what I want
Speaker 2: to do. I've done that. I feel pretty satisfied honestly
Speaker 2: with what we've done. But it's coming from a place
Speaker 2: of I guess just it's existential. It's like, I don't
Speaker 2: know how long we have and I love doing it
Speaker 2: and I want joy in my life, and let's go.
Speaker 2: Let's hurry up because who knows what comes tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's well put. But you've had amazing success.
Speaker 1: Is there any holy grail or something beyond this that
Speaker 1: you want to achieve or is it more like you said,
Speaker 1: with the extential thing, I just want to produce.
Speaker 2: It'd be cool to win another Grammy with my band now,
Speaker 2: like the band that we've become, not the kids that
Speaker 2: were just starting out and everything has changed since then.
Speaker 2: Just scraping the surface. That would be cool. I would
Speaker 2: love that for us. It also be cool to go
Speaker 2: on SNL. I don't know why I've never done that.
Speaker 2: But like I can't say, I honestly can't tell you
Speaker 2: that I'm like striving and driving towards winning any award.
Speaker 2: Like that's not really what I'm not trying to sound cool,
Speaker 2: that's not really why I'm in it. There's a satisfaction
Speaker 2: that's just a lot bigger than that. But that would
Speaker 2: be cool. I would love that.
Speaker 1: Okay, Amy, thanks so much for being honest, forth right,
Speaker 1: and open, very verbal. I know you can turn it
Speaker 1: on when there are people there and other times you
Speaker 1: have to be in your own mind. But in any event,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much for taking this
Speaker 1: time with my audience.
Speaker 3: Thank you for taking the time.
Speaker 2: I've been your fan for quite a while and was
Speaker 2: excited when I heard that you wanted to talk to me.
Speaker 3: So thanks for taking the time.
Speaker 1: I was excited wanted to talk to me in any
Speaker 1: of them until next time. This is Bob left sets