When Evanescence took time off, I bought a big concert harp and started taking lessons like I was in high school again, which was really, really fun. I felt like I was learning again. – Amy Lee
I am Evanescence. I am the only original member. I have basically hired the band. Evanescence has become me. It is mine and it’s exactly how I want it to be. – Amy Lee
I design a lot of things that I wear onstage, but I’m always looking for unique stuff. I like creative things, so anything I can find at a secondhand costume shop to a Helmut Lang store, it doesn’t matter – just unique stuff. – Amy Lee
Music is therapy for me. It’s my outlet for every negative thing I’ve ever been through. It lets me turn something bad into something beautiful. – Amy Lee
I love the creative process. That’s always been the closest thing to my heart, creating something. – Amy Lee
I feel like for me the lyric writing really comes from just what’s going on in my heart and that’s what consumes me; think a lot of our heart is relationships. Not just with boyfriend or girlfriend but all your relationships in your life with other people and our interactions with other humans. – Amy Lee
I really do listen to all types of music, not only rock, but everything from good pop music – which is usually older pop music – to R&B and indie rock. I love indie rock more than a lot of the commercial stuff that you’d expect. – Amy Lee
The first real concert, other than going with my dad to see Three Dog Night, was Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage. I was fourteen or fifteen. I liked Shirley Manson because she reminded me of Annie Lennox. They both have these deep, sexy, powerful alto voices. – Amy Lee
The way that I’ve always gone about making music, the rule of thumb, has just been to make what I love. – Amy Lee
There are people hell-bent on the idea that we’re a Christian band in disguise, and that we have some secret message. We have no spiritual affiliation with this music. It’s simply about life experience. – Amy Lee
I love sushi. But after too much of it, it just starts to taste like a dead animal that hasn’t been cooked. – Amy Lee
I love contrast in music. Being inspired by classical, actually – in high school especially – classical and metal both, I remember having this cool realization that they are really similar. It’s just different instrumentation. – Amy Lee
I never really did abandon my true self. It’s not like I invented this imaginary person and started to be her. – Amy Lee
‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ is my number one biggest influence artistically in every way. – Amy Lee
I’ve always been a very passionate, sometimes overly emotional person. Sometimes things affect me more than they should. – Amy Lee
Like now what Urban Outfitters has become is very much how I always dressed in high school by going to garage sales and getting stuff for 50 cents. Cost a little more now, to look like crap. – Amy Lee
I write by myself initially. That’s the way I’ve always written, just working on pure thought by myself. Then I bring it to the table with whoever I’m collaborating with. – Amy Lee
Whether it’s a relationship or what you’re wearing, or how much you weigh and what you said when you didn’t mean it, like – it’s hard to be totally under the microscope. – Amy Lee
