Evanescence return but it’s Amy who’s calling the shots    ·    September 12th, 2006

Bitchy enough without actually calling anyone out. That’s how Amy Lee coyly describes her new song, Call Me When You’re Sober.

But to many fans it’s obvious that the lyrics refer to the singer’s relationship with Seether’s Shaun Morgan.

But Amy dodges an outright naming of names. She says: “I’ve never been an alcoholic but I’ve been in a relationship with one and relationships that I sing about aren’t always about romantic relationships - it’s just people who’ve affected me and have been close to me and have been in my life.

“I haven’t been saying specifically a name because I don’t want to be hurtful to anyone. I think the song’s pretty self-explanatory and obvious. I guess I wrote it that way so I wouldn’t have to say.”

She adds, laughing: “I think the song is bitchy enough without me actually calling him out on it.”

The Goth Rock queen is back with a vastly changed band but still with the epic rock that saw the Evanescence’s major label debut Fallen sell 1.2 million copies in the UK and 14 million copies worldwide.

They also scored a UK number one with Bring Me To Life which featured on the Ben Affleck film Daredevil and stayed at the top of the British charts for a month in 2003.

Guitarist Ben, who founded Evanescence with Amy when they met at a youth camp in Arkansas in 1994, is replaced by Terry Balsamo.

The band’s bassist William Boyd has also left to be replaced last month by Tim McCord, former guitarist with Revolution Smile who switches to play bass.

That means that the line-up is Amy, Terry, Tim, Rocky Gray on drums and John LeCompt on guitar.

Amy admits: “I’ve gained a lot of control. Ben isn’t in the band and that’s part of it. That’s most of it.”

So is she still in touch with him?

“No. That’s definitely over. I think that’s part of my growing up thing, that I realised you can’t stay friends sometimes.

“With some people you actually have to have them not in your life in order to be healthy, in order to function the way you need to. You can’t always keep going in relationships. That’s important and true and real and I’m sure it’s real for him too.”

But Amy claims it wasn’t Ben and William leaving that took up so much time from Fallen to the new album The Open Door, which is out on October 2.

The band toured for a year and a half, finishing up in October 2004 with Terry and Amy starting to write.

She said: “I moved to New York in March but back then I was in my house in LA with Terry, writing all the time. Sometimes I wouldn’t leave for three days.

“That’s kind of weird and unhealthy.

“And the reason the writing took so long is because I wasn’t going to release something until it was worthy, until it was awesome.

“But this time I felt more free to do whatever writing-wise, so I took my time and made it pretty good.

“But now that the record is finished I can finally take a deep breath and let it go. I feel so proud of it and happy with it that the hard part of it feels like it’s over.”

Amy is also in a relationship with an old friend that she’s known since she was a teenager and who is now a therapist.

She says: “We were just friends who met a long time ago. There was always chemistry there but it needed to be the right time.”

Call Me When You’re Sober can be downloaded this week and is out on CD on September 25. Their album, The Open Door, is out on October 2.

The Daily Record