muchmusic.com interviews amy lee    ·    September 27th, 2006

MuchMusic.com: I gather that there’s a theme of control for you right now, like YOU are in control! That’s obviously affected your album, but how has it affected your day to day life?

Amy: Well, I’m kind of going through this thing now where it’s all about the album, so it doesn’t feel like there’s much of a difference to me in my everyday life. I am the leader. I’m doing tons of work right now. I don’t do all the press by myself, on this little trip I’m the only one who came up because the guys are just chilling and practicing by themselves for a couple of days. But, you know, we make it a team effort. I think that’s an important part of being a leader, including everyone.

MuchMusic.com: There’s a lot of talk about expectations for this album – it’s your sophomore album, you can expect that. But what’s your biggest expectation?

Amy: I feel like my expectations were going to be for the outcome of the music. That’s already done, so I feel completely accomplished! I had tons of huge expectations for myself. I wanted to do things bigger and better and more emotional and more personal and more intimate than anything I’ve ever done. I wanted to do something better than “Fallen”. I don’t think that’s hard. To try to top record sales is stupid and impossible because if you’re trying to be an artist and your only goal is money, then you’re never going to come up with a good piece of art. I was really just concentrating on music and all the things I wanted to try, and all the ways I wanted to branch out and incorporate different sounds into our music and different instruments, and more personal lyrics. To me, I really feel that I’ve accomplished everything I wanted to, and I feel satisfied. What everyone else expects, I don’t know! We’ll see. I’m sure that they can’t possibly expect what’s coming.

MuchMusic.com: The imagery for this album is beautiful. Do you have input on that like you do with your clothes?

Amy: I actually designed the album cover. I drew the door, and there’s this waterfall – I’m gonna put it online, I keep meaning to do it but I’ve been so busy. But, I drew it and I showed it to my manager who showed it to the label and was like, this is my vision for the album, she’s walking out the open door and I want to call it “The Open Door”. And when I showed up to the photoshoot, I thought we were just going to find a big door but they’d actually recreated and drawn a full scale picture of the door I had drawn! Which was really awesome! I love it. I’m very involved with the art and the videos and clothing and everything else.

MuchMusic.com: Is there a movie that inspires you visually?

Amy: Yeah! Definitely, there’s a few. “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, “Edward Scissorhands”, “Sleepy Hollow” – all the Tim Burton movies. Those are the biggest ones, all the Tim Burton stuff.

MuchMusic.com: You seem really open about talking about anything. Is that who you are as a person?

Amy: Yeah, pretty much. I think I’m a little bit better, older and wiser about who’s just out to take advantage of me and I don’t share so much with those people. But yeah, my life’s pretty much an open book. I feel like it’s just natural, especially in the art more than anything, to just say anything and everything. The more I get out of my system, the better I feel.

MuchMusic.com: Are you open to adventure?

Amy: (intrigued) Like what?

MuchMusic.com: Ummm, like bungee jumping?

Amy: I’m scared to bungee jump! But Terry and I really wanted to do the cage dive with the sharks, like really bad, on the side of a boat. Now Tim, our new bass player, is totally like, adventure guy and he wants me to skydive. I’m NOT skydiving! But I still think it might be cool to do the shark thing. I’m scared, but I think I might do it. I’m a certified diver, I can handle it!