NEW YORK (Wind-Up Records) - Earns VMA Nomination For "
My Immortal" And Deepens Its Impact With Fourth Single And Video "
Everybody's Fool"
* Vast critical praise for their electrifying live shows on their in-progress headlining North American arena tour
* A recently announced MTV Video
Music Award nomination in the "Best Rock Video" category for "
My Immortal"
* The ongoing success of their 12-million worldwide seller FALLEN (Wind-up Entertainment) and its current fourth single "
Everybody's Fool"
For EVANESCENCE, 2004 is every bit as sizzling as the band's blockbuster year in 2003, when they earned an array of awards, including two Grammys for Best New Artist and Best Hard Rock Performance ("Bring Me to Life").
Critics are continuing to take note of EVANESCENCE--singer, songwriter and pianist Amy Lee, bassist William Boyd, drummer Rocky Gray, and guitarists John LeCompt and Terry Balsamo - and their evolution as an intense live act.
Writing in the Toronto Globe & Mail (7/20/04), Alan Niester commented: "In a world of sound-alike mediocrities and cookie-cutter hopefuls, Evanescence stands apart. This is predominantly due to the presence of its megastar in waiting, Amy Lee herself...the gothic-looking Lee is one of the strongest female vocalists to come along in many years, a powerful and emotive singer who is equally at home singing plaintive piano ballads or soaring arena-rock epics..."
Elsewhere, the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Jon Bream recently observed that frontwoman AMY "...raises hard rock to new musical heights...She made agony sound angelic. Pain has never sounded as pretty as it did on 'My Immortal,' Lee's grand piano opus. The break in her grand, quivering voice...made the pain of longing for her ex-lover so real" (7/14/04).
Notably, EVANESCENCE is the only female-fronted band nominated for an MTV VMA in the "Best Rock Video" category, with AMY standing out among her male contenders - The Darkness, Hoobastank, Jet and Linkin Park - in the band's video for the global smash "My Immortal."
In 2003, EVANESCENCE was nominated for two VMA's with the hit "Bring Me To Life" ("Best Rock Video," "Best New Artist").
EVANESCENCE's FALLEN - released in March 2003 on Wind-Up Records - peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, selling more than 5.6 million copies in the United States alone. The album has spawned the hits "Bring Me to Life" (No 1 in several countries), "Going Under," "My Immortal" and the current single "Everybody's Fool," which opens with Lee singing: "Perfect by nature, icons of self-indulgence/Just what we all need/ More lies about a world/That never was and never will be." LEE dramatizes her lyrical sentiment in the song's poignant video.
The honest and forthright LEE has been vocal in media interviews (in Blender and USA Today) about prevailing cultural trends that debase women. Here are some of her quotes:
"Is it possible to strip and not be compromised as an artist? As a woman? Everything you say is upstaged by the fact that everyone is checking out your ass." BLENDER, April 2004
"There are a lot of girls who come up and go, 'Thank you for just being a girl and not just selling your body.'" USA TODAY, May 9, 2003
In a recent interview with Jim Abbott in the ORLANDO SENTINEL (7/23/04), LEE says "Everybody's Fool" is "about a lot of people in this industry. It's so fake, the whole Hollywood thing. 'Look how perfect I am!' Nobody looks like that. It's all fake and it's really hurting a lot of girls' and women's self images. Where are all the normal people?"
