EVANESCENCE Guitarist: 'We Are A Team Or Otherwise It Would Fall To Pieces'

MusicPix.net recently conducted an interview with EVANESCENCE guitarist John LeCompt. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

MusicPix: A number of bands have highly successful debut albums and then fail in an effort to match its success or simply lack the talent. How did you handle the pressure?

John: We didn't look at it as pressure. I totally agree with you… A lot of bands try to match what they've done and that's what we didn't do. It's not about trying to match an anomaly… something that was so big…you could have never called it. We didn't know the record ("Fallen") was going to sell 14 million records. You never know what's going to happen. The freedom that the first record afforded us was to write a record that we enjoy and the time to do it instead of trying to regurgitate the same thing or strike while the iron is hot…or hurry up to just to get it out. We have more faith in our fans than that.

MusicPix: EVANESCENCE has gone through a lot as individuals and as a band in the past couple of years… a new manager, lineup changes, and Terry Balsamo's stroke. You've been with the band since 2002 and your work traces back to "Origin" before the success of "Fallen". Where did you find yourself during all the drama ...smack dab in the middle or on the sidelines?

John: I'm kind of on the sidelines of stuff. Amy's [Lee, vocals] management — that's between her and her management. Of course, we're always by her side to support her. We agree that management is management and not a part of the band. Whatever she's got to do to get through all of that legal stuff. As far as Terry, we're all right there with him. We want to help him out and try to take up the slack in such a way so that Terry doesn't feel like he's getting his toes stepped on in any way because he's made a miraculous recovery. He's still not fully up to par with some paralysis in his hand. But we're doing everything we can to make him feel just as much a part of this band. He wrote a lot of this record and I'd never want to take that away from him. It's a beautiful thing. . We are a team or otherwise it would fall to pieces.

MusicPix: You're credited on "Fallen" for "Taking Over Me" and contributed "All That I'm Living For" on "The Open Door". How does it work? Do you simply bring in lyrics and some tracks for ideas or are the songs fully baked?

John: I had a lot of material that went into a big pot with a lot of material. Every band had the entire life to write their first record but you've only got a couple years to write the next one. So there was a lot of material that went into "Fallen" and I contributed a lot to it even though I didn't get credit on it, but I pitched in. When Ben [Moody] was in the band, people would bring in the music or full songs and we'd dissect it….a kind of a lonely way of doing it…with people doing individual things and then we'd throw it together in the computer and see what happens. With this one, ("The Open Door") we collaborated at Amy's house for a bit and wrote a lot of things there. "All That I'm Living For", I wrote that at my house. I didn't write it for EVANESCENCE. I just wrote it for me. But she called me up and asked if I had any more stuff and I said I've got a piece of music that I really like. I don't know if you're going to like it but we'll see… So I overnighted it to her and within a couple of hours, she had already written the chorus. It didn't have a bridge at that point and then I went out to L.A. to the studio. I had actually written the bridge before I went out there, so everything was pretty much done before I got to the studio.

Read the entire interview at MusicPix.net.