Ex-EVANESCENCE Guitarist JEN MAJURA Says 'A Combination Of A Lot Of Things' Led To Her Decision To 'Step Away' From Music Industry

In a new interview with Brazil's Ibagenscast, former EVANESCENCE guitarist Jen Majura discussed her recent announcement that she was "step[ping] away" from the music industry, at least temporarily, so that she could focus on doing "healthier and better things" with her life. Asked how she came to the decision to "retire" from the touring lifestyle, Jen said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "First of all, that thought didn't come into my mind overnight — absolutely not. I've been thinking about this even before [the] corona[virus pandemic].

"Imagine I've been doing this since I was 17 years old. I just turned 42 this year," she continued. "The thing is life is constantly changing, and I don't have any problems with that. People are changing. It's fine. That's life. But the more and more I've been doing this, and this defines touring, constantly being on the road, even having a barkeeper in an airport lounge calling you by your name because you're there all the time, it's like you are traveling too much, you're doing this too much. And countless nights spent on airports, on planes, dealing with jet lags and being exhausted. And sure, playing the shows is a great reward, but all that is an equilibrium that comes with the fact that I sacrificed my private life for all my entire life. I never had a private life. I always put my work first.

"For example, ever since I [put out] this retirement statement on, I believe, June 10th, I've been traveling," Jen added. "I've been going to Croatia to see my friend Alen. I've been traveling to Prague with my friend Tony from New York. I've been enjoying traveling, which is something that I've hardly been doing. Of course, it was great. If you are on tour in Tokyo or Sydney and you get to experience the local culture and the food and everything, it's amazing and you love it, but it's exhausting. And I, for the first time, told myself, 'I'm gonna go on a vacation to see my friends, not stay at a hotel room, but stay at my friends' place.' For example, in Croatia. And I didn't have any feeling of guilt. I never allowed myself to do that. I've always been thinking, 'No, if I block like two weeks in a year, what if the big call, what if the big job? I can't do that.' So I never allowed myself to go on a vacation. I always thought, 'Hey, you play' — I don't know — '70000 Tons Of Metal [cruise]. Cool. Let's stay two more days in Miami.' And that's your vacation. That was my understanding of vacation and resting your mind and breathing. And I can tell you, man, it feels pretty damn good to be on vacation. [Laughs] And I just enjoyed life, which is something that I, in that particular way, never allowed myself to. And that is a big point.

"Another big point as well is — same like [Canadian singer, songwriter and producer] Devin Townsend. Devin reached out to me when I posted that retirement [announcement]. A lot of friends and people reached out — Devin, Billy Sheehan and Alex Skolnick, a lot of friends reached out — and Devin reached out and said, 'Yeah, man, I hope you find what you're looking for.' And the more I heard about his reasons from live retiring, well, I understood because my parents are not getting younger. And they finally moved into my area in Germany. We've been living six hours apart by car for the past 20 years. And I finally have them here in my little hobbit town, and I don't wanna spend three months in the states.

"It's a combination of a lot of things," Jen clarified. "A.I.-related developments. Press, do not tell me I quit because of A.I. It's A.I.-related developments. You have to hear all the words [laughs], and social change, to finish the sentence. All of that, if I just compare to how my drive and my view of music and musicians — and I call it the scene, not the business, has been when I started out as a teenager compared to now, it's just very different. And I just said 'no' to playing the hamster wheel circus game. It's like the less you wear, the more clicks and likes you get. And whenever I see something like that — not mentioning any names, but somebody simulating a blowjob while using a talk box to cover a song where, who knows if she played, and gets millions of likes, I'm out. I'm sorry. It should be about talent, passion, ideas, creativity, music. It [should] not be about superficial crap like that."

Majura went on to say: "The more I saw things like that — it's all about the makeup, it's all about the less clothes you wear, it's all about the sexier you look, it's all about like faking. Dude, I got sick over the years with that, and I realized with my own behavior, the less others were dressed, the more I put on kind of like the Billie Eilish style, like, 'Okay, I'm wearing baggy jeans and a triple oversized hoodie then.' I don't give a shit, because I find it so hard for people to look at the actual value and worth of a post, which is the music and the creation and the feeling, instead of the look. The look is gonna be gone in a couple of years for anybody who takes advantage of it that right now. And I've always been thinking like that, but it got harder and harder for me to make that clear, because there was a certain point in time where social media likes meant more than talent to companies, labels. And that was pretty much the point in my head where I said, 'I don't wanna be part of this anymore.' I have to, like, what? Eat canned corn for a week and then shit a poop into the toilet, film it and post it and get millions of likes? I don't wanna make an idiot out of myself just for generating likes to get the interest of people to listen to my creation. And I just definitely said, I don't wanna do that anymore. And that is the main part, and that is literally what I also mean with A.I.-related developments and social change. And on top of that, like I said, my parents. And I've been doing this for 25 years. So all of that, in combination, is the reason why I wanna step away from touring. I didn't say I quit music, I burn all my guitars, I sell all my studio equipment… No, absolutely not. And I'm not falling off planet Earth. I'm not dying. But my mind and my soul need a rest — a rest from the pressure of what people expect me to be like, of what people expect me to write, compose, release. I don't wanna do this anymore, and I don't wanna be in this position where no matter what you post or present or whatever, you're always judged. It's like, I don't wanna be in the spotlight anymore. I wanna step away. Maybe I'll become a tour manager. Or — I don't know, something in the background… I mean, if you look at my history of jobs, I started out as a stagehand, a local stagehand, moved on to guitar tech. I've been doing merchandise on European tours. I've been doing tour management. And then, for the seven years of what it was, I was — I hate that term — the rock star… So it's a different world, and I'm stepping away from all of that to just enjoy a little bit of a settled-down moment in my life, which I think I deserve."

When Jen first announced her decision to "step away" from the music industry on June 10, she took to her social media to write: "Dear friends, I'm gonna make this as brief as I can: After careful consideration, observing what's going on in the music industry, AI related developments and change in society I've come to the conclusion to step away.

"Some of you have heard me talk about this quite a while ago. Instead of wasting another year of my life constantly hoping for new energy, drive and creativity, I've reached a point in my life where I can confidentially lean back in peace. While time allowed me, I was able to collect an amazing amount of beautiful experiences, tours, shows, travels and moments! I am grateful for every bit of that, but the world has changed. I can confidently make up my mind to stop.

"I am not saying that I will never create any music again, whether recorded or live — but for now I feel there are healthier and better things to fill my life with good vibes and not deal with the overwhelming amount of ridiculousness that comes with the music industry nowadays. I just can't identify with today's attitude and values anymore.

"I wholeheartedly want to wish all the ambitious and remaining 'creators', young and old, all the best. With time, the meaning will become clearer."

The now-42-year-old guitarist's departure from EVANESCENCE was announced in May 2022 via social media.

"It has been a very special chapter in the band with our dear friend Jen Majura, but we have decided it's time to go our separate ways," EVANESCENCE said in a statement at the time. "We will always love her and support her, and can't wait to see what she does next! We are so grateful for the good times and great music we made all around the world together."

Jen spoke about her split with EVANESCENCE during a December 2022 interview with IbagensCast. Asked what the first seven months after her exit had been like for her, Majura said: "I'm tired. I am very, very tired because there are many opinions and there's a lot of judgment out there. It got to a point where no matter what I posted, people had opinions about that. And it seems ridiculous to me, but if I would say honestly how I feel — I'm hurt; it's hard; of course I'm not feeling great — people would go, like, 'Oh, you're playing the victim.' So, I'm, like, 'Okay. All right then.' So I said, 'Actually, I'm doing okay. I'm all right.' And then, of course, people would go, like, 'She never gave a shit about the band.' And it got to a point where I'm, like, 'You know what? I could post about my blueberry yogurt, and you would still find a way to connect this to what happened.

"I must say I turned very quiet on social media, because I just wanted to avoid all that white noise, all that blabbering, all these opinions — I was just tired of that," Jen continued. "And also, at the same time, when you break up with an ex-partner — that's the easiest example; you break up with your partner — the last thing on planet earth is that you wanna see that ex-partner on social media moving on. It's, like, 'No. I don't wanna see that.' I needed time to digest the whole thing. And like I said, I think the first few months I was just very busy with convincing everybody that I was doing okay when I honestly wasn't; I was not okay. And when everything you say in public is being judged… And honestly, I can only imagine how [Prince] Harry and Meghan [Markle] feel [laughs] — people with real problems, in terms of paparazzi. Who am I? I'm just a little nobody. Why do people talk about me? I think there's way more important things that the humankind should talk about, like climate change and what's going on in this nonsense war [in Ukraine] — real issues that people should discuss and find solutions for — instead of me. So I just realized that apparently this is a topic and people like to talk about it, but I don't necessarily need to be a part of that. So I turned very quiet on social media. And the more I distanced myself from that whole thing, the more I'm, like… I'm gonna say this right now, 'cause it's horrible, but I'm gonna say it anyway… The more I felt grossed out by the humankind.

"So altogether, I have not been good," Majura added. "I'm okay, but I'm far away from being good… When life throws shit at you, honestly… I mean, take a look at the whole scenario. In the beginning of 2020, I lost my dear-hearted relationship. That was followed by two years of isolation and lockdowns and the whole pandemic situation. Great! And then finally things get back to kind of 'normal-ish', and then May happens. So I can't really say that my past few, couple of years have been great."

Jen previously spoke about her split with EVANESCENCE in June 2022 during an appearance on THE HAUNTED guitarist Ola Englund's YouTube show "Coffee With Ola". At the time, she said that she was still "hurt" by the move and compared the situation to a divorce.

"I believe, honestly, it's three weeks now since I got the news, and I'm still in this blurry, oblivious momentum," she said. "I guess I'm still in shock, kind of, because after being married six years, all of a sudden you're divorced.

"You know me, I always try to find the positive in a situation, so every day, step by step — I'm not doing great yet — but every day I find little tiny things that I'm, like, 'Oh, actually, this is good.'"

Asked how she found out that her services were no longer needed in EVANESCENCE, Jen said: "Honestly, I was cleaning my apartment, and I got the phone call. And first of all, I was, like, 'Is this a bad joke?' And I remember, after I got the news, I hung up, and I have this hallway in between my studio and my living room, and I just lay there on the floor, staring at the ceiling, wondering what that was, and literally looking over to my suitcase that I had already started packing, because I was two weeks from going out on the road until pretty much the end of the year."

Majura, a self-described "half-Asian living in Germany," joined EVANESCENCE in August 2015 as the replacement for Terry Balsamo.

Shortly after she landed the gig, Majura spoke to EMP Rock Invasion about how she came to connect with EVANESCENCE. She said: "My name was somehow recommended by a sweet friend of mine, Alex Skolnick of TESTAMENT, and Dave Eggar — he's also known as a very good cellist, and he's a musician working in New York. And all of a sudden, there was this e-mail popping up: 'Are you interested in joining…?' And I was, like, 'What the fuck?' So I stopped breathing until my face turned kind of blue. And then afterwards, I was, like, 'Okay, I've gotta read it again.' Three days later, I found myself suddenly on an airplane, flying over to New York to meet Amy Lee. And we had some very, very cool talks. She's an awesome person. She's a very, very great musician. And so I found myself suddenly inside of his empire called EVANESCENCE."

Regarding the fact that she didn't even have to "audition" for EVANESCENCE, Jen said: "Yeah. To be honest, I was kind of concerned. I told [Amy], 'Do you want me to bring my guitar?' And, 'Would you like me to audition?' And she was totally, like: 'Nah, I know you can play. I've seen plenty of videos of you. And I know your live experience and you're touring the world, so… No, just come over and let's have some food and talk.' Yeah, and that's it. So, actually, what I was surprised by very, very much was that she actually had another guitar player on her list, and that was the guitar player of Alice Cooper [Nita Strauss]. And she's now with Alice Cooper and I'm now with EVANESCENCE. This is, like… I still can't believe it."

In 2019, Lee said she was happy to have Majura in the band. "She has added a lot to our live shows because she's a singer," Amy explained. "It has been a really awesome thing to have live background vocals for the first time. I am such a fan of layered vocals, and to have that better represented at our show has been a cool breakthrough for me. And also, she's just rad energy. She's got a great attitude, fun personality, very engaging, killer onstage, so she has been a fun addition to our family. And of course, it's awesome having another girl in the band for the first time."

Majura has released two solo albums thus far, 2014's "Jen Majura" and 2017's "InZENity".

EVANESCENCE's current lineup, featuring Emma Anzai of SICK PUPPIES on bass and EVANESCENCE's longtime bassist Tim McCord on guitar, made its live debut in June 2022 in Athens, Greece.

Photo credit: P.R. Brown