Former EVANESCENCE Guitarist Talks THE FALLEN

On June 16, Los Angeles Times spoke with former EVANESCENCE guitarist/songwriter Ben Moody about his new project, THE FALLEN, also featuring "American Idol" runner-up Carly Smithson and Moody's fellow ex-EVANESCENCE bandmates John LeCompt (guitar) and Rocky Gray (drums). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Los Angeles Times: Tell us the story of how this came together.

Ben Moody: To be completely truthful, this began in 2003. There was a point in time before I left EVANESCENCE when Rocky and John and I sat down and said, this thing is going in a different direction, and we all love the music that we make together and we all contemplated doing it with someone else. But the timing wasn't right and it wasn't something I was willing to rush in to, but something needed to change so I left. And then as time went on, their stint with EVANESCENCE ran its course. We've all been doing our own thing, but it just felt the time was right so I reached out to them and to my long time friend Marty O'Brien who's playing bass with me ever since I left EVANESCENCE. And I said, how do you feel about doing this, about looking for someone to complete our family and to finish this thing? It feels like everything with our old fans is at a standstill. There's not new music, there's no tour. There's nothing. So I reached out and everyone was just ready to get started. There wasn't even a "let me think about it." It was, "Yes, when do we start?" So we began looking for our soulmate, which we were scared was going to take a long long time. But my roommate Monique and Carly are very good friends. And Carly had been over at the house quite a bit, but I wasn't there, because I'd been out looking for a singer. Which is funny because we've been at this for so long.

Los Angeles Times: How is it different from working with Amy, who was your high school friend??

Ben Moody: We started the first version of EVANESCENCE when she was 13 and I was 14.??

Los Angeles Times: How is it different starting a band with someone you meet as a fully formed adult??

Ben Moody: It's completely different, and its weird. Its actually better. I cant explain it. You think it would be hard to try and do something like this again, but I think that's why it took five years before this plan was put into effect. Because something was just aligned and everything was right. Doing this over with adults, people you meet now, people you meet post an experience like "American Idol" or EVANESCENCE, everything is so much less uncertain and everything is so much more — it seems poetic. She had, you know, record deals in the past and she's had the "American Idol" thing. And we had EVANESCENCE and EVANESCENCE went bad. And so now everything is so much more appreciated. Everybody is so much more respectful of each other. And everyone is so much more aware of how much more we need each other.

Los Angeles Times: How is THE FALLEN different from EVANESCENCE?

Ben Moody: It's different in the fact that this is a real band. It was never set up that way in the past. This band is one hundred percent democracy. Everyone is equal. Everyone brings their own crap to the table. And what also is different is that I believe it's better. The music is more exciting. It's got more intensity behind it.?? This is bringing more energy than EVANESCENCE could ever muster. And I mean EVANESCENCE in its best day. We're older. We're better. We're tighter. The music is louder. The music is heavier. This is just better.

Los Angeles Times: You've referred to the theatrical elements. What are you planning there?

Ben Moody: I don't want to give too much away. We don't want to be an arena rock band just for the sake of being arena rock. We're going to start in theaters. And we want to put on an amazing theater show. And when and if it grows to other places, other avenues, we want to add as much as we can from what we see in our head. Trust me, it will be something you have to see two or three times to take it all in. Did I say two or three? I meant eight or nine.

Los Angeles Times: What are your album plans?

Ben Moody: We're not going to do an album because we don't want to have that long period of time away from playing and away from fans. We're going to release a couple of songs roughly every eight weeks for the next year and a half. We're going to be doing it all digital and then at the end of the year we're going to compile all the songs. We're going to do special versions, we're going to do live stuff. We're going to do bonus tracks and a huge picture booklet of the entire year and at the end of the time we'll make a super CD for just the hardcore fans.

Read the entire interview from Los Angeles Times.

Photo credit: Douglas Sonders

Carly Smithson performing EVANESCENCE's "Bring Me To Life":