Amy Lee

Alongside her awards and nominations with Evanescence, Lee's other accolades include: the Songwriter Icon Award from the National Music Publishers Association in 2008, Best Vocalist at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards and Rock Goddess of the Year at Loudwire Music Awards in 2012, Best Film Score by the Moondance International Film Festival for Indigo Grey: The Passage in 2015, and the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Song in Independent Film for "Speak to Me" in 2017. Lee was named one of the top 100 greatest women in music by VH1 in 2012. Lee is the American chairperson for the international epilepsy awareness foundation Out of the Shadows, and was honored with United Cerebral Palsy's Luella Bennack Award for her work.

Early life and musical start[edit]

Amy Lee was born on December 13, 1981, in Riverside, California,^[2] to parents John Lee, who worked as a disc jockey and voice-over artist, and Sara Cargill.^[3][4] The oldest of five siblings, she has two living sisters.^[5] Lee had a younger sister who died at age three from an unidentified illness when Lee was six years old,^[6][7] and a younger brother who died in 2018 at age 24 after struggling with severe epilepsy for most of his life.^[8][7] Lee said that when her little sister died, her "whole perception of life changed",^[6][9] and it influenced her rumination on death.^[10] She wrote the songs "Hello" from Fallen and "Like You" from The Open Door for her late sister.^[11] After her sister's death, Lee became an only child and did not allow herself "a lot of outward grief" to protect her parents's emotions. She spent time by herself creating, which became a self-soothing medium.^[12][13][14]


Lee discovered a passion for the piano in early childhood,^[5][15] wanting to play the instrument at age six after hearing her mother play.^[13] Classical music was her first musical influence as a child, inspiring her to become a musician and composer.^[16][15][17] She was first inspired by Mozart when she watched the 1984 film Amadeus at eight years old.^[18][19][15] Beethoven was another early classical inspiration, as well as Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer's film scores.^{[16][20][21][22]} She wanted to take piano lessons, and studied classical piano for nine years.^[23][24][15] Lee considers the Lacrimosa movement of Mozart's Requiem her favorite piece of music, and wove it into The Open Door song "Lacrymosa".^[18]


Lee began writing poetry about eternity and loneliness at age 10.^[9][25] Her mother had expressed concern about her writing, suggesting she see a therapist. Lee thought about taking antidepressants at the time but chose not to as she felt it would take her "soul away" and she "wouldn't be able to feel anything."^[9][26] One of the first songs she remembered writing was an instrumental piece called "Eternity of the Remorse", writing the sheet music when she was 11. Her first song with lyrics was called "A Single Tear", which she wrote for an eighth-grade assignment, recording it on a cassette tape and playing guitar while her friend from choir did backup vocals.^[27]


During her pre-teen years, Lee's family moved to many places, including West Palm Beach, Florida, and Rockford, Illinois, eventually settling in Little Rock, Arkansas.^[28][29][30] When her family moved to Little Rock, Lee had a lot of pent-up "negativity".^[27][9] In Little Rock, she attended Pulaski Academy, a private college preparatory school, starting in junior high.^[31] She described the school as a "weird fit" for her, where she was a loner for a while, and experienced bullying for dressing differently, which she would later embrace during high school.^[33] Lee found solace in writing, and joining the school choir helped her slowly gain confidence in her voice.^[27][34] She was in the alto section of her choir.^[35] Lee was initially insecure as a singer, and only used singing as a vehicle for her writing.^[34][16] A self-described "choir nerd",^[36] she became president of her high school's choir, and wrote a choir piece called "Listen to the Rain", which the choir teacher liked and asked her to direct. The piece was performed by the choir in graduation.^[37]


Originally wanting to focus on classical or film score composing, Lee's plan changed as her "tastes got darker".^[16] In late childhood and throughout her teens, she listened to a variety of musical styles, including alternative music, grunge, hard rock, industrial music, death metal, groove metal, and electronica artists like Bjork and Portishead.^[41] Lee's earliest memory of wanting to fuse various musical genres, especially contrasting styles, was when she was training in classical piano and noticed that a "real shreddy" section of a composition from Baroque composer Bach resembled heavy metal. She found "so many similarities to be drawn, almost more so the further out you go on both sides".^[43]


Lee's extra-curricular activities involved working on music, playing music with others from school, and freelance painting.^[47] She spent most of her free time making music at her house late at night.^[46][48] By age 13, Lee was inspired to form her own band,^[49] her musical vision for it being a fusion of her diverse musical tastes including cinematic and classical music, alternative, metal, and electronic music.^{[21][16][12][50]} In 1994, she met budding guitarist Ben Moody when she was 13 at a Christian youth camp; when others in the camp were playing sports, she played piano and he played acoustic guitar and she thought they could play music together.^[52] Lee thinks what drew them together at the time was that they "didn't fit in that well" and were "out of [their] element in this silly camp environment."^[53][54]