For this weeks throwback we visit June 14, 2003, When Kerrang! ran an in‑depth feature on Amy Lee—then just 21—fresh off the seismic success of Evanescence’s debut album Fallen. Shot at London’s Metropolitan Hotel on June 5, the spread opens with a striking portrait and Lee’s own words: “People hear our music and want to do things for us. They have a passion for it.”
Amy and co‑founder Ben Moody both hail from Little Rock, Arkansas—a state of barely a million people with no prior tradition of chart‑topping rock acts. Kerrang! leans into that contrast with a tongue‑in‑cheek rundown of odd Arkansas laws (no car‑horn tooting after 9 PM, sandwich‑shop fines for female teachers with bobs, etc.), underscoring how removed they once were from the world’s spotlight.
By spring 2003, Fallen had already climbed to #3 on the UK Indie chart and #4 on the US Billboard chart, with over 100,000 copies sold in the UK and more than a million in the US. It was “Bring Me To Life” that truly broke the band—Wind‑Up Records convinced conservative FM stations to play it “in the middle of the night,” MTV picked up the lavish video, and listeners flooded radio lines “for the next half hour” demanding to know who these newcomers were.
The interview offers glimpses of the June 2003 lineup—Amy on vocals and keyboards, Ben Moody and John LeCompt on guitars, Rocky Gray on drums, and Will Boyd on bass—and highlights the creative spark between Lee’s focused precision and Moody’s playful wit. Lee appears “paralysingly thin” in a red Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, her skin described as the “colour of coffee‑notepaper,” yet her intensity and sincerity shine through every answer.
Looking back from 2025, it’s remarkable to see how Amy’s early intentions played out. Fallen went multi‑platinum, sold‑out tours followed, and Evanescence’s sound evolved—but that core commitment to honesty and artistry, first captured in Kerrang!’s June 2003 issue, has never wavered. For long‑time fans, revisiting this feature is more than nostalgia; it’s a reminder of why we fell in love with Amy Lee’s voice—and why we still do, two decades later.
Note: see below for the rest of the images —
