With their latest video, Evanescence have finally done what most artists do with their first.
“It’s mostly live performance,” singer Amy Lee said recently on the set of their “Sweet Sacrifice” video. “It’s not so much fluff and flying and tricks and wolves and stuff. It’s more really just about the song, and that is unique for us. We usually do crazy stuff.”
The video does have a “cool twist,” which Lee refused to reveal, but it will mainly feature the band performing on a set inspired by 2000’s psychotherapist thriller “The Cell.” “Like we’re in the walls of our minds, sort of,” Lee said.
Paul Brown, who has directed videos for Audioslave and Matisyahu, helmed the project, which will feature scenes of the live footage projected onto a wall.
“It’s gonna be sort of like a video within the video,” Lee said. “Since the song is our heaviest single, we really wanted to focus on mostly performance but still have something about it that’s really unique. And I think [Paul] really hit the nail on the head.”
The only connection to the other videos for 2006’s The Open Door — for “Call Me When You’re Sober” (see “Evanescence’s Amy Lee Isn’t Afraid Of Big Bad Wolf In ‘Sober’ Clip”) and “Lithium” (see “After Facing Big Bad Wolf, Amy Lee Faces Herself In Evanescence Clip “) — is that Lee’s wearing a big dress in them, she joked. “But is that really an Evanescence thing?” she pondered.
“Sweet Sacrifice,” the first track on the album, has been a favorite of Lee’s since she first demoed it, although it never stood out as an obvious single.
“I think it’s very strong and empowering and sort of saying goodbye to all the times in my life that I’ve been a victim,” Lee said. “I just think it’s heavy.”
Evanescence just hit the road for a short U.S. jaunt that will last until April 5 in Glens Falls, New York (see “Evanescence Announce Dates For Spring North American Tour”). That trek will be followed by tours of South America, South Africa, Europe and then the States again.
Along with The Open Door singles, Lee says she’s enjoyed performing the album track “Your Star” in concert. “It has crazy, difficult, classical piano, so it’s fun for me ’cause it’s challenging in a different way,” she said.
In between shows, Lee did manage to see a recent episode of “American Idol” in which Gina Glocksen earned rave reviews for performing “Sober.”
“I never watch TV, but a friend of mine TiVo’d it and then had me watch it just for fun one night,” Lee said. “It’s such a surreal thing watching other people perform your songs in the first place, but people that you don’t even know on TV doing ‘American Idol’ and Paula Abdul commenting on it is just a whole other thing. It was pretty hilarious, just ’cause it’s our song, but I don’t think she did a bad job.”