You Goth to have faith

By REBECCA BARRY

People either love or hate Evanescence - they're the big riff metal band supposedly bringing gothic rock back to the charts. Yet unlike Marilyn Manson, whose angst comes with a generous serving of irony, the sinister-sounding hit Bring Me to Life shows they take themselves pretty seriously.

They're not the only ones. In just four months the Arkansas band have sold more than two million copies of their debut release, Fallen, and are now figuring high in the New Zealand charts.

But like that title and the name of the band (which means a sudden vanishing), Evanescence represent a host of contradictions.

"I really love such soft but powerful vocals over such heavy music," says guitarist Ben Moody, who reckons they sound like no one else.

There's a sartorial dichotomy going on too - fans have taken to dressing like pale-skinned singer Amy Lee, teaming black corsets with fairy-style skirts.

It's an odd juxtaposition given the duo are openly Christian.

"Yeah, we have goth influences but they don't really contradict any of our religious beliefs," says Moody. "There's a whole lifestyle that goes with goth that we're not even a part of. A lot of people in America - true gothic people - would just be angered if we were called goth, you know what I mean?"

That hasn't made it easy to market the band.

While their faith is often couched in Lee's cryptic prose - "Am I too lost to be saved?" she sings on Tourniquet - Evanescence rose up through the Christian circuit, amassing a loyal following through live shows, EPs and singles.

They were signed by Wind-Up Records, which began courting the lucrative Christian music market more than a year ago.

But prompted by the band using profanity in press interviews, Wind-Up recently ordered the recall of Evanescence albums from Christian stores and radio stations.

"We shouldn't have been there in the first place, we're not a Christian band," says Moody. "There's nothing offensive in our lyrics, nothing that children can't listen to or whatever, we just didn't belong there. We didn't want to sell product to the wrong market."

The distributors, however, argued that the band clearly understood where the album would be sold.

"That's what was said," retorts Moody. "But it wasn't exactly something that they sat down and planned with us."

Dealing with what he calls the "snaky" side of the industry, is a symptom of their quick exit from obscurity.

"People rip you off. People are always trying to get the most out of you for putting the least amount in."

Then there are their critics, who have described the band as bland and self-pitying. On a chatsite one particularly unimpressed listener called them "yet another whiney nu-metal band who think they're God".

"Sometimes you get written about by some 55-year-old hack who doesn't know the first [expletive] thing about music anyway and he's ripping your album to shreds, calling you this and that. You just can't let it get to you, it's just one person's opinion."

Moody says it's more important people recognise that they are providing a voice for youth, that they too go through hard times.

Bring Me to Life, the song that made it on to the Daredevil soundtrack, is about realising your own pointless existence, he says.

"Somebody said something to Amy once that opened her eyes. She just felt like all of a sudden she had never really lived before and her outlook on a lot of things changed."

The pair met at youth camp when they were in their early teens. She was playing the Meat Loaf song I'd Do Anything for Loveon the piano.

Lee opened Moody up to a world of strong female singers - Tori Amos, Bjork - while he introduced her to death metal and Mozart and showed her how to record their own tracks the way his musician father had taught him.

Eventually they recruited John LeCompt on guitar and Rocky Gray on drums as part of their live band.

Not surprisingly, the pair are opposites. They used to date but now Moody says they are more like brother and sister.

"Amy's very introverted, very quiet, she doesn't open up right off the gate. I'm more social. I'm just really laidback."

* Fallen is out now.