(in a hushed voice), “Jen! Friends of mine are going to reach out to you. I can’t reveal much but it’s something you should say yes to!” Three days later, our management hit me up and asked me if I would consider being a part of Evanescence and I immediately said yes. And within a heartbeat, Amy flew me to New York – we hung out for three days – took long walks, laughed together, ate great food, drank, sang, played music a little bit – and she was like “Jen! You got the gig!” “Woo-Hoo!!!” People see Amy Lee as a legend and this icon in music. How do you see Amy Lee as? I see her as a very, very dear friend – she’s family. We all in the band are honest friends. We love each other and we respect each other a lot. But I can’t lie – I have moments when I’m looking at her – the way she works. She knows exactly what she wants, which I think is amazing – and she’s a super strong woman with that remarkable, beautiful voice. And every single night that I get to sing with her – because I sing a lot during Evanescence shows – it’s the first time ever that a female vocal is performing with Amy, because she never wanted a voice to do harmony and backgrounds. Now I’m singing a lot and it’s beautiful. I’m very blessed and I’m very grateful for that. So, you have a few solo albums out on your own – the latest being Inzenity. How close are you to recording new solo music, or do you even have time? Honestly, every musician had a lot of time in these past years – but the thing is – what I realized – at the beginning of the lockdown in Europe, I was like, “Oh, I have so much time now! I’m going to make this work! I’m going to write music!” But after a couple of weeks when you realize there’s nothing happening in your life, you have no output – because there’s no input in your life. Everybody asks me that question – “Hey, when is your third solo album coming out?” Honestly, I wrote one song in 2020. One song! Of course, we did the Evanescence album which came out in March. We recorded. But it was not as busy as a normal, traditional way of recording an album because Amy and the guys could meet up in the studio and record and write while I was remotely at home in Germany. So, I had to record everything myself, and I missed the input from Amy and Nick (Raskulinecz) our producer. Like “Hey that was a great take!” “Try this again.” “Do a little bit more that and try that note!” So, recording at home all by yourself, alone a home, is just different. What is meant by the title of you last solo album Inzenity? What does that mean to you? So, I heard the joke a lot – why don’t you call it “In Jenity?” Hahaha! (Laughs) But Inzenity is – I’m Asian and I find my inner peace in Zen by acknowledging there’s black and white – the Ying and Yang. There’s good and bad – and you find your inner peace as soon as you acknowledge there’s both. HIGHWIRE DAZE
December 2021
And the whole album is in black and white – you can hear that in the songwriting. For example, the title track Inzenity we have a jazz solo, but we have death growls – we have long Oriental-like sounding parts. It’s like literally I said I don’t care about mainstream roles – I just do what I do. And that’s my inner peace – that’s my Inzenity. You were on the Blind Guardian album At The Edge Of Time. What was that experience like working with Hansi and Blind Guardian? I’ve known those guys for so long. The European metal community is very small – and everybody knows everybody. I’ve been friends with them forever. We sang together I remember – it was so long ago – but I also played digeridoo on one of the songs. Charlie Bauerfeind produced the whole thing, and it was fun. The way they work, again, was a different way other bands work. We were three background vocalists and Hansi (Kürsch - lead vocals) – and we were standing around one microphone. Each one of us had a different tone and flavor and frequency in their voice. And all four of us recorded together at the same time and built this giant, big, massive frequency of vocals. It was very interesting. And I learned a lot! Another band you worked with more in the underground was Nothgard. Tell me about that experience and how it came about. Well Dom the singer and head of the band – he’s a friend of mine. He asked me if I would be interested in joining them a little bit on the songwriting, on the backing, on the harmonies – and I think I wound up on almost every song singing background vocals because it was so much fun. And especially the video shoot in one of the songs I finally got to play a dead person. I’ve always wanted to play a dead person in a music video, and I finally did it! Black Thunder Ladies – are you still doing that? No, that was my AC/DC tribute band. I’d say this is the years of learning and experience collecting – because I literally did everything in the band from managing to contracts to 35
