Pop Quiz: Evanescence

Pop Quiz: Evanescence

Aidin Vaziri | Amy Lee has almost been through more band members than bottles of black hair dye. Despite the defections and dumps, Evanescence scored a huge hit earlier this year with "Call Me When You're Sober," a track about Lee's ordeals with ex- boyfriend Shaun Morgan of Seether. The band is on the road promoting its latest album, "The Open Door," as part of the Family Values Tour, with Korn. We spoke with Lee, 25, about the band drama and her recent marriage to therapist Josh Hartzler.

Amy Lee of Evanescence
Q: How did you manage to find love in the middle of all the craziness?
A: My husband and I have actually known each other for years. We met when I was 18, but we just had to wait until the timing was right. It wasn't like I met him on the road. That never works out.
Q: You sound as if you've had some experience in that department.
A: Oh, yeah. No further comment on that.
Q: With the band members coming and going, why keep Evanescence around?
A: It's like a sick child. It's a big job. Everything that ever goes wrong is all on me to fix it, but I do love it very much. It's something I've poured my heart and feelings into since I was 14. It wouldn't feel right abandoning it.
Q: Have you considered going solo?
A: To do a solo project would be silly because I feel everything I want to do I can do with this band. Evanescence has become everything I've ever wanted. I don't see any need to do a solo project. I'd rather work on scores or something.
Q: Why do you think you've had such a hard time keeping people in the band?
A: It's been different each time. I love (bassist) Will (Boyd). We're still friends. That was a lifestyle change. He wanted to spend time with his family and not tour. Rocky and John were bitter (because) they didn't write songs. I'm not an evil queen kicking people out. Read more.

Review: Architecture in Helsinki

Review: Architecture in Helsinki

Architecture in Helsinki 'Places Like This': Aidin Vaziri | If this Australian band's name isn't enough to make you turn the page, there are plenty of other reasons: glockenspiels, beards and musical power tools, to name a few. Recently slimmed down to just six members, Architecture in Helsinki is kind of like the Arcade Fire on Prozac. Kitschy rock operas and funky jam bands are the major inspirations on "Places Like This," an album that frequently finds singer Cameron Bird yelping like a moron while the rest of the musicians seemingly get acquainted with their respective instruments for the first time. You can't knock its rampant creative spirit (or generous use of wah-wah pedals), but truly affecting moments like "Heart It Races" are almost as rare as kangaroos in Finland.

Pop Quiz: Lori McKenna

Pop Quiz: Lori McKenna

Aidin Vaziri | Lori McKenna has made Oprah cry on national television. Her songs have been recorded by Mandy Moore and Faith Hill, who with husband Tim McGraw returned the favor this summer by asking McKenna to support them on the highest-grossing country music tour in history. And, this week, the 38-year-old Boston-area singer-songwriter releases her major-label debut, "Unglamorous." Not bad for a mother of five - ages 3 to 18 - who just last year was driving to local shows in the family minivan. We spoke to her by phone from her home in Stoughton, Mass.

Lori McKenna
Q: There's a song on your album called "Drinkin' Problem." What inspired that?
A: I like to write songs about drinking.
Q: Did you write from personal experience?
A: No, I'm not a good drinker. I'm only good for two beers. Maybe that's why I like to write songs about drinking. But I come from an Irish Catholic background, and you can't spit without hitting an alcoholic in our family. I always make an ass out of myself anyway, so God knows what I would do if I was a drunk.
Q: You worked at your brother's glue factory for 15 years. Have you ever written a song called "Glue Sniffin' Problem"?
A: I've never written a song about glue, but I've written songs about working in factories. I did every job in that company. Every time I had a baby I got a different position. That's probably where my brain cells went. Everybody in my family is very smart except me. I think it might have been the glue. Read more.

Inside Matt Nathanson

Inside Matt Nathanson

Aidin Vaziri | Ask anyone who has seen one of his spirited live shows or heard his lovely, confessional songs playing in the background of a prime-time teen drama - Matt Nathanson is the kind of guy you want to get to know better. On the occasion of the San Francisco singer-songwriter's new album, "Some Mad Hope," due out Tuesday on Vanguard, we decided we would do just that. We asked him to tell us about his deepest, darkest secrets. Nathanson, who starts a major national tour next month, did not disappoint.


Inside Matt Nathanson
-- "Ever since seeing 'Jaws' as a kid, I won't swim in deep water. Or with my eyes open."
-- "The best pairs of underwear I own are from Burberry and they were something like $30 a pair. They're boxer briefs, and I have yet to find anything that fits quite like them. I have two pairs, which were a gift. I can't bring myself to spend the money to buy more, so I only wear them on special occasions so they don't wear out."
-- "When I was 15, I pierced my nose and wore a chain connecting it to my ear because I wanted to look like the bass player in Skid Row."
-- "I once spoke with Bret Michaels on the phone about writing songs together. Someone at my record label set it up. But I never followed through because I figured talking to the singer of Poison about writing songs was probably way cooler than the actual songs would ever be."
-- "I love some teen-girl dramedies. The Olsen twins, Mandy Moore, Hilary Duff, pre-booze Lindsay Lohan - if it's a movie skewed toward 13-year-old girls, it's probably for me."
Read more.

Review: Constantine, Bat For Lashes

Review: Constantine, Bat For Lashes

Constantine 'Constantine': Aidin Vaziri | Constantine Maroulis is greasier than a bucket of extra-crispy fried chicken. But give him some credit for taking a sixth-place finish on Season 4 of "American Idol" and turning it into something resembling a career. He did Broadway. He did off-Broadway. He spent a year trying to develop a television show with Kelsey Grammer. He got a role on another one that was actually on the air, "The Bold and the Beautiful." He toured the country. He inspired more fan sites than Ruben Studdard. On Tuesday, Constantine releases his self-titled premiere album on his own label. The Boston Conservatory of Music grad's cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" remains the stuff of chat-room legend. Going by the music here, though, you can tell that his heart remains on the musical stage. Although he also took on the the Black Crowes and Nickelback during his "Idol" run, it's the songs that made up his live tour - mostly selections from rock-oriented productions like "Rent," "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" - that really provide the inspiration here. The music is over the top and overliterate, as if it were written by a committee of scriptwriters rather than an artist hoping to get something off his chest. Worse, it all sounds incredibly dated: "Girl Like You" sounds like a decade-old Ricky Martin leftover; "Child, You're the Revolution" is a bad-hair metal throwback; and "Several Thousand" could have easily served as the theme tune for any '80s sitcom, especially if there'd been one starring Corey Haim. Then again, you kind of get the feeling that music isn't really the point with Constantine

Bat For Lashes 'Fur and Gold': Aidin Vaziri | Rock stars who wear feathers on their head are the best: Devendra Banhart, Janis Joplin, Björk, Stevie Nicks, the Village People. Add to that distinguished list Natasha Khan, a 27-year-old British singer-songwriter who records music under the name Bat for Lashes. She has been known to wear a whole peacock tail, which is directly proportional to the adventurous nature of the music on her acclaimed premiere album, "Fur and Gold." Dissonant and dark, tunes like "Horse and I" and "Prescilla" make her sound like Polly Harvey on a hippie weekend retreat with some good gothic friends. Meanwhile, "What's a Girl to Do?" opens with a Spector-esque drum intro before jumping into spoken-word verses set against a horror-movie score. You don't get that sort of thing with non-avian types like Avril Lavigne.

Pop Quiz: Lee 'Scratch' Perry

Pop Quiz: Lee 'Scratch' Perry

Aidin Vaziri | Lee "Scratch" Perry is our kind of guy. That would be the kind of guy who helps discover Bob Marley, accuses Island Records label boss Chris Blackwell of being a chicken-blood-drinking vampire, worships bananas, eats money and doesn't think twice about spending an entire year living in the burned-out remains of his Black Ark studio. But let's not forget the famed reggae producer's incredible output, including mind-melting albums such as "Super Ape" and "The Return of Pipecock Jackxon." At 71, he's living in Switzerland and touring relentlessly behind his most recent release, "Panic in Babylon."

Lee 'Scratch' Perry
Q: You have written something like 2,874 songs in the past 50 years. How do you remember all the words?
A: I remember all the words, but if you keep singing the same words it could become a little bit boring, so if I can change the same song into a different song with different words with a set rhythm and a set melody, no problem.
Q: You've worked with everyone - Bob Marley, the Clash, Robert Palmer. But you're the only one who's still around.
A: I am blessed with words. In the beginning, (there were) words flying around on wings like angels until the words decided to become a god and call themselves the god of words and the god of sounds and the god of power. I have visible power and invisible power. Visible when I make contact with man and invisible when not making contact with man and the whirlwind.
Q: That makes a lot of sense.
A: Yeah, because I believe in the words, and the words are the whirlwind that gather the sound, that gather the words. The words are the words and the word is the god and the sound is the wing that, with the words, flies on the wings, which are the whirlwind and gather together a big sound which they call thunder - KAHOOONA! So I believe in visible and invisible power, and those visible and invisible powers turn me into Jamaican E.T.
Read more.