Post by stratlady on Nov 30, 2007 0:45:05 GMT
So somehow, they have started to interview the band's guitarists. And those are my fav interviews, so here is the interview with Terry. Troy is to come later.
(Thanks evthreads.)
Evanescence: Heavy metal on estrogen
The guitarist for a group known for its female lead singer talks with the WTE about his stroke and how the band feels about playing in Casper.
By Karen Cotton
kcotton@wyomingnews.com
Multi-Grammy winning rock group Evanescence will light up the stage in both Casper and Denver this weekend, giving Cheyenne residents not one but two options to catch this group during their Open Door Tour.
Terry Balsamo, the guitarist for Evanescence, fielded a few questions from the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. More than a year ago, Balsamo suffered a stroke that affected his left hand - the hand he plays the guitar frets with.
Q: I saw in news releases that you're the player
in Evanescence that suffered a stroke.
A: Yes, I suffered a stroke last October - a year and a month ago. It has been a year and a month. It sucks. It's still a battle to deal with as far as like the paralysis, and the whole mental trip it puts you through, but it's getting better so I can't complain.
It's a cool thing that I have other guys in the band. The other guys have been able to pick up the slack.
Basically the doctor is like, "Every show is therapy for you." I was like, "Sweet."
Q: Has the music helped you get through the hard parts of the stroke recovery?
A: Just the whole fight of wanting to keep playing music, so yes the music.
Q: Locally, we had a guitarist, Brian Leneschmidt, who had surgery on his hands and he went crazy when he couldn't play the guitar for several months.
A: Oh yeah, I had that when I was 18 years old. I've been getting beat up my whole life.
Q: What was co-writing "The Open Door" album with Amy Lee like for you?
A: Co-writing the album was different and cool. I never had only one way of writing a song, the option of the opening starting with a vocal melody, or her having a piano melody or something. We'd take a little piece by piece and put the song together.
Q: The inspiration for some of the songs on the album were?
The first one we started with was a song called "Snow White Queen." I was still at home and we hadn't started writing for the record at this point. We just got together to see if anything happened. She would send me the parts to the vocal melodies and the keyboard parts to the verses. I came up with the chorus immediately. I went out to meet with her and started writing. The first song that we wrote made it on the record. At the time (we thought) it's cool, different, but it's not going to be on the record. But nobody didn't like it enough to not put it on the record, so."
Q: What's "Snow White Queen" about?
A: That particular song as far as the lyrics go is her own personal meaning. She had a bunch of stalkers at the time, so I guess she just kind of wrote it in a third person point of view or something.
Q: Is that something difficult for you guys to deal with, fans like that?
A: The most difficult part of is going to all of the different countries in South America and stuff. They act like we're the Beatles. There's the language difference, so we can't just say, "Hey chill out. We're going to sign everybody's (stuff)." They freak out and attack you.
Q: Do you have to have extra body guards when you go places like that?
Usually, but the first time we went to South America, our tour guys and security guys had never been there before. So we come walking out of the airport and carrying our bags and there were two or 3,000 crazy ass fans out there.
We were like, "Oh shit."
Q: How do you deal with those situations?
A. Grab your (stuff) and run. We're all not like Amy. We're not as much in the spotlight as she is, none of us. We don't look at us as being those kind of people, so you just deal with it.
That's the thing, we all go to the mall or something like that, it's not like she gets all dressed up and goes out.
I guess on this tour we've noticed how worse of a turn America is taking with music. You go to these (foreign) places where people can't afford tickets or albums, and we're playing sold out shows. Then you come back here and there's 3,000 people. Well this is different, cool, but what's wrong here?
Q: It's a big deal that you're coming to Casper. You're coming the day after Tool plays at the Casper Events Center. How do you feel about that?
A: Some of the places, like going to Salt Lake City today, places like that don't get a lot of concerts, but when we do come, it's probably awesome because the fans are into it. They don't see shows like L.A. or New York City, where they see shows all of the time, where every night there's a concert.
Q: Who are your influences?
A: When I was super young, KISS was my first, actually Elton John, then Kiss came along, then AC/DC. From there it turned into Ozzy and Black Sabbath and so on and so on.
Q: Have you ever seen any of those guys in concert?
A: Yeah, I've been lucky to see everybody I've been influenced by for the most part.
Q: Have you ever met any of them at the Grammy's or somewhere like that?
A: The coolest thing is we did a big show in England with Iron Maiden and it was like this big festival, Donnington Festival. The next thing you know we were there and it was like, holy cow. Machine Head and all of these killer bands that are 10 times heavier than us with a chick singing. It went over really good. Iron Maiden was on the stage watching the whole time we were playing 'cause they are fans and stuff. We got to meet them and all that. It was one of the coolest days, ever.
Q: What are some of your goals as a musician?
A: Just to be remembered - way later on down the road when it's all over.
www.wyomingnews.com/articles/...t_11-23-07.txt
