EVANESCENCE Singer Confirms Possible Collaboration With Ex-LIMP BIZKIT Guitarist

EVANESCENCE singer Amy Lee has confirmed that the band are contemplating the possibility of working with former LIMP BIZKIT guitarist Wes Borland on the follow-up to the triple-platinum "Fallen", tentatively due in 2005 through Wind-Up Records. "Wes is a friend and we're talking about writing together on the next record," Lee told Australia's The Age. "But we'll see."

2003 ended on a sour note for EVANESCENCE when founding member and Lee's co-writer Ben Moody abruptly left the band in October, mid-way through a European tour.

"It's actually been a relief," said Lee of the departure of her childhood friend. "I don't mean that as a negative toward Ben, but we've all been through a lot and we were at breaking point. And the thing is, we'd got to a point that if something didn't change, we wouldn't have been able to make a second record."

Asked if she is apprehensive about penning another EVANESCENCE album sans Moody, Lee got a little bristly.

"I've always written by myself, even when Ben was in the band," she said. "We wrote separately. I'd write my songs and he'd write his and then we'd add things to each other's."

For now, though, one-time COLD guitarist Terry Balsamo has slotted in for the band's Australian tour, which sees them playing Brisbane tonight (Jan. 10) and Sydney tomorrow (Jan. 11). And for Lee, things are just perfect again.

"We're finally a real band, not just Ben and I and a few others thrown together," she said.

“The first show we played without Ben was sort of strange and weird and highly stressful. But when it was over, we had a really big party because we just felt this huge sense of relief that we could do it without him.

"And it wasn't the end of the world and our lives would continue. Nobody died, y'know."