Celebrity Stalkers

Amy Lee

Full Name: Amy Lynn Hartzler

Date of Birth; Birth Place: December 13, 1981 (age 30); Riverside, California, USA

Grew up: Little Rock, Arkansas

Zodiac Sing: Sagittairus

Height: 5'5

Eye Color: Green

Natural Hair Color: Brown

Band: Evanescence

Member in Band: lead singer, Piano, guitar, harp, song writer

Parents: John Lee, a disc jockey and TV personality; and Sara Cargill

Sibling(s): Brother, Robby; sister(s), Lori and Carrie

Spouse: Josh Hartzler

Amy had a younger sister who died in 1987 at the age of three from an unidentified illness. The song "Hello" from Fallen and "Like You" from The Open Door were written for her late sister. Amy took classical piano lessons for nine years. Her family moved to many places, including Florida and Illinois, and eventually settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Evanescence started. She briefly attended Middle Tennessee State University to study music theory and composition and later dropped out to focus on Evanescence.

Lee co-founded the rock band Evanescence with guitarist Ben Moody. The two met at a youth camp after Moody heard Lee playing Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" on the piano. Within a month, the pair were playing acoustic sets at Arkansas book stores and coffee houses, and they eventually recorded two EPs, Evanescence EP (1998) and Sound Asleep EP (1999), selling them at various local venues. In 2000, Evanescence recorded the longer EP Origin. This demo contains three songs from the debut album Fallen and was written by Lee and Moody: "Whisper", "Imaginary" and "My Immortal". Whereas "Whisper" and "Imaginary" were altered before being included on Fallen, "My Immortal" is virtually unchanged, apart from additional string arrangements. A later band version of "My Immortal" was made available for download for those who had bought an official version of Fallen through their web site, but required that a CD checker program also be downloaded for verification before it would play. The band version was included on later copies of Fallen, notably the Brazilian, Bolivian, and Argentine editions.

On October 22, 2003, Moody left the band citing "creative differences". In an interview several months later, Amy said: "...we'd gotten to a point that if something didn't change, we wouldn't have been able to make a second record". She also said "We're finally a real band, not just Ben and I and a few others thrown together". Ex-Cold guitarist Terry Balsamo replaced Moody in the band, both on guitar and as her writing partner.

Amy revealed during the live broadcast of MuchMusic's January 9, 2007, episode of Live at Much that she had become engaged the evening before. She later confirmed on EvThreads.com that Josh Hartzler, a therapist and long-time friend, proposed to her. She noted in an interview that the songs "Good Enough" and "Bring Me to Life" were inspired by him. The couple married on May 6, 2007, and honeymooned near The Bahamas. She has posted on EvThreads that she is "now officially Mrs. Amy Hartzler."

During an October 2008 interview for Spin.com, Lee noted that she was writing new songs, possibly for a solo album project. Citing influences in folk and Celtic music, she says her current writings feel like she is going back to her "really old" roots. She gave no potential release date, but said of her reason for this new direction, "I need to show that I'm more than a one trick pony."

Lee stated during an October 2008 interview with The Gauntlet that she did not know whether or not she would begin a solo career, saying that she was "at a point where I don't know what is next." She noted that Evanescence was still together as a band but that she found touring to be monotonous. She reiterated that she was continuing to write songs, though she did not yet know what purpose they would serve.