TORONTO – When he was looking to start a new band, the last place Evanescence co-founder Ben Moody went looking for a singer was American Idol.
"I didn't watch the show; didn't know anything about it," he says, relaxing in a darkened room above the El Mocambo on a scorching hot afternoon.
But after he decided he wanted to form We Are the Fallen with bassist Marty O'Brien (Disturbed, Static X) and original Evanescence members John LeCompt (guitar) and Rocky Gray (drums), he caught on to season seven alumnus Carly Smithson.
"Carly knew a girl that was renting a room from me who was hounding me to listen to her," he says. "We were looking for someone just like us, so I checked her out. That night I called her and said you've got to come over to the house and the next morning We Are the Fallen was born."
For Smithson, who placed sixth during the show's seventh season, the call couldn't have come at a better time.
Following her stint on the Idols Live 2008 tour, the Irish-born singer struggled to establish her musical identity.
"Through the whole show I tried to emphasize that I want to make rock music," Smithson says. "But [after it was over], I found different songwriters and producers I was working with wanting to play it safe and make a pop rock record.
"All these people wanted me to soften everything that I am because it was safer. I didn't want to be safe."
After her seemingly overnight success on the show, Smithson acknowledges that holding out could have been a huge miscalculation from a career standpoint, but she interested in making music with a harder edge.
"I chose no compromise. Either there was going to be a right time and right moment, or I would just go back to my tattoo shop in San Diego."
After a highly-publicized split with Evanescence singer Amy Lee in 2003, Moody carved out a niche for himself as a songwriter for hire, penning songs for everyone from Avril Lavigne to Celine Dion. "But I wanted to be in a band again," he says.
"Marty and I had been talking about doing something together for a long time and one day I wised up and said, 'Hey, why don't we call Rock and John and do this for real.'"
After Smithson caught Moody's ear, he thought she might be the perfect frontwoman for the goth-metal group.
"What she was doing was very similar to what we were working on," he says. "The only thing is; she was being held back because her songs needed the intensity of a band and a lot of producers didn't have the balls to go there."
The group's recently-released debut, "Tear Down the World," mines the same territory as Evanescence, with Smithson's gothic vocals competing against Moody and LeCompt's meaty guitar riffs.
"It's an extension of where I wanted to go," he readily acknowledges, referencing the disc's transition between hard-charging rock tracks and orchestral balladry.
There's even a cover of Madonna's "Like a Prayer" and a church choir thrown into the mix.
People might assume the band's name is a dig at Evanescence's multi-platinum debut, "Fallen," but it goes beyond that, O'Brien says, slipping in beside Moody and Smithson on a deep-seated couch.
"Everyone in this band has played arenas and then found themselves not," he says. "It's almost as if everyone lost it at some point and then we came together."
"With We Are the Fallen, everyone has an equal amount invested in the band and everyone gets equal amount out of the band," Moody says.
"Evanescence was truly not a democracy. It was more of a corporation than it was a band. Not everyone had a stake in it and there was a weird dynamic where members were fighting for scraps and a little bit of control.
"So whether We Are the Fallen wins or loses, we win or lose together. That's a big difference."
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