Stephen Alan Lillywhite, CBE (born 15 March 1955) is a British record producer. Since he began his career in 1977, Lillywhite has been credited on over 500 records, and has collaborated with a variety of musicians including new wave acts XTC, Big Country, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Simple Minds, the Psychedelic Furs, Toyah, David Byrne, Talking Heads and Kirsty MacColl, as well as U2, the Rolling Stones, The Pogues, Blue October, Steel Pulse, Peter Gabriel, Morrissey, the Killers, Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Counting Crows and Joan Armatrading.
Work with Evanescence[]
Lillywhite was the producer of the initial sessions of Evanescence's then-untitled third album from February 22, 2010 to April that year.[1][2] However, this album - referred to as Broken Record - was scrapped by Wind-Up Records, thus forcing the band to start over from scratch with a new producer in 2011. Three songs from the Lillywhite sessions were reworked on the final album, titled Evanescence: "Made of Stone", "Swimming Home", and "Secret Door".[3] The only song from his sessions that was released is Amy Lee's cover of Chris Izaak's "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing."[3]
In a 2013 interview, he discussed his work with the band:[4]
With Evanescence, I suppose that I was interested in the idea of Amy [Lee] as a great artist. When I was involved there weren't really many band members involved, so the record was a really interesting combination of electronic sounds, but it didn't have any power chords. I like that. Very rarely do you hear any power chords on records I've made. I suppose I was interested in seeing how she could take her music in a new direction. Maybe I was wrong, but I was thinking, "Does the world really need another Evanescence album that sounds like Evanescence?" I don't know — maybe it did. But what happened was a few people lost their nerve. I don't even think it was her. It was people at the record company who really had no other band. They were thinking more in terms of the commerce rather than the art.
It is known that around 16 songs were being worked on with him,[5] but 12 were nearly finished.[6] These are the songs that were worked on his sessions, but remain unreleased or made it to other releases:
- "Perfect Dream" (unreleased)
- "You Got a Lot to Learn" (unreleased)
- "Hi-Lo" (reworked for Synthesis)
- "Yeah Right" (reworked for The Bitter Truth)
- "Feeding The Dark" (reworked for The Bitter Truth)
- "Take Cover" (reworked for The Bitter Truth)
References[]
- ↑ "Exclusive: Amy Lee on the New Evanescence Album". Spin. March 5, 2010.
- ↑ "Amy Lee's new EvClub blog post" (April 2010)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lee, Amy (December 15, 2015). "Cover #4: Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing". Facebook.
- ↑ "Steve Lillywhite: U2, Peter Gabriel". Tape Op. 203.
- ↑ "Evanescence Recording New Album, Plots Summer Tour". March 26, 2010. Billboard.
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Sillywhite/status/419274206245703680