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| Daily Mail (UK) Copyright 2009 Associated Newspapers Company July 17, 2009 THE BEAT GOES ON! Carly Smithson fronts one of rock's hottest acts, calls Hollywood home and loves her tattoos. If this is what it means to be a f lop on American... Paul Henderson Carly Smithson fronts one of rock's hottest acts, calls Hollywood home and loves her tattoos. If this is what it means to be a f lop on American Idol, she'll take it THE American dream should have died for Carly Smithson when the singer crashed out of American Idol, all the hype about making it big burnt to a cinder in the searing heat of Hollywood. Except she's still in L.A. and far from working a dead-end waitressing job to make ends meet. She's completed the ultimate comeback and is now the fully-fledged, tattooed and black-booted lead singer for We Are The Fallen, who have just released their first single, Bury Me Alive. But the celebrity spotlight is not blinding the 25-year-old Dubliner's sense of homeland and the former American Idol finalist loves nothing better than to talk about her roots, even though she has not always been welcomed by everyone on trips back. Sitting in a publicist's office in Los Angeles, she recalls a trip to Dublin a few years ago when her trademark tattoos were not appreciated by one particular club bouncer. 'It was around one in the morning and I was at a friend's house where there had been a birthday party and we decided to go down the road to a bar,' she says. 'At the bar, this guy says to my friends: "You lot can come in but she can't." We all started laughing. He said: "We don't like gang members." I said: "What? What are you talking about?" I was wearing a silk shirt and a pair of black pants like I was going to work. 'My tattoos are just part of me and I'm not aware of putting them in people's faces. It's my skin. If I had a mole on my face I wouldn't cover it,' she adds. Carly has also felt uncomfortable walking the city's streets with her American tattoo artist husband, Todd, who runs his own tattoo shop in San Diego, California. 'My husband is very heavily tattooed and we felt awkward walking around because people hadn't seen so much of it before,' smiles Carly. But she has no intention of giving up Ireland to become a citizen of the U.S. - a place she adores for its 'can-do' mentality. 'I came here to Santa Monica with my dad Luke when I was about 13,' she says. 'I just wanted to be a musician really bad. This place was like a wonderland to me. It was amazing. We went to the beach where they filmed Baywatch and like stupid tourists we took pictures of the sand. BUT I'm not a citizen of America. I'm still very Irish. I've kept my Irish passport. I did change my name to my husband's but his family are all Irish as well. I was Hennessey before and now I'm Smithson.' The singer doesn't have children yet but when she does have them, she wants them to know where they come from. 'My husband's dad's family are straight from Ireland so our kids' bloodline will be Irish,' says Carly. 'His dad lives in Florida and as soon as I get into the house he goes from a southern Florida accent to an Irish one. It's hilarious. 'Having children is something my husband and I have talked about and we are not afraid of it. They will have dual citizenship. 'They will be home in Ireland as much as possible because my whole family lives there. I'm about to go home to Ireland with my mother in a few days. I haven't been back since last July so a visit is definitely in order. 'I haven't lived in Ireland since I was 13 or 14. But I shall be taking the band to Dublin and I'll do the whole tourist thing with them,' she says. So how did she manage to cut it with the serious rockers in The Fallen (three were in Evanescence), while she was trying to pursue a career as a soloist? 'After Idol I met a good friend called Monique Morrison and she had moved in with Ben Moody who was with Evanescence,' recalls Carly. 'I played her some of my music and she came and watched me perform live, knowing that Ben had a side project going to create a band. 'I told her about the things I wanted to do as a singer and that I wanted my stage show to be very crazy like a Tim Burton meets Pink Floyd - dark and mysterious, a wall of sound. 'Monique was listening to all this from me and listening to Ben about what he wanted out of a stage show and a singer. 'She put the bug in his ear: "You need to watch Carly perform." 'Ben replied: "No, American Idol - I'm not into that." 'But Monique kept on. Then Ben watched a bunch of clips of me on YouTube and, at one in the morning, he was texting Monique and saying, "Get your friend over here now." 'When I arrived at his house, Ben put the whole thing on the table. He said he had the same vision artistically and it all kind of meshed together. It was cool. 'We all got in the studio and Bury Me Alive is the first single from us that you will hear.' For now, Carly isn't looking too far into the future but releasing singles and starting the band's world tour in October are the most important things on the agenda at the moment. 'We have a lot of material,' she says, 'but right now we want to put out two songs every two months and put an epic production behind them with our hearts and souls. Then when we have a good number of singles out, we will put an album together. 'Our idea is that we give our fans something new every two months and our live shows will include that new material. Wherever we are wanted we go and give the fans what they want. 'We have all dreamed of seeing the world and writing along the way. It's a very cool formula,' she adds. However, Carly clearly doesn't like being compared to Evanescence's lead singer Amy Lee, although the pair look uncannily alike. 'I am not going to fill Amy Lee's boots,' says Carly. 'Evanescence is still going to make beautiful music but I am not here to be Amy Lee. 'I'm in a new group called We Are The Fallen and people are getting it wrong that we are trying to be Evanescence. Amy will continue to make beautiful music and that's great. YES, I have pale skin and black hair but doesn't half of Ireland have that? When I go to Ireland I look like everyone else. Over here in the U.S. I look a little more dark and gothic. 'But I'm not anything like that. I'm just an ordinary girl from Ireland who wears darker clothes. 'I'm not really into the goth scene. I'm more into leathers and heavy boots. I have never really worn a lot of colour in my life. It makes me look weird.' Although she doesn't bow to convention, Carly was nervous joining her new band. 'The guys in the band have been around a long time and are highly respected in the industry so I had this weird feeling that they wouldn't like anything that came out of my mouth,' says Carly. 'But when I came up with the idea for Bury Me Alive they loved it and started working on it straightaway. I thought: "Are you kidding? This is amazing". 'Bury Me Alive is about people who would bury me alive to get ahead in life. 'There are a lot of cut-throat people out there who wear this mask of a beautiful person but I know that inside they are rotten. I've watched them get fame and fortune and allow it to ruin them.' However, Carly doesn't need the money and shiny things don't impress her much. She says: 'I like the simpler things in life - washing my own cars, mowing my own lawn. 'It isn't like I have to be out there and be a celebrity. I'm in this for the music.' Now that is a dream come true. |