Ex-EVANESCENCE Guitarist JEN MAJURA Is 'Stepping Away' From Music Industry
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Former EVANESCENCE guitarist Jen Majura has announced her decision to "step away" from the music industry, at least temporarily, so that she can focus on doing "healthier and better things" with her life.
Earlier today (Tuesday, June 10),Majura took to her social media to write: "Dear friends, I'm gonna make this as brief as I can: After careful consideration, observing what's going on in the music industry, AI related developments and change in society I've come to the conclusion to step away.
"Some of you have heard me talk about this quite a while ago. Instead of wasting another year of my life constantly hoping for new energy, drive and creativity, I've reached a point in my life where I can confidentially lean back in peace. While time allowed me, I was able to collect an amazing amount of beautiful experiences, tours, shows, travels and moments! I am grateful for every bit of that, but the world has changed. I can confidently make up my mind to stop.
"I am not saying that I will never create any music again, whether recorded or live — but for now I feel there are healthier and better things to fill my life with good vibes and not deal with the overwhelming amount of ridiculousness that comes with the music industry nowadays. I just can't identify with today's attitude and values anymore.
"I wholeheartedly want to wish all the ambitious and remaining 'creators', young and old, all the best. With time, the meaning will become clearer.
"To you, the fans, I wanna give you a giant virtual hug and say THANK YOU for all your support, love and faith throughout these years of me being an active touring musician, I am grateful. As a final musical endeavor I wanna share 4 tracks with you. Songs that were written over a decade ago together with the great guitarist Dennis Hormes. I found these old demo recordings while cleaning out stuff from my computer and thought they are too good to not be shared. So if you made it this far and read the whole post, I assume you actually ARE someone that truly cares and these 4 singles are for you!"
The now-41-year-old guitarist's departure from EVANESCENCE was announced in May 2022 via social media.
"It has been a very special chapter in the band with our dear friend Jen Majura, but we have decided it's time to go our separate ways," EVANESCENCE said in a statement at the time. "We will always love her and support her, and can't wait to see what she does next! We are so grateful for the good times and great music we made all around the world together."
Jen spoke about her split with EVANESCENCE during a December 2022 interview with IbagensCast. Asked what the first seven months after her exit had been like for her, Majura said: "I'm tired. I am very, very tired because there are many opinions and there's a lot of judgment out there. It got to a point where no matter what I posted, people had opinions about that. And it seems ridiculous to me, but if I would say honestly how I feel — I'm hurt; it's hard; of course I'm not feeling great — people would go, like, 'Oh, you're playing the victim.' So, I'm, like, 'Okay. All right then.' So I said, 'Actually, I'm doing okay. I'm all right.' And then, of course, people would go, like, 'She never gave a shit about the band.' And it got to a point where I'm, like, 'You know what? I could post about my blueberry yogurt, and you would still find a way to connect this to what happened.
"I must say I turned very quiet on social media, because I just wanted to avoid all that white noise, all that blabbering, all these opinions — I was just tired of that," Jen continued. "And also, at the same time, when you break up with an ex-partner — that's the easiest example; you break up with your partner — the last thing on planet earth is that you wanna see that ex-partner on social media moving on. It's, like, 'No. I don't wanna see that.' I needed time to digest the whole thing. And like I said, I think the first few months I was just very busy with convincing everybody that I was doing okay when I honestly wasn't; I was not okay. And when everything you say in public is being judged… And honestly, I can only imagine how [Prince] Harry and Meghan [Markle] feel [laughs] — people with real problems, in terms of paparazzi. Who am I? I'm just a little nobody. Why do people talk about me? I think there's way more important things that the humankind should talk about, like climate change and what's going on in this nonsense war [in Ukraine] — real issues that people should discuss and find solutions for — instead of me. So I just realized that apparently this is a topic and people like to talk about it, but I don't necessarily need to be a part of that. So I turned very quiet on social media. And the more I distanced myself from that whole thing, the more I'm, like… I'm gonna say this right now, 'cause it's horrible, but I'm gonna say it anyway… The more I felt grossed out by the humankind.
"So altogether, I have not been good," Majura added. "I'm okay, but I'm far away from being good… When life throws shit at you, honestly… I mean, take a look at the whole scenario. In the beginning of 2020, I lost my dear-hearted relationship. That was followed by two years of isolation and lockdowns and the whole pandemic situation. Great! And then finally things get back to kind of 'normal-ish', and then May happens. So I can't really say that my past few, couple of years have been great."
Majura has released two solo albums thus far, 2014's "Jen Majura" and 2017's "InZENity".
EVANESCENCE's current lineup, featuring Emma Anzai of SICK PUPPIES on bass and EVANESCENCE's longtime bassist Tim McCord on guitar, made its live debut in June 2022 in Athens, Greece.
(Source: www.blabbermouth.net)
