Guitarist Troy McLawhorn Explains His Return to Evanescence

So, here’s a short musical history lesson: Before guitarist Troy McLawhorn was in Evanescence, he was in Seether; and before he was in Seether, he was in Evanescence.

It all started in 2007 when McLawhorn replaced guitarist John LeCompt in Evanescence. He was with the band through their tour for ‘The Open Door.’ While the band went through some down time, McLawhorn joined Seether as their touring guitarist and eventually was invited into the band as their permanent lead guitarist.

Side note, Seether and Evanescence have their own share of history together, as Amy Lee and Shawn Morgan dated for awhile and then went through a pretty public break up, leaving them on the outs.

Everything seemed to be going smashingly between McLawhorn and Seether until March of 2011 when Seether announced that Troy had left the band. While rumors were swirling about his departure, including a tweet from Morgan saying, “He went to another band, little anti-Shaun club,” an official statement wasn’t made by Evanescence until June when Lee announced on Twitter that Troy had officially returned to the band. Whoa.

So, what led to McLawhorn’s departure from Seether? McLawhorn recently opened up during an interview with The Pulse of Radio saying, “I had a really good time with those guys, but it came to a point where it just wasn’t working out for me personally.” He talked about reaching out to Amy while he was in New York, “I just kind of told her that I wasn’t in a good place, that I was ready to make a change, and she’s like, ‘If you want to come do this with us, welcome to it.’”

The rest, is as they say, history and both bands are still thriving. McLawhorn is back in the mix with Evanescence and Seether has returned to playing as a trio.

Evanescence recently released their self-titled album and are out on the road in support of the disc, while Seether just released a video for their chart-topping hit ‘Tonight.’