Their first single Bring Me To Life was a global hit for the band and reached #5 on the American Billboard Hot 100. It was included in the soundtrack for the action movie Daredevil.
Their first album, Origin (released in 2000), is relatively unknown, and previously released EPs in 1998 and 1999 are even less known, though very much sought after by collectors. Not atypically, Origin and the EPs contain demo versions of some of the songs on their first major-label album.
The group was founded by Lee and Ben Moody, its former lead guitarist. The two met at a school camp in Arkansas, where Moody heard Lee playing Meat Loaf songs on the piano. They discovered they shared a love of Jimi Hendrix and Björk, and they began to write songs, and perform them in coffee houses and other venues. To flesh out their live sound, Lee and Moody included other musicians in these performances, but the artistic vision of the band never went beyond the two of them.
In October 2003, cofounder Moody left the band in the middle of a European tour. In an interview a couple of months later [1], Lee said "we'd gotten to a point that if something didn't change, we wouldn't have been able to make a second record."
Former Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Boreland has been mentioned as a replacement for Moody. Lee describes him as a friend, and suggests they may write together on their next record.