Wind-up marketed to Christian market

Rolling Stone stated in April 2003 that while Wind-up had no official Christian affiliation, they had been marketing their bands “to both the Christian and mainstream music market”. Wind-Up “began courting the Christian music market more than a year ago, making its first foray with 12 Stones’ self-titled 2002 debut. Hooking up with powerhouse Christian music distributor Provident … Wind-Up attempted to tap into a segment that generated sales of more than 50 million albums in 2002”. The CEO of Provident, Terry Hemmings, said that the decision to recall Evanescence’s album likely would not hurt Wind-up’s image in the Christian market, and that he was puzzled by the band’s about-face, saying: “They clearly understood the album would be sold in these [Christian music] channels.” Meltzer claimed their decision to promote Evanescence in the Christian market was made with the band’s consent. Lee said that she had always opposed the promotion in the Christian market and the “Christian band” identification from the beginning, while Moody had supported it. Moody had misrepresented Evanescence in the past, talking about his religious beliefs as Evanescence’s. The label wanted to use the Christian market promotion as a marketing tool for the band, which she had opposed, stating that “it was an important fight to me because it felt false. That wasn’t really what our music was. And I felt like they were selling somebody something that wasn’t true.” She noted that Evanescence “has never been a Christian band” and lyrically never had a religious affiliation.