Amy Lee On Her "Struggle" With Evanescence's Bring Me To Life

As Evanescence start to look ahead to their brand-new album The Bitter Truth – which will be released incrementally throughout 2020 – vocalist Amy Lee has temporarily thrown things back to the band's early days in a new interview, explaining how she used to struggle with breakout hit Bring Me To Life and its impact on their career.

Discussing the Fallen single, Amy tells Music Week of her feelings towards the track, “…I’ve struggled with it. I’m cool with it now, but it was one of our big early struggles – that big rap thing.”

Amy describes how having Christian rocker Paul McCoy as a guest vocalist on the Arkansas band's debut single “was a lost battle in a lot of ways”, explaining that it was “confusing” and didn't show the full picture of Evanescence. And, in fact, she actually wanted Fallen's second single Going Under to be released first.

“But when it happened it did great, it was a wonderful thing and there was a lot to be excited about, but in the back of my mind I was a little bit scared,” she remembers. “I’m very grateful things went the way they did because we released Going Under and that did well too, and [third single] My Immortal did well.”

Thankfully, these days Amy's relationship with Bring Me To Life is much more positive, explaining that she feels “like we put enough ground beneath us beyond Bring Me To Life to really show a clear picture to the mainstream people of what we are still. I believe in my work and we do have so many beautiful and wonderful people of all ages from all countries over the world that have loved our music and been touched by it.”

Read this next: 17 years of Fallen: The album that made Evanescence superstars

In an interview with Kerrang! last year, Amy was asked if the success of Fallen caught her off guard, to which she responded, “My life has been so full of extremes. It’s hard to sum up what it was like when it was all happening because it was happening fast, but there was so much else happening at the same time. I’ve had major tragedies in my life and major victories, too. But at the time the first song, Bring Me To Life, made it to Number One in the UK, and the next song [Going Under, which charted at eight in the UK]… It was all happening and we were at the GRAMMYs.

“That whole year, as much as it was wonderful, at the same time, my brother Robby was having brain surgery and facing the fact that he might not ever be okay. And my family was so happy and so excited for me, and I realised there was a lot of turmoil within the band behind the scenes at that time. There was so much going on. The only way to sum it up was to say it was a time full of extremes. It was wonderful and also terrifying, and a lot of learning happened. I’m grateful for it all. In some ways, I’m a lot happier to be where I am now than where I was then.”

Last month, Evanescence released a beautifully epic new single, Wasted On You, along with a touching video filmed while the band are in lockdown. Check that out below:

Read this next: The first reaction to Evanescence’s new song, Wasted On You

Catch Evanescence and Within Temptation live on the Worlds Collide tour this year:

September

2 Glasgow SSE Hydro Arena
3 Leeds First Direct Arena
5 Birmingham Arena
6 London The O2
8 Amsterdam Ziggo Dome
9 Amsterdam Ziggo Dome
11 Brussels Palais
12 Brussels Palais
14 Paris Accor hotels Arena
17 Hamburg Barclaycard Arena
18 Leipzig Arena
21 Berlin Velodrom
22 Munich Zenith
24 Düsseldorf Mitsubishi Electric Halle
25 Esch-Sur-Alzette Rockhal
27 Zurich Hallenstadion
29 Milan Mediolanum Forum Milan

October

1 Madrid Palacio Vistalegre (Evanescence only)

Read this next: 10 songs that showcase the best of Evanescence and Within Temptation