60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Evanescence — “Bring Me To Life”

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Although this podcast has continuously shown that we cheer for the underdog, every now and then we must tip our cap to the suits and head honchos. When Evanescence’s record label insisted that Amy Lee sing alongside a rapper on their song, “Bring Me To Life,” their seemingly cringey idea only accentuated Lee’s angsty vocals and became a multigenerational anthem. Later, Rob is joined by Brittany Spanos to discuss what it meant to have such a feminine singer enter the male dominated emo rock scene. Host: Rob Harvilla Producers: Julianna Ress, Chris Sutton, Justin Sayles, and Olivia Crerie Guest: Brittany Spanos Power up your play with Nintendo Switch 2. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/60songsthatexplainthe90s/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@60songsthatexplainthe90s?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And we'll see you on the internet. This episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s is presented to you by Nintendo. Some things stick around for a reason. A great song, a favorite movie, a game everyone wants another turn at. The Nintendo Switch 2 system fits right into that tradition. With two controllers included in games like Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bonanza, and EA Sports FC26, there's something for every age and every mood. Whether you're at home or on the go, it's easy to keep the good stuff in rotation.

Learn more at Nintendo.com slash Nintendo Switch 2. Games and systems sold separately. Games rated E to E10 plus. We meant well. Okay? I think we can all agree that we meant well. We did the natural, logical, human thing we do with pop stars we love. Our love for her naturally made us protective of her.

We worried about her. We got indignant on her behalf. We wanted everyone to just leave her alone. So yeah, we made some assumptions. about her personal and professional situation, and amongst ourselves, we devised a few potential solutions. We got the sense that these nasty, malevolent corporate forces had in some way imprisoned her,

and we sought, therefore, to free her. We wanted to free Fiona. I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes, and I certainly haven't been spreading myself around. I love the bell there. Bong. I love that the bell lines up with the lyrics there, but not exactly. The bong and Fiona's end are perfectly imperfectly aligned.

It is 2005, and they don't want you to hear the new Fiona Apple record. They, with an ominous, villainous capital T. It appears to us that the rude, uncultured, disrespectful, empty suits at epic records don't see the vision and don't hear a single, and so they have actively, malevolently rejected and shelved and suppressed Fiona Apple's third album, which is called Extraordinary Machine. This is the initial leak of Extraordinary Machine, the song, in which Fiona seems to anticipate, not unhappily,

that making and releasing this record is going to be a huge weird pain in the ass. I still only travel by foot and by foot it's a slow climb But I'm good at being uncomfortable So I can't stop changing all the time The tremendous elegance The deft and mischievous ease With which Fiona Apple sings the words I'm good at being uncomfortable

Fiona Apple puts out her debut album in 1996 It is called Title And it includes a song called Criminal She makes a video For criminal, no comment. No thank you. Thanks primarily to that video. She wins Best New Artist at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards,

where Fiona observes, in her acceptance speech, that this world is bullshit. Fiona Apple puts out her second album in 1999. It is called When the Pawn hits the conflicts, he thinks like a king, what he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight, and he'll win the whole thing, for he enters the ring, there's no body to batter when your mind is your might.

So when you go solo, you hold your own hand, and remember that depth is the greatest of heights. And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land. And if you fall, it won't matter because you know that you're right. And based on that 90-word poem of an album title, and also based on literally everything else we think we know about this person, Fiona Apple's going to do whatever the hell she wants, and she'd mostly rather be left alone. If there was a better way to go Then it would find me I can't help at the road

Just rolls out behind me If there was a better way to go Then it would find me As work begins on her third album in 2002 Fiona Apple re-teams with producer Singer-songwriter, film scorer And beloved L.A. fixture John Bryan Who'd produced Fiona's last record

to when the pawn, et cetera. John Bryan likes his elaborate whimsy. He likes his horns, his strings, his woodwinds, his bells and whistles and groans and wheezes and whatnot. Bong, et cetera. I don't imagine I'm the first person to point this out, but a John Bryan production often sounds like a merry-go-round that's got depression.

Be kind to me or treat me mean. I'll make the most of it. I'm an extraordinary machine. Though what really pops there, what strikes you immediately and never leaves you about extraordinary machine, the song, is the delightful sauce Fiona Apple puts on the word extraordinary, the abutient little skip in her step. A merry-go-round that's got depression is like a medium-rude thing to say about John Bryan's music. I don't mean that ugly.

That's a great sound for him. and a great sound for him and Fiona Apple especially. Now I feel bad. Because I feel bad, let me note here parenthetically that John Bryan co-produced the best song on Kanye West's 2005 album, Late Registration. A song that sounds like a depressed merry-go-round is about to kick your ass up and down the street.

You motherfuckers better do your job and roll up and watch how we roll up and I can't control it. It's so nuts. I take a sip of that yak I want to fuck. I take a hit of that credit you got me stuck. That song is called Wii Major and I love it. Cartoonish triumph. You ever play Super Mario Kart?

We Major is Rainbow Road in musical form. That's the highest compliment I can pay a piece of recorded music. If you know, you know. On We Major, Kanye shouts out John Brian by name and everything. John Bryan on the keys right now. So there. So yeah, Fiona Apple's working once again with that guy. And meanwhile, Fiona Apple fans receive a slow, unsteady and unsatisfying drip of information and misinformation about her imminent new album, Extraordinary Machine.

Fiona plays a few new songs live, which maybe you'd noticed if you're cool enough to go to cool shows in L.A., which if you are, then keep it to yourself. Various release dates are informally announced and then abandoned. and eventually we appear to have reached an impasse. Talking to Entertainment Weekly in 2004, John Bryan mentions in passing that Fiona's third album, quote, has been shelved since they finished it in May 2003 due to the label not hearing any obvious singles.

End quote. Epic Records appears to have locked Fiona Apple and her new album in some sort of mythical tower, and that sucks for both her and us because we don't get to hear it. The gallant royal we have been stymied by the dastardly royal they. But what sucks for them is that we have the internet. Here comes the wolf.

Get a load of this wolf. This song is called Red, Red, Red. Did you hear the Wolf? That is presumably either a sampled wolf or an entirely synthetic, whimsical, melancholy type wolf sound. though I do relish the image of Fiona Apple in the studio with an actual wolf. The wolf's got headphones on and it's sitting obediently on a stool in front of an old-timey microphone and Fiona points at the wolf and the wolf obediently howls.

Maybe it happened like that. That would confirm certain awestruck assumptions I have about how Fiona Apple spends her time. By 2005, the shelved Fiona Apple album Extraordinary Machine has, leaked in its entirety onto the internet. Well, okay, the purported entirety of what purports to be, the purportedly shelved Fiona Apple album Extraordinary Machine, has leaked onto the internet. The facts get a little screwy here,

but in any event, yeesh, this red, red, red song is really doing it for me. I just dig the wolf, man. What are we listening to? here precisely. Is this the totally completed and rudely shelved and subsequently heroically leaked Fiona Apple album, Extraordinary Machine? No, probably not. Conventional notions of cause and effect get a little screwy here, but yeah, no,

probably not. But we do got 11 new Fiona Apple songs here in a strikingly raw, skeletal, experimental, maybe kind of suspiciously unfinished sounding form. The merry-go-round is extra depressed and extra fixing to kick your ass up and down the street. Here's Fiona singing the word kill six times in a row. Holy shit, I love Red, Red, Red. That's the first thing to say clearly.

Phenomenal songs. Phenomenal lyrics phenomenally sung. The huge adrenaline spike, when she, belts out the words, trying to get you to. But the last two lines there. And I think if I didn't have to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill myself doing it, maybe I wouldn't think so much of you. That last line especially gets a little garbled and overpowered by the production. Maybe because it's a profound artistic statement about alienation or blind rage overpowering compassion or something. And maybe because of the song ain't finished yet.

Neither is this one. Wait till I get him scratch. That song is called Get Him Back. That's the leaked Get Him back. And the tantalizing, not done essence radiating off that song, the clattering and almost

disruptive drums, the goofy speculative little whistle-type riff undercutting the delicious menace in Fiona's voice. The less finished get-him sounds to you, the more pleasurable the listening experience. In real time, part of the enormous appeal of the extraordinary machine leak is the subversion, the naughtiness, the sense that

you're hearing something they, capital T, don't want you to hear. Or more specifically, Fiona Apple wanted you to hear it, but the dastardly capital T they at Epic Records didn't want you to hear it, but now we're sticking it to the man by listening to it, and presumably, Fiona herself is vindicated and delighted. Meanwhile, amidst these internet leaks, the Free Fiona movement emerges, in which an international consortium of extra-devoted and indignant Fiona Apple fans

hatch a plan to goad Sony Records, parent company of Epic Records, into releasing the rudely nefariously shelved new Fiona Apple album. This plan involves a petition drive across college campuses nationwide, physical protests outside Sony headquarters in Los Angeles in New York City, and most creatively, a scheme to physically mail Sony Music CEO Andrew Lack,

a barrage of Apple-themed letters and packages, all mailed, ideally, on January 24, 2005. To quote, freefiona.com, which is still up, quote, send something with an Apple theme, a fake apple, a photo of an Apple, a piece of paper with an Apple sticker, a sketch of an apple, even an apple pie. Be creative to Andy Lack at Sony with a note attached. You can write a real letter or just scribble free Fiona on the envelope.

Whatever you want. End quote. Also, and this part is in boldface, italics, and all caps. Quote, I have been advised not to mail real apples for health and liability as well as waste and economic reasons. Please respect our policy. Thanks. end quote, that's good advice. I'm sure some rebellious Fiona Apple fans mailed real apples anyway,

and my belated apologies to whoever was working the Sony Music Mailroom at that time. I bet it smelled crazy in there. Okay, so now this has become a whole deal. The free Fiona movement gets major press, the New York Times, MTV News, Howard Stern, and the John Bryan leaks are circulating online, and it sure seems like extraordinary machine is being held hostage by an evil, doddering, beef-witted, monolithic record label.

Same thing happened to Wilco, right? The great Chicago art rock band Wilco, back in 2001, when their evil dottering label rejected the band's weird, clattering, brilliant album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. And it became a whole media deal, a real us versus them, heroic artists versus evil corporate Dufus's sort of deal. And Wilco ended up putting out the album on a different label owned by the same parent company, and Yankee Hotel Fox Trot is now an American classic. Or at least it's a classic in my America.

Same thing here now with Fiona Apple. Similar thing. Somewhat similar thing, maybe. Fiona Apple's third album, Extraordinary Machine, finally officially comes out on Epic Records in October 2005. And if you want the truth, I vastly prefer the official version of every song, including Red, Red, Red. I have, in fact, only one complaint about this new version of Red, Red, Red, Red. You guessed it, no wolf.

And I think if I didn't have to kill, kill, kill, kill, maybe I won't much of you. Where's the wolf at? Was the wolf unavailable? Otherwise, I am grateful for this slower, softer version of red, red, red, red, with no cavernous reverb and whatnot to distract you. When Fiona sings, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. The official version of Extraordinary Machine takes two songs from the leaked John Bryan version, including Extraordinary Machine itself, the title track.

It adds one new song called Parting Gift, and it otherwise offers new and frankly superior and demonstrably finished versions of the leaked songs, now produced by Mike Elizondo and Brian Cahue. Mike Elizondo is a Dr. Dre protege who co-wrote 50 cents into club, for starters. Naturally, lots of people on the internet do the thing where we go song by song and compare the John Brian leak to the official album version. and what we discover, intriguingly, is that the songs are intact. The songs are unfazed. The new versions of these songs are structurally and lyrically quite similar to the leaks.

The official epic record's release of Extraordinary Machine does not sound watered down or radio-friendly or malevolently compromised. It just sounds like Fiona finished the songs. He's scratching. Do do do do do do that part's gone now on the official released version of Get Him Back. That's too bad. So yeah, now a more complicated and nuanced portrait emerges. Here is Fiona Apple on the Charlie Rose show in 2006, talking to guest host Sasha Frere Jones, the great rock critic Sasha Frere Jones.

Fiona is explaining that whoever leaked the John Bryan songs thought they were freeing them and by extension freeing her, but really the leak mortified her because what she actually wanted was to re-record those songs and get them right. But the label was reluctant to pay for these new recordings,

but then the leaks generated so much publicity that her label relented and let her re-record the songs. Or, to simplify things, whoever leaked those songs, it was kind of a crappy thing to do, but it helped. I prefer

to believe that whoever did it really, really thought that they were doing something good for me because... Well, it wasn't exactly bad press. It wasn't, no, but it still feels like somebody went through your drawers, you know, and showed them to the class.

It just, it wasn't... I didn't give it. It wasn't done. It wasn't done. So it was a kind of crappy thing to do, I think. But has this album done... But it helped. It helped. Fiona pushes her hands up into the of her sweaters like I do sometimes, presumably out of nervousness like me. That's interesting.

I'm projecting, of course, but wildly projecting one's own emotions onto Fiona Apple as a big part of this whole deal. Fiona also mentions that before the leak, when she asked to re-record the songs, her label told her she could redo one song at a time, and then the label would decide whether to give her money for the next song, and so on. Epic Records is not the outright dastardly villain here, no. But that doesn't make them cool. Finally, Fiona has never hesitated to profess her profound gratitude to the Free Fiona movement.

Her whole face brightens up whenever she says the words, Free Fiona. Because even if those nice people misread the whole album held hostage by label situation, and even if the Free Fiona movement resulted in some people sending rotting produce through the mayor, They did it out of support and concern and love. And it was a lovely thing to do and it helped. For your reference, the best song on Extraordinary Machine in either iteration is called O Well. That's the leaked John Bryan version of O Well. I dig the little horn riff very much, but I made a little, John Bryan version of O Well. I dig the little horn riff very much, but I made

never recover from the delirious viciousness with which Fiona Apple sings the words What Wasted Unconditional Love? The official version of O Well is also magnificent and terrifying. That deceptive, casual O Well at the end is especially magnificent and terrifying. Also, in a big Fiona Apple profile and the New Yorker in 2020, it says, quote, looking back on her catalog,

she thought that her one week song might be, please, please, please, on extraordinary machine, which she wrote only because the record company had demanded another track. End quote. Okay, that song makes more sense to me.

Now. Please, please, please. No, no melody. They lack and pack their pity They've been made up already Please, please, please No more melodies Yeah, that makes sense

Notice that even when forced By her record label To write a song she doesn't like Fiona is still sneaking in elite internal rhymes They lack impact their petty That's why she's the best We are trained We are trained as listeners

as fans, as devotees to see our favorite pop stars and rock bands as the heroes, and their record labels as the villains. Many fine albums, many fine pop songs are animated by this tension between the noble artists and the corporate shills, the empty suits, the bearers of bad ideas. Pink and Kelly Clarkson, two of our finest early 21st century pop stars, they both quite publicly and valourically, valiantly grappled with the famous tyrannical record company Titans, attempting to mold and control them. Prince in the 90s, changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol and battling with the dastardly dottering Warner Brothers for years.

Neil Young in the 80s getting sued by his label, Geffen Records, for not sounding enough like himself. John Fogarty in the 80s getting sued by his old label, Fantasy Records for sounding too much like himself. Tret Reznor of Not. In 9-inch nails in 2007, telling his fans in Australia to go ahead and steal his music on the internet because his label, Universal Music Australia, was ripping off his fans by charging $30 for a CD. That's the sort of antagonist energy I prefer.

Record labels never have good intentions, and for that matter, they got no good ideas. So just imagine how pissed you would be. As a young rock star, if your label's worst idea resulted in the biggest, hit you ever had. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 49th episode of 60 Songs That Explained the 90s, Cole in the 2000s, and this week we are discussing Bring Me to Life by the Little Rock, Arkansas rock band Evanescence from their 2003 debut album Fallin. The label made them add the rapper guy who goes, can't wake up, and it

arguably makes the song. Arguably. We'll see. Yes. I am aware that bring me to life quite surprisingly appeared as a major plot point in a 2025 episode of that cringy, awkward HBO show, the rehearsal, the Nathan Fielder show. And I hope you're ready for nothing because I only know the memes from that guy's shows because his old deal sounds way too bleak and discomforting for me. My apologies, but we will not be discussing the rehearsal, even if my editors try to make me. It's a bad idea. Editors are the record labels of journalism. Okay. Ad break.

Okay. Last week we talked about the concept of remembering some guys, the sports term, the sports media term, where people sit around remembering the names of various baseball and football and basketball players, et cetera, with no further context. Shout out the splendid sports and culture media empire defector.com. A wholesome and lightly nostalgic. and bizarrely uplifting activity, remembering some guys. Not the superstar players everyone remembers, and not totally obscure players either.

You want to remember some more guys? Here, let's try it. Real quick. All right. Kelly Holcomb. Spurgeon Wynne. Seneca Wallace. Bruce Gradosky.

Thad Lewis. Mike Pagel Austin Davis Todd Phil Cox Brandon Weeden Yeah those are all Cleveland Browns Quarterbacks I'm a Browns fan and I hate them so much

I wish them ill But yeah what I said last week is that I am an amateur A subpar, a below replacement level guy rememberer I leave it to the experts You know what I remember? Bands. You want to remember some bands? You want to remember some early 2000s new metal adjacent bands?

I thought you'd never ask. Let's remember some bands. Okay. Cotton Mouth Kings. Trust Company. Taproot. Revely. Spine shank.

Stun Yeah, stun. St-U-N, which is an acronym for Scream Toward the Uprising of Non-Conformity. I am dead serious. Or in any event, they were dead serious. I saw Stun at a warped tour show once

and they kicked ass, actually. They sounded like if third-eye blind were cage fighters. Sorry, no commenting. Just remembering. Sorry. Okay. American head charge. 36 crazy fists.

Ultra spank. Il Niño. Il Niño is fantastic. That's fantastic. I love that. Un logo. Boy hits car. Head PE with parentheses.

It says too much. Hot action cop. Yo. Who among us even has the balls to remember Hot Action Cop? Hot Action Cop who had an immodest alternative rock hit in 2003 called Fever for the Flava. It's a metaphor. That's not a metaphor. Oh, boy, I would like to formally apologize for remembering Hot Action Cop.

I should not have done that. Hot Action Cop are from Nashville, Tennessee, and the lead singer looks like McLevin. which explains a lot to me actually. What I love about this song, Fever for the Flava, is that it's crystal clear what they're saying. I know what they're saying. I got it. And yet very few of the lyrics to this song

register to me as conventional English words. To me it all sounds like, blah blah blah blah blah blah. These dudes got so horny that they accidentally transcended language. That's very impressive. Also, that's pretty horny, fellas. Pace yourselves. Maybe take a walk around the block or something.

Maybe just take my word for it, but that right there is somehow both the most lyrically coherent and emotionally resonant part of that song. I refuse to play you the music video for hot action cops fever for the flavor. No thank you, But please be advised that at that precise moment in the fever for the Flava music video,

there's a bunch of construction dudes jackhammering a sidewalk until a geyser of water erupts out of the concrete. Right. And in the foreground, a young lady is pole dancing on a suburban street corner. She's gyrating around a tall street sign that reads Seaman Drive, S-E-A-M-E-N, Seaman Drive, Men of the Sea. There is simply no way I am playing this video for you. You can forget about it. I may appear to not have standards, but that doesn't mean I don't. Okay, you get one screenshot of the street sign.

That's it. If you're not watching this, don't worry about it. You're better off. There it is. Feast your eyes. You may have noticed that this scene occurs on the 690 block of Seaman Drive, one of the most coveted blocks of real estate in America. They decided 690 was funnier.

and or more sophisticated and or more plausible from a civic planning perspective than just 69 Seaman Drive. Listen, I personally don't find this sort of thing amusing, but perhaps someone somewhere will benefit from this information. I'm very sorry, the Ringer regrets the error of hiring me. But yeah, that's the vibe in hard rock in heavy music at the time. Nobody was doing their best work in 2003. Okay? Well, almost nobody. So, moving on from that topic, the Evanescence origin story, the myth, the lightly

disputed myth, is that Amy Lee, singer, songwriter, piano player, guitarist, and Ben Moody, guitarist, songwriter, Amy and Ben meet as teenagers in 1994 at a Christian youth camp in Little Rock, Arkansas. They first meet, specifically, allegedly, when Ben hears Amy playing a meatloaf song on the piano. See if you can guess which piano-driven meatloaf song Amy might have been playing on piano in 1994. You guessed it. Amy was allegedly playing the meatloaf song, I do anything for love, parenthesis, but I won't do that. It's a great song.

Ding, ding, ding, and I would do anything for love. I'd run right into hell and back is a core evanescence lyrical principle. But right away, we got some tension. Put it this way. In interviews, Ben Moody brings up meatloaf way more often than Amy Lee brings up meatloaf. Here is Amy Lee in 2004, talking to the immortal Canadian journalist and deep dive interview specialist Nardwar. I appreciate that Nardwar keeps making Amy Lee say Evanescence.

I was wondering, Amy Lee, of evanescence. Of evanescence. You bounded or bonded with your former collaborator ban over a meatloaf song? A meatloaf song. That's the tale. I played a lot more than meatloaf, but, you know, that's what he remembered. I guess he didn't, you know, filtered through all the Beethoven and Mozart that I was playing. So he heard meatloaf.

That's the tale. Amy would prefer to remember all the Beethoven and Mozart she was playing, but Ben would prefer to remember meatloaf. Right away, we got some tension. Already, that's a hint that Amy and Ben might not always be working together. Also, Ben has described there as Amy's former collaborator. That's another hint. Amy Lee and Ben Moody meet in 1994 at a Christian youth camp in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Talking to USA Today in 2003, Amy. He says, quote, I don't think it was more than a month before I brought him a cassette tape of me playing the guitar and singing a song that I wrote. I was like, make this cool. And he was like, okay, end quote. And so Amy Lee and Ben form a band called Evanescence. From their 1998 debut EP, also called Evanescence, that song is called Where Will You Go? dig the funereal organ, dig the arresting bone-deep, eternal, mournful power of Amy Lee's voice, and yeah, dig the drums from Led Zeppelin's when the levy breaks.

That John Bottom drum loop feels a little out of place there, a little disruptive, but let's say that only adds to the song's aura of alienation. Look, all rock bands are power struggles, and it might be unfair, but usually the singer, the front person, the lyricist, the focal points, the singer usually wins the power struggle. But with evanescence, it's extra unfair. Because from the very beginning, Amy Lee has just an ungodly colossal voice.

She's got a rock star voice. And if she wanted it, a pop diva superstar voice. She doesn't want to be a pop diva, but nonetheless. All I know is, on this song, Where Will You Go? Amy Lee sings the bridge so hard that I'm I'm pretty sure the key changes. I don't think you're going to win a power struggle with someone who can sing so hard she knocks the song off its axis and into another dimension. That's all I'm saying.

Also, I can hear you when you whisper, but you can't even hear me screaming is another core evanescence lyrical principle. Amy Lee is born in Riverside, California in 1981. Her family bounces around a bit before settling in Little Rock, Arkansas. where her father, John Lee, becomes a veteran radio DJ and personality. John Lee also once sang Desperado by the Eagles on the gong show in 1979, and he did not get gonged. If you know what that means, I know you're very impressed. Young Amy Lee, first she gets into Motown,

but then she sees the 1984 Oscar-winning Miloche Foreman film Amadeus, which more or less permanently gets her into classical music. Talking to Rolling Stone in 2020, Amy says, quote, I wanted to be like Mozart. I begged for piano lessons. I got to take piano lessons. Then grunge hit. End quote.

So yeah, in the 90s, she's listening to Nirvana and Soundgarden and Tori Amos and whatnot. But the classical stuff never leaves her. Even when she gets into harder stuff, too. She says, quote, it just all fell together. The heavier the music, the more it was in the Metallica, Pantera, world, the more similarities I could draw with Bach and Beethoven, end quote. Amy Diggs the fantastical and menacing film scores of Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer as well. Danny Elfman's got Edward Scissorhands and the nightmare before Christmas and so forth.

Hans Zimmer's got that big red button where you press it and it goes br-br-a. Amy digs Bjork also. She talks about Bjork frequently. Talking to the magazine, Revolt in Style in 2011, Amy Lee says, quote, Bjork has always been my number one. End quote. The 1997 Bjork album Homogenic, especially, strikes me as a major indicator of where evanescence might be heading.

The colossal otherworldly voice, the orchestral swells, the booming electronic beats, in the ecstatic sense that the singer's whole world is permanently on full. fire. And you push me to be. That song is called Joga. And yes, state of emergency, how beautiful to be, is also a core evanescence lyrical principle. So the 1998 Evanescence EP is burned onto CDRs and sold at live gigs in Little

Rock. And for me, at least, it's fun to play the game where you try to imagine if you'd have seen it and heard it. if you'd have predicted that in five years, this band would sell 17 million copies of their debut CD worldwide and beat out 50 cent for the Grammy for Best New Artist. Yes, 50 Cent was mad. I'd like to think I would have predicted that. This song is called Understanding. And sure, the opera accents and monster quasi-a-rera-rock guitars are important, but it's the way Amy Lee sings, yeah, yeah, yeah.

that really does it for me. Yeah, I'd like to think I would have thought this person is going to be famous immediately upon hearing this person's voice. Evanescence released a second EP in 1999 called Sound Asleep. This is also a burned CDR sort of deal. This one might even be rarer now as a piece of physical media. This song is called Whisper. And like, yeah, Amy Lee could be a pop star.

Amy Lee could be the lead singer of the late 90s Arkansas version of Rock Set. I hope she'd take that as a compliment, even if she definitely didn't want to be that. Also, dig the whispering there in the deep background, the subtle, ominous vocal counterpoints. The question of whether Evanescence need a second voice, whether Amy Lee needs a permanent, constant vocal foil,

this is going to be a huge argument. Real soon. It's a dumb argument. She does not require a vocal foil, for God's sake, but it's still an argument. Record labels never have good ideas. But first, finally, in the Evanescence prehistory, in the year 2000, they released a demo-slash-album sort of collection called Origin. These early EPs and demos were re-recording our earlier songs. We're experimenting. We're evolving. On Origin, you get the song Whisper Again. You get the song, Where Will You Go? But most importantly, you get a new song called My Immortal. I'm so tired of being here, suppressed by all my childish fears. My Immortal is a piano ballad. It's a power ballad, even if usually all the power is provided by Amy Lee's voice. Ben Moody wrote most of the lyrics to this one, and Amy's talked about how that makes this a harder song for her to personally relate to. Talking to MTV News in 2003, Amy says, quote, that's the difference between us. Ben tends to

write like a storyteller, and it's not necessarily from any kind of personal experience. I can't bring myself to write about anything I don't understand completely. For me, writing is always about some specific thing that's happened. So sometimes I feel a little distance singing the song, but I still love it. End quote. She never said. sounds a little distanced is the thing. The chorus of My Immortal is huge and bombastic. Yes, but it's the hush here. The dark near-whisper lower register of her voice

that really gets to me here. If you have to leave, I wish that you would just leave because your presence still lingers here and it won't leave. Just the soft, devastated, line delivery of, and if you have to leave, I wish that you would just leave. The true greats, the true vocal powerhouses and rock stars and divas, in my experience, their true

greatness is paradoxically more evident the quieter their voices get. But yes, okay, when Amy Lee belts out that huge and bombastic chorus to My Immortal, that's a pretty rad rock and roll moment as well, especially if you were to hypothetically add some gargantuan full band Arena Rock Thunder, some orchestral majesty, some bonus oomph. There you go. That's the spirit. There's your umph. Evan essence signed a wind-up records in 2001.

Wind-up records also home to the mega-popular and universally beloved rock band Creed. And in 2003, Evanescence released their debut album called Fyndennaxon. fallen. That was the full band version of My Immortal, which the band really likes, but wind-up records doesn't like it. And the label insists on putting a demo, mostly solo piano version of My Immortal, on the record instead. Talking to MTV News, Amy Lee says, quote, the label was stuck on the demo and wouldn't let us use the version we really wanted. We fought back and forth about it, and finally we gave in, but we were all so angry about it. quote. The full band version of My Immortal is now a fallen bonus track, and

Evanescence and Wind Up Records will have no further heated disagreements. Of course, I'm just kidding. But meanwhile, this fallen record is a surprise blockbuster mega hit. That's the first 10 seconds of the first Evan essence album. The first 10 seconds of a song called Going Under. That right there is pure late 90s to early 2000s hard rock radio. I would struggle greatly to find for you a 10-second span that better illustrated the vibe in turn of the century heavy music. The shiny and grouchy and super crunchy guitars go and the ominous electronically treated drums kick in and a hushed, scary magnetic singer goes 50,000 years I've cried.

That's 2003. All right. Verily, this is the flavor for which we've got the fever. Yeah, you got lots of bands trying to sound like this in 2003, but very few of those bands had a singer who could gloriously crash into this chorus like the Kool-Aid Man. When Evanescence released their debut album in 2003, they are still functionally a duo of Amy Lee and Ben Moody. David Hodges had joined the band in 2000, and he contributed keyboards and piano and songwriting and string arrangements to Fallen, but he left the band by the time this

record came out, and he later became a big shot songwriter and producer. Meanwhile, post-fallen, Evan Essence hired a touring band, including John Lecompt on guitar, Will Boyd on bass, and Rocky Gray on drums. But those guys won't last long either. Evanescence is a band. Evanescence is a concept is a moving target, externally and internally. There is a constant tumultuous evolution reflected in the songs themselves. Fallen also includes a gloomy, stormy jam called Everybody's Fool, which rails against the shameless malevolence of manufactured pop stars. Talking to VDH1.com in 2004, Amy Lee describes it like this. Quote, My Little Sister was really, getting into these, I don't want to offend anyone, but like really fake, cheesy, slutty, female cracker box idols, and it really pissed me off. She started dressing like them, and she was like eight years old. So I gave her the talk, and I wrote a song. End quote, dig the video for everybody's fool, in which Amy puts on various pop star type wigs and fake smiles for the camera until it hurts,

and then puts her fist through a bathroom mirror. Also, if we're talking about monster piano-driven power ballads, this fallen album also features a deepish cut called Hello, in which Amy Lee, as is her preference, unfortunately, writes and sings about something very, very personal to her. Hello is about another of her younger sisters, Amy's younger sister who died at three years old. For reasons, doctors were never able to explain,

when Amy was only six. Talking to Blender magazine in 2004, Amy Lee says she won't ever publicly name her sister because it would be weird to say her name in print and it would upset her mother and maybe possibly even Evanescence fans might go looking for her grave. Amy Lee also says, quote,

My sister's death taught me how short life can be and it has driven me to achieve things. I have a list of 50 things I want to achieve. Not necessarily in entertainment, just personal goals. Life's fragility drives me on, end quote. Maybe the casual listener can guess any of that backstory based solely on Amy's lyrics and maybe not, but I will say that knowing the backstory might very drastically affect the way you react to the way she sings the word yesterday.

Yeah, yikes, there is a profound, crushing, unsettling, but also somehow very possibly soothing heaviness to the first Evanescence record, to Fallen, whether you know everything there is to publicly know about this band or you know next to nothing. Speaking of biographical information that might make you hear the song differently, I was not aware, for quite a long time, that Evanescence did not particularly want a second prominent version. vocalist on this song. Bring Me to Life, a top five hit on the Billboard Pop Chart in 2003, in a song with 2.1 billion Spotify plays now. Bring Me to Life is a song about Amy Lee's future husband, Josh. Talking to the website's song facts, Amy explains that she and Josh were just hanging out And she was going through a tough time personally, but thought she was hiding it well.

But Josh looked her dead in the eye and said, are you happy? And Amy says, quote, I felt like he could just see straight into my soul. End quote. That's nice. That's beautiful. But now we got to deal with the other guy, actually audible on the song. Let's jump to the bridge, actually. My favorite part of Bring Me to Life has always been Amy's.

melody right there, the laser focus intensity of, I've been sleeping a thousand years and seen, the steely-eyed ferocity with which she counters the barking of the quasi-rapper guy. Look, Evidence's did not want the rapper guy on this song. Sorry to that man. It's not his fault. The rapper, the quasi-rapper and co-vocalist here is, I imagine, a perfectly lovely gentleman named Paul McCoy, frontman for 12 stones. the Mandiville, Louisiana rock band 12 Stones, also signed at the time to wind up records.

Based on the Bring Me to Life video, Amy and Paul do not have especially explosive personal chemistry, but Paul keeps Amy from falling off a window ledge, so that's nice of him, at least. Contrary to the presumptions I made, based solely on Paul's guest appearance on Bring Me to Life, the band 12 stones are not nearly as rapidly, rapy, or as screaming as I'd anticipated. Here is their modest 2007 mainstream rock hit anthem for the underdog. Lovely, splendid, inspiring, era-appropriate as 2007 Christian-overtoned post-pronged post-grunge rock bands go. Wind-up Records pushed many of their bands to Christian radio.

Evanescence themselves are briefly perceived as and occasionally marketed as a Christian rock band, though this makes Amy and Ben uncomfortable. to varying degrees. As for 12 stones, I figured I'd play you a quick tune because the rest of this discussion is medium rude to Paul McCoy, but it's nothing personal. Evanescence did not want a quasi-wrapping co-vocalist on Bring Me to Life. Amy Lee wrote Paul's part herself, but only under label-induced duress. Paul is present on this song against the band's will to a degree uncommon for a gigantic hit song. even given the well-documented history of record labels foisting bad ideas onto young rock bands.

Windup Records had decreed that Evanescence had to hire a full-time rapper and co-vocalist for the entirety of the Fallen album, pretty transparently in a scheme to make Evanescence sound more like noted, ultra-popular rap rock band Lincoln Park, and Evanescence refused. I'm inclined to let Amy Lee tell this story, her own words, via a 2016 appearance on the Loudwire video series, Wikipedia Fact or Fiction. Because I think it's important to hear the disgust in her voice and or see the disgust in her face when she says the words, rapper and awful. She is describing the moments when her band declines to hire a rapper and then flees the state.

I had to fight that fight hard. In fact, we had to leave that place in California. say, never mind, I guess we're dropped and we're not doing anything. Oh, okay. Drive all the way back to Arkansas with tears on our eyes that it was not going to work out because we refused to hold auditions and hire a rapper to join the band because that would be so awful. This is not Paul McCoy's fault, just to reiterate. I don't imagine he's calling the shots here.

Wind Up Records is his label, too. But bizarre as it sounds, Paul McCoy's guest appearance on Bring Me to Let's, is the compromise. As brokered between Evanescence, wind-up records, and the 2003 feature film Daredevil, starring Ben Affleck in the titular role. Bring Me to Life will indeed appear on the Daredevil soundtrack. Not a great movie. Daredevil, if I recall correctly, but somehow not Ben Affleck's least well-received movie

released in 2003. Tell him, Amy, dig the goofy joy in Amy's voice. and on Amy's face when she says the words, I don't know where that came from. And then when we got there, I guess we called their bluff enough that they were like, okay, we have a movie opportunity and we're going to let you do your thing,

but you do have to have the rapper on the one song because they specifically asked for it. I don't know where that came from. So we said, okay, we'll take it. Rapper in one song. It worked out well. It did work out. I can't be mad about it now.

And it did work out well. Bring me to life worked out well. The foisting of a quote-unquote rapper onto a band that did not desire a quote-unquote rapper. As Fiona Apple might put it, that was a crappy thing to do, but it helped. Because here's the thing. Here's the beauty of rock criticism as I practice it. Anyway, if I didn't know any of this backstory, and therefore if I thought

Evanescence put a quasi-rapper on this song because the band totally wanted one, I'd be gassing on right now about the tremendous fantastic explosive chemistry between Amy Lee and Paul McCoy on Bring Me to Life. Because for exactly three minutes and 56 seconds, these two crazy kids work incredibly well together. Every time I get to that part of Bring Me to Life, I try to focus on what Paul's doing, specifically, screaming mostly. But every time I get totally distracted by the way Amy Lee draws out every word of bring me to life, like the rock star she was undeniably born to be.

Evanessence have made five full-length albums since Fallen, including a new record here in 2026 called Sanctuary, and band co-founder Ben Moody has appeared on zero of those other records. Ben Moody leaves Evanescence mid-tour in October 2003, under enormously acrimonious circumstances. Talking to Blender Magazine in 2004 in what is billed as Amy's first interview since Ben's departure,

Amy Lee says, quote, Ben leaving was a very good moment. We got to the point where the band was really unhealthy. I can't explain, because I don't yet totally understand it myself, but Ben and I pretended that we were friends when really we were business partners. We didn't talk.

We never stayed on the same. same bus. We weren't friends. We were friends when we met and I was 13 years old, but you don't expect that to survive until you're 22. End quote. Ben Moody, for his part, goes on to a successful career as a songwriter and producer. In 2010, shortly after forming a new band called We Are the Fallen with former members of Evanescence and a female lead singer, Ben posts online a 3,20019-word explanation for why he left Evanescence. I'm not complaining about or mocking that word count. 3,200 words is like one-third as long as this fucking script. It's fine. What I'll say about Ben's lengthy explanation is it captures really well the agony of leaving a band he'd co-founded with the

understanding that he'd walk away with practically nothing reputational. Ben knew Evanescence was Amy's band now, now and forever. He says, either I leave or Evanescence. dies. He also says, if one of us didn't leave, my one chance to leave something in this world greater than myself would be lost. That's very heavy and very sad and very melodramatic, and also, I think you'll agree, very evanescence. And now I did bring me to life for yet another reason. This song is a monument to a bloody and protracted and only partially victorious fight with their record label that Amy Lee and Ben Moody fought together. They lost the battle.

There's a quasi-rapper on Bring Me to Life, but they won the war. They didn't have to hire a full-time quasi-wrapper. And also, the battle they lost is their all-time biggest and greatest hit. And I'd love to visit an alternate universe where Evanescence win the battle, and there is no second vocalist on this song going, Wake Me Up, just to see if the song would have gotten as huge, or not gotten as huge, or gotten exactly as huge. nonetheless. Of course you can always just listen to Evanescence play Bring Me to Life

live because nobody on stage sings Paul McCoy's part. You know who does though often? The fans. You got to listen close here, but not that close. That's Evanescence Live in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2025. The Wake Me Up part sounds different when it's the fans doing it, right? Amy Lee sure doesn't seem like she minds her fans singing that part, does she? Evanescence are also good at being uncomfortable. Evan essence are also a complex and often malfunctioning, but nonetheless, extraordinary machine. And what makes this particular machine extraordinary is that sometimes it can turn a bad idea

into the best idea. We're so delighted to be joined once again by the fantastic. writer and critic and blogger Brittany Spanos. She's worked for Rolling Stone. She's written for Vogue and Cosmopolitan and many other fine magazines. And you can subscribe to her fabulous substack newsletter right now. It's called Brit Pop. Britney, thanks so much for coming back. Thanks for having me. Of course. In 2017, Rolling Stone made a list of the 100 greatest metal albums of all time and fallen by Evanescence made the list and you got to write about it. What makes this one of the greatest metal albums of all time.

Yeah, I think this song, I think Evanescence generally brought something really fresh to what was happening in metal and obviously new metal in the early 2000s. There was something very, of course, Amy Lee's voice is so operatic and there's something very kind of classical, tinging like every single aspect of the album and also this song in particular bring me to life.

But I think that there is, this really great kind of theatricality to evanescence that gets back to a lot of what early metal was, which is just like it has like this almost, you know, um, emo theater kid energy, which I feel like it's a lot of 70s metal. You know, it's like very like, like, my deal of like, like, like, DO, you know, like a big, really classically trained voice over just like this really kind of angry, energetic riff or, you know, kind of beat or anything that it just, it feels really powerful in that dynamic. Yeah. You wrote about how

Evanescence brought a much-needed to the Hard Rock Boys Club of the early 2000s. Like, we've talked about Limp Biscuit on this show. I think there's room in your heart for the Hard Rock Boys Club as well, but was seeing Amy Lee on MTV and hearing her on the radio, like an inspiration and a relief to you in some ways. There is something so interesting that was happening. I feel like in the 2000s,

especially as a listener and someone, who loves rock music, really loved rock music at this time, this time period. But, you know, it did feel like the girls were doing pop music and the boys were doing rock music. It felt like it was very overly broie in the rock domain. You know, it was like the butt rock era. It was the new metal era. It was the, like, you know, kind of like blues revivalist era. I think it was just, you know, kind of at the beginning of, of, of, of, course, like kind of the New York underground moment was still like about to pop into the mainstream, especially with more like female voices within that. But at this time, it just felt

like mainstream rock was very much like the boys were doing kind of the heavier stuff and the girls were doing the much like girlier, hyperfeminine performance of pop music on MTV. And so I think it was great to hear someone like Amy Lee because she was, you know, her voice is, you know, this really high soprano. It is like just like unmistakestated. a very, very hyper-feminine voice over this, like, extremely heavy song, extremely heavy dark music, really, really dark music. And, like, you know, it just felt like such a great dichotomy to everything else that was happening at rock music at that time.

It just felt like it was kind of cutting through what, what Radio Rock was in early 2000s. Yeah. There's a song in this record called Everybody's Fool where Amy Lee is, she's pretty explicitly calling out, like, pop stars, you know. She doesn't say Britney Spears, but it's very. hard not to think of her. Like you and I, we've talked about pop music, about Rihanna as well. Like, did you see Amy Lee as being in direct opposition to pop stars? Like, did you have any qualms about liking both? Like, did you feel like he had to take sides? I never really had, uh, I never felt

in the middle of it. I think obviously that was so much something being perpetuated constantly by, you know, pop culture at that time, of course, thinking of even like Avril Levine, who came out around the same time who her whole thing was, you know, saying like she was the anti-Britney Spears. And even within pop music, you know, there was so much of this, I want to be not like other girls. So I feel like this was just such a mark of the 2000s of wanting to feel like I am not the same as everyone else or I'm not kind of, I'm not this type of feminine girl or I'm not this type of performer. But, you know, I feel like there was, I loved all of it. I feel like I was just like a little, I feel like I was just young enough where I didn't absorb the need

to feel like I needed to choose one or the other, which I'm very thankful for. I feel like if I ever maybe like in the middle of high school at this time, I probably would have been like, I'm not like other girls and I only like evidence. I can't be seen listening to Britney Spears, but I'm thankful that I did not subject myself to feeling like I need to make a choice between that. I am very jealous of you that you got to discover Evanescence and Amy Lee when you were not even a teenager, like maybe junior high. Like is this a band in a singer who's best encountered when you're as young and as moody and as angry, but also sort of as open to the universe as possible? Yeah, I think I found myself really weirdly drawn to so much and dark rock music at this time because I had just been so entrenched in boy band. world and I wasn't even that angsty like I I think my angsts was that my boy bands were breaking up

like I think the biggest thing that was breaking my heart when I was 10 was that Justin Timberlake had left in sync like that was tough that to me was the end of the world like there was no going forward so I was like maybe I should start listening to evanescence and there we go system of a down in Lincoln Park and I think I need to channel this rage into into that so it was it was my I think that was that was kind of my, my moment of rebellion, I guess. But yeah, I just found it. I think it was just so interesting. It just felt like this like totally opposite world that I had not really experienced

musically yet. And I think that I was really fascinated by that. It was just this level of, you know, that darkness, this kind of, you know, all the like the black eyeliner and all this stuff. It was just felt like such an escape from, in a way, almost an escape from the kind of like bubble gum pink. of the music that I was listening to before. And I found room in my heart for all of it quickly,

but I think it was just a nice kind of like, I'm like, oh, this is, you know, I felt like almost like a tourist in it. Like I was just like, I don't, I did not like this, but like this is cool. Hot Topic is crazy, you know? So I think that was, that was what it, how I kind of got into it.

But I, yeah, I just loved it. I just loved the sound. I loved how heavy it was. It just gave me the same rush that a really great, pop beat does, you know, really like heavy riff in music, hearing the screaming, you know, on the chorus of the song just like gave me the same sort of adrenaline that hearing bye, bye, by, by, Insink felt like it just hits the same receptors in my brain. Sure. I say it's very, it's very funny to think that Insync breaks up and you get in a system of a down, like just

the distance from bye by by to chop suey, you know, just they're just there to catch you. I was so bad. It's very upsetting. That's absolutely traumatic. I understand completely. You mentioned the classical music, the symphonic album and tour that Evan essence did. Like, Amy Lee talks about Mozart and Bach in interviews as much as any other metal bands. Like, do you think this band deserves more credit for getting young, sad, angry teenagers into, like, Mozart?

You know, like, were they able to work some classical music into the mainstream? I think they definitely deserve more credit for that element of their musicality for sure. I'm not sure if that many of their fans ended up getting into a lot of the classical music, but I do think there is something to say about those influences in not only the melodies and the musicality of the songs, but also Amy Lee's vocal performances, which I think are deeply still underrated. I think she is such incredible vocalist, and I think, you know, I think that they kind of, of get lumped into a certain schick of this 2000s, you know, hard rock performance style,

you know, kind of, kind of goth, but like maybe not like as goth as like the original gotts, but, you know, and like they're kind of new metal, but maybe not as new metal as like the even bigger, you know, or kind of originators of new metal and kind of got lumped into all of this. So I think she definitely, and I think the band definitely deserves a lot more. respect in kind of the brilliance of their own musical, you know, kind of influence from classical and all these other less metal genres that people don't associate with them. Yeah. I did not know for a long time that Evanescence did not want the second vocalist on Bring Me to Life. Like this was a big fight with their label and they were threatening to quit and

just get dropped and the compromise was to have the rapper, the second vocalist on one song on Bring Me to Life. Like, Brittany, do you like the other guy singing on Bring Me to Life? If that guy wasn't on this song, would this song be better, worse, or the same? I do like it. I think I really do, you know, I hate to give, I hate to get the labels credit at all. But I do think for this song, it is a really good combination. It is a really good contrast.

It really kind of makes the chorus pop even more. I think, you know, you enter a karaoke room and you have that kind of duality there. It's really fun. I think it just, I think maybe could do away with maybe the bridge portion, like the kind of rap bridge portion, maybe. I don't know. I actually kind of like that part too. But I think it could still be great without it, but I do think the duality on the chorus is really great. It seemed very obvious.

I do think you've got to hand it to the label on this one, only in this one instance, but I do think they were right about. And it seemed very obvious to me, it seemed very obvious that the label just wanted them to sound like Lincoln Park. Right. Right? Like that's a very obvious attempt to just recreate the Lincoln Park dynamic in this new band. Like when Evanescence first blew up, like, did you see them explicitly as a new metal band, like an extension of sort of the butt rock thing, a rap rock band? Or were they more of an alternative to all of that? Yeah, I think I kind of did associate them very much with Lincoln Park.

And I think that was, I don't think I had the full language of new metal at the time, but I think I did see them more closely associated with a Lincoln Park than any other band of that. moment. Um, but, you know, I think again, like the, their presentation felt so different. I think there was something very, you know, it's very kind of like witchy kind of like haunted fairy vibe that Amy Lee was giving with like the kind of like black corsets and her like long black hair and really, really pale skin and the dark makeup. Like that felt in itself. And maybe again, because it's the presentation of a woman fronting the band and dressing in. a specific way that, you know, a Fred Durst wouldn't dress as or like a, you know, the members of Lincoln Park or Corrin wouldn't dress as. But I think there was something that just felt so

uniquely dark about that presentation that felt a little bit different. And I guess a little bit less bro-y because I think a lot of those new metal guys and maybe other than I think corn, of course, sort of presented a little bit more in this direction. But it kind of dressed just like, like, you know, white guys who liked rap music. Like they were just. Like I had to dress in the backwards, the giant pants, like the like backwards baseball caps, like all of that stuff. Like they were dressing in a very broie way and kind of guy on the street type of way. And I think there was a level of costuming that Amy Lee had. Right.

That felt very different. Haunted fairy is such a good way to play. That's really excellent description. There's other huge songs on Fallen on this record. But bring me to life. I do think Stan's pretty far. apart, you know, from their catalog in terms of like streams and stuff like that. Like, is there another evanescence song that deserves that sort of all-time great canonization?

Or does it make sense that bring me to life sort of stands apart this way? I mean, to get out of this album, even though I do think there's like so many great songs from this album that I just get, I go back to a lot. But call me when you're sober from their follow-up album. That's what I was going to say. is incredible. I love that song. I go back to it so much.

I love that video. There's like a point where she's like kind of like flying in this mansion, like this Victorian mansion. It's really great. But I think it's so interesting. I mean, I feel like there's a modernity to that song in a way that Fallen doesn't have. You know,

I think there's something that feels very, it feels a lot more rooted in sort of present than I think there's like a little bit of a, of fallen feels just like a little less kind of tied to the real life of Amy Lee in a way that feels like almost like kind of I mean not that's not tied to like the real life but there's almost this um and it feels like it could be from any time or feel like it could be from any sort of like era with that but call me when you're sober there's something feels very like of that moment and so I feel like it feels like very I don't know it's almost anachronistic to see evanescence

which feels like so like this like Victorian-coated, again, like Haunted Theory kind of goth presenting band kind of write a song like this that feels like a very explicitly pop song. I just love it. I love the bridge. I love her voice on it. I think it's such a great song, so catchy. And I think that would be my other favorite Evanesson song. You have interviewed Amy for Rolling Stone, I think a couple times.

And I'm just curious what's that, what that's like. You know, she's done tons of press, you know, but this may. had such a chaotic history, so many different members, like a lot of controversy that I'm sure makes her a very guarded, you know, person to talk to. She's just very careful what she says. Like, how did she seem to you as just a person to talk to? I thought she just seemed so lovely. She was so nice. She was everything I wanted from her and more. You know, I think that was really exciting. Like, she felt very open. I think I think we talked, like, in the pandemic. Like, I think that was maybe the first time we talked. I remember she was

Right. Doing like a cover series and then, you know, everyone was doing a cover series at that point, but like she was doing one on her own. And then we talked around the time that Evanescence was reuniting. And I think, yeah, she was just like in, I believe she lived in Nashville at the time. So she was just like at home and she was like talking about it. She was like, oh, yeah, my kids are like running around outside and all this stuff. And it was very cute.

It just felt like, you know, she just felt like. like a sweet, you know, mom. Like, she's just like talking about her kids and everything. And it was very, very cute. And I, I just felt, and she just felt like a very, like, warm presence in a way. That also felt like such a, again, a contrast to the sort of imagery that she perpetuates kind of in, in the performance, Amy Lee. So it was very sweet.

She was very, very lovely. And she did feel very open. She felt very kind of nice to talk to. I think she felt excited, especially because Evan essence was coming back. She was like. excited to talk about, you know, this new album. And I think being able to come back with new music felt even more special in that way. I feel like it wasn't just a kind of nostalgia around that they were trying to do. Like, they had this new album that they were ready to kind of release

to the world. And so it was a very lovely conversation, the last one that we had. I've often wondered, like, if the turmoil around this band, like all the Ben Moody stuff early on to like the fight with the label to like a lot of different members since, like, does Evanessence's need sort of that chaos and conflict? Is there a little bit of a Fleetwood Mac sort of situation here where like if this is a band that had total stability, you know, in the same lineup and label for the past 20 years, like is a stable version of Evanescence a less interesting version of Evanescence? You know, I think it works for them. Like I think, you know, I really liked the last couple albums. I think they were really good. I thought they were really interesting.

and I thought again for, you know, I think the way that we kind of associate a lot of these early 2000s bands that had kind of like that really big breakthrough hit and then are trying to maintain it for as long as possible. I think Evanessence knows who they are. And Amy Lee especially, like, she knows what the band is and she knows like what they're doing. And they don't really stray too far from that.

And I think having that sort of internal conflict gives a really great juice for this, for the lyrics and for kind of like that kind of turmoil and darkness in the songs, and I think that works very well for them. So, because it seems like Amy Lee's actual life outside of all the drama around Evanescence, it's pretty chill. Peaceful, yes. And peaceful and nice.

So I think it's a good sort of good inspiration for the music. Yeah. You mentioned that cover series. I don't know if this was part of it, but like I didn't want to mention in 2020, Evan essence did cover the chain by Fleetwood Mac, which seems like they were attempting to hander to you very specifically. Like, it's been six years now, and I just wanted to wonder if you've recovered from Amy Lee singing a Fleetwood Mac song.

Barely. Very barely. Sure. Yeah, I think, again, great, great song for Evanescence to cover, given everything, and given sort of all the turmoil and the history and all of that. So I think perfect 10 out 10 choice by them, I do need more Amy Lee singing. Stevie Nicks songs. Like I do need,

I do need her to kind of tap in a little bit harder. We need maybe Amy Lee Silver Springs. Let's try it out. Let's just see what it sounds like. A little Rianan moment. I guess so. Do we bring Ben Moody back to be the Lindsay Buckingham in that equation? Yes, we need them staring at each other.

Yikes. We need, I think she, I think she, like, dated the guy from Stain to, like, maybe we just, like, have them kind of stare at each other. Sure. Just like a real, just real emotional, you know, peak kind of performance, I think. I think the whole world needs that to heal.

I think so. I don't want to be in the room when that happens, but I will watch that on the internet. Just to wrap up, we were talking, you just went to Daisy Chain Fields, I think it was called the Olivia Rodriguez thing in L.A., like should Evanescence play the next iteration of Daisy Chainsfield? Would they fit into this sort of mind meld of current pop and sort of 90s alternative and everything else that Olivia is like really explicitly trying to bring together? Yeah, I think a thousand percent. I think this would be kind of the perfect festival to have Evanescence at. I really hope that they bring it back and I feel like Evanescence would fit in so well. I mean, it was just such a good mix to see kind of more of the legacy bands with the younger artists.

I think there was also a really good mix of genre and sound. I think like the hardest sound, like the hard rock band was Dice Bits that played earlier in the day. And the response to them was fantastic. Like they are full on just like metal hard rock band. And there was like a pit going in the middle of the blazing sun. Like the fans were really excited about it. So I think that there's definitely an opening for not only more hard rock at Daisy Chain,

but Evanesson specifically would be fantastic to add into that. They need a haunted fairy. Yeah, they really need a haunted fairy. Truly. Yeah. Brittany, it's been wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Thanks very much to our guest this week, Brittany Spanos. Thanks to our producers, Olivia Creary, Julieta Ress, Justin Sales, and Chris Sutton. Animations and Graphics by Chris Calliton. Special thanks to Cole Kuchner. and thanks to you for listening. And now let's all go listen to Bring Me to Life by Evanescence. We'll see you next week.