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Q&A: Evanescence’s Amy Lee On The Band’s New Album, Learning From Iron Maiden And Garbage And More

May 18, 2020, 09:30am EDT

Evanescence will release The Bitter Truth, their first new studio album in nine years later this year. As of now, not surprisingly in the chaos of 2020, the album has no release date. In fact, frontwoman Amy Lee says the album is still being written and will be shaped, at least in part, by the world-changing pandemic everyone is experiencing.

But the multi-platinum rock band is at least giving fans a taste of the album starting with the lead single, "Wasted On You," released April 24. I spoke with Lee recently in a conversation that veered from the band's early days and the new music to sharing stages with the likes of Garbage, Iron Maiden and Korn and Lee's perhaps surprising choice for her all-time favorite artist.

Steve Baltin: It's been nine years since the last album. And that is a lifetime in music. I imagine there have been so many changes for you to reflect on?

Amy Lee: After doing this for, it's been like 20 years, that's weird to say actually when you say it out loud, there are so many little moments along the way. It's like you're stuck at a place where you have to make a decision. And I found a lot of times choosing the path that's a little bit more difficult, or a lot more difficult, than the easy one is the one that really leads you to higher ground. When I started this band as a kid, a couple of teenagers making music in our parents' houses, it was a completely different thing. I mean the idea that started this whole thing is still there. This image and idea of something that combined multiple dramas, from the dramatic to the rock to the classical to the score. But it was just this tiny dream. It was only two people to begin with, but I'm the last one standing. There have been member changes that have been a very special step forward for us that has taken us to the place we are now. I love my band and my lineup so much at this point. And getting each one of them would never be without struggle to make a change like that. But every time I've been so grateful for the choices that we've made that has led me to my band family that I truly have now. I had to stand up and fight a lot, in particular in the beginning.



Baltin: How has all of that influenced you today?

Lee: Take that all the way to the future, just more and more fights to be had. We're in a place now where I feel like I'm fighting, but I don't feel like I'm fighting inside. It wasn't an easy place to get to, it took years of fighting. Now I can feel like I'm just fighting the demons in my own heart. There's a lot to fight about right now; there's a lot to sing about; a lot to say; in the world there's a lot of injustice; there are a lot of lies. I can actually focus on things that aren't so toxic within my world and that is an incredible gift.


Baltin: Were there moments early on where you felt like you graduated into being a real live band?

Lee: There have been a lot. And it sounds like an advertisement for me to say I feel like we've only gotten better and better over the years. But it's really true. And a lot of it just comes with the experience of doing it and earning those places and getting that confidence. And all along the way, like in the beginning, when things went crazy, "Bring Me To Life" number one on the charts and all that stuff, we really were so inexperienced. Part of what was so good for us was you just had the confidence to stand up there anyway. I know we did, like Rock In Rio, Lisbon in I think 2004, when we'd been playing like that for a year or less (laughs). And Download Festival was the next generation, era of the band and that was a crazy big thing. We had to open for Iron Maiden and I forget who was before us but we were the only people literally not screaming and men all day. I remember getting up there and thinking, "Okay, they're gonna throw a bunch of stuff up here and destroy us cause I'm about to roll a piano up on the stage and do 'Lithium' or whatever." Then we got up there and it was so beautiful. I think a big part of the learning for me in those moments is that if you believe in yourself and you just have the confidence that you do belong there then you do. It's like that moment in The Neverending Story where you have to go between the oracles and just believe in yourself to make it through (laughs). It's like that. And every time you do you get that much more fire and confidence that you know you do belong where you are every time. And, man, talking about this is really making me miss playing live right now.

Baltin: Looking back are there artists you learned a lot from?

Lee: On yeah, on the live side Korn is somebody that we've played with a lot in our time. They always inspire me live. Part of it is that they have a vast and wonderful catalog of great music, so their show is almost like a medley of themselves. And you know every song if you're a Korn fan. We've been on tour with them where we play every night and we always stay and watch, always. Garbage is a big inspiration for me too. We got to play live with them a few times and I absolutely still look up to Shirley Manson and did very much before we got our start. And to be in a place years later where we're sharing the stage and seeing her still killing it years later is a huge inspiration to me and makes me feel a lot of excitement for the future about us.

Baltin: Shirley spoke about what it meant to her to tour with Deborah Harry, who is a hero of hers. Is there one woman artist you would love to tour with?

Lee: I have a number one favorite artist of all time who is a woman I respect and admire and love very much. That's Bjork. I guess I can imagine a world where we would really belong on a tour together. We played together in festivals before, which was one of the highlights of my life. But I can't watch her play without crying so it would probably just make me a big mess. She makes me very emotional, she just reaches into my soul from the way that she sings to what she sings. Like what is going on in her world of music just lights me up.

Baltin: Eventually you will be able to play the new stuff live. Are there songs you are particularly excited to do when you can play them live?

Lee: (Grunts in frustration)Yes! We just came off this orchestral and electronic, beautiful, mostly reimagining of older work experience where we had a live orchestra. And it was just very, from a physical standpoint, subdued. It was very intimate for sure and it was beautiful. But coming off of that we were dying to just go rock again and it's funny how it works. But when you give yourself the ability to run in opposite directions and go down different roads it makes you want to run back to that thing. You have to allow yourself the freedom and ability to go other places. So going that way made us ready to come back to our core full force and find out what the new sound of our core really is after all this time. So we had been playing live shows and writing in between on purpose to get ourselves into that mode of what this album is gonna be. So we were very much in the headspace the whole time of, "What's this gonna be like live? We want this feeling live. I want the feeling of everybody at once pounding their heads and feeling this moment." We've only released one so I'm not gonna go down telling you the list of titles nobody's heard yet. I want each song to have its moment. The album is still being written too. So I think definitely since the world changed in such a giant way in the middle of our process it's gonna put some dimension to the music cause now we're writing in a new way and from a new place. But of the songs that we have finished so far I really can't wait to play "Wasted On You." But the next one coming in particular we all are really ready to be rocking the stage with it and can't wait to do it. When we all do get to go back out there again and play it is gonna be such a powerful thing and such a powerful wave of emotion, release, and, for me, gratitude that we get to do what we do.

Baltin: Is "Wasted On You" indicative of the sound of the rest of the album?

Lee: It's kind of its own thing. I can't say this is the sound of our new record. To be fair, I don't feel I've been able to say that ever. I feel like the whole idea of making an album, which isn't what everybody does anymore, I feel it's important for us as a rock band and our fans, they want an album. And I love making an album, it's like the whole book versus the chapters. Because of that we have the ability to down a lot of different roads and show a lot of colors of who we are within the albums. So I feel like all the songs are unique even in their sound. There are things that tie them together, we are what we are.

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