Off the back of showcasing a renewed lineup at last year’s Summer Sonic Festival, Evanescence has released a deluxe 20th-anniversary edition of its debut album Fallen. The deluxe edition includes a demo version of “Bring Me to Life,” recorded with only Amy Lee's vocals, as well as a string version of “My Immortal.” We discuss how Amy Lee navigated the heavy music scene as a young female artist in the early 00s climate and the pressure she received from the band’s record label to include male vocals on the track “Bring Me to Life.” Amidst the current nu metal revival and despite multiple personnel changes, Amy Lee continues to lead the band. We had the opportunity to speak with her about her past experiences and the band’s current direction. - Congratulations on the 20th anniversary of Fallen. Can you tell us about the process behind the 20th-anniversary edition of the album? Amy: I knew we had to do something for the fans to commemorate this milestone. We have been on this crazy, beautiful 20-year journey together and Fallen is what started at all so we just couldn't let the year go by without doing something. I had a lot of thoughts about it, I had some different creative ideas but since we dissected the album in 2017, for our orchestra and electronica-focussed Synthesis project, I didn't want to do the same thing again. I really wanted to honor and preserve and uplift the thing that so many people have connected to all over the world. So we decided to go in the direction of a really beautiful remaster and include any bonus things that I could possibly find that weren't all over the internet already. I wanted a nice diversity. I wanted something from the past, we have a beautiful version of “My Immortal” live, which has grown so much over the years. And the deluxe has even more stuff like voice notes on cassettes of me writing lyrics. I think it's cool and fun and interesting, it's been an interesting thing to go back and look at it.
- Did you discover anything new through the process?
Amy: I hadn't listened to old demos of Fallen songs in forever. I mean since then, maybe. So I was definitely hearing them and going “Whoa.” Especially the deeper songs like I've heard the “Bring Me to Life” demo enough times that I know it but the other ones, I was just like, “Oh, I didn't even remember that we did this part.” There were little sections that I'd forgotten, little lyrical changes.
Photo by Frank Veronsky- The demo version of “Bring Me to Life” is also on the 20th-anniversary edition. I’ve heard that the inclusion of male vocals on that track was a label decision. Can you tell us about that?Amy: Yeah, it had to do with our uniqueness. At that time, in particular, a woman in rock, there wasn't really anything else like that going on. And especially that mixed with the fact that it was heavy music was an unusual combination. I think as it drew nearer, they started really worrying about, “How are we going to find a way to break into the mainstream?” I think some industry people have a fear that you need to be a little bit like something else so it's familiar somehow to people and I've always thought the opposite. I've always believed firmly that uniqueness is key. All my favorite bands, all my favorite artists didn't sound like something else, they sounded like them, like Nirvana and Portishead. So, to me, it was our biggest fight. What they really wanted was for us to have a male vocalist join the band and be on every song. And I was just like, “Absolutely not, we can't, we're not going to do that, we're not going to change the band.” And they said, “Well, then you can just go home.” And so we went back to Arkansas with tears in our eyes and waited a few weeks and I lived back at my parents' house for a minute, and I was just devastated. And then they called a few weeks later and were like, “Actually, okay, we'll make a compromise. If you'll just do a guest vocal on one song, we have a cool opportunity with Daredevil so if you agree to do one song, that's all you have to do.” And I was like, “Okay.” It helped for me that it was in a movie and that it was a guest, it was able to be something set apart from the rest of the music, hopefully, and people would understand that that wasn't our whole thing. We're lucky that we had more songs, that album is full of cool songs, and we were able to have another successful single and another one and another one. So people were able to really understand who we are. I survived but I was a little nervous.
- Within the band, was there any internal disagreement about adding male vocals?
Amy: I was definitely the most passionately against it but it wasn't a fight within the three of us at that time. We all were like, “Yeah, this sucks. We can't do this.”
- I was also surprised to hear a guitar solo in the demo version. How did it come about that the guitar solo was removed?
Amy: Well, a guitar solo is sort of what you do when you don't have a bridge (laughs). We didn't have the bridge at that point. And then when the whole rap thing became this conversation that we were having, that's the place that it filled. And what is cool about “Bring Me to Life” is I really think that there are two bridges, it starts with the male/female back and forth and then it goes into this big Evanescence bridge and I love that. It's unique and it adds a bunch of energy and there's a new twist. It's almost like when you're watching a movie and it takes a turn. But yeah, the guitar solo was there because we didn't have any of that yet. So that's part of the reason I chose that demo to share because it had something unique that the album doesn’t have.
- Guitar solos were rare in nu metal at that time. What are your thoughts now, listening back to this version with the guitar solo?
Amy: I'll be quite honest with you. The guy that did that guitar solo, I haven't spoken to him in 19 years so I don't particularly love hearing his guitar solo. It's not that exciting for me (laughs).
