Thoughts on the Resurgence of Nu Metal
- When did you record the string version of “My Immortal”?
Amy: “My Immortal” has an interesting story about the recording process. It was one of our first songs and we recorded a demo of it quite a long time ago on cheap gear in the middle of the night. My dad used to work at a recording studio, he was a radio DJ. We were able to use his studio after hours at night when no one was there for like an hour. We laid the piano parts down on a keyboard and the sound was not very good and my vocal was, you know, I was like 17 or 18 so it was okay but it's innocent, it's definitely not my best. But the label really loved that song, which is what signed us. They were really attached to it and they'd listened to that recording so many times, for years, that by the time we were recording the album, they just couldn't get over the demo. So we recorded it beautifully with strings by David Campbell, in a real studio, my voice had matured, it's a much better recording, that's the “band version.” That's the version I love but they were like, “You know, we really prefer the demo.” And I was like, “You can't do this to me, please.” That was another fight we had to have, a huge one. I was like, “You cannot let this beautiful studio recording go, this has to be what's on the album.” And they were like, “No, there's magic in the demo.” So the compromise was that Fallen came out with two versions of “My Immortal” so even on the original, there's the demo, which they call the “main version” and the “band version,” which is the good version. I wanted to be able to share a version that doesn't have the band coming in, that stays peaceful, that stays in the intimacy of a ballad without the band, without it being the old demo version. I wanted to have a mix of that recording that just had the beautiful strings and the real piano and the better vocals so finally I made that and I like that and it wasn’t out there so I wanted to put it out there.
- Strings are a bit part of Evanescence’s music, particularly on Synthesis. Do you personally enjoy classical music?
Amy: Yes. And this probably isn’t the answer you're expecting but I really loved and idolized Bjork through my life growing up. I fell in love with her on debut, but her second album Homogenic was my favorite and it was much more string-heavy. She just really started going in this more orchestral direction, which was so for me, because before I started liking more contemporary music, I really got inspired by Mozart and Beethoven, and film composers. That was my first big musical passion was when I saw the movie Amadeus and I wanted to do that. I wanted to be a crazy, mad, musical genius and write dramatic, beautiful music. My favorite one was the one that was unfinished because he went mad. It was so dramatic and so passionate, I was like 12 years old. So I started taking piano and classical music was kind of this core for me. So Evanescence was an evolution of that because I loved that first and then I really started falling in love with heavy music, alternative music from the Metallica side of things to Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins. So it felt to us like we were discovering for the first time that those two extremely different things worked beautifully together. So to be able to have Ben who really knew a lot about the heavy stuff and was a good guitar player and me who had this classical twist and a vocal that could handle that, I don't know, it just happened. And then all of a sudden, we were obsessed with this brand-new idea. Of course, now we've learned that there are other bands in the world that have made that discovery but, for us, it felt completely original.
- 20 years have passed, and it seems that nu metal is experiencing a revival. Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach joined you on stage at Rock Am Ring festival earlier this year.
Amy: That was a special one. By the time Jacoby got on stage, I think it was two in the morning. It was a long festival and we were the late-night special and it was delayed because at a festival everybody runs late. “Bring Me to Life” was the very last song so he was awesome for sticking around and having his full energy that late in the night after a full day and already playing a show. That was so fun.
But that name, nu metal, I'm not sure... I've always struggled to feel like we fit in a box and I think that's probably true with most artists. I like to think that we transcend the nu metal box. But I know what you mean and I think that might have to do a little bit with the nostalgia element. Because all those bands and that feeling and that moment where aggressive, riff-driven music was in the mainstream, don't you miss that? I mean, it's weird to even say what the mainstream is because now the consumption of entertainment is so personalized. You get what you follow, and that's your world and there are other people like that and we're all scattered into our personalized thing. It's not like we all tune into the same MTV and see the same variety of music. You can tune in to certain mainstream channels and just see the pop situation or the rap situation but I feel like rock and so many other genres are kind of niche. You're gonna find it only if you're going to look for it. So people miss that time when rock was allowed to be in your face. I was having a conversation with somebody earlier about the MTV program Total Request Live and they were laughing because you would have the Backstreet Boys and Korn in the same television program. Can you imagine? So I think people maybe have those feelings of remembering that time.
- Last year, “Bring Me To Life” became number one again on the American iTunes chart. Do you know what happened?
Amy: No. I really hope it's because of all the great touring we've been doing. Right after the pandemic, we spent time creating a new album, really clinging to music and obsessing over it in a way that was so beautiful and good for us and we made some really great music. So by the time we could finally tour again, and we got the opportunity to play our new music, we just went nonstop. We just finished like two weeks ago in South America, we've been touring off and on for two years. And it was in the middle of all that and I just wonder if maybe that mattered. We see thousands of people at our shows around the world, and it's such a beautiful experience to share music with people like that. At this point, I think we've kind of reached a time where we're sort of past those early days of, “Here's who we are! Make sure you hear the first single, make sure you see my face.” We've done that, we're somebody that you know, we're part of people's memories. And that beautiful nostalgia mixed with new music and new experiences is, I don't know, maybe that's why. I hope that's why.
- What about “Bring Me To Life” in particular do you think is so universal?
Amy: Well, I don't know. Nobody knows. If we knew, we’d follow the math. It matters that it's the first song people ever heard by us. The first taste you ever had of this thing, and it was impactful at the time, for sure. So it's that first taste, you know? You taste some amazing food or drink and you want to get back to that first time.
