Evanescence’s Amy Lee on “Bring Me to Life” Success: “My Biggest Fear Was that People Were Going to Misunderstand Who We Were”

If you’ve had ears since 2003, you’ve definitely heard the song “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence. Back in February 2022, the song broke a billion views on Youtube, which is pretty fucking insane. In a new interview, vocalist Amy Lee discussed the band’s trajectory and how it was affected by the ridiculous strength of their first hit, “Bring Me to Life.”

The single isn’t necessarily typical of Evanescence’s sound; rapper Paul McCoy of 12 Stones guested on the track because then-label Wind-Up Records was worried about Evanescence being a woman-fronted band. As she explains, Lee was worried that McCoy’s presence would cause fans to be confused about their style.

“The pressure was on immediately with ‘Bring Me To Life’ because our first song had a guest vocalist in it, and my biggest fear was that people were going to misunderstand who we were in the first place, and that it was going to be a really difficult thing to bring them along moving forward.

“Because, if you have a first single that doesn’t sound like the rest of your music, that’s scary. That can really put you in that one-hit wonder category, and that was really my biggest fear. When we were able to move past that, we had another single, and it was a hit. And then, we had ‘My Immortal,’ and it continued on and we’ve just had such an incredible fan base, so much support throughout the years, even when we were gone for years at a time.

“It’s just this beautiful thing. I don’t know what to say. We really do owe a lot to the fans. Also, I’d say, it’s something to not give up when it’s really, really hard. Because there have been times that have been really hard, from losing members to losing family. It would have been the easier path sometimes to just stop.”

Fortunately, “Bring Me to Life” wasn’t their only hit—though it still is their biggest, by a margin of about 400 million plays—and Evanescence are still alive today.