Evanescence — “Bring Me To Life”

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:03Speaker 01

  Hello friends, a quick note to say that 60 Songs is now available on YouTube. We made it. Success. That was easy. You can now watch full episodes of this show on YouTube and you can also check out our new social media accounts on Instagram and Tik Tok, all using the name 60 Songs that explain the 90s. We have heard your cries of despair and confusion and we have therefore embraced various popular online platforms. So watch us on YouTube, check us out on Tik Tok and Instagram. I'm on Blue Sky and Twitter still under the name Harvilla, H A R V I L L A, but maybe stay out of it. I don't know. We'll put all the links for these in the episode description as well.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Thanks for listening and or watching and we'll see you on the internet.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  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 FC 26, 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/nintesowswitch2. Games and systems sold separately. Games rated E to E10 plus.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes. And I certainly haven't been spreading myself around.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  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 and 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,

• 4:18Speaker 01

  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.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  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 tinging all the time.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  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 Conflict, He Thinks Like a King.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  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.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  If there was a better way to go, then it would find me.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  I can't help it. The road just rolls out behind me.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  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 LA fixture, John Bryan, who'd produced Fiona's last record, 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.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Be kind to me or treat me mean. I'll make the most of it. I'm an extraordinary machine.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  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 ebullient 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

• 7:43Speaker 01

  is about to kick your ass up and down the street.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  You motherfuckers better do your job and roll up and watch how we roll up. And I can't control the thing. Hope it is so nuts. I take a sip of that yak. I wanna fuck. I take a hit of that planet. You got me stuck.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  That song is called We 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 Bryan 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

• 8:43Speaker 01

  if you're cool enough to go to cool shows in LA, 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.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  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.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  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,

• 10:36Speaker 01

  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.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  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.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  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 to you too," but the last two lines there, "And I think if I didn't have to kill, 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 the song ain't finished yet. Neither is this one.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  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 doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo whistle-type riff undercutting the delicious menace in Fiona's voice. The less finished "Get Him Back" 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

• 14:13Speaker 01

  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

• 14:55Speaker 01

  headquarters in Los Angeles and 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,

• 15:36Speaker 01

  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

• 16:21Speaker 01

  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, doddering 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 doofuses sort of deal. And Wilco ended up putting out the album on a different label owned by the same parent company, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is now an American classic, or at least it's a classic in my America. Same

• 17:03Speaker 01

  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." You guessed it, no wolf.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Where's the wolf at? Was the wolf unavailable? Otherwise, I am grateful for this slower, softer version of "Red, Red, Red," with no cavernous reverb and whatnot to distract you when Fiona sings "kill, 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 demonstratably finished versions of the leaked songs, now produced by Mike Elizondo and Brian Cahue. Mike Elizondo is a Dr. Dre

• 18:36Speaker 01

  protege who co-wrote 50 Cent's "Indie Club," for starters. Naturally, lots of people on the internet do the thing where we go song by song and compare the John Bryan 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 Records release of "Extraordinary Machine" does not sound watered down or radio-friendly or malevolently compromised. It just sounds like Fiona finished the songs.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  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 rerecord 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 rerecord the songs. Or to simplify

• 20:15Speaker 01

  things, whoever leaked those songs, it was kind of a crappy thing to do, but it helped.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  I prefer to believe that whoever did it really, really thought, you know, that they were doing something good for me because...

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Well, it wasn't exactly bad press.

• 20:34Speaker 04

  It wasn't, no, but it still feels like somebody went through your drawers, you know, and showed them to the class. You know, 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.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  But has this album done...

• 20:50Speaker 04

  But it helped.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  It helped. Fiona Apple pushes her hands up into the sleeves 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 is a big part of this whole deal. Fiona also mentions that before the leak, when she asked to rerecord 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

• 21:36Speaker 01

  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 mail, 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 "Oh, Well."

• 22:25Speaker 01

  That's the leaked John Bryan version of Oh Well. I dig the little doo, doo, doo, doo horn riff very much, but I may never recover from the delirious viciousness with which Fiona Apple sings the words, "What wasted unconditional love." The official version of Oh Well is also magnificent and terrifying.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  That deceptive, casual Oh Well at the end is especially magnificent and terrifying. Also, in a big Fiona Apple profile in 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.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  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, they're petty. That's why she's the best. We are trained, royal we, 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,

• 24:33Speaker 01

  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 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 doddering Warner Brothers for years. Neil Young in the 80s, getting sued by his label, Geffen Records, for not sounding enough like himself. John Fogerty in the 80s, getting sued by his old label, Fantasy Records, for sounding too much like himself. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails in 2007,

• 25:14Speaker 01

  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.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 49th episode of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, Cole and 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 Fallen. 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 cringey, 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

• 26:38Speaker 01

  because his whole 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.

• 26:56Speaker 00

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• 27:27Speaker 05

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• 27:57Speaker 06

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• 28:22Speaker 01

  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 to 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.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  All right.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Kelly Holcomb, Spurgeon Win, Seneca Wallace, Bruce Gridowski, Thad Lewis, Mike Pagel, Austin Davis, Todd Philcox, 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.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  You want to remember some bands? You want to remember some early 2000s nu-metal-adjacent bands? I thought you'd never ask. Let's remember some bands. Okay. Cotton Mouth Kings, Trust Company, Taproot, Revelry, Spine Shank, Stun. Yeah, Stun. S.T.U.N., which is an acronym for Scream Toward the Uprising of Nonconformity. I am dead serious. Or in any event, they were dead serious.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  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.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  American Head Charge, 36 Crazy Fists, Ultra Spank,

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Il Nino. Il Nino is fantastic. That's fantastic. I love that. Unlogo,

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Boy Hits Car,

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Head P.E. 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.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  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 McLovin, 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, blah, who had? These dudes got so horny that they accidentally transcended language. That's very impressive.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Also, that's pretty horny, fellas. Pace yourselves. Maybe take a walk around the block or something.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  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 Cop's Fever for the Flava. 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 Seamen Drive, S-E-A-M-E-N. Seamen Drive, Men of the Sea.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  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

• 34:16Speaker 01

  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.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  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.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  You guessed it. Amy was allegedly playing the Meatloaf song, "I'd Do Anything for Love," parentheses, "but I won't do that," close parenthesis. It's a great song. 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.

• 36:10Speaker 06

  I was wondering, Amy Lee of... Evanescence. Of Evanescence, you bounded or bonded with your former collaborator, Ben, 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, filter through all the Beethoven and Mozart that I was playing, so he heard Meatloaf.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  That's the tale. Uh, hmm. 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 is 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 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.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  I was like, 'Make this cool,' and he was like, 'Okay,' end quote." And so Amy Lee and Ben form a band called Evanescence.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  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 Levee 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 point, the singer usually wins the power struggle.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  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 pretty sure the key changes.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  I don't think you're gonna 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.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Young Amy Lee, first she gets into Motown, but then she sees the 1984 Oscar-winning Milos Forman 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

• 40:33Speaker 01

  I could draw with Bach and Beethoven." End quote. Amy digs 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 brrrr. 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.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  The colossal, otherworldly voice, the orchestral swells, the booming electronic beats, and the ecstatic sense that the singer's whole world is permanently on fire.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  That song is called "Joga," and yeah, "State of Emergency, How Beautiful to Be" is also a core Evanescence lyrical principle. So, the 1998 Evanescence EP is burned onto CD-ROMs 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.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  This song is called "Understanding," and sure, the opera accents and monster quasi-arena rock guitars are important, but it's the way Amy Lee sings "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" that really does it for me.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  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.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  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 rerecording our earlier songs. We're experimenting, we're evolving.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  On Origin, you get the song Whisper Again, you get the song Where Will You Go Again, but most importantly, you get a new song called My Immortal.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  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 distanced singing the song, but I still love it." End quote.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  She never sounds a little distanced, is the thing. The chorus to 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.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  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.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  There you go. That's the spirit. There's your oomph. Evanescence signed to 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 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.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  We fought back and forth about it, and finally we gave in, but we were all so angry about it." End 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.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  That's the first 10 seconds of the first Evanescence 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 doo doo doo doo doo, 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.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  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'd left the band by the time this record came out, and he later became a big-shot songwriter and producer. Meanwhile, post-Fallen, Evanescence hired a touring band, including John Lecompte on guitar, Will Boyd on bass, and Rocky Gray on drums.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  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, crackerbox idols, and it really pissed me off.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  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.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  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'd 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.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  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.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  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."

• 53:37Speaker 01

  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 vocalist on this song.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  "Bring Me to Life," a top-five hit on the Billboard Pop Chart in 2003, and 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 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 gotta deal with the other guy, actually audible on the song. Let's jump to the bridge, actually.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  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 the steely-eyed ferocity with which she counters the barking of the quasi-rapper guy. Look, Evanescence 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 Mandeville, Louisiana, rock band 12 Stones, also signed at the time to Wind Up Records. Based on the "Bring Me to Life"

• 56:09Speaker 01

  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 rapity-rappy or as screamy as I'd anticipated. Here is their modest 2007 mainstream rock hit, "Anthem for the Underdog."

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Lovely, splendid, inspiring, era-appropriate, as 2007 Christian overtone post-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-rapping co-vocalist on "Bring Me to Life." Amy Lee wrote Paul's part herself,

• 57:32Speaker 01

  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. Wind Up 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 Linkin Park. And Evanescence refused. I'm inclined to let Amy Lee tell this story in her own words, via a 2016

• 58:15Speaker 01

  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.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  They 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," 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.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  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 Life" 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 them, Amy.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  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."

• 59:47Speaker 02

  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 gonna 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. Yeah.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  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

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Life," because for exactly 3 minutes and 56 seconds, these two crazy kids work incredibly well together.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  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. Evanescence 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

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  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 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

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  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 3,219-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, reputationally. Ben knew Evanescence was Amy's band

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  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 dig "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-rapper.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  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 onstage sings Paul McCoy's part. You know who does, though, often? The fans. You gotta listen close here, but not that close.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  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. Evanescence 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.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  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 Britpop. Brittany, thanks so much for coming back.

• 1:05:42Speaker 06

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:06:00Speaker 06

  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, you know, of course, Amy Lee's voice is so operatic and there's something very kind of classical tinging, like every single aspect of the 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 was just like, it has like this almost, you know, emo theater kid energy, which I feel like is a lot of 70s metal.

• 1:06:41Speaker 06

  You know, it's like very like, I do love like Dio, 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.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. You wrote about how Evanescence brought a much-needed femininity to the Hard Rock Boys Club of the early 2000s. Like, we've talked about Limp Bizkit 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?

• 1:07:20Speaker 06

  There is something so interesting that was happening, and I feel like in the 2000s, especially as a listener and someone who loves, 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 bro-y 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 course, like the New York underground moment was still like about to pop into the mainstream, especially with more like female voices within that.

• 1:08:04Speaker 06

  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, hyper feminine 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 unmistakably 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 in rock music at that time. It just felt like it was kind of cutting through what, what radio rock was in the early 2000s.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's a song on 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 you had to take sides?

• 1:09:11Speaker 06

  I never really had, 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 Lavigne, 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, of wanting to feel like I'm 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, 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

• 1:09:53Speaker 06

  absorb the, the need to feel like I needed to choose one or the other, which is, 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 Evanescence. 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.

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  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 and 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?

• 1:10:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think I, I found myself really weirdly drawn to so much 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 think my angst 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 NSYNC. Like, that was, 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

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 1:11:07Speaker 06

  "System of a Down" and "Linkin 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, you know, 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 bubblegum pink of the music that I was listening to before.

• 1:11:48Speaker 06

  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 a, almost like a tourist in it. Like, I was just like, I don't, I would not like this, but like, this is cool. Hot Topic is crazy, you know?

• 1:12:05Speaker 06

  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, on the chorus of this song just like gave me the same sort of adrenaline that hearing Bye Bye Bye by NSYNC felt like. It just hits the same receptors in my brain.

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  Sure. I said, it's very, it's very funny to think that NSYNC breaks up and you get in a "System of a Down." Like, just the distance from Bye Bye Bye to Chop Suey, you know, just, they're just there to catch you.

• 1:12:44Speaker 06

  I was so mad.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  It's, it's very upsetting. It's, that's absolutely traumatic. I understand completely. You mentioned the classical music, the symphonic album and tour that Evanescence did. Like, Amy Lee talks about Mozart and Bach in interviews as much as any other metal band. Like, do you think this band deserves more credit, you know, for getting young, sad, angry teenagers into like Mozart? You know, like, were they able to work some classical music into the mainstream?

• 1:13:15Speaker 06

  I, I think they definitely deserve more credit for that element of their musicality, for sure. I'm not sure if it, 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, the melodies and the musicality of the songs, but also Amy Lee's vocals, vocal performances, which I think are deeply still Underrated. I think she is such an incredible vocalist. And I think, you know, I, I think that they kind of get lumped into a certain shtick of this 2000s, you know, hard rock performance style, um, you know, kind of, kind of goth, but like,

• 1:13:56Speaker 06

  maybe not like as goth as like the original goths, but you know, and like they're kind of new metal, but maybe not as new metal as like the, the even bigger, you know, or kind of originators of new metal and, 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, of their own music, musical, you know, kind of influence from classical and, and all these other less metal genres that people don't associate with them.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:15:00Speaker 06

  I, I do like it. I think I, I really do. You know, I hate to give, I hate to give 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 makes the, 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, the kind of rap bridge portion, maybe like, I don't know, I actually kind of like that part too. But I think could be, it could still be great without it. But I do think the, the duality on the chorus is really great.

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  I, it, it seemed very obvious. I, I do think you 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 Linkin Park.

• 1:16:00Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  Right? Like, that's a very obvious attempt to just recreate the Linkin 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?

• 1:16:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, I, I think I kind of did associate them very much with Linkin Park. And I, 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 Linkin Park than any other band of that moment. But, you know, I think again, like the, their presentation felt so different. I think there was something very, you know, it's, 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

• 1:17:01Speaker 06

  again, because it's the presentation of a woman fronting the band and dressing in a, a specific way that, you know, a Fred Durst wouldn't dress as, or like a, a, you know, the members of Linkin Park or Korn 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 Korn, of course, sort of presented a little bit more in this direction, but they kind of dressed just like, like, you know, white guys who liked rap music. Like they were just like kind of dressed like the backwards, the giant pants, like the like backwards baseball caps, like all of that stuff. Like they were dressing in a very bro-y way and kind of guy on the street

• 1:17:46Speaker 06

  type of way. And I think there was a, a level of costuming that Amy Lee had.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:52Speaker 06

  That felt very different.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Haunted Fairy is such a good way to put it. That's, that's really excellent description. I, there's other huge songs on Fallen on this record, but Bring Me to Life, I do think stands pretty far apart, you know, and 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?

• 1:18:22Speaker 06

  I mean, to get out of this album, even though I do think there's like so many great songs from this album, um, that I just go, I go back to a lot, but Call Me When You're Sober from their Fall of Album.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  That's what I was gonna say. Yeah.

• 1:18:35Speaker 06

  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, I know, Fallen feels just like, a little less kind of tied to the real life of Amy Lee in a way that like feels like almost a kind of, I mean, not that it's not tied to like the real life, but

• 1:19:16Speaker 06

  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 that 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 coded, again, like haunted fairy, kind of goth presenting band, kind of write a song like this that feels like a very explicitly pop song. Um, 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 that's, I think that would be my other favorite Evanescence song.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  Okay. You have interviewed Amy for Rolling Stone, I think, a couple of 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 band's 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?

• 1:20:16Speaker 06

  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.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:33Speaker 06

  Doing like a, a cover series and then, um, you know, everyone was doing a cover series at that, 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 like lived in, she lived in Nashville at the time. So she was just like at home and she was like talking about, 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 a sweet, you know, mom. Like she was 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, in a way. That also felt

• 1:21:14Speaker 06

  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, uh, she did feel very open. She felt very kind of nice to talk to. I think she felt excited, especially because Evanescence 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, a kind of nostalgia round that they were trying to do. Like they had this, this new album that they were ready to kind of release to the world. And so it was, it was a very lovely conversation, the, the last one that we had.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  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, is, does Evanescence 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, and the same lineup and label for the past 20 years, like, is a stable version of Evanescence a less interesting version of Evanescence?

• 1:22:21Speaker 06

  You know, I think, I think it works for them. Like, I think, you know, I really liked the, the last couple of 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, like really big breakthrough hit, and then I'm, are trying to maintain it for as long as possible. I think Evanescence knows who they are. And they, Amy Lee especially, like she knows what the band is and she knows like what they're doing. And I 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 in the songs. And I think that works very well for them.

• 1:23:03Speaker 06

  So because I see it seems like Amy Lee's actual life outside of all the drama around Evanescence. It's pretty chill.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  Peaceful.

• 1:23:10Speaker 06

  Pretty sweet and peaceful and nice. So I I think it's a it's a good sort of good, good inspiration for for the music.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  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, Evanescence did cover the chain by Fleetwood Mac, which seems like they were attempting to pander to you very specifically. Like, it's been six years now, and I would just wanted to wonder if you've recovered from Amy Lee singing a Fleetwood Mac song.

• 1:23:40Speaker 06

  Barely, very barely. Um, yeah, I think, again, great, great song for Evanescence to cover, given everything and given sort of the all the turmoil and the history and all of that. So I think perfect 10 out 10 choice by them. Um, 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, let's just see what it sounds like. A little Rhiannon moment.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  I guess so. Do we bring Ben Moody back to be the Lindsay Buckingham in that equation?

• 1:24:19Speaker 06

  Yes, we need them staring at each other.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Yikes.

• 1:24:21Speaker 06

  We need, um, didn't she, I think she like dated the guy from Stain too. Like, maybe we just like have them kind of stare at each other.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:24:32Speaker 06

  Just like a real, just real emotional, um, you know, peak kind of performance, I think. I think I think the whole world needs that to heal.

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  I think so. I don't want to be in the room when that happens, but I will watch that on the internet. I, just to wrap up, we were talking, you just went to Daisy Chain Fields, I think it was called, the Olivia Rodrigo thing in LA. Like, should Evanescence play the next iteration of Daisy Chain's field? Would they fit into this sort of mind meld of of current pop and sort of 90s alternative? And everything else that Olivia is like really explicitly trying to bring together?

• 1:25:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think 1000%. I 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's just such a good mix to see kind of more of the the legacy bands with the younger artists. I think there was also a really good mix of genre and sound. Um, 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

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:25:48Speaker 06

  there's definitely an opening for not only more hard rock at Daisy Chain, but Evanescence specifically would be fantastic to add into that.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  They need a haunted fairy. That's all.

• 1:26:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, they really need a haunted fairy.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  Truly. Yeah. Brittany, it's been wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much.

• 1:26:06Speaker 06

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  Thanks very much to our guest this week, Brittany Spanos. Thanks to our producers, Olivia Creary, Giuliana Ress, Justin Sayles, and Chris Sutton. Animations and graphics by Chris Calliton. Special thanks to Cole Kutschner, 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.

• 1:26:45Speaker 06

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