Concord Bicycle Evanescence's The Ultimate Collection vinyl box set will be released this Friday, December 9. In celebration, frontwoman Amy Lee spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the stories behind some of the band's biggest hits.
Talking about "Bring Me to Life," Lee reveals that the song was inspired by an encounter with a friend she "didn't really know very well."
"We went into a restaurant, he sat down across from me and goes, 'Are you happy?' My heart sank into my stomach, and I was just so not ready to talk about it," Lee says. "I played it down, but I instantly was like, 'How does this person see into my eyes? How does he know what I'm feeling?'"
In a twist, that friend eventually became Lee's husband.
"I obsessed over that moment on my own and ended up writing that first verse and chorus of 'Bring Me to Life' and how he opened doors," she says. "Very dramatic."
The song "Everybody's Fool," meanwhile, was written "with the voice of an angsty teenager."
"It's about my frustration with fakeness," Lee explains. "It was the late ’90s and early ’00s, when all these bubblegum pop acts were super popular. I had young siblings, junior high and younger, who looked up to them at the time. It sickened me because I felt like these pop acts were put together like products. I wanted to say, 'Hey, you're not real!' I wanted to feel something real."
Lee also spoke about the song "Call Me When You're Sober," which she wrote with ex-Evanescence guitarist Terry Balsamo during a "campout writing session."
"I love this song because it has this fun spirit that was new for us as a band," Lee says. "You can still be heavy with a smile on your face."
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