Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee has revealed that the band was forced to put a male vocalist on their iconic 2003 debut single, ‘Bring Me To Life’.
The band’s record label at the time wanted a male vocalist in the band to help appease fans by making their sound more “familiar”, hence the inclusion of Paul McCoy on the track.
“The fact that it was a woman and a piano that started the track was just too much,” she told The Forty-Five.
“I had to think we were being dropped for that because I said no. Eventually we came to the compromise that we only had to do it on one song and it could be a guest vocalist.”
She later explained how she felt about the song immediately following its release.
“That was really hard for me because I had to start out with our first song feeling like I made a sacrifice on my art,” she said.
“If that song, like that, was the only thing people ever heard of us on a mainstream level and then we went away, I would be not happy. I would be very disappointed in my career, because I would have felt really misunderstood and like I should have stood up for myself in the first place.”
Revisit the song, which Lee assures she looks back fondly on, below.