After collaborating with the likes of Five Finger Death Punch, Bloodywood and Tom Morello in 2025, Babymetal have their crosshairs on the next musician they want to team up with.
Talking exclusively in the new issue of Metal Hammer, co-founding vocalist Su-metal says that she’d love to make a song with Amy Lee, the lead singer of Evanescence.
“Amy Lee is an artist I have admired for such a long time,” she tells us. “I hope we can collaborate with her someday.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Su-metal talks about how the Japanese metal stars ended up collaborating with Five Finger Death Punch for a re-recording of the American five-piece’s song The End, originally heard on their 2022 album Afterlife.
“We were invited to take part in a 20th-anniversary collaboration project [for Five Finger Death Punch], featuring guest artists on past songs,” she explains. Five Finger Death Punch and Babymetal had performed at the same overseas festival back in 2015, so I was really happy thinking they might have remembered me from then.”
She continues: “I sang Japanese lyrics inspired by and based on the original lyrics of The End, and spent a lot of time experimenting to figure out what kind of voice would best suit such a deep, cool track.
“My favourite part of the song is the flow from the section starting with ‘Negai o kakete’ right after the chorus into the break – I loved how my voice gradually got covered and engulfed by Ivan’s growl, which gave me chills. I really hope listeners will enjoy that moment as well.”
Babymetal have been collaboration-crazy in 2025, with their latest album Metal Forth featuring Poppy, Electric Callboy, Polyphia, Spiritbox and others. Lee has similarly enjoyed teaming up with other artists recently, having taken part in one of the biggest crossover efforts in metal this year. On the song End Of You, she shared vocal duties with Poppy and Spiritbox’s Courtney LaPlante.
It seems that getting a hold of Lee in the near future will be a herculean feat, though, as Evanescence have announced a blockbuster world tour for 2026. They’ll play across North America with Spiritbox and Nova Twins in the summer, then hit the UK with Poppy and K. Flay and Europe with Poppy and Nova Twins. They’re also set for a mega standalone show at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado in October.
If that weren’t enough, it appears that a new album will come next year, as well. In March, Evanescence put out the song Afterlife as part of the Devil May Cry TV series soundtrack, and Lee told Audacy Music around the same time that more was in the works.
“I don’t have a date for you,” she said. “We are just working. We got off the road in November [2024] or something, and we’ve been just creative.”
The new Hammer offers the essential breakdown of 2025 in metal, including interviews with the hottest stars of the year as well as our list of the best albums of the past 12 months. Order your copy online and get it delivered directly to your door.
