Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee has opened up on the band's upcoming new studio album, and why she's embracing her platform as an artist that can help people through what are increasingly tough times.
Speaking to KOMP 92.3, Amy discusses imminent sixth Evanescence album Sanctuary, out June 5, revealing that she and her bandmates had been working on new music "for a while", but escalated work on the record last year.
"It's been this just kind of, 'Keep going, keep going, keep going. Come on,'" she explains (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). "For the love of it, just for the absolute need of music."
Amy goes on to describe music as her "sanctuary". "Being able to create a place where we can come together, human beings, and find each other and express ourselves freely, it's just such a beautiful thing," she adds. "The creation of new music has always really felt like my true home in my job.
"It's hard to begin to comment on the state of the world," she continues, "but it's a violent, wild and out-of-control time, especially for women [the WHO estimates that at least one in three women globally have experienced physical or sexual violence], but for all people. It is really all people.
"And I feel like it's my job as an artist to take all that in and reflect back some truth and hopefully some kind of a call to action, a light at the end of the tunnel and hope. I really am still, at the end of it all, goth and black as I am, an optimist. I believe in us. I really do. And I think that we just have to shine a light."
It's my job as an artist to reflect back some truth
While Amy is happy to provide a platform that can acknowledge the world's injustices and challenge the status quo, she reiterates that her music gives her a necessarily personal outlet to channel her emotions and frustrations.
"I need an outlet to express things," she says. "There's nothing worse for me, when things feel out of control and bad, than to sit still and just watch TV and try to pretend like it isn't happening. That's where the anxiety takes over and I need to just run as fast as I can. So, starting when I was a child, writing words and painting pictures and making poetry and playing the piano and all those things...it's like a self-healing kind of a thing.
"I think we all need that. We all need a place to express ourselves. It's an escape from this fake, 'Everything's okay.' I can't do that."
Sanctuary will serve as the follow-up to Evanescence's most recent studio album, 2021's The Bitter Truth. It will form the lynchpin of a busy year for the band, with tours planned in North America and Europe, as well as a stop off at the first ever Texas edition of Sick New World in Fort Worth on October 24.
