AILSA CHANG, HOST:
When you think of the place where you feel safest, what comes to mind? Is it your bedroom, your place of worship? Or maybe it's just lounging on a couch with some friends? Well, for Amy Lee, the lead singer of the legendary rock band Evanescence, safety is the stage. In fact, she calls that place her sanctuary.
AMY LEE: I feel that sense of sanctuary at our concerts. And that's where the title kind of came from. I said something on stage. It just came out of my mouth, and I was like, this is our sanctuary.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SANCTUARY")
EVANESCENCE: (Singing) Sanctuary, breathe it in, scream it out.
CHANG: The band is out with a new album called "Sanctuary." It's their first album in five years. And for Amy Lee, a sanctuary is not about escaping dangers. It's about confronting them head-on in order to process what they mean. So when I caught up with her, I asked Amy Lee, what was weighing on her as she put this album together?
LEE: So much, so much - I mean, think about the last three or four years. I feel like I didn't have a choice. I don't see it as political to say that racism is wrong, that killing people is wrong. You know, all of the lies, the propaganda, it's hard not to see it and feel like you have to say something. You have to call a lie a lie.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BEAUTIFUL LIE")
EVANESCENCE: (Singing) I don't wanna live my life feeding off a beautiful lie. Baby, this is your war. But it's killing the both of us.
CHANG: And when you're taking in lies - I'm going to use your word - like, how do you even wade through that as a human being? How do you know what feels true to you? How do you return to what is true?
LEE: I think that's through other people, that's through our community. I think that's through real connections, not staring at a screen. I took a really big step back from social media because it's - it is hard to tell what's real and what's AI and...
CHANG: Yeah.
LEE: ...What's propaganda and whatever. But also, like, I came to a realization in myself that the best that I can do to contribute to the world is by using my voice. I've been all over the world and seen people moved by music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BEAUTIFUL LIE")
EVANESCENCE: (Singing) ...To waste your life, but you can't have mine.
CHANG: I mean, music is the universal language, isn't it?
LEE: Yes. And I think that's the thing to hold onto. Hold on to your heart, hold on to our humanity. And I really - after it all, after all the evils in the world, I really believe that there are more people in the world that are like-minded in wanting what's best for everybody.
CHANG: When I listen to you talk about how music is such strong connective tissue between human beings, it makes me curious. Like, how different is it for an artist like yourself to write about something wide and open, like truth or political division or war, you know, what's happening in the world at large, versus writing about something in your music that's very personal, like, a painful relationship?
LEE: They're both hard (laughter).
CHANG: Yeah. I mean, like, your first album, "Fallen," it was about an abusive relationship that you were in, right?
LEE: Yeah.
CHANG: Is it quite different to write about something so personal versus something so large, like the world?
LEE: It's challenging when you know you're on a big, public stage to open your mouth and say anything at all.
CHANG: Oh, yeah.
LEE: Anything can be used to tear you down. And I - places where people have different opinions, I mean, like, politics and religion and all that stuff, it would be so much easier to just skip it. But that just isn't exciting to me. The whole reason for this from the very beginning for me was I just had big feelings that I needed to get out.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOREVER WITHOUT YOU")
EVANESCENCE: (Singing) I lost my mind.
LEE: In the end, and this helps me, it isn't really about me. It's something so much bigger that we're able to do that lets people take the music into their own hearts. And my challenge over the years is to be more specific and to say things that are harder to misconstrue when I'm saying what I'm saying.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOREVER WITHOUT YOU")
EVANESCENCE: (Singing) You didn't know that I could fly. Well, neither did I.
CHANG: You know, I know that Evanescence has made a point in the past about rejecting being labeled as a Christian band, but there do seem to be, like, religious themes in a lot of your music. How would you characterize the role of religion in your songwriting?
LEE: Oh, I am a spiritual person. And I feel like spirituality and the belief that there is a world so much bigger and farther beyond what's in front of us is so real. I know that's real. I feel that's real. I think that music comes from another place, and I feel blessed to be a conduit for that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW DO I HEAL")
EVANESCENCE: (Singing) How do I heal? I can feel you with me still.
LEE: You know, I experienced death at a really young age when I lost my sister, and I lost my brother, too, in 2018.
CHANG: Wow. I'm so sorry.
LEE: Thank you. But, you know, it's one of those things where thinking deeply about the afterlife and what happens when you die, and, like, what are we, and what is our place in the universe has always been a part of my music writing and the theme because that's the depths of my heart.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW DO I HEAL")
EVANESCENCE: (Singing) Promise I will never know 'cause I'll never let you go.
CHANG: By the way, there haven't been a ton of metal bands at your level with a female lead singer, like, even now.
LEE: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL ME WHEN YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH")
EVANESCENCE: (Singing) Fall out. Fight all the way down.
CHANG: Is it exhausting, though, for years being referred to as a female rock icon?
LEE: Female-fronted (ph).
CHANG: Yeah.
LEE: (Laughter).
CHANG: Yeah, I mean...
LEE: Yeah.
CHANG: What do you make of the whole you're-a-female-icon label? You know, like...
LEE: I don't love that.
CHANG: Yeah.
LEE: I don't think anybody does. I am a feminist. I love women. And - but my favorite music that I listen to is female-fronted. And I don't - it's not on purpose. It just sounds good. There are great artists out there. And the more we lift each other up, too, you know, we're just in establishing that space. So - and I think it's not such a club where people are refusing to believe that it's possible that a woman could handle the power.
CHANG: (Laughter) Handle the power.
(LAUGHTER)
CHANG: God forbid.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL ME WHEN YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH")
EVANESCENCE: (Singing) Tell me when you've had enough.
CHANG: Amy Lee of the band Evanescence - the group's latest album, "Sanctuary," is out now. Thank you so much for talking to me, Amy. I so enjoyed this.
LEE: Me too. Thank you so much for having me, and I'll be listening.
(SOUNDBITE OF EVANESCENCE SONG, "TELL ME WHEN YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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