‘This Is Definitely An Up’: Evanescence’s Amy Lee Reflects on Latest Album ‘Sanctuary’ And World Tour

Home in Nashville after the first North American leg of touring to promote Evanescence‘s latest album, Sanctuary, Amy Lee has been decompressing and busy getting her 12-year-old son back into school mode.

She’s also had time to reflect on the band’s 2026 so far — and can’t help but be pleased with what she says been “a really good year, and an emotional one” in the best of ways.

“This album and this moment, and all of the support that has come together at the same time just feels like something bigger than myself, and that I wasn’t expecting at this phase in my life,” Lee tells Billboard via Zoom. “It just feels like it’s that good moment. Life is full of so many ups and downs and mediums, and this is definitely an up, and it means more than anything could have in my first couple years coming out, when I still a kid and hadn’t seen so much and felt so much.

“It’s a lot to sum up, but it’s been emotional in a very beautiful, connected way. I feel grounded and lifted, spiritually, through my band, my team, the fans, the music, the tour. It’s been a really special thing so far.”

The empirical data certain bears that out. Sanctuary, Evanescence’s sixth studio effort, debuted in the top 10 of Billboard’s Top Rock Albums and Independent Albums charts after its June 5 release. It contains the band’s first two No. 1 Mainstream Rock Airplay hits — “Who Will You Follow,” and “Afterlife” from last year’s Netflix animated series Devil May Dry. Lee was also part of “End of You,” a collaboration with Poppy and Courtney LaPLante of Spiritbox.

For Lee, the sole remaining member of the group that formed during 1994 in Little Rock, Ark., the success is about both the moment of Sanctuary as well as the 22 years that preceded it, which includes sales of more than 32 million albums and a pair of Grammy Awards.

“I think that it gets deeper the longer that you survive together, us and the fans,” she explains. “I think now that we’re past the 20-year mark I feel this incredible new depth that has to do with that, with the time. It’s not just about the new music and proving this next thing is great; there’s also this nostalgia power, a life we already have in the past, together. You have a connection because of the things you’ve been through together, and the fact is that this music — “Bring Me to Life,” Fallen and beyond — has existed for such a long that it has a place in people’s hearts, and whatever we do now is just adding to that, and also bringing in some new people.”

Evanescence’s current run is also something of a culmination of work, side projects and other life-changing moments during the past decade. Lee released a solo album, Aftermath, in 2014, then brought back the band the following year, and took to start a family. That busy period enabled her “to find out who I was and what was next.”

To that point Evanescence had released three albums — the diamond-certified breakthrough Fallen in 2003, the double-platinum The Open Door in 2006 and a self-titled effort in 2011. The latter two also debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Yet the group was encountering business issues, suing Wind-up Records for unpaid royalties (which was settled out of court) while the label was selling its catalog to what became Concord Bicycle Music. “There was a lot of business clean-up that had to be done,” acknowledges Jordan Berliant of Revelation Management, who’s been with Evanescence since that time.

And there was the matter of engineering Evanescence’s return, including some lineup changes and a new deal with BMG.

“Amy was ready to get back into music but was working on a lot of different directions in her mind,” Berliant recalls. “There were a lot of things she wanted to accomplish both as an individual, and then as a member or the leader of Evanescence.”

Though Evanescence returned to live duty and put together The Ultimate Collection vinyl box set, the rarities compilation Lost Whispers and a demo CD Origin, Lee released a children’s album, Dream Too Much, in 2016 and a single, “Speak to Me,” for the 2017 film Voice From the Stone. The band then recorded Synthesis, a top 10 effort featuring orchestral versions of its songs, arranged by David Campbell and featuring a collaboration with Lindsey Stirling.

“It was a very, very cool way to reintroduce people to the band,” Berliant explains, “and also kind of extricate the definition of Evanescence from being in kind of nu-metal prison and showing the world, and her, it could be more than that, that the songs themselves have a life beyond that era.”

Since then Evanescence projects, including 2021’s The Bitter Truth, have alternated with Lee efforts such as a teaming with Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, Body Count, Bring Me the Horizon and Stirling, as well as a duet with Halsey for the 2025 action film Ballerina and the “End of You” collaboration. The prominent use of “Bring Me to Life” in HBO’s The Rehearsal breathed new life into the song and put some jet fuel behind Evanescence, as did tours with Korn and Muse.

“That really set the stage for elevating the touring,” Berliant says, culminating in Evanescence’s first stadium headline date before 40,000 fans on Oct. 21, 2023 in Sao Paulo, Brazin. “There’s a lot of stuff you can’t plan but it tends to happen when you put yourself out there and you’re succeeding,”

The efforts were not lost on Lee, either.

“From the management to our agents to the promoters, this has definitely felt like a moment when everyone really just gave us their best and truly wanted the best for this album and this moment for the band,” Lee says. “I couldn’t be more grateful. It’s beautifully humbling to be part of such a big thing I love so much.”

What Lee brought into Sanctuary was an urge for collaboration, started by working with co-writer Alex Seaver on “Afterlife.” “We were working on this minute-and-a-half piece of music for the (Devil May Cry) scene and had to hurry, hurry, hurry ’cause Netflix needed it,” she remembers. “But afterwards everybody was like, ‘This should be a full-on Evanescence song. It really sounds like it wants to be, so let’s finish it,’ and (Seaver) was like, ‘Yeah.’

“So I took the song in with the band and Nick (Raskulinecz, producer), and it felt like such beautiful fuel for (the album). It felt like a gift. And it turned out so well that we were like, ‘Why don’t we work with some cool people who say they want to work with us all the time?” (laughs)

Raskulinecz, who also produced The Bitter Truth, helmed five of Sanctuary’s 12 tracks, with the team of Jordan Fish and Zakk Cervini helming the rest, including co-writing with the band. “Who Will You Follow,” in fact, was the first song they worked on, and Lee notes that “we ended up really just catching lightning with them. It was like, ‘I love what you do, you love what I do. Let’s make some noise and see what happens.’ We had this special moment during the album creation where we had six days in L.A. with just the four of us, and it felt like the crux of the album happened in that time.

“It’s really, really inspiring and rare that you make those connections with other people, when you feel like they get you and you get them and at the same time you’re each bringing something into the equation. It’s really special to be chasing that.”

Fish and Cervini, according to Lee, also brought a fanboy element into their perspective towards Evanescence that also helped steer the album’s direction.

“They were both fully aware of and interested in and inspired by our music, the early stuff, in a way that’s different than somebody who’s a little older and liked it, but was already a professional at the time,” Lee explains. “They were influenced by us when they were starting out, so it was like a shared understanding of things I kind of forgot about a little bit, because I’m so busy having to criticize us. They helped us realize all those things that were beautiful in our music that maybe you forgot about.

“It felt like a very independent record for me, personally, in taking chances, doing things I wasn’t allowed to before but still doing my best to maintain the heart of the spirit of what it originally was.”

Lee jokes about “world domination” on the horizon, but Evanescence really is headed to the rest of the world now. The quintet begins its first-ever arena tour in the U.K. and Europe on Sept. 8 in England and has a couple more U.S. dates during October — including the Sick New World Texas 2026 festival in Fort Worth and Red Rocks Amphitheatre — before heading to Malaysia for a stadium date in November and Japan in December. Australia and New Zealand are set for next March, with other international touring, including festival appearances, on tap for 2027 as well.