There’s a sense of catharsis running through Evanescence’s latest single “Who Will You Follow?”, and according to frontwoman Amy Lee, that was entirely the point. With its music video released this week, she tells us how the track was born from the chaos, disinformation and emotional exhaustion defining modern life.
Speaking to Rolling Stone AU/NZ in a recent interview, Lee said the song – lifted from their forthcoming album Sanctuary – was shaped by the overwhelming state of the world right now, from political unrest to online misinformation and growing social division.
“I think thematically, it just feels really on the nose of what so many of us are feeling right now, which is just completely overwhelmed by a flood of lies and just like a false world existing on the surface,” Lee said.
“The song is about breaking through the lies, you know, to find each other, to find the humanity that absolutely exists within us and underneath it all. But we got to face that darkness before we can defeat it.”
Check out the new music video below.
“Who Will You Follow?” serves as the first taste of Sanctuary, Evanescence’s first album since 2021’s The Bitter Truth. According to Lee, the song immediately stood out as the obvious lead single after more than three years spent building the record.
“It’s hard to choose a first single, kind of. But this time it was, we all just knew,” she explained. “We didn’t even really have a conversation. It was like, ‘Yeah, that’s the first single.’”
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Lee opened up about how the emotional weight of the current political and cultural climate seeped into the album’s writing process, calling music an essential form of release and human connection.
“People are being killed in our name. We are becoming so desensitised to just a violent truth,” she said. “It just feels like the bad guys are in charge.” Sanctuary, she added, became a way to process that anxiety without letting it consume her entirely.
“I think that’s part of the challenge for all of us in this time – to remember that that isn’t the whole world,” she said. “The music is my journal. It’s always been that.”
She added that she hopes the album can offer listeners the same catharsis it gave her while making it. “Music is really necessary right now,” Lee said. “I need the release and I need to feel connected to the human spirit and not some robot trying to sell me something in return.”
Lee also teased a potential Australian and New Zealand tour for the new album – see here.
Evanescence’s Sanctuary arrives June 5th.
