Mediaboss Marketing

At the turn of the millennium, nu-metal was the biggest scene around. With genre barriers broken down by the explosion of digital downloads, the likes of Linkin Park, Deftones and Limp Bizkit blended electronic music with hard rock, hip-hop, industrial and grunge. Selling hundreds of millions of copies, their angsty records spoke to a generation of kids who realised there was more to music than a single style.

Formed in 1995 when the 14-year-old pianist and singer Amy Lee met 15-year-old guitarist Ben Moody at a Christian Youth camp, Evanescence spent years releasing independent EPs and playing coffee shops around their home state of Arkansas. In 2003 they dropped their debut album Fallen and it swiftly cemented the bands place in that exploding nu-metal scene. A gorgeous blend of gothic cinema, hard rock and classical music, it went on to become one of the biggest selling albums of the 21st Century while lead single Bring Me To Life was a Grammy Award-winning global smash that remains a mainstay of alternative radio to this day. However, the track also features an uncredited guest spot from Paul McCoy who provides the male vorcals.

It was a compromise with the label, who wanted to add a male vocalist to the band full time since they didnt believe in Lee fronting her own band alone. Evanescence pushed back before settling on that one track compromise. Lee was still nervous though. I didnt want people to get the wrong idea. There was always a chance that people were only going to hear that first song and I thought we were better than that.

The people who doubted that pianos or female vocals belonged in rock music were quickly proven wrong when the album did so well, as did its follow-up The Open Door in 2006, despite the complete collapse of the nu-metal scene. The band also survived the sudden departure of Moody over creative differences in 2003 (He went on to form We Are The Fallen with guitarist John LeCompt and drummer Rocky Gray when they left Evanescence in 2007).

I always felt like we stood out in that world but I like to stand out. I always saw our differences as a positive, says Lee, a singular voice in a scene dominated by macho aggression.

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Evanescence's Amy Lee: 'With the fight for democracy, it's time for rock to come back and be on top' - Telegraph.co.uk