"I was like, 'Wow, I'm about the same size as this huge animal!'" How a close encounter with wolves, a rough break-up and a Spider-Man director helped Evanescence produce one of their most important singles

By 2006, Evanescence had become household names. Their blockbuster debut album, Fallen, made them one of the major breakout bands of 2003; almost overnight, Amy Lee had been catapulted from relative anonymity into superstar status. It meant that for album number two, they needed a big lead single to keep the momentum going, a track that'd walk comfortably in the footsteps of insta-classic bangers like Going Under, My Immortal and, of course, Bring Me To Life.

It was a challenge Amy relished; following some well-documented label interference during the writing process for Fallen, she was given free reign for Evanescence's second album and took full advantage of the opportunity.

“It was a beautiful time of independence for me," she told Metal Hammer in 2023. "I was still learning who I was and still growing, and wanted the space to be able to try stuff.”

Surprisingly, though, the track that'd serve as the first glimpse of Evanescence 2.0 was actually a composition that Amy wasn't even initially sure worked as an Evanescence song at all. Packing a melody that felt a little off-kilter compared to the band's work thus far, it took some fine-tuning and the addition of a "badass riff" from Evanescence guitarist Terry Balsamo - writing with Amy for the first time after replacing Ben Moody in 2003 - for the song to take shape.

Lyrics-wise, Amy was in no doubt about how to express herself. Reeling from the fallout of a difficult break-up, she poured her heart out into the song, viscerally calling her ex to account over the demise of their relationship and his apparent addiction issues.

Evanescence's frontwoman described the track as detailing her experience of "dealing with someone with an addiction, which is really hard, especially when you love someone." "I put up with a lot," she later explained. "I tried and tried and tried to fix the person that I was with, but sometimes, when you do that, you're just being an enabler."

It all made for a raw, searingly emotional heavy metal ballad, chunky nu metal riffs levelled up with sprinklings of melancholic piano and lashings of goth melodrama. Titled Call Me When You're Sober and hitting radio stations around the world in the summer of 2006, the single was accompanied by a big budget video helmed by AFI and My Chemical Romance alumni (and future Amazing Spider-Man director) Marc Webb.

The clip took on the form of a playful spin on a classic fairytale, Amy starring as what she described as a "cool, superhero, rock and roll" Little Red Riding Hood, attempting to see off the charms of a devilishly handsome Big Bad Wolf. And if you've ever wondered how they got those CGI wolves to look so realistic all the way back in 2006, well...they didn't. Those are real wolves!

"These live wolves came in, and they each had trainers and it was really fun," Amy told MTV. "When they came in, they were 150 pounds. So I was like, 'Wow, if I got on all fours, I'd be about the same size as this huge animal.' But it was me and the wolves in the room, and it was all cool. It was awesome. My allergies kicked in, but I powered through."

Evanescence - Call Me When You're Sober - YouTube

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By this point, Evanescence had fostered an incredibly dedicated, switched-on army of followers, and once the song reached fans' ears, it didn't take long for people to work out who its likely subject was: Shaun Morgan, the frontman of South African metallers Seether, who'd been in a relationship with Amy Lee from 2003-2005.

Initially keeping schtum on the matter, Amy finally admitted that Call Me When You're Sober was indeed written about Shaun following the Seether frontman's admittance to rehab that summer - though she acknowledged that it likely wasn't difficult for everyone to put two and two together.

"I give myself licence to say anything and everything in the music, as long as it’s honest, but it’s up to me how much detail I’m going to go into when I give an interview," she later told Metal Hammer. "I think the difference with Call Me When You’re Sober was it was kind of obvious. But I say brutally honest things in my lyrics. It’s only gotten more that way over time, and I always have to say, ‘Hey, you don’t ever have to totally break this down. It’s here, it’s in the lyrics. You don’t ever have to explain it beyond that.’"

Regardless, Shaun was far from happy about what he described as the ex-couple's "dirty laundry" being aired to one of the biggest fanbases in modern rock. "People would say to me, ‘Yeah, man, I know what you’re going through,' and I was like, 'No, I don’t think you do,'" he told MTV. "Your ex-girlfriend didn’t write a song about you, that millions of people have heard, saying you’re a bad guy. As soon as that happens, buddy, come up and tell me you know what I’m going through.'"

"I wanted it to be the first single, but at the same time, it's like, 'Wow, why did I do this to myself and cause all of this gossip?'" Amy remarked to The Washington Post. "It's just I had to be true to the music. There's a few songs on the record where I felt, 'Well, I could hide in metaphor and I could do the safe thing and not put it on the record this way', but I didn't censor myself at all."

Officially released as a single on September 4, 2006, Call Me When You're Sober didn't fare quite as well as its predecessor album's equivalent (though how many 2000s rock songs can really compare to Bring Me To Life?!), but it still performed very well indeed, hitting the top 10 in charts around the world and breaking the top 5 in the UK.

Three weeks later, Evanescence's second album, The Open Door, was released to the world, bagging number one spots in the US and Australia as well as top five spots across Europe and beyond. While its sales were a way off the insane numbers of Fallen, which remains one of the top ten selling albums of the 21st century, it still hauled a cool two million copies in the States and was warmly received by fans and critics alike.

Most importantly, it was an album that Amy could be proud of, one where she could follow her creative instincts without compromise or interference.

“ I try not to focus too much on the business [side of music]," she later remarked to Metal Hammer. "Of course, you always want it to be the best. Of course, I want it to always be No.1, but I don’t go into it for that. I focus on making something really great that I love, that our fans love.”