Sheffield’s Church – or Temple Of Fun – is everything you’d expect of an enterprise from the brain of Bring Me The Horizon frontman Oli Sykes. Housed in an old warehouse in the former industrial Kelham Island area of the city, it’s a bar, restaurant, and gaming space, but also houses Sykes’ Drop Dead fashion brand and acts as a HQ for the band.
Upstairs there’s an attic of memorabilia and props from old video shoots; they’ve an office, gym and therapy area, and the rest of Bring Me are rehearsing for the upcoming tour out back while we chat to Sykes. Adorned with neon and religious imagery, you’d more likely assume yourself in Vegas, Tokyo or Mexico City than South Yorkshire.
“It’s out of my control now,” Sykes laughs. “Sometimes I log into Instagram and there are people doing life drawings of dogs here. We have films, we have gigs, we have all sorts. It’s a cool place for people who are, well… not normos. It’s a safe space for people.”
This Disneyland for BMTH fans speaks to what the band try and do with each record, which is essentially to invite you into their own cinematic universe. That ambition may seem to have got the better of them on their recent ‘Post Human’ series.
Speaking to NME upon launch in 2019, Sykes said that the band “may never record an album again”. The following year, he told us that ‘Post Human’ would come across four EPs – all released within 12 months – with the first, ‘Survival Horror’, eerily capturing the shock and fear of the COVID pandemic and becoming one of their best received records.
The follow-up, however, took a little while. ‘Post Human: Nex Gen’ actually took four years and came with a surprise release just a couple of weeks ago. In that time, Bring Me became a bigger band that they could have ever imagined; Sykes returned to rehab to face his demons of addiction again, and they lost a pivotal member with Jordan Fish’s exit.
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We sat down with Sykes to to talk about what went down, how his spiral and recovery from addiction once more shaped the album, the personal and the political, and where his head is at after so much change and rebirth.
NME: Hi Oli. So the plan to make four EPs in a year – what happened there?
Sykes: “Things changed! We thought we were going to be in lockdown for a lot longer than we were. We thought we could bang out a few EPs in that time. We also thought these EPs were going to be a little more humble and a bit of fun.
“When we started writing remotely, we thought, ‘This is going to be a lot more difficult than writing in real life’. We’re always in danger of going too far and thinking, ‘How can we make this different? It can’t be the same as last time?’ Even if it’s not as good, it’s good to be different. That original brief of, ‘Do a solid Bring Me The Horizon record’ with the elation of, ‘Oh, this is actually easier than we thought’, was perfect for us. It made us push ourselves sonically and go places that we hadn’t gone before and be a bit more open and fun with it.”
Is it weird to think of ‘Survival Horror’ as “just an EP” rather than an album, given that it was received so well?
“In every sense of the word, it is [an album]. We play seven songs from that record live. We don’t play seven songs from any other record. Everyone wants to see all these songs. It was the realisation of, ‘Even if we do release another album now, how are we going to get more songs into the set when everyone wants to see ‘Obey’, ‘Kingslayer’, ‘Parasite Eve’, ‘Dear Diary’ – pretty much every song.
“That coupled with the fact that TikTok turned into this huge thing and we were very lucky that we got a little piece of that pie when ‘Can You Feel My Heart?’ blew up; it meant all these new kids thought that we were a brand new band and wanted to see us. We had about 4 million listeners on Spotify, then when we came out of lockdown it had doubled. That was what felt like overnight. We had Ed Sheeran asking us to collab and things that we never imagined happening, happened.”
Things were really kicking off with 2019 album ‘Amo’. What did lockdown do to you, given that your life and mind had been so active beforehand?
“I’ve been quite open about falling back into drugs and bad habits in lockdown. That was what prompted me to write the record; it’s about this idea of how society only works when it’s moving and when we don’t stop. When we’re buying, selling and just being involved. As soon as a flu chucked a spanner in the works, it didn’t work whatsoever.
“There’s no wider support for anyone apart from the people at the top. Society doesn’t work that well and we’re not in a good place. As soon as it all stopped, I wasn’t in a good place either. I was in a good place before because the band was doing well; we were touring the world, getting nominated for awards, and I was feeding off all this stuff. I didn’t even realise that. I didn’t think I fed too much off my own ego and didn’t realise I was deriving my worth from that. As soon as it all went? Straight back to drugs.
“I wasn’t healed at all; I was just distracted. There was a duality between that and the world. It was the start of realising that I wasn’t fixed as I thought I was after rehab.”
What was the next step to fixing yourself?
“The first step was listening to myself. That’s what ‘Youtopia’ is about. It’s setting the scene of the whole record, and the goal where we hopefully end up at by the end of is finding a perfect state of being, or a content state of being. A place where we’re happy. The main obstacle in most of our lives is what I say in the first few lines: ‘I still wish that I was someone else’.
“I’m still rejecting myself and not fully accepting who I am. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve been through in your life: you have to accept who you are. It’s the first step of being happy.
And that’s at the core of ‘Nex Gen’?
“The whole record is a battle between light and dark. It’s a constant battle throughout the record because that side is so much more easy to give in to. It’s harder to say, ‘I’m going to go on the long, hard, slow path to contentment’. The other side is so easy, sexy, and romantic. That first step is a lot harder, and you know you’re going to fail. Throughout the record there are multiple times where I fail.
“You’ve got to take charge of your own healing; you’ve got to do the work yourself’.”
That can’t be an easy thing to face up to…
“It’s quite easy to get back on because you’ve got motivation. But staying on the horse? That’s the hardest part. It’s such a rough ride. It’s like, ‘Fucking hell, I’m back to square one’.
“You think: ‘Everyone hates me, I’ve fucked up, I’ve let everyone down, I’m so embarrassed’ – it’s like a burning hot feeling. All you want to do is go back to the drugs or the thing you were doing because it just takes it all away again. Being right back at the start is the worst fucking feeling. That’s the song ‘N/A’ is the way that is, it’s me saying: ‘I really fucking wish I was dead right now’.”
What can you tell us about your rehab experience?
“There’s a part of the record that I call the rehab trilogy: ‘N/A’ (which is the group session), ‘Lost’ (the 1-1 therapy session), and ‘Strangers’ (the takeaway of the whole idea of sharing your pain with other people, because you can’t do it on your own).
“A huge part of me getting better was me going to rehab and being in a big group of people. I was surrounded by a guy who’d seen his mate blown up in Afghanistan, a schizophrenic teacher, a person with an eating disorder, and a girl that was raped by her own dad.
“You realise it’s a human condition. I thought I was insane and didn’t think I was ever going to get better, but then I’m listening to people saying all my thoughts. They’ve all been through things that are different and worse, but ‘Strangers’ is about that realisation that we’re all just looking for security. We’re all just lost. The first part of getting better is accepting that you have to talk about this. If you don’t get it out of your head, it’s never going to go. Feelings have to be felt and processed.”
Did that process feel more profound in realising you had to finish the record without Jordan? He first joined the band at a time when you’d come out of rehab and threw yourself into music. Was it hard to be going through all this without your songwriting partner?
“Yeah, 100 per cent. Obviously Jordan was a massive part of this band. He was my right-hand man and we were a creative force. I know that a lot of the time we were spoken about as a duo. Where we started to break off was the fact that after ‘Survival Horror’, I started to think about and address the way we were being.
“When I came out of rehab [this time], I needed music and something to throw myself back into. Jordan was in a really cool band that wasn’t getting anywhere, and he was surrounded by members that weren’t really helping that. He just wanted to write and create. We just never stopped, and we’d started to unknowingly push the band out. It was just us two: The Oli And Jordan Show.”
And all of your success must have made it tricky to want to change the formula?
“It was all a part of not stopping, and that fear of, ‘If we stop, we’re going to drop off, the band’s not going to be big any more, someone’s going to take over, someone’s going to be bigger and better than us’. At some point, you’ve got to accept that this is how big your band are. You’ve also got to ask yourself how much do you want to do to earn that extra [popularity]. Do you really want to go on TikTok and do all the dances? Do you want to be killing yourself in the studio every day when you don’t even want to write music just out of that fear?
“There’s a finite amount of success out there. We’d got into a mindset together that I was trying to move away from, but Jordan couldn’t to some degree.”
So when did the exit become obvious?
“When we were doing ‘Nex Gen’ and first said it was going to come out last September, it wasn’t finished but we were moving at a pace that felt like it would be. I remember thinking, ‘I hate writing this record, I’m so miserable, this sucks, I just want it done and to go back and live a normal life’. I realised I wasn’t happy.
“What I realised after Jordan left was that the atmosphere got better. I asked myself how I could have got to the point of fucking hating the record when I love making music, creating and art. I do it for fun. If I’m not making music, I’ll write a story, I’ll draw, I’ll make a t-shirt for Drop Dead or whatever. I love that.
“How did it get so bad that I said I want it over with? I realised after that without Jordan it was going way slower.”
What was the process like after that?
“The band got more involved again. They came back after being pushed out to some degree. Everything became more like we were making art for art’s sake. I thought, ‘No, we don’t want this to be over. it’ll take as long as it takes. I thought, ‘I don’t give a shit how long people can wait for this record’.”
So there weren’t any VH1 Behind The Music style fisticuffs? There were just two paths going different directions?
“Exactly. I’m not going to sit here and go, ‘Oh, it was just creative differences and we wish him the best and we’re all on good terms, and blah, blah, blah’. It’s never like that. Just like all breakups – they never end. Even the most amicable ones. There’s a split. It’s also very boring. There’s no headline there.
“He served our band really well, and the band wouldn’t be where we are without him. I don’t think I’d be able to sing. He was an agent in that and helped me do that. I’ve learned so much from him. I think he’s learned a lot from me. I’m sure one day we’ll see each other again and we’ll talk. Nothing’s happened where it couldn’t be sorted out over a drink. That’s that.”
So that’ll be a very short scene in the Bring Me The Horizon movie?
“There’s not gonna be any scene! We’ll never do one of them. Our story is a very slow, long climb to the top. No one died. Every time someone’s like, ‘Do you want to do a documentary, I’m like, ‘Fuck no!’
“Look at a band like Foo Fighters – they’ve had the most insane story ever, and I still don’t want to watch that documentary. No offence. I just don’t care. [Dave Grohl] has been through so much, lost so many people, and I still don’t wanna watch it. So why would you wanna watch a Bring Me The Horizon one?
“It’s just us being a slow reach to being a big band. Nowt particularly exciting has ever happened. ‘Oh yeah, he was addicted to drugs’, whatever. Who wasn’t in a rock band? It’s the same with Jordan: there’s nowt there, nowt exciting. We just got to a point where we weren’t happy as a unit anymore.”
There are some really surprising collaborators on this record. How did you land on working with AURORA on ‘Limousine’?
“I know what I wanted on that song and that was someone to bring something that could level it up – someone like a really ethereal, haunting, beautiful, voice. I wanted someone to elevate it and take it somewhere else. The song itself is very Deftones-influenced, almost to a point of parody! For this whole record, we’re happy to admit that the songs all are very nostalgic homages to loads of bands, but it’s also felt very important that we do something where we were pushing it as well to make it our own, put our own stamp on it. AURORA was that person that helped elevate the song to something that feels exotic and different.”
“AURORA for me is what a pop star should be, what the next wave of pop stars should look like; someone that has the songs, but is a real person who dares to speak what they believe in, who gives a shit about the world.”
Is that something lacking in pop?
“Dua Lipa and all the big pop stars are awesome, but I do sometimes get the sense of, ‘How many times can you sing about a lover not being good enough?’ I do find that with a lot of pop albums: you’ve found the thing that makes you big and you’re sticking to it.
“With AURORA, it’s like a constant desire to be something more, to push pop and use that platform for good. She is what the next generation of pop stars will look like. The younger generation will want something with something tangible, something with actual substance, you know.”
And you roped in Spencer Chamberlain from Underoath for ‘A Bullet w/ My Name On’ to sing that line: “If Jesus Christ returns, we’ll just kill the fucker twice”…
“That lyric was intended to be a critique of the conflict in Israel and Palestine. It’s spoken from the imagined perspective of a war victim, so it’s always coming from their mouthpiece, you know. The first verse is directly aimed at us as the Western world and how we just viewed wars through the lens of blame: who deserved that, they had it coming, they shouldn’t have done that.
“The song is a critique of how we never think about the victims. We’re just viewing it on this analytical basis of, ‘Well, they deserved it’. We’re not going, ‘I want to help, I want to change’. It’s just, ‘A minute’s silence, nice one’.
“The lyric that offended a lot of people is this war victim hitting back at the powers that be. The idea of killing Jesus twice is meant to encapsulate this anger and despair at the people in power. Even if someone is significant like Jesus returns, they’ll just kill them again because anyone that comes and advocates for peace or change, every time we’ve seen that in history, they’re just quashed.”
It speaks to the themes of the record about change, progress and finding peace. If ‘Survival Horror’ was saying “we’re all doomed”, ‘Nex Gen’ is about finding answers. Where does the arc go next?
“That’s an interesting one. This whole record is a proper narrative that actually explains the first record. I’ve realised that what I’ve been doing for years is building this world in my head and not telling anyone about it. That narrative is going to feed into the next one and I don’t want to give it all away because the way the record ends for me personally is realising that I’ve got to leave.”
What do you mean by ‘leave?’
“I’ve got to end a lot of relationships, I’ve got to leave my own country, I’ve got to get away and I’ve got to kind of kill apart of myself. I realise that I can’t heal in the place that made me sick. That’s why that last song on the record [‘Dig It’] feels a bit like a suicide note or a good letter, because it’s a bittersweet ending of realising that I’m fully on this path of healing now, but it’s going to mean I’ve got to kill part of myself.
“It kind of leaves it on a cliffhanger, in a way. This record has turned into such a bigger beast than I ever thought it would do, so it’s a bit it’s a bit too soon to tell you exactly where it’s going to go. I’ve got an idea of not only what the next record sounds like but where it is – and it’s not in a good place. But it’s it’s all to play for. It’s going to be four records and this will be that third act – usually where things go south. We’ll see – anything could change.”
‘Post Human: Nex Gen’ is out now. The band tour festivals throughout Europe this summer.
For further help and advice on mental health:
- “Am I depressed?” – Help and advice on mental health and what to do next
- MITC – A collective of musician industry therapists
- TONIC Rider – Bespoke training and support for music industry professionals
- Help Musicians UK – Around the clock mental health support and advice for musicians
- Music Support Org – Help and support for musicians struggling with alcoholism, addiction, or mental health issues
- YOUNG MINDS – The voice for young people’s health and wellbeing
- CALM – The Campaign Against Living Miserably
- The Samaritans – Confidential support 24 hours a day