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Oli Sykes: “I still feel like the underdog… But it’s important to stop smell the roses, and to be like, ‘This is f*cking amazing, what we’ve achieved’”
It’s been a hell of a 2024 for Bring Me The Horizon. In January, they did their biggest-ever UK tour. Then, in May, they finally released their long-awaited album POST HUMAN: NeX GEn, and went round the world one more time. Looking back, Oli Sykes reflects on how the Sheffield superstars are in “the best place we’ve ever been”. But first, they’ve been up to something completely bewildering…
- Words:
- Emily Garner
- Photos:
- Jonti Wild
Bring Me The Horizon guitarist Lee Malia is wearing a ridiculous wig and naff suit, while pretending to interview a banana. A spooky, X-Files-y theme tune plays in the background, before he earnestly introduces us to a curious cult who are, in his words, “madder than a bag of foreskins”.
For a band whose general operations are never anything less than impeccably cool and utterly slick, something feels a little off. But don’t worry. What this all actually means is that in BMTH world, things are going fucking great.
What we’re talking about is the first episode of their new spoof paranormal investigator YouTube show, Unbeleevable, written and directed by Oli Sykes. According to the frontman, it’s a way of drip-feeding the lore he’s been building through their music in the past five years. But also, and much, much more importantly, it’s endearing proof that the band are “in the best place we’ve ever been”.
“I don’t know how noticeable this is from the outside,” the 38-year-old ponders to Kerrang! today, during a rare gap in his schedule between massive shows, “but we’ve been doing all this stuff that we’ve talked about for years. It’s really silly and really stupid, but when we go on tour we’ve been getting a green screen and spending our days off in hotels, basically just making these stupid episodes where we’re dying with laughter. We’ve talked about stuff like that for years – ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if we did this?’ – and now we’re doing them. It’s really cool.”
This heartfelt detail wasn’t something we were necessarily anticipating. After all, we’re here today to chat about Bring Me The Horizon’s 2024 – a year in which they’ve been on genuinely unstoppable form, continuing to assert themselves as Britain’s most sensational modern metal band.
They kicked things off with their NX_GN arena tour on home soil – supported by Static Dress, Cassyette and metalcore kings-in-waiting Bad Omens – before travelling all across the world playing to hundreds of thousands of fans. They won a BRIT Award for the first time, and finally released their long-awaited POST HUMAN: NeX GEn album to deafening noise in May. (And yes, of course, they got those all-important Unbeleevable filming sessions locked in at various points, too.)
And it’s not to say that all this career stuff is no longer important to Oli. It definitely is. But he’s experienced a healthy change in perspective from before, where friendships, fun and truly just making the most of a moment are now absolutely imperative.
“The band are in such a chill place as a unit,” he beams. “We’ve always been close, and it’s unusual because every other band around us that’s been going for this long, you get this feeling of, ‘You guys aren’t all friends anymore, are you?’ Or they might be friends, but there’s unspoken weirdness or unresolved tension, or a little bit of competition.
“We’ve never had that. We’ve had our highs and lows, but there’s always been the unit. We’re all in the same place now, we’re all happy to do the same thing, and there’s no arguments.”
If this “unit” had ever started to creak under the weight of pressure, then in 2024 it’s shown its defiant resolve. BMTH have racked up almost 50 shows this year, travelling from Birmingham to Brisbane and everywhere in-between, putting themselves at the centre of a whirlwind. Ask Oli to look back over it all, and it’s no surprise that it takes him a moment to find the right words.
“It’s been awesome, it’s been weird… it’s been so fast!” he exhales. “I have to really think about what was this year and what was last year. We all say that and it feels worse every year, but I can’t believe [it’s nearly over]. We were doing our UK tour in January, and if I think back it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, that was big…’
“Obviously our record finally came out, and that was a massive moment,” he continues, picking up steam as he gets his memories in order. “It felt really good. I’ve been working on myself a lot in terms of genuinely letting something go once we’ve made it and released it into the world, and almost relying on my own feelings. It’s like getting all my highs – or whatever you want to call it – off of that, rather than going, ‘What’s everyone gonna think? Let’s look at the comments…’ I’ve been saying this kind of crap for a long time, but each year it gets a little more real.”
No more so was Oli’s growth tested than when BMTH released NeX GEn’s physical editions in September, and they unwittingly found themselves in a chart fight. Before, they’d have jumped into battle quicker than you could say “amo”. But now? Nah, not so much.
“Our managers said, ‘It could be Number One, but there’s this other band who are doing all these in-stores, so what are we gonna do?’” Oli recalls. “And I was like, ‘Fuck it, I do not care. Let’s be Number Two.’ It sounds like nothing, but it’s just those little things to let go of and go, ‘That doesn’t mean anything to me!’ And no offence to our fans or anyone, but their opinions are starting to mean less to me (laughs). They’re not going to hurt me.
“I knew with NeX GEn, when it came out, just like most of our records, some people are gonna fucking love it, and some people are gonna be like, ‘I don’t get it,’ and, ‘This is crap.’ I know that I love this record – I love every single song on it, and I’m quite confident that every song on this record will be someone’s favourite. I also know that in a couple of years, the people who didn’t like it will say that they love it.”
Oli’s arguably earned the right to feel this way. His limitless ambition and work ethic over the past 20 years has taken BMTH to heights that other alternative bands may only ever dream of, and now, he’s taking a rare second to enjoy the view. And while you wouldn’t put it past them to ascend further still, that’s not really the goal anymore.
“I honestly think we’re one of the hardest-working bands going, but at the same time, we’re not thirsty or desperate to be more famous or bigger,” he says. “We’re very comfortable where we are, and if this was it, and if this was our peak, then cool. If we don’t like something or we don’t want to do it, then is it worth doing it for the sake of getting one per cent bigger?”
Having said that, there is more to come, and lots of it. This is Bring Me The Horizon we’re talking about, after all. And as Oli alluded to when the NeX GEn CDs and vinyl came out a couple of months ago, they’ve only unveiled “the real first part of the puzzle…”
For a defining voice of his generation, by his own admission Oli Sykes is “fucking awful” at karaoke. The same could be said, he reckons, if he were ever to enter any kind of generic singing contest.
“If I went on X Factor, I’d get laughed out the building,” the frontman tells us light-heartedly. “I’m not a naturally gifted singer.”
Surprising as it is to hear him say it, such self-deprecation comes with a reason. POST HUMAN: NeX GEn contains more of Oli’s heart and soul than any BMTH record in years, following the departure of bandmate, key collaborator and production guru Jordan Fish this time last year. And so, if you’ll allow him a moment of pride here, he’s “really happy” with his performance – and especially
how great it feels onstage.
“The lyrics are so cathartic when I sing them,” he smiles. “And I think it’s because I found myself working more on my own after Jordan left. Even the melodies came more from me this time – rather than coming from a shared place. So they’re easier to sing, and because they’re easier to sing, it makes them easier to feel as well.
“If I’m singing my own melodies and things that come from me – and I’m sure any songwriter or pop star would tell you the same – then you can fucking nail it, because the muscle memory has already been formed,” he explains. “You came up with it, rather than learning someone else’s interpretation. So, on this record, more than ever, I’m feeling myself, because it just feels so easy. I feel like I’m killing it, and because of that I’m also feeling what I’m saying now.”
He’s also killing it because, just as the album unpacks, Oli’s been working on his mental health. And while NeX GEn admits he’s not healed yet (‘Dark thoughts keep on filling up in my mind / Kinda wanna get fucked / Make love to a chainsaw,’ is one brilliantly gnarly confession on n/A), he’s still making good progress.
“In relation to my life, I’m in the best place I’ve been in forever – but there’s always more I could be doing, if you asked my wife,” Oli chuckles. “She’s got her head screwed on and she’s very spiritual. We meditate a lot, but she works on herself more. But I am trying! I do enjoy it a lot.
“She got me working with my shadow self recently. Then I went on tour and promised I’d do it, but came back and was like, ‘Fuck…’ I hadn’t done it (laughs). It started after lockdown – I was like, ‘I need to work on Oli Sykes the person, not just the musician.’ I’m very conscious and very aware of it, and that alone is really important. There’s plenty more I could do, but it’s a journey.”
In his defence, he’s also been bloody busy. Describing himself as a “really bad time manager”, Oli’s had even more on his plate than usual, making setlist tweaks and constructing brand-new production for the band’s final live dates of the year – which is a full-time job in itself. Not to mention he’s also given himself the laborious task of “trying to take the POST HUMAN story to different mediums”.
Hang on… what does that mean?!
“I’m not even sure myself yet!” he admits. “Something I’d definitely like to do is a manga. When we were in Japan last, we went and spoke to some people that basically do the biggest mangas – like Ghost In The Shell and Akira. I’m talking to a lot of different people who are really good at this kind of stuff, and through some serendipitous events I’ve met people who could be really cool to work with. I’ve had this story in my head for years, and now it’s like, ‘If you want it to be like how you see it, you’ve got to write it all out.’ At first it started off like, ‘I’ll just give you a summary of each chapter.’ But as I’ve been writing, there’s so much more in my head than I thought there was…”
While it’s still up in the air until he finishes it, what Oli does whole-heartedly believe is that this needs to be done right. He’s not going for the easy cash-grab.
“Bands will do a comic book and it’s a cute way to sell some more records, but it’s not a serious thing,” he stresses. “I’d really love this to be a proper thing. Not just, ‘Our fans will buy it and like it,’ but something that could appeal to wider fans of anime, or young adult fiction.”
Ever the most hands-on of artists, Oli’s had his head buried in the dystopian and sci-fi world of POST HUMAN for a long time now, developing it all. Intense as it sounds, it has been beneficial on a personal level, because he’s come to realise just how much of his own life has been the basis of this fantastical story.
“Whether it’s a character who becomes famous and then falls into drugs, or there’s a character who’s a cult leader,” he says. “It feels like I’m writing about one side of my personality, and then there’s another character who’s the opposite, and it’s this duality, or battle between who will prevail. As I’m writing, I look back and go, ‘Actually, this means so much more.’ In the same way that lyrics are a form of therapy, this is almost like that, too. You know when you watch a movie? I always used to think, ‘I wonder if the writer ever thought about it that deeply, or if it’s just us interpreting it all on a crazy level?’ But you realise that you’re really writing from so much personal experience.”
And he already can’t wait to see how BMTH’s fans eagerly consume this latest undertaking. He’s introduced them into his intricate world-building via secret websites, hidden codes, spectrographs and more across the POST HUMAN era – “They’re always like, ‘It won’t be Oli,’ but it literally is me writing all these diary entries and making these little audio clips,” he laughs – but now it’s time to take it to the next level. It’s something he may not have had the confidence to try before, but spurred on by the encouragement of his co-creative partner Jacob Harry Carter, he’s proud to add a whole new string to his artistic bow.
“At first I think I felt a little bit insecure about it,” he squirms. “But it’s made me realise that anyone can write a story, and anyone can do most things. You’ve just got to sit down and start somewhere. It starts off a bit okay-ish, but you just keep doing it, and every day [it builds and changes]. Now I’m at the point where I’m like, ‘This is really good’ (laughs). I’m stoked on it!”
Last summer, Oli Sykes’ mum gave her son a poignant reminder about the time he spent two weeks in his bedroom as a kid, “crying my eyes out”. It was because post-hardcore icons Glassjaw had cancelled a UK tour due to frontman Daryl Palumbo’s Crohn’s disease. Oli was, he says, “despondent” about the situation, and while hiding away from the world trying to come to terms with the crushing fact that he wouldn’t get to see his favourite band, he wrote Daryl a song.
Fast-forward more than two decades, and now the Glassjaw legend is on one of his songs (NeX GEn rager AMEN!, alongside Lil Uzi Vert). Mrs Sykes thought it was important that he reflect on just how big of a deal that was.
“Man… you can’t bottle that,” Oli says. “The only thing to say is that you wish you could tell your 14-year-old self about it, but what would they say? What would they do? It’s same as me getting to sing with Linkin Park. I wish I could really feel what my 14-year-old self would have felt. When I started, I didn’t know music, I didn’t study, I couldn’t sing – I could just scream. To tell my 14-year-old self: ‘One day you’re gonna know how to make music, and you’re gonna be that good that all your childhood idols will make music with you…’”
Honestly, his mind is still blown. But it also comes with the frustrating and incredibly human fact that it’s basically impossible for such milestones to really sink in. It’s something he’s been grappling with a lot in recent years – hence his mum’s prompt.
“There’s so many levels to how mental it is, that actually now, when you’re doing it, you’re just like, ‘Cool, what’s next?’ It’s so hard,” Oli reflects. “And I don’t mean that to sound like I don’t appreciate it, but it’s just that it’s that mental that it goes over your head. It’s the same with getting asked to headline Download – it’s so cool, but you don’t then pop champagne and party. It’s a shame that you can’t feel it more, you know?
“It’s like that thing of you’ve wanted to climb Mount Everest your whole life, and then you get to the top – but you don’t just stop there. You don’t come down and go, ‘Yes! Done! I’m gonna sit at home now.’ It doesn’t work like that. There’s no ultimate goal, and it’s just the human condition: you’ve got this gaping void inside of you and nothing will ever fill it (laughs).”
Don’t get it twisted, though. Oli couldn’t be more grateful for Bring Me The Horizon, and everything he’s been lucky enough to do in his life. This NeX GEn chapter continues to deliver highlights aplenty, and yet even as the bucket list empties, he’s also, quite frankly, still a bit perplexed by such remarkable success.
“I never thought our band would be this big, or that we’d be around this long,” he grins. “But I still feel like the underdog. When we’re asked to play a big festival, I still feel like, ‘Are they joking? What are they thinking? Is it because they can get us for cheap?!’ It’s never, ‘Yep, we deserve that, and it’s going to be full, and everyone’s gonna be there.’ In my head I’m with all the naysayers going, ‘No-one even knows who the fuck they are!’ I’m always going to have that mindset, but it’s important to stop and smell the roses, and to appreciate what you’ve got, and to try to meditate on that and be like, ‘This is fucking amazing, what we’ve achieved.’”
With that in mind, what inevitable triumphs do BMTH have in store for us in 2025? Well, actually, Oli had been thinking about taking some well-deserved time off, and giving people the chance to miss him and the band.
“I do feel like we need to go away for a bit, because I feel like we’ve been in everyone’s faces for so long, and I think people would appreciate it,” he admits.
It’s not quite happening like that, though. They’re still figuring everything out, Oli teases, but they’ve got typically grand ideas when it comes to ending the NeX GEn chapter over here, headlining Reading & Leeds in the summer. He fancies heading “back to America”, too, and paying an overdue visit to “some of the places we haven’t seen so much over the past couple of years”.
“I’d also like to get new music out,” he adds (yeah, this ‘time off’ thing really isn’t happening, is it?). “We wrote so much for NeX GEn, there’s so many cool songs that are kicking about, and I think the world would love to hear them. I would love to get out maybe a ‘director’s cut’ version of the record or something. But I’m trying to put less pressure on myself, and not promise anything! After the last record it felt like people were gonna start hunting me down and taking me for ransom (laughs). But I’m sure there’ll be new music and concerts and all that next year.”
Sounds killer. You might even say it’ll be Unbeleevable…
This article originally appeared in the winter 2024 issue of the magazine, and has been updated to headline the fact the band are headlining Reading & Leeds 2025. Bring Me The Horizon’s new album POST HUMAN: NeX GEn is out now via RCA.
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