Bring me the Horizon – Oli Sykes, Matt Nichols
Posted on July 01, 2009 at 12:00 am by admin
Alright, I know I already spoke to Bring me the Horizon not to long ago, but I had another chance when I was at the Rockstar Taste of Chaos tour in Toronto. I got to talk to drummer Matt Nichols again (because he was so cool the first time) and vocalist Oli Sykes, who had some interesting stories to tell when the band was on tour with Megadeth in Australia!
Way Too Loud!: Since everyone loves to talk about this, what were your influences, and what got you up and playing?
Matt: I guess I were influenced by my dads taste in music, rock ‘n roll, and watching bands do that made me want to do that.
Oli: Bands like Glassjaw made me absolutely want to play. Seeing them for the first time was absolutely fun.
WTL: What was your intent when making “Suicide Season”, as opposed to your older albums?
Oli: I think we just wanted to try something a bit different. We said that when we started writing it. We didn’t know how, but we just wanted to see if we could do something different, and thought it would be fun. I think what we did say was lets try it and see what happens. We didn’t set any goals, we didn’t say “Let’s try and sound like this”, we just wanted to see what we could do.
Matt: On previous albums we’d write bits that didn’t sound anything like our band did when we started, so this time we said if it’s good, lets use it. We didn’t really disregard anything if it didn’t sound like our old albums, so we’d get new stuff in and go. We didn’t set any boundaries.
WTL: What made you choose “Suicide Season” as the album title?
Oli: The whole album is about things that have happened in my life, and something happened that nearly destroyed the band and would’ve stopped it all from continuing. That whole season, or that year just came together with really bad timing, coming up to the time when we needed to make a new album. It’s a really fine line, as the album nearly didn’t get written, and the band almost didn’t continue, but we did. At the same time, if all that stuff hadn’t happened, there wouldn’t be that theme there.
WTL: Is there some meaning behind the album cover? I remember when I talked about it before you [Matt], it could be metaphorically and figuratively spilling your guts.
Oli: That was the idea behind it. All the stuff on the album is stuff that I wouldn’t tell people publicly about, but it is about spilling ones guts, which the album cover shows.
WTL: Your tour manager told me before that you guys hate the press.
Matt: I don’t think we really hate the press.
Oli: It’s not that we hate the press, I think he said that just not to be rude. I guess it’s because we’re not great at doing interviews. We’re kind of quiet people, and when we’re like that it’s kind of difficult. We don’t hate the press. We get a bad rap sometimes.
WTL: You’ve had a lineup change recently. Why did guitarist Curtis Ward leave the band?
Oli: I mean, nothing really crazy happened. I guess from the outside it looks like something, but for us it’s been a long time coming. He wasn’t into as much as we were, and his heart wasn’t there. It wasn’t a personal thing. I guess our touring schedules got pretty hectic in the last couple of years, and you could kind of tell he wasn’t into it anymore. Because he wasn’t happy, he was kind of bringing the rest of the band down.
Matt: It was like a mutual thing. We weren’t like dickheads bossing him about or whatnot. He didn’t really put up an argument, he just kind of agreed. It was something we felt had to happen because we could feel it bringing everyone down, and if we didn’t do something about it, it could’ve been even worse for our band. Everyone agreed that it would be the best thing for our band if he wasn’t in it anymore. It’s not a personal thing, it’s just something we had to do for our bands sake.
Matt: We’ve got Robbie [Hart] who used to be in Blessed by Broken Heart playing guitar for us on thee Canadian shows. We’ve got a couple friends who we’ve talked to about filling in when we go to places like Australia.
Oli: As for a permanent guitarist, we don’t know yet.
WTL: Is there a definite lead and rhythm guitarist?
Matt: Lee [Malia] does the solos and stuff, and we don’t usually play those bits live anymore. I don’t know if we really go from lead to rhythm, they just do their parts.
Oli: The guitarists play off each other.
Matt: No ones like really into lead. We’ve just had 2 guitar players.
WTL: Are the lyrics to the song “No Need For Introductions, I’ve Read About Girls Like you on the Backs of Toilet Doors” pretty obvious?
Oli: It’s just about an event that happened one night a couple of years ago after a show. Basically this girl said something happened and put this band through shit. There’s a lot of people who want to ask me about it who’re on the internet, but there’s not really much to say, apart from that song. I never really talk about it in interviews and stuff, at the same time I don’t think I should have to justify myself to people, because I think people will believe what they want to believe about a band. That song is just 45 seconds of how I felt about it.
WTL: How did things work out with Earache? I know you were just on a one album contract, and you said they were actually pretty good to you for “Count Your Blessings”.
Matt: When we needed a label, they stepped in and helped us out. We only had a one album deal, but I don’t really speak that much to anyone at Earache.
Oli: We’re on Epitaph now, which has a much better vibe, much more like a family kind of feeling to it.
WTL: You said before that Brett Gurewitz told you that he’d kill to have your band on his label.
Matt: Well, we didn’t have to kill anyone! (Laughs) Earache was interested in putting “Suicide Season” out as well, and a few other labels, but we thought that Epitaph was the best label to go with. We liked everything they said, and they wanted our CD to do as well as we wanted our CD to do. Epitaph was just the best label, and they did everything they said they could do to helps and our band.
Oli: Other labels offered us more money and better deals and stuff, but Epitaph really stepped up on the band and were really excited about the new album. Other labels might’ve gotten us more money, but it might not have worked as well.
Matt: Lots of labels offered us loads of money, but didn’t even come to say hello to us. When they didn’t come out to see us, we didn’t think that was a good start. Brett actually came down personally, and we were pretty stoked on that.
WTL: Your still on Visible Noise, so you must really like those guys.
Matt: If it weren’t for Visible Noise, then we wouldn’t be here. We were on an indie label, but there only so much they could do for us. Money wise they couldn’t get us on stuff, but Visible Noise stepped in and they stepped it up for us. Visible Noise is great, and we get along great with everyone there.
WTL: Are you guys going to be doing the wall of death tonight?
Oli: We don’t know!
Matt: If the shows a good one, then maybe! We’ll have to wait and see! You could start it!
WTL: Where in the world would you like to play?
Oli: Dubai. I’d say Japan, but we’re going there soon. Hawaii!
WTL: I know that Dubai has been getting some big metal fests.
WTL: Are you going to hit Japan and Australia around the same time?
Oli: Yeah, we’re doing Japan, Australia and New Zealand, so that should be fun! I think we mentioned that to someone in Canada about setting up Hawaii.
Matt: I’d like to play in space! (Laughs) I think ZZ Top were the first band to play space or something like that.
Oli: Or David Bowie!
WTL: David Bowie would make sense – “Ground Control to Major Tom”.
Who would you tour with if you had no rules?
Old: Freddie Becker!
Matt: Queen! The original lineup, not nowadays though.
Oli: [To Matt] There’s no rules, so the rules of life and death don’t count. Elvis, Freddy Mercury.
Matt: Jim Morrison! Everybody great who’s dead, we’d bring ’em back to life and have a party!
WTL: Who would you like to tour with who’s both feasible, but not obvious?
Oli: Metallica?
Matt: We actually toured with Megadeth actually, in Australia.
WTL: How was that? Did you get to see Dave [Mustaine] pretty often?
Matt: We saw him every now and then, cruising around! (Laughs)
Oli: Getting high! It was weird though.
Matt: Definitely a weird feeling though.
WTL: Do you have any stories that you’re willing to divulge from that tour?
Matt: There were too many schoolgirls being to loud, so he asked if he could have his floor changed. It was weird though! When he came off stage, there’d be someone there waiting to give him a bathrobe! [Laughs] He’d be finished his set, and there’d be someone waiting at the bottom of the stairs with a rob, and he’d slip into it. He was definitely cool to tour with though. It was cool to watch Megadeth every night though with Static-X, Lacuna Coil and DevilDriver.
WTL: Have you ever lied about what your band name means?
Matt: So many people asked us how we came to be, and we eventually started coming up with this story that we were all backyard wrestlers. The interview that we did was so serious, and I think we’d had a few drinks.
Oli: Every question they asked, we just gave them back an answer about wrestling! (Laughs)
Matt: We told them that we used to backyard wrestle at Lees house. We completely made bullshit up, like names for ourselves. I think I was called “Annihilator” or something stupid! It was a fun interview though!
Bring me the Horizon at MySpace
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