Bring Me the Horizon
are a British metalcore band from Sheffield, Yorkshire, who formed in 2004. They played a style of music that fuses death metal and metalcore, known as deathcore on their first album — but they have taken on a more eclectic style with their latest album. [1]
|
BRING ME THE HORIZON TICKETS
|
Overview
Bring Me the Horizon began in 2004 with members of many defunct bands from around their local area.
[2] [3] They acquired their name based on a line taken from the film
Pirates of the Caribbean
, in which Captain
Jack Sparrow shouts "Now... Bring me that horizon." After slightly altering the original line, by simply changing 'that' to 'the', Bring Me the Horizon then became the official name of the band.
They are currently signed to
Visible Noise Records, but were originally signed to Thirty Days of Night Records and were the first band to be signed to that label. The band are also signed to
Epitaph Records in the
USA and to
Shock Records in
Australia.
They have toured in the past with bands such as
Lostprophets,
The Blackout [4];
Killswitch Engage and
The Haunted [5]. They performed a headlining tour of the UK during March and April 2007 with the now defunct
metalcore band
I Killed the Prom Queen. They played
Download Festival 2007 in June also with
Iron Maiden,
Slayer, and others.
[6]
They also played the North American leg of the tour, including a guest appearance
Travis McCoy from
Gym Class Heroes on August 6 in Calgary. He joined Oli in chanting the start of their song
Diamonds Aren't Forever.
In November 2007 they toured on the Australian leg of
Gigantour, playing three dates. They returned to Australia in May/June 2008, appearing on I Killed The Prom Queen's final ever tour.
Bring Me the Horizon had been writing and recording a second studio album over the beginning of 2008. They had been in Sweden recording the album throughout April and May with
Fredrik Nordström, who has worked with bands such as
At The Gates,
Arch Enemy,
I Killed The Prom Queen and
Dimmu Borgir. The album was released on September 29, 2008.
Suicide Season
is completely different to previous album
Count Your Blessings
, having a more
metalcore vibe to it, similar to the debut EP release,
This Is What The Edge Of Your Seat Was Made For
The band recently embarked on their first headline tour of the
USA, as well as appearing in the 2008
Warped Tour.
Bring Me the Horizon are also joined
Mindless Self Indulgence,
In Case Of Fire,
Black Tide and
Dir en grey on the
Kerrang!
and
Relentless 2009 UK tour. They are also set to join
Thursday,
Cancer Bats,
Four Year Strong and
Pierce the Veil on the
Taste of Chaos 2009 North American tour.
It was announced on August 27, 2009 that Bring Me the Horizon will be releasing a remixed version of
Suicide Season
, titled
Suicide Season — Cut Up
, in the
UK on November 2, 2009.
[7] In an interview with
Rock Sound, Oliver Sykes stated that the idea came about after asking a friend to remix one of their songs, and after being very pleased with the end result the band decided to take it a step further and get the whole of
Suicide Season remixed. Musicians and producers featured on the album includes Tek-One, Robot Sonic, Ben Weinman from
The Dillinger Escape Plan, Outcry Collective, L’Amour La Morgue (
Ian Watkins from
Lostprophets),
Utah Saints and
Shawn Crahan from
Slipknot. Sykes also stated that “There’s not a song on there that really sounds like the original. What’s great though is the diversity of each song. There’s dub-step to hip-hop, electro to drum and bass”
[7]
Line-up change
In March 2009, guitarist Curtis Ward left the band. A number of reasons have been cited for his departure: in an interview, bassist Matt Kean commented that "it became apparent he wasn't enjoying it" and that it was "just about commitment".
[9] In May 2009,
Jona Weinhofen, formerly of
I Killed The Prom Queen and
Bleeding Through, joined the band on a temporary basis to fill-in for Curtis. However, it was revealed in July 2009 that he would become an official member of Bring Me the Horizon, partly due to his discontent with living in America, hence leaving
Bleeding Through. According to Oliver Sykes in an interview on the subject, Weinhofen has injected the band with a new-found enthusiasm, causing the bands performances to be 'so much better and refreshing', and he feels they have 'stepped up another level'.
[10]
Forthcoming Third Album
In an interview with
Kerrang Magazine, it has be revealed that Bring Me the Horizon will begin writing the follow-up to
Suicide Season during the summer of 2009, with the plan to go into
Studio Fredman with producer
Fredrik Nordström (who produced Suicide Season) in March 2010, hopefully resulting in an album release in summer 2010.
Controversy
Nottingham incident
While on tour in the
United Kingdom allegations were made against vocalist Oliver Sykes that he urinated upon and then assaulted a female fan after a gig at Nottingham
Rock City when she allegedly refused his sexual advances. Sykes was subsequently charged with urinating on the fan, but not with physical assault.
[11] Online Music Zine Drowned In Sound claimed that Bring Me The Horizon were banned from Nottingham
Rock City.
[12] However the band's label
Visible Noise denied these rumors and the band subsequently played Nottingham Rock City on
December 1 2007.
[13]
On
April 13, Sykes appeared in Nottingham Magistrates Court on a charge of common assault relating to the alleged urination incident, to which he pleaded not guilty. The case was adjourned until early May.
[14] On
3 May 2007 Sykes attended Nottingham Magistrates court for the second time and confirmed his not guilty plea. The case was adjourned again until
17 September.
[15] Due to lack of evidence, all charges against Sykes were dropped.
[16]
YouTube video with Architects
During a tour, Bring Me the Horizon and
Architects filmed a video showing fights between Oliver Sykes and Architects' lead singer Sam Carter. The video was filmed at an all-day event in
Karlsruhe,
Germany and shows what seemed to be Sam Carter committing acts of physical violence towards Oliver. The video was uploaded onto the online video website,
YouTube of which it attracted thousands of hits. This video outraged many Bring Me the Horizon fans causing many people to send hate mail towards Sam Carter.
"We're mates with the guys and were sharing a bus for the whole two week tour!" Carter told
Kerrang!. "The fact that people believed it was real is just so ridiculous! We filmed the fight about three times and even added in comedy punch noises and yet kids were still sending us over-the-top hate mail!" Oliver Sykes also commented saying "All-day events can get boring very fast so we conjured up the first idiotic thing we could think of and made it as unbelievable as possible. Sam was getting death threats from kids off MySpace and at the same time getting praised for laying me out! We're sorry if anyone was upset by this although I'm sure most people reading this probably like the thought of me getting a punch in the face!". The issue was later resolved with things returning back to normal, although to this day the video still receives many hits on
YouTube.
[17]
Discography
- Count Your Blessings
(2006)
- Suicide Season
(2008)
Band members
Current members
- Oliver Sykes – vocals (2004 - present)
- Lee Malia - lead guitar (2004 - present)
- Matt Kean - bass guitar (2004 - present)
- Matt Nicholls - drums, percussion (2004 - present)
- Jona Weinhofen - rhythm guitar, keys, vocals (2009 - present)
Former members
- Curtis Ward - rhythm guitar (2004 – 2009)
Awards and readers poll results
- Kerrang!
Award for Best British Newcomer 2006. (Won)
[18]
- Kerrang!
Award for Best British Band 2008. (Nominated) [19]
- Voted Best British band. (Rock Sound readers poll)
- Voted Best Album and Worst Album for Suicide Season (Rock Sound readers' poll)
- Voted Worse Band in 2008. (Kerrang! readers poll)
Other projects
- Oli Sykes ("Master Syko"), Matt Nicholls, Tom Sykes and XricciX formed a rap group called Womb 2 Da Tomb [20]
- Oli Sykes and his ex girlfriend's brother, Neil Whiteley, formed a heavy metal duo named Purple Curto [21]
- Oli Sykes owns Drop Dead Clothing and employs his younger brother Tom and mother Carol to help run and manage it with him. [22]
- Oli Sykes also had an electronic instrumental side project called Olisaurus/Oli Has a Deathwish. [23]
References
- [1]
- How they formed - record label's page
- Information on BMTH genre from the Download Festival Website
- Information on one of the gigs that BMTH supported Lostprophets
- Information on BMTH supporting KsE
- Download Festival line-up from official site
- [1]
- [1]
- BRING ME THE HORIZON Bassist Discusses Guitarist's Departure
- Kerrang! Magazine, Issue No. 1269, July 11th 2009
- BMTH singer Oli Sykes charged by police, punktastic.com, retrieved April 10, 2007
- Bring Me The... head of the person that did this drownedinsound.com, retrieved April 11 2007
- rock-city.co.uk ::: gig guide
- Bring Me the Horizon frontman fronts court, pleads not guilty halo-17.net, retrieved April 15, 2007
- The sordid Bring Me The Horizon saga continues, halo-17.net, retrieved 6 June 2007
- Oliver Sykes is off the hook, halo-17.net, retrieved 11 September 2007.
- http://www2.kerrang.com/2008/02/bmth_fans_send_architects_sing.html
- BMTH win Best British Newcomer
- http://www.buzznet.com/musicnews/all-time-low-avenged-sevenfold-j2741831/
- Womb 2 Da Tomb Myspace
- Purple Curto Myspace
- Drop Dead Clothing website
- Bandwagon.co.uk