'Rock Hasn't Produced Any Icons In Three Decades': Bring Me The Horizon Aim High With 'Amo'

When The Music arrives at Sony's Sydney offices to preview Bring Me The Horizon's new album Amo, photographs of major names like Delta Goodrem, and Michael Jackson tour plaques line the walls. Ushered into a large boardroom to hear the record, streaming charts buzz away featuring the likes of 5 Seconds Of Summer, Post Malone, Amy Shark and yes – Bring Me The Horizon.

The scenario reinforces that this is the chart-dominating company they're keeping nowadays. If it wasn't already apparent to some, the British deathcore/metalcore upstarts turned stadium rock candidates are officially a very big deal. “Yeah, I guess so,” 32-year-old singer Oliver Sykes says of suggestions they're really playing in the major leagues now. “It still doesn't feel like it in a way, we're just doing our thing. But the fact you went and listened to our album at Sony, the support we've been shown and how excited they are about the record, it makes you think, 'Fucking hell, we've got some responsibility on our shoulders here.'”

And Amo (or 'love' - more on that later), their sixth full-length, could seemingly elevate this band with already major ambitions to that elusive next level. “This whole album's completely different to anything we've done before,” Sykes suggests. While first single Mantra emphasised the LP's rock inclinations, elsewhere the follow-up to 2015’s mega-selling That’s The Spirit flirts with strings-drenched drama, ambience, grime, pseudo-EDM and glitch-pop. There's also collaborations with human beat machine Rahzel, Cradle Of Filth screamer Dani Filth and electronic artist Grimes. Overall, a broad sonic palette somewhat removed from the band's humble heavy music origins in the industrial, former steel city of Sheffield, England where Sykes still resides.

It's proposed that the new material sounds akin to a group who have that creative tunnel vision; not following others and doing what they wish creatively. “I think we've had to, you know? There's not really anyone else out there in our genre or world that inspires us. I don't think there has been anyone in the past decade, or two really, that has really made us be like, 'Wow, let's be like that band. I want to follow in their footsteps,' or, 'They're doing it right.' So we've just tried to figure out our own path and our own way. Looking to other genres and stuff, and seeing how other genres manage to produce progressive music, or icons still.

“Because I really do feel like rock is the only genre that hasn't really produced any icons in the past three decades. It's still Ozzy, Metallica and all these bands headlining festivals, there's no one coming along and taking the crown and stuff like that. I do feel like it's partly down to rock's sheer, for the most part, sheer resistance to progress, to do something different and to let other people on our record or (other) instruments in. There's such a stigma attached to that, that rock has to be a certain way.

“We're in an age now where we're experiencing new things in every other aspect of life, when it comes to every format of media and stuff, we've got virtual reality, we've got all these things. There's so much we can do, and we're doing it now. And it doesn't make any sense to me why we wouldn't do that for music when you can. We have these sound banks... We have this plethora of samples, synths and everything, and it's so much easier to be able to do all this stuff. Why would you not? For us, we're just trying to carve our own little path out and go our own way.”

This ethos has spawned a burgeoning fanbase and Mantra was nominated for a Grammy. The lead-up to Amo's release has been marred by tragedy as well though, a fan dying at the band's sold-out show on 30 November in London. “It was just a horrible thing,” the vocalist reflects. “It was frustrating because we had so little information on it, and we didn't even really have an idea until the following day that it had actually happened. It was the first time anything like that has ever happened at one of our shows.

"I really do feel like rock is the only genre that hasn't really produced any icons in the past three decades."

“It just sucks. We've been in close contact with the family, talked to them a lot and we're doing everything we can for them. I guess the only solace that we can take is he really loved our band, and if he died being somewhere, seeing one of his favourite bands... it's still not the best way to go, but... it's just one of those things, it was a very bittersweet end to the tour. There's not a lot you can say about it; it wasn't due to any over-crazy moshpit or whatever, and security was amazing.”

Lyrically, Amo sees Sykes exorcising personal demons – even if he initially resisted writing about the peaks and valleys of love and relationships. The frontman underwent a divorce, before soon remarrying. “This all happened during the past 18 months, which I'm aware of is quite crazy. Even for me, it's weird,” Sykes quips.

“After we finished That's The Spirit, during that time I was married... And maybe like halfway through that time period I found out that my wife was having an affair, and it had been going on for quite a long time. I was completely oblivious to it. It was a massive shock obviously.

“For most people getting married, getting divorced and getting married again probably happens over ten, 15 years, definitely not less than two. You very slowly fall out of love, or something happens or whatever and things dissipate or whatever, very slowly, to the point where you don't really see what's going on, it just happens. But when it happens that quickly, for me, it was almost like being out of my body. Seeing all the cogs turning, and I was like, 'Jesus Christ, love is such a crazy thing,' like how it can go from literally being besotted with someone, and then the next day realising that you never wanted to see that person again, and realising they had lied to you. It was like, how was I so sure things were perfect for me, and the next day I'm realising that everything's wrong?”

Ultimately, Sykes determined that writing lyrics for him is therapeutic. “You come to a point where it's almost a bit of a disservice if I don't talk about this, if I try to make something up, or do a concept album or whatever. But I'm like, 'What the fuck am I going to talk about?' I'm not interested in politics, I'm not interested in anything like that, and I can't make up stories. I have to sing about 'this happened to me' for it to sound real.”

On a less personally draining note, Amo also features the piss-taking, purist-baiting track Heavy Metal – which, among other notions, appears to troll detractors who bemoan Bring Me The Horizon not playing the aforementioned style of music these days. Sykes admits to having formerly been “the most polarising band in England”, although most members are largely accustomed to such backlash.

The cut's genesis is somewhat steeped in the prospect of that lone punter, amid a sea of positivity, who will still inevitably lambaste them. “I guess it's just a song about the weird and wonderful journey of our band. We're one of the very few bands that's managed to progress as much as we have and actually have our fanbase grow, and it not all fall on its arse. I do think our story's very interesting, that if you go back and listen to our first album and to what we're doing now, it's just quite trippy."