Bring Me The Horizon originally delayed their new album Post Human: NeX GEn in September 2023, saying at the time "unforeseen circumstances rendered us unable to complete the record to the standard we'd be happy with." Then in December 2023, Bring Me The Horizon parted ways with longtime keyboardist Jordan Fish with very little explanation. Bring Me The Horizon vocalist Oli Sykes recently spoke a little about the split, but now he's diving deeper into exactly what happened.
In an interview with NME, Sykes said he and Fish's priorities began splitting off after the release of Post Human: Survival Horror in 2020. Sykes felt the band could only get so big before hitting a ceiling, and that he wasn't interested in constantly pushing for attention on social media.
"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?"
Sykes further called the writing process of Bring Me The Horizon's latest record POST HUMAN: NeX GEn "miserable," and even considered just going back to being a regular dude without the pressure of being in a band.
"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 [fashion line] 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."
Sykes continued: "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."
"We just got to a point where we weren't happy as a unit anymore."
