Bring Me The Horizon

Bring Me The Horizon

Photo: Courtesy of Bring Me The Horizon

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Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Bring Me The Horizon's Oli Sykes

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The lead singer and creative force reacts to the band's first nomination, discusses creativity in the face of pain and says why he feels Grimes is "the millennial Björk"
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jan 30, 2019 - 2:55 pm

Six albums into their career, Bring Me The Horizon flat out refuse to go through the motions. The band's new album amo arrived—or rather departed—Jan. 25 with a rich, variegated sonic color palette, unapologetic pop melodies and unflinching lyric themes of love, truth and betrayal.

While its lead single, "MANTRA," may feel more like home to longtime fans, with its punishing percussion and rubbery riffs, the rest of amo shows frontman Oli Sykes and company pushing up and out from their metalcore roots and into the dark yet lustrous skies above, exploring the cosmos of electro-pop, hip-hop, EDM and beyond.

We caught up with Sykes over the phone to get his reaction to "MANTRA" earning the British band its first GRAMMY nomination for Best Rock Song, hear what elements he feels makes for a great album, his thoughts on collaborating with Grimes, who he calls "the millennial Björk," and more.

Congrats on the GRAMMY nomination! Where were you when you found out?

We were in England. We just finished up our U.K. and Europe tour… We were signing about 2,000 CDs at the time to send out, and I guess we got the news at the same time as the world got the news. We were just like, "What the hell? Is this true?" It was kind of crazy.

You're up for Best Rock Song, a songwriter's award. What do you remember most about writing "MANTRA"?

We'd been writing for about nine months, I would say, and we had a load of cool stuff, we had a lot of stuff that we were really excited about. But it was the more experimental and weirder stuff and the stuff that you'd never heard Horizon do before, which we were excited about but the same time, we were ... One night I just said to myself, "Alright, if the record label or management or whatever said, ‘What song are you going to show the world first,’ what would it be?"

And in my head, I was like, we don't have that song. We don't have that song because all this music we've made so far is bats*** crazy and if we put this out first, people are not even going to recognize it's us or we're going to alienate our fans. And as much as we knew we wanted to do a completely different record, we still respect the fact that, to a lot of people, we're quite a new band. I know it sounds crazy, we've been going 15 years, but to a lot of people, they've only just got into us like one album ago, maybe two, maybe three, and so we didn't want to completely just pull the rug from underneath them.

So we had this mini-meltdown moment, and that's how "MANTRA" was born, with like, "Let's write the comeback song. Let's write the song that we would want to put on the album first, that we want the world to hear first."

The production on amo is daring and adventurous. Halsey even called it "a technicolor, emotion, trip" on Twitter. How do you see the sound of your sixth album?

I guess for me this album embodies everything that I like about music and what I'm into and what I'm doing in the best possible way. It's a record that I've always wanted to make. When we started writing this record, we had no idea what it was going to sound like. It wasn't preordained that this is how it would sound, but we just knew ... the goal was really to make an album that challenged you and it took time to like, and it was one of those album that you would almost be surprised that you like it, and it's not just something that when you first hear and go that's amazing, that's cool. It's something that really you have to [sit with].

My favorite albums are ones that when I first heard them, I was either underwhelmed or confused or just didn't know how to process it, and it always ends up being the kind of music that was ahead of its time and then everyone's catching up to do that kind of thing. That's not what I'm saying this record is, but I'm saying I didn't want it to be safe.

We knew what we could do to play it safe and keep our fans happy and all this stuff, but... it felt like it was time to push it that next level and do something where we just did everything we ever wanted to do. We used every kind of inspiration and influence and put it into this music and then didn’t worry if it came out the other end and everyone said this is not rock music, or this is not metal music.

We really don't care. We just want to be a band. We have no elitism, and we have no care for whatever people think. We're soft, we're pop, we're hip-hop, we're rock, we're whatever. We just really wanted to make something that hopefully blew people's minds.

You worked with Grimes on this album on "Nihilist Blues" – how did you connect with her?

We sent the song to her management. We knew we wanted a couple of guest features on this album. Again, we wanted to do some things from different worlds and try and connect bridges a bit more between rock music and everything else because you kind of feel like it used to be such a booming craze, do you know what I mean? Back in time when JAY-Z was collaborating with Linkin Park and all those kind of things, it's kind of gone now. We really felt like that should come back, so we were looking outwards to different places, and for me, Grimes is one of my favorite artists from that world.

All I listen to is kind of female fronted avant-garde-y pop stuff anyway, and I think she's almost like the millennial Björk for me, so she was my number one choice, and I'd seen her in a magazine a couple of years back where she said she liked our band. Wasn't sure if she was just joking or you know just on the spot, so we sent her the song and we didn't hear anything for about a week or so, so we were kind of thinking, "Yeah, well alright, maybe not." And then, out of the blue, she just texted me and she was like, "Yo. I f***ing love this song. This is one of the greatest songs I've ever heard."

She got all the reference points we were coming from… like Nine Inch Nails meets Darude."

She was going to come down to the studio, but she opted to just do it in her studio, which I think worked out good because she put so much work into it, she must've sent us about 30 different tracks with little noises and ad libs and all this stuff that we used throughout the song, as well as the vocals. It was my favorite song anyway, but her coming into it and also putting her, I guess, finesse and signature on it, just took it to that next level.

You've been forthcoming about your battles addiction and loss in the past, how have you seen your relationship with creativity change based on your physical and mental health?

It's one of those catch-22 situations. You go through these painful experiences and through all this stuff, but it really is fuel for the fire and it kind of contributes to what you do.

One of my friends said to me the other day, while I was going through my divorce process with my ex, and kind of found out all this stuff that she'd been doing and all this stuff, and he said to me today, back when we were sat in his flat and he was like, "I'm sorry, man." He said, "I knew it was the best thing that could've happened." He went, "I don't know why, because it wasn't like I knew at that point that she was wrong for you or anything like that but at the same time, I just had this feeling that it was all going to work out." And then he was like, "And look at it." He went, "Listen to this album."

He went, "Not only is it obvious that you've got out of something that you needed to get out of, but you're going to help so many people and they're just the best thing you've ever written in your career," and all this stuff.

RELATED: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: FEVER 333 Tackle The Tough Issues

And he's just like, "How crazy is that? That something so terrible can just literally contribute to something so amazing."

And when you think of it like that, it's so true. It's not only therapeutic— and it's not necessary, obviously. Better not to have to go through these situations, but they not only make you grow as a person, but being able to write about them and put them into words where maybe people would never have looked at it in a certain way or can't, maybe, articulate it themselves, get to experience it and I think that's the greatest thing about music with lyrics that are actually real.

Totally. So what are your plans for GRAMMY night, and any spoilers on what you'll do if you win?

Oh god, we're not even thinking about it. I mean, it's such an incredible thing just to be recognized, I think we're just stoked that we can even be like, "We're GRAMMY nominated artists," that's amazing. And we're not getting too excited about the prospect of winning because we're obviously up against some huge and really good acts, so we're just going to expect nothing so we're not disappointed and just drink it in.

Back in England, we've never been to anything like this, so the fact that a different country is recognizing a song and a work we've done. That's just good enough for us.

Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominees: Between The Buried And Me's Paul Waggoner

Between The Buried And Me

Between The Buried And Me

Photo: Courtesy of Between The Buried And Me

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Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Between The Buried And Me's Paul Waggoner

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The experimental metal band's co-founder and guitarist reacts to being nominated and talks touring, coffee, and the chance to bring a GRAMMY Award home to North Carolina on his 40th birthday
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jan 15, 2019 - 4:50 pm

Respect and mainstream success don't necessarily go hand-in-hand in the world of metal. As in life, most meaningful milestones are hard won. Nearly two decades into their career, North Carolina genre heavyweights Between The Buried And Me have recorded and toured relentlessly, covering a lot of musical ground while amalgamating elements from death metal, jazz, prog, blues, indie rock, math metal and much, much more. Defying categorization is a cliché, transcending it is an art form, and, for Between The Buried And Me, a calling.

The quintet's latest album, the two-part Automata I & II, shows point blank how versatile, imaginative and absolutely crushing the band's music can be. Its lead-off track, "Condemned To The Gallows," earned the band their first GRAMMY nomination for Best Metal Performance.

We caught up with co-founder and guitarist Paul Waggoner to get his take on being nominated for a GRAMMY, what he respects about the competition, how he'll be spending his 40th birthday, and, of course, coffee.

Where were you when you found out you'd been nominated, and what was the first thing you did?

I had just gotten up and I was eating breakfast, making coffee or something, and my buddy J.B., who plays in August Burns Red, who have been nominated a couple of times now, he sent me a text and it said, "Congrats on the nom." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "You guys got nominated for a GRAMMY." I was like, "Nah, I don't think so, man. That's crazy…" So I went online and I looked it up, and I was like, "S***, it's real…" Then of course shortly after that, all the emails started flooding in, text messages and all that stuff.  But, yeah, I'll always remember that… I was riding high for a while after that.

Between The Buried And Me are extremely well-known, influential and revered in the experimental, metal and indie communities. How does recognition on a wider scale feel at this point in your career?

That's something I've actually kind of had to think about a lot because, on the one hand, we've been doing this almost two decades now, so there's that sort of part of me that's like, well, we didn't really need a GRAMMY nomination to validate what we've done. We've always had pretty reasonably good critical acclaim, and it's hard to have any kind of success being a band like us. So the fact that we've had some success has been validating enough, and the fact that we're still doing it.

But on the other hand, it was definitely cool…It's really cool that everything we've been through as a band, whether it's lineup problems or just the trivial sort of flat tires on the road or bad shows or whatever, that all that stuff has led us here. We’re a progressive metal band and we got nominated for a GRAMMY.

Can you share what you remember about writing "Condemned To The Gallows"?

Part of the reason why we thought "Condemned…" would be a good song to release with a video and as the first single, if you will, we thought it was like one of those easier songs to the palate, you know, for the casual listener. It had a little bit of everything. It was melodic at times. It was weird at times. There's some quirky bits to it and then it was aggressive. So we thought it was just sort of a slam dunk as far as being a good song for us to put out there to kick off the whole album.

I remember the cool thing about the song, and I've thought about this when we were nominated, is that literally everybody in the band wrote at least some part of the song, which is cool… It was a true collaborative effort and it was the first song we put together for the album. So it's kind of fitting that that's the one that got recognized.

You mentioned the song is more palatable. Beyond the many genre titles that have been thrown at when describing your band, there's this concept of "accessibility,” or, one record or song being more or less "accessible" than another. How do you feel about that dynamic with your listeners, and does the concept come into play when you’re writing?

I think when we first started out, being a band, we knew we wanted to be a weird band. We wanted to write music that strayed from the traditional formula of what a heavy metal band could be. We wanted to write stuff that was unique and quirky but still in the context of metal. Especially in the early days, a lot of our songs were very linear and structured. They rarely had repeating parts, they just had this soundscape of craziness from start to finish.

I think as we've gotten older, we've realized that you can balance the two. You can still have a really long song that has instrumental bits, but at the same time, it's okay to have a repeating chorus. It's not like we're trying to be on mainstream radio or anything, but it I think it gives the song a little more structure and a little more identity.

You've mentioned diverse guitar influences such as grunge-era bands, jazz players like Scofield and Metheny as well as Rivers Cuomo. Who are some bands or guitar players who stand out to you today?

I still love listening to guitar players that just rip and shred… Steve Vai and John Petrucci… I'm fascinated with Devin Townsend, how prolific he is… Lately I love what Ghost is doing… I love bands that take the context of heavy metal or metal and push it in a different direction and whether that direction is just making it more genre-bending or if it's making it more accessible to the mainstream.

There's a lot of heavy bands out there that are doing really cool things. Some of them were nominated in the same category… Trivium, for example. They've been doing it a really long time, too, so and they're players and they're constantly challenging themselves. Deafheaven, they do something totally different. Again, they're taking the blank canvas of metal and sort of applying their own vibe to it and I think that's really cool. I have a lot of respect for bands that do that because we're trying to do the same thing.

What is the reality of making a living in music for you as part of a very successful artistic band with a relatively niche audience?

You have to work. You have to tour. You have to get out there and get on the road. I guess that's always been reality for us. As we've gotten more successful, it's never garnered very much more money in the way of royalties or whatever. It's all about just increasing your value, your market value as a touring artist. That's how we've been able to make a living. Otherwise, as a 40-year-old man, I would have had to give this up a long time ago, so that willingness to just get out there and keep beating the streets and playing gigs is our livelihood.

I think in a lot of ways a lot of our fans probably don't realize that we are totally dependent on their willingness to buy tickets to shows and buy T-shirts and buy vinyl and all that stuff, you know? That's what pays our bills and affords us the opportunity to keep doing it.

RELATED: Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: TOKiMONSTA On Why 'Lune Rouge' Is "A Celebration Of Life"

I understand the band began in Raleigh, but you now live in Charlotte. What's your favorite thing to do there outside of music?

I started a coffee roasting company a few years ago, and then about nine months ago we actually opened a café in Charlotte, a coffee shop, so that keeps me super-duper busy when I'm home. Probably too busy. So it's music and it's coffee for me. That's pretty much what I do and there's very little time for anything else, but I love Charlotte. It's a growing city that doesn't quite have its own identity yet, so it's cool to be able to contribute to that.

Well, good luck at the 61st GRAMMY Awards! Can you give us a spoiler on what you'll do if you win?

We'll be there… we had to move some shows around, but we figure it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and Feb. 10th is actually my 40th birthday. So I said, “What better way to spend my 40th birthday?” It'd be really cool to bring an award like that back to North Carolina.

Underneath 'Undertow': Examining Tool's Classic Debut Album 25 Years Later

Wallows

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Wallows Discuss Debut LP ‘Nothing Happens,’ Working With Clairo, “Game Of Thrones" & More

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The pop/rock trio weigh in on the closing a chapter with their first album, the panicky process of picking an album cover and the 'GOT' finale
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jul 11, 2019 - 5:24 pm

Since 2017's single "Pleaser," Wallows have been popping up on playlists everywhere. But with the March release of their debut full-length, Nothing Happens, the band's voyage took launch in earnest, although Braeden Lemasters, Dylan Minnette and Cole Preston have been making music together for a decade. And while many fans have discovered the band through recognizing Minnette or Lemasters from their acting work, Nothing Happens declares the pop/rock trio deserve to be heard. Fusing their classic rock-inspired core with dashes of inspiration coming from all over, Frank Ocean to Arctic Monkeys, theirs is the electric sound of clever, honest, modern youth.

Jul 11, 2019 – 5:23 pm

Wallows On Clairo Collab "Are You Bored Yet?"

We chopped it up with Wallows in Santa Monica, Calif. at Recording Academy headquarters to learn about the long road that led to their debut album, collaborating with Clairo on its standout track “Are You Bored Yet?” and what TV shows they like watch on tour to unwind (spoiler alert: "GOT" is involved).  

Congratulations on releasing Nothing Happens. As a coming-of-age album that you guys been working on for 10 years in some ways, is it an extension of 2018's Spring EP, and how does it feel to have it out in the world?

Braedon: Since we released our first single, "Pleaser" in 2017, I feel like in a weird way, from that song to finishing in the album has felt like a chapter. I feel like now we're ready for the next chapter. It almost feels like everything was a snapshot of how we were feeling in those two years. So, it felt like a natural progression from "Pleaser" to the album, and I feel like Spring was like a little bookmark in the middle, but now we're closing that book on Nothing Happens, and now we're just going to go off and do whatever we've gotta do for the next one.

Cole: We've heard and people say, "you have your whole life to write your first album." We pulled so many tidbits of ideas from stuff we wrote in high school, and since we were kids, but now that the first record is done, pressed, released, all that stuff, we don't have that old material to pull from anymore. So, it feels like a total fresh start in the best way.

How do you guys like to write together?

Cole: I would say that it's very different every time. There's instances for example were Braedan will come up with the entire arrangement, and play all the instruments, and then we come in and all finish it together. Or, I'll write a baseline and Dylan will contribute a melody and the songs happen that way ...

But I will say that each song wouldn't be what it is if it weren't for all three of us, which is cool. There's no one main songwriter in the band, like we all contribute in different ways and it's all a collection of the three of us together, which is great.

And all of us play each others instruments, so in the studio that's helpful because we can like, if Braedan wants to hear a part, I can play it and vice versa.

Sure, very democratic.

Cole: Very.

For "Are You Bored Yet?" how'd you guys connect with Clairo?

Dylan: We had a demo originally that we just made on Cole's laptop, and  we had a part in the second verse where my voice was pitched up and it just naturally sounded more like a female. And then, it sort of had a bedroom pop vibe, the demo, and it reminded us of "Pretty Girl" or something like Clairo.

So, we always had this little thing that was like, "oh if we actually got Clairo on this song that'd be rad," without ever expecting it. But then we happened to, on tour, make friends with a couple of her friends, and I got connected with her through just Instagram, or something, and then we would talk here and there, but then we had recorded the majority of the song after that, and we had that second verse open because we knew we wanted to have another voice on the album. To have a girl on it was the ideal scenario for us, and we just decided to hit her up and say, "Would you want to be a part of this?" Sent her the tracks of the song, and she wrote back a couple days later and was like, “Yeah, I'm down. I'm in LA right now.” Came to the studio, recorded her part and wrote it in like, 15 minutes, and the rest is history.

The album cover of Nothing Happens is very simple yet striking. Where did the idea for that aesthetic come from?

Braedon: Yeah, so basically we had the album done, and we didn't have any idea about what we wanted the album cover to be, so basically we had like four months or whatever it was, to come up with whatever we want it to be. [We] reach[ed] out to artists, have a vision, whatever it is. I've come to realize that coming up with an album cover is the hardest thing about being in a band because it's just like, "What is the feeling? What do we want this to be?" It's just so confusing. It's almost like naming the band; it was very similar to that process.

We ended up settling on one, that a really talented person sent to us and we were like, okay that's going to be it because we were panicking, and we went over the deadline of when it needed to be done and we didn't have an album cover yet. So, we were over that deadline, and we were like, "okay, okay we'll do that, we'll do that." And then the next day I was like, “Guys, no that can't be it, that can't be it, that can't be it,” and we had already submitted it.

I was panicking. I was like, “No. That can't be the cover, like, I don't like it for the vibe,” and we were walking in New Orleans, at Voodoo Fest, and Dylan was wearing a shirt, classic. That's what you do when you go out, and I took a picture of his shirt, and I looked at it. I put it in a little square form. I was like, “Guys, wait I have something I want to say… What if this was the album cover?”

And I was expecting them to be like, "No, you're stupid. No, we already submitted it. This is dumb. This is my shirt. No." And we just realized, "Oh this is actually kind of cool that looks like something that Beach House would come up with, or artists that we would [listen to] and we wouldn't question it… We showed our friends. They were all down, so, we were like, "you know what? Let's just submit it. Let's tell our manager we scrapped the other one, now let's do this."

And then we actually found other meaning in the album cover, since it's been out. Like a striped shirt reminds us of youth, and growing up, and that's very youthful, so we kind of tied that into the album now.

"Scrawny" is very neo-Weezer - I'm sure you get asked a lot about your fashion and style sense. Is the song a statement about how people may perceive you?

Dylan: I think "Scrawny" is a statement, in a way, of how people will perceive you, but it started off more so as just a funny hook that I came up with over these chords that they were playing, and at that time in the album recording process. We were writing a couple new songs to throw into the hat, and we wanted something light. Because a lot of the songs we were taking on were more emotional - not darker, but just a little more of a serious path, and we were like, "I want something that's light, borderline funny."

I started singing that. I hadn't heard that before, and it just turned into this sort of skinny, sad boy anthem, you know? It's a statement in a way, but… it doesn't pertain to me. If people want it to be a statement for themselves, that's cool.

Obviously, television acting is a big part of the band's story. I'm curious what you guys watch when you have down time, on the road?

Dylan: So, I started "Game of Thrones," at the beginning, because I always had this goal of being ready for the finale by the time it aired. Really, I was six episodes deep in season one the night the finale came on… There were so many people on the bus, in our group, that were big fans, and were going to watch, and they saw all the episodes. And my girlfriend was there, on the bus that night, and she was going to watch with everybody, and I was just, like, "I always wanted to be a part of this, and I care more about seeing her reaction to all these things, and all these guys' reactions," like, just being a part of this and having a good time [rather] than sitting in the back watching episode seven of season one so I can get caught up and watch it by myself eventually. I'd rather just sit there and be able to enjoy, and see their reactions and everything.

So, I just totally cheated, and watched the finale of "Game of Thrones," so I've seen seven episodes total. Being the first six episodes of season one, and the very last episode, and it was great.

And this last leg of the tour, I watched all of Dead to Me on Netflix.

Cole: I like the show "Barry." Great show.

Braedon: I started watching on the bus "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," and I love it. It's freaking hilarious, I love it so much.

This Is SHAVONE.: Creative Renaissance Woman, Tech Titan, Artistic Force & Proud Advocate

Lucky Daye 

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Warning: Lucky Daye Makes Sensitive Music That Might Make You Cry In Your Car

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The soulful singer/songwriter reacts to the success of his new album with humility: "I'm standing on the shoulders of giants."
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jul 10, 2019 - 12:21 pm

Lucky Daye is here to stay. The soulful singer/songwriter may have only just released his debut album, Painted, back in May, but his refreshing sound is turning more heads toward the New Orleans artist every day.

Jul 10, 2019 – 12:19 pm

Lucky Daye On Making Sensitive Music

We sat down with Daye in his hometown, backstage at the 25th ESSENCE Fest to ask how he felt about the warm reception Painted is receiving. 

"I feel good, like people are recieving it well," Daye said. "I've been really, really humbled by this whole situation. I know it's not by my power, by my hands, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants."

"I'm sensitive, so my album got a whole lot of sensitivity to it. As a man, that's hard to say. So I always tell people, I tell my homies, I'm like, 'bruh, if you're scared to cry in front of your girl, don't listen to my music in your car," Daye said.

Lucky also spoke about his upcoming tour, performing in the humidity, connecting with his fans and friends through music and what longevity looks like to him.

King Combs On His Star-Studded New EP, His Father's Bad Boy Legacy & ESSENCE Fest

King Combs

Photo: Daniel Mendoza/Recording Academy

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King Combs On His Star-Studded New EP, His Father's Bad Boy Legacy & ESSENCE Fest

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Diddy's talented son stoped by backstage at ESSENCE Fest to talk about his new EP, 'Cyncerely, C3,' what it was like working with City Girls and how he's inspired by his father's Bad Boy legacy.
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jul 9, 2019 - 3:54 pm

With great power comes great responsibility, and being born into rap royalty creates as much pressure as it does opportunity. But for 21-year-old Christian "King" Combs, following in the footsteps of hip-hop mogul father, Sean "P Diddy" Combs, has come naturally.

Jul 9, 2019 – 3:51 pm

King Combs On His New EP, Bad Boy's Legacy & More

"Ever since I've been watching my pops, I've been watching the whole Bad Boy legacy, I've always been inspired and really wanted to be an artist on my own," Combs told us backstage at the 25th ESSENCE Festival. "So to now have the chance to be out here, have the fans receiving my music, and to really be working hard, it's dope."  

With a fresh new EP out now, Cyncerely, C3, boasting featuries from City Girls, Ty Dolla $ign, Jeremih and more, Combs continues to shine his way out of his father's shadow.

"I had to really do my research and write rhymes, and find myself as an artist," he said. "And now that I feel I have created my own sound now, and really locked in."

Combs also talke about the thrill of being at ESSENCE Festival for the first time and what's next for his blossoming career.

R&B Singer Jacquees Reveals Details Behind Forthcoming Album 'Round 2'