Bring Me The Horizon‘s Oli Sykes sat down with NME at Reading 2025 to tell us about how recently becoming a father has changed his outlook on life, and the future of the band. Watch our full video interview above, or check it out with more exclusive photos from the show below.
Headlining for the second time after playing ahead of fellow Sheffield rock giants Arctic Monkeys back in 2022, the band had promised that the evolution of their live show would “reach its apex” for them truly topping the bill this time. Despite that, frontman Sykes appeared fresh and relaxed when NME met him backstage ahead of the show – which was even more impressive given that he welcomed twins to the world last month with his wife Alissic.
“I’m feeling good, yeah,” he told us. “[The twins] have been sleeping, so it’s been alright. It’s been hectic but not too bad.”
Not only is he awake and raring to go, but Sykes’ newfound purpose as a dad has left him feeling renewed. “I feel like a different human being for sure,” Sykes said.
In a five-star review of their immersive horror gameshow adventure of a production, NME hailed their set as a “mind-blowing spectacular”, adding: “In terms of spectacle, they out-pomp Muse. For performance, they couldn’t give more”.
But was it a parting gift ahead of the band’s long-mooted break to work on the follow-up to 2024’s ‘Nex Gen’? Has fatherhood changed his plan for their overarching ‘Post Human’ album series? Let’s find out…
NME: Hello Oli. Headlining Reading for a second time is massive enough, but doing it as a new man…
Oli Sykes: “I’ve actually never felt so calm and peaceful before a headline festival. I’m usually way more stressed than this. I don’t know how to put it because it’s still a massive thing for me, we’ve put so much into the show and nothing’s changed in that respect, but I’m usually just sat worrying about if the screen’s going to work, if the pyro’s going to go off at the right time, if I’m going to sing a bum note. You know, all this stuff – but that’s all gone.
“It’s not just another gig, but the most important thing is now waiting for me at home. It has instantly killed so much stuff that I had before. I used to keep myself awake with regrets, fears, the future and what could happen – worrying about petty stuff with a band. [Having kids] just obliterated it overnight. I take medication for ADHD, which really makes me more serious, and I’m mental without it, but it feels like it doesn’t work anymore. Maybe that’s just because all this worry has gone.
“It had lightened the load so much. Obviously having kids is hectic, but it has taken so much from me in another place. I’ve been trying to get to this place, and I never thought it would be kids that got me there.”
Are the rest of the band asking, ‘What happened to Oli the micro-manager?’
“I don’t know! They’re probably just happy to have a little break from me. We’re still working. At first I thought, ‘Right, I’m done for a bit. I’m just focusing on these kids’. Then about five days in I was like, ‘They just sleep all the time! I’ve got time’. We’re still making music but it’s a bit slower with more delegating and working remotely. Then at the same time it’s what I love doing. I’m doing it, but I don’t need to finish it. It’s not like we go into the studio and if we don’t finish it, then I get depressed. It’s just slowly ticking over.
“All that external noise is gone and that’s even making me a better writer. I’m not thinking, ‘Where’s the next single?’ ‘Will this do well?’ I just want to make something cool. Even to that level, it’s helping. On a creative level, it’s going to be really good.”
When we spoke last year about what you needed for the next stage of ‘Post Human’, you said: “I’ve got to kind of kill a part of myself. I realise that I can’t heal in the place that made me sick.” It sounds like you’ve managed that?
“Yes, I’ve been working towards it, but I think that with all the things that I preach and I say, I’ve actually got to be that now. If that’s what I want my kids to see, they see through bullshit. If you’re anxious you can try and hide it, but they see it all. They feed off you. My wife was so calm through the pregnancy, and [the kids] are sleeping and they’re just angels. It feels like that’s part of it. I’ve got that in my head now. All things that I preach to say and do, what’s good for your mental health, what you shouldn’t care about – really, I was still caring about it. Way less, but I’d still trip up.
“Now, you can’t fuck about anymore. The kids are there, you’ve got the protect them and always be on it. It’s helped me get over that edge – truly.”
Other than being knee-deep in nappies, how have you found that fatherhood and waiting for kids has changed your relationship to the music? How has it filtered into what you’re making?
“It’s a little too early to tell. It’s been slow. There is a renewed sense of the pressure being off. I had to have that as we were leading up to the birth, because I wanted new music out this year. I’ve got so much from the ‘Nex Gen’ archive that I want the world to hear. I literally phoned my label and management and said, ‘It’s nearly here, I’ve got 12 songs and they’re all bangers. They’re so close, we’re going to get the first single out before Rock Am Ring and the second before Reading & Leeds’.
“Then I was going, ‘Maybe not, maybe not’, and now it’s not even coming out this year. I had to gear myself to be like, ‘You cannot care about that. The most important thing now is Alissa my wife, looking after her, being there and being present’. I could easily be someone sat on my laptop in ER, so I had to really condition myself. That’s now set in, and I know it’s OK. It’s helping.
“The music will come, but it’s just not the be-all and end-all. We’re realising that we don’t have to put another record out; we just put one out. Most bands would go away for two years, have an actual break. You don’t have to do this, but I want to and I enjoy it. If it doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t happen. It’s not like I don’t owe it to the fans because I know they want to hear it, but it’s just taking a step back and going, ‘There are other things that are important in my life now and I’ve got to make sure that they come first’.
“Ultimately, that’s going to help the process and help us make some really good music. I can already feel that. I feel comfortable that the band is fine and we’re doing alright. We don’t need to do better. That will help with the output.”
Before, it sounded like the workaholic in you might have been dreading the hiatus. But now, bring it on?
“Yes, totally. I can’t even imagine a hiatus, to be honest. I’d like to, because I see how good it is for bands when they go away for five years.”
Or split up, and come back in 10 years?
“Yeah! And then get massive. I just love it too much. We obviously need a break. The stuff I’m doing now is all ‘Nex Gen’. It’s going to be that world with remnants of that.”
Is this the ‘Nex Gen: Director’s Cut’ you were talking about?
“Yes. I’m already craving a fresh sound and making stuff like, ‘Oh, that’s sick but not now – that needs to be honed and crafted’. There are songs I’m sitting on that are so sick, but it’s not ‘Nex Gen’, it’s something else. I still don’t know what that’s going to be. I know for a fact that I can’t write that now. I have to write that in a year when I’ve been away, and let my mind decompress and go, ‘What is the theme? What is the world? What is the sound?’
“We need that, definitely, but in terms of a strategic play, I just can’t see it happening because I just love it too much. Just accepting that it is what it is feels really good.”
Are you still feeling the same about where the ‘Post Human’ arc should go? Has the journey or story changed at all?
“It’s ever-evolving. There’s so much of this story that I’ve already written and want to tell. We’ve been making this unbelievable mockumentary thing telling all the lore, and there’s so much of that to tell that’s going to blow people’s minds. It dates back from ‘Amo’ [2019], and it’s always been there. I want to wrap that up in a really nice way. That in itself just feels so ‘Nex Gen’. I don’t know if ‘Post Human 3’ will have that vibe to work with that.
“It gets to a point with a story where you ask, ‘What’s next?’ I didn’t even realise when I was writing all this how much every character is a side of me. Whether it’s the battle between my on-stage persona and the person I really am, or how I used to use drugs to desensitise myself from the world. When I took a step back, I saw that all these characters were my personal journeys.
“I can’t write the next bit until I ask where I am now. We’re talking about fatherhood and all that stuff, and it feels like this is a massively transformative part of my life – probably the biggest thing since being a teenager. It feels like I’ve gone through puberty again, but to a new level. Who knows what that will bring in terms of story? On top of the fact that the world is just such a fucking weird and scary place.”
Are you intimidated by ‘Post Human’ 4 and 5, or are you comfortable with them being in the distance?
“I’ve accepted that this project is such a big thing now. At first it felt like a small little idea, but these are just our albums now. It doesn’t really change ‘owt, because I can go wherever I want with them. They have names, but say if we finished three now and it was just a new album not connected to ‘Nex Gen’, then there’s nothing stopping me or boxing me in. Whatever I want it to be is what it will be. It won’t change what our next record will sound like.
“I’ve just accepted that I’ll probably be 45 by the time these records are finished.”
Can you imagine Bring Me as old men? Are you going to be like The Rolling Stones and keep going until you’re 80?
“We’re going to have to be. I’m nearly 40 already! It’s happening, and I never thought I’d make it this far. People seem to still like us, so we’ll keep going until it fizzles out. I love it. I can’t wait to get to the next record, but I’ve also just got to practice that patience. There are some songs, that if you want it to be the best version then it’s [going to have to wait] for the next record. Otherwise, you’ve got to start sticking all hyper-pop arpeggio crap to start making it fit. ‘Nex Gen’ is just a sound we’ll move away from. I don’t want to write a record that’s all in-between, and then the next record doesn’t feel fresh with a foot in one and a foot in the other.
“At the same time I listen to these songs and I’m like, ‘This is so good, it’s craziness to not put them out’, but they will not work on the next record.”
And back to tonight: how do you follow Limp Bizkit? That’s heavy…
“I know! When I saw that I was like, ‘Bloody hell’, but I was actually quite stoked as well that there was another band from our world. We felt a bit lonely when we first saw the line-up.”
Have you met Fred Durst before? Is he sound?
“Yeah, we’ve actually worked with him. We did some writing with him, and he’s a good lad.”
Any surprises or special guests up your sleeve?
“The only special guest will be whatever fan gets on stage to sing ‘Antivist’ with us. There’s just no space for it. It’s just us. We started the ‘Nex Gen’ campaign here in 2022 with Eve and the whole AI overlord thing. It’s cool because this is the final iteration. We call it ‘the final experiment’. It is the last version of this show. Next year will be the last ‘Nex Gen’ shows, and then that’s it. This is like book-ending it to finish it here. The show has come so far.
“Thinking back to when we debuted it and when the Eve thing went viral, I never knew at that point that it was going to take on such a life and such a story. I’m enjoying everything so much. I think I used to be a drug addict because I liked escaping into a little world of my own. Now I’ve realised I’m vicariously doing that through making this show – feeding my inner child with nostalgia. It’s great because we can do this, and we’ve got money to burn! I’ve just got to come up with the ideas to tell them what to do and see my ideas come to life. It’s so much fun.”
I’m sure planning it would give you a nervous breakdown, but have you got sketches in a notebook of the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury? Maybe you could headline in 2027?
“No. Glastonbury’s not our world. I don’t even know if this is our world. We’re always going to feel like the underdog, and it’s hard to see ourselves as like a gen-pop mainstream band. I’m like, ‘Is anyone going to be here for us?’ That stuff’s gone now, but it’s so hard for us not to think about ourselves as this underground rock band still.
“Maybe five or six years ago, that would have been our ambition. Maybe playing Coachella and stuff like that. That’s not our world. We’re not the cool, trendy barista-core band. We’re our own thing. We’re this weird and wonderful thing that do all this. We’ve just crafted our own thing and we’re really enjoying it. We’re really happy, the band are best friends, and it’s all good. Why rock that? Why try and force ourselves into a round hole when we’re a square peg?
“I’m like that with everything. People are like, ‘Ah, Wembley Stadium next’. I’m like, ‘Yeah, when 100,000 people actually want to see our band and we’re not doing discounts at Morrisons, then yeah’. Until then, I don’t give a shit. I’d rather play two O2s, one O2 or whatever. I just want to have fun. That’s all that really matters when it comes down to it. We’re getting paid, we’re all happy, we’ve got what we need. We don’t need much more in life.”
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Bring Me The Horizon will now embark on a 2025 North American tour. Visit here for tickets and more information.
