Bring Me The Horizon: Onto New Horizons 

Bring Me The Horizon’s fifth studio album isn’t even out yet and already it’s racked up entire Internet comment sections worth of mixed opinions. The four singles released in build up to the sardonically entitled, “That’s The Spirit”, demonstrate a drastic departure from the band’s older, heavier signature style toward a decidedly more streamlined, radio-friendly sound—almost bordering on straight-up pop.

“That’s The Spirit” is a clear line in the sand. On the one side stands a new generation of music lovers, an entirely new market to tap. On the other stands those alienated by the band’s evolution. Was this shift intentional? Did the band “sell out” or “buy in”? Why is there considerably less screaming happening? What’s all this singing about? People are asking questions. I managed to get on the phone with BMTH’s bassist, Matt Kean, to get some answers.

Nick: Congrats on “That’s The Spirit”. I spent the weekend listening to it.

Critics are calling it “The Most Important Rock Album Of The Decade”. What do you have to say about that? The pressure is on or what?

Well it’s already written and recorded now, so we’ll just have to deal with it. It’s good that people are saying that though—if that’s the general consensus. But there’s no real pressure on us. At this point, it either does well or it doesn’t.

“That’s The Spirit” is your 5th studio album, and it’s entirely self-produced. Is that important to the band’s creative process?

We’ve always had a passion for controlling everything ourselves. We’ve had producers in the past, and I think that was because we thought you had to have a producer, you know. Like, when we recorded our earlier albums in Sweden with Fredrik Nordström, he helped us with our sound and got us used to the whole studio process. But in our last two albums, we’d go into studio with pretty strong-sounding demos. At that point it just became unnecessary to pay someone to sit in a room and say things. That will never get anyone anywhere. So we decided to just do it ourselves.

And you tracked it all in Santorini, Greece, which is basically paradise. How did you manage to get anything done?

Honestly, there’s not much to do there, so there weren’t many distractions. I think we were just feeling the pressure of getting it recorded and getting everything perfect. And at the end of the day we could chill out. It was the perfect space in that sense. If I needed time to myself, I could go for a walk and just forget about everything for an hour or two. The setting was just amazing.

Let’s talk about your new sound for a bit. “That’s The Spirit” is a lot less angsty and a lot more radio friendly than your older stuff. Your sound has definitely progressed since the “There Is A Hell/Suicide Season” days.

“That’s The Spirit” is just a natural progression from our last album. We’ve always had elements of our new sound, in the past. We were using electronic elements on Suicide Season already. We worked with Skrillex. We’ve always just embraced all elements. When Jordan [Fish, keyboardist] joined and started writing with us on “Sempiturnal”, he helped us get our ideas down. We could tell him what we wanted and he could just make it happen. It’s his forte. And that’s why I think “Sempiturnal” did so well. Before that we were just getting by.

As a musician, do you find your newer music technically easier to play live?

I guess it’s technically easier. But it’s more complex than that. It may be easier to play, but it’s also easier for people to notice when you mess up, know what I mean? We have to play so clean. It’s tough to keep it on point. In the old stuff, if everyone’s going crazy busting riffs and I mess up I might think, “maybe people won’t notice”, and it kind of gets lost in the mix. But when it’s slowed down and the focus is on clarity… people are going to notice mistakes. It’s a different kind of pressure. You always have to be musically on point.

You guys cover a broad range of lyrical themes on “That’s The Spirit”: love, loyalty, co-dependence, religion, substance abuse, recovery. Where did you guys draw your lyrical inspiration?

I think Oli [Sykes, lead singer] just takes it from his own personal life, you know. It connects for him. I don’t think there’s really ever a shortage of material. We’ve all been through a lot throughout the band’s career.

If I asked you for your favourite BMTH song from the band’s entire career, what would you say?

[Extremely long pause] I think it would have to be ‘Avalanche’, off the new album. It’s probably one of my favourite songs we’ve ever written as a band. It might actually be our best song.

I watched you guys destroy the stage at RAMfest SA in 2013. That was a fucking great show. Any talk about perhaps hunting horizons in our hemisphere anytime soon?

Oh yeah, RAMfest was an awesome experience for us. I mean, we know that with every album we’ll be touring Australia, UK, US—but what we really enjoy is going to all the new places. Israel and South America were amazing. We had no idea what to expect in South Africa. But we ended up having the best time. We couldn’t believe the crowds down there. We even went shark cage diving. We get loads of messages from South African fans asking us to come back. Hopefully we can get in there at some point next year, as soon as possible. We’re dying to come back.

Bring Me The Horizon’s fifth studio album, That’s The Spirit, is out on September 11th. Stream the first four singles on Deezer.