Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli Sykes Has Idea to ‘Remove the Ego’ From Live Shows

The pandemic has provided its fair share of challenges for touring bands and will likely continue to do so once the return to live shows takes place. Speaking about how shows might return, Bring Me the Horizon's Oli Sykes reveals some out-of-the-box thinking could potentially provide a way to "remove the ego" from live shows, something he feels will help enhance the communal connection with the crowd.

“It would be cool to change how shows work and trying to think outside of the box to do stuff that has less ego in it, as well as less resources. At first, it’ll just be about getting back to basics,” says Sykes to NME.

Expanding upon his idea, he tells the music mag that he envisions touring with a lineup where no one is headlining and everyone shares the same level of production and the same spotlight.

“I’m riffing, but it would be somewhere where not every band has to take five trucks all around Europe and America,” he said. “We’d bring the resources right down and take out the bullshit. There’s so much bullshit in writing music that just takes the focus out of what it’s actually about. It’s about the music, the fans, connection and that cathartic experience – it doesn’t fucking matter who’s playing last or has sold the most records."

The singer concluded, “It might be a pie in the sky idea, but it would be cool to change the mould a little bit.”

At present, Bring Me the Horizon just released their Post Human: Survival Horror album, and he's trying to roll with the punches where touring is concerned. "I’m in a very fortunate position where our band’s doing really well despite not being able to tour," said the singer. We’re putting music out, people are listening to it, I’m here doing interviews and getting to connect with people. It’s just about trying to be thankful for what you’ve got.”

Bring Me the Horizon's Post Human: Survival Horror is out now and available at this location. (As Amazon affiliates, we earn on qualifying purchases)