Vocalist and lyricist for rock band Bring Me the Horizon Oli Sykes revealed a track on the band’s upcoming album to the Malta Weekender audience, even teaching the crowd a handful of lyrics before performing.
The result enforced themes of togetherness Sykes touched on when discussing the song, “Strangers,” which is about family: “Right now, we’re all a room full of strangers. We don’t know each other and it don’t fucking matter cause we’re all here for the same fucking reason, right?”
Watch the performance here:
The video catches the lines the audience and Sykes sing: “We’re just a room full of strangers/Looking for something to save us/Alone together.” In telling the crowd more about the album and song, he unites them in a unique way, through an experience only this crowd knows as the song has yet to be widely performed or even heard.
The song and the album’s focus on “recovery and practicing self care” are perhaps more optimistic than past Bring Me the Horizon tracks. In an interview with Rolling Stone UK, Sykes explains this shift in describing his experience with self love: “With this record, I’m going to try to teach people to have compassion for themselves, as someone who fucking hated themselves… It used to make me sick to hear ‘you’ve got to love yourself’ — never. I used to put all my awards in a cupboard, I wouldn’t look at them. If someone asked me what I did, I would never say I was in a band, I’d say I own a clothing company or a restaurant. I just didn’t wanna talk about it. Now I love myself. I can look in the mirror and go ‘You’re doing good.’ I can say ‘I’m a rock star, my band’s doing well.’”
He also goes into emo’s evolution over time, and how the upcoming EP – the second in the Post Human series – will add to their and emo’s discographies: “Extreme emotion disappeared for ten years and kids are rediscovering that level of it. That’s why I think we’ve got a chance, because we’re highly emotive – that’s our bread and butter.”
In early April, Bring Me the Horizon shared collaboration with Masked Wolf, “Fallout.” They also announced they will be touring in the US in the fall with support from Knocked Loose, grandson and Siiickbrain.
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