Bring Me The Horizon - The Biography

Bring Me the Horizon are a British metalcore band from Sheffield, Yorkshire, who formed in 2004. They play a style of music that fuses death metal and metalcore, known as deathcore — although they have taken on a more eclectic style with their latest album.

Bring Me the Horizon began in 2004 with members of many defunct bands from around their local area. They acquired their name based on a line taken from the film Pirates of the Caribbean, in which Captain Jack Sparrow shouts "Now... Bring me that horizon." After slightly altering the original line, by simply changing 'that' to 'the', Bring Me the Horizon then became the official name of the band.

They are currently signed to Visible Noise Records, but were originally signed to Thirty Days of Night Records and were the first band to be signed to that label. The band are also signed to Epitaph Records in the USA and to Shock Records in Australia. They have toured in the past with bands such as Lostprophets, The Blackout, Killswitch Engage and The Haunted. They performed a headlining tour of the UK during March and April 2007 with the now defunct metalcore band I Killed the Prom Queen. They played Download Festival 2007 in June also with Iron Maiden, Slayer, and others.

They also played the North American leg of the tour, including a guest appearance Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes on August 6 in Calgary. He joined Oli in chanting the start of their song Diamonds Aren't Forever.

In November 2007 they toured on the Australian leg of Gigantour, playing three dates. They returned to Australia in May/June 2008, appearing on I Killed The Prom Queen's final ever tour.

Bring Me The Horizon had been writing and recording a second studio album over the beginning of 2008. They had been in Sweden recording the album throughout April and May with Fredrik Nordstrom, who has worked with bands such as At The Gates, Arch Enemy, I Killed The Prom Queen and Dimmu Borgir. The album was released on September 29, 2008. Suicide Season is completely different to previous album Count Your Blessings, having a more metalcore vibe to it, similar to the debut EP release, This Is What The Edge Of Your Seat Was Made For

The band recently embarked on their first headline tour of the USA, as well as appearing in the 2008 Warped Tour. Bring Me The Horizon are also joined Mindless Self Indulgence, In Case Of Fire, Black Tide and Dir En Grey on the Kerrang! and Relentless 2009 UK tour. They are also set to join Thursday, Cancer Bats, Four Year Strong and Pierce the Veil on the Taste of Chaos 2009 North American tour.

The band have recently announced they will perform at the Download Festival 2009. In March 2009, guitarist Curtis Ward left the band. A number of reasons have been cited for his departure: in an interview, bassist Matt Kean commented that "it became apparent he wasn't enjoying it" and that it was "just about committment".

Controversy

Nottingham incident

While on tour in the United Kingdom allegations were made against vocalist Oliver Sykes that he urinated upon and then assaulted a female fan after a gig at Nottingham Rock City when she allegedly refused his sexual advances. Sykes was subsequently charged with urinating on the fan, but not with physical assault.^[11] Online Music Zine Drowned In Sound claimed that Bring Me The Horizon were banned from Nottingham Rock City. However the band's label Visible Noise denied these rumours and the band subsequently played Nottingham Rock City on December 1, 2007.

On April 13, Sykes appeared in Nottingham Magistrates Court on a charge of common assault relating to the alleged urination incident, to which he pleaded not guilty. The case was adjourned until early May. On 3 May 2007 Sykes attended Nottingham Magistrates court for the second time and confirmed his not guilty plea. The case was adjourned again until 17 September.Due to lack of evidence, all charges against Sykes were dropped.

YouTube video with Architects

During a tour, Bring Me The Horizon and Architects filmed a video showing fights between Oliver Sykes and Architects' lead singer Sam Carter. The video was filmed at an all-day event in Karlsruhe, Germany and shows what seemed to be Sam Carter committing violent acts of physical violence towards Oliver. The video was uploaded onto the online video website, YouTube of which it attracted thousands of hits. This video outraged many Bring Me The Horizon fans causing many people to send violent hate mail towards Sam Carter.

"We're mates with the guys and were sharing a bus for the whole two week tour!" Carter told Kerrang!. "The fact that people believed it was real is just so ridiculous! We filmed the fight about three times and even added in comedy punch noises and yet kids were still sending us over-the-top hate mail!" Oliver Sykes also commented saying "All-day events can get boring very fast so we conjured up the first idiotic thing we could think of and made it as unbelievable as possible. Sam was getting death threats from kids off MySpace and at the same time getting praised for laying me out! We're sorry if anyone was upset by this although I'm sure most people reading this probably like the thought of me getting a punch in the face!". The issue was later resolved with things returning back to normal, although to this day the video still receives many hits on YouTube.

Band members

Current members

• Oliver Sykes − vocals
• Lee Malia − lead guitar
• Matt Kean − bass guitar
• Matt Nicholls − drums

Former members

• Curtis Ward − rhythm guitar (2004-2009)