Interview by Lauren Foster

Bring Me The Horizon’s 2013’s Sempiternal was a huge, genre-splicing album that set out Horizon’s stall as the most ambitious of modern metal bands – crashing into the Top 3 in the UK. 

Now they’re back with their fifth studio album That’s The Spirit and bringing their new tour to Birmingham's Barlcaycard Arena.

What's On caught up with band member Jordan Fish, ahead of their show.

This month, Bring Me The Horizon are playing Barclaycard Arena. What can your Birmingham audience expect from the show?
Well, it’s going to be the biggest tour we’ve ever done. It’s pretty much the best of everything we’ve done before, combined into one massive arena show. The last couple of years is the first time we’ve got to the level where we’re doing arena shows and headlining festivals and stuff. It’s a different kind of thing, putting on a show for that many people, because there are so many elements to it, and I think we’ve really got the hang of it now. The show is really, really good. We’ve got the world’s biggest screen - I don’t know how big it is, but it’s absolutely huge. We’ve got a really cool team of people who’ve helped us design the show. We’ve written a set list really early and have been working the whole thing as a show - we really want it to be a level up from anything we’ve done before, and to feel really worth the money.

Your fifth album, That’s The Spirit, showcases a ‘less aggressive’ sound. Why the change of direction?
I don’t know really. I guess we’re older, I guess we wanted to show a bit more subtly in places and a bit more depth of emotion. I think there’s only so much you can convey with aggression. It wasn’t really a conscious thing. As we’ve got older and improved as songwriters, we just wanted to push ourselves a bit and write better songs that don’t necessarily rely on heaviness to get their point across.

That was surely a big risk to take? 
I can see why people would think that, but I would say most bands who stay the same disappear really quickly. In my opinion, it’s more of a risk to stick where you are. It never really works for bands -  well, very rarely. I think it makes sense to push yourself a bit. Your fans, even if they don’t know it, would get bored of the same album again and again. And it gets boring for the band too. If we’re proud of an album, it tends to make the whole thing work a lot better.  

For those who haven’t heard it, can you tell us a little bit about That’s The Spirit?
I think we’re an unusual band in a sense - there are a lot of different elements at play. We come from a very heavy background but also with a lot of pop music influences. It’s hard to pinpoint - we don’t even really know ourselves what kind of band we are. In a broader sense of the word, we’re a rock band, but it doesn’t sound like a rock album. There are elements of metal, pop melodies, electronic bits - it’s a good CD. You don’t say ‘CD’ anymore, do you? That shows my age! It’s a good ‘download’...

Basement and Don Broco are joining you on your UK tour. How did that come about?
Basement we really liked, so we had them booked quite early on. Don Broco we did a little European tour with this year, and we just got on really well with them. They’re good fun, really entertaining and they get the crowd going. They have the same management too, so they seemed like an obvious choice.

You played Glastonbury for the first time this summer, despite it being an ambition that the band never had. What made you change your mind? 
It was an ambition I had. I was the only one who’d ever been to Glastonbury, so I always thought it would be cool to do. When the offer came in, I was really excited. The other guys had some reservations about how we’d go down at Glastonbury, but having been previously, I didn’t think it was much different to any other festival. Glastonbury may have a reputation for being a little bit snobby about our type of music. There aren’t usually many heavy bands on, and I guess the rest of the guys didn’t want to go there and it be a rubbish show. I was pretty confident that we’d had enough mainstream coverage on Radio One to mean we’d go down really well there. It was one of the best shows we’ve ever played. It was amazing. We didn’t really know how many people were going to show up. When you do things that aren’t really in your genre, not only do you worry it’s going to be rubbish, you’re also worried that no one is going to turn up. But yeah, there was a mass of people, so it really felt like a landmark moment for the band. We’d made that crossover from being a band that’s niche into being a band that a lot more people can enjoy. It’s not something we’re ashamed of, it’s something we like.

How old were you when you discovered a passion for music? Is it something you’ve had from a young age?
Yeah, quite young. I started playing music when I was eight or nine. My mum made me join a brass band. I played trumpet, but I was rubbish. 

Who were your musical influences growing up?
A lot of the bands we end up playing with now. I was a bit of a mosher when I was 16, so I liked Slipknot, Korn, Deaftones, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach - I loved Papa Roach. We all had the same way into music because we’re all about the same age. They were the bands that got us into heavy music, and now we’re happy to be the band that gets people into heavy music - it’s cool. They were gateway bands for people. I can remember when I first heard Linkin Park on the radio, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is cool, it’s heavy music’. Then I got into Slipknot etc. There’s a whole different world once you get into rock and metal music. 

If you could collaborate with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
Dead or alive? Hmm, that’s a really hard question. I’ll go for... Frank Sinatra!

What’s the most memorable performance of your career to date?
The last two Reading Festivals; the two that I was in the band for - 2013 and 2015. They were both a really big deal for us. One of them was just after Sempiternal came out. We were a mid-afternoon slot and there was a lot of hype around our performance - the vibe was just mental. The 2015 one, we were much higher billing; we were main support, which was a different type of thing because we had more to prove on that one. A lot of people were wondering whether we could live up to it - it was a big slot for our band. The album hadn’t come out - we’d just had a couple of singles out - and I think people were wondering whether we could do the slot justice. I think we did. Wembley Arena was a really big one in terms of our own shows - and the Royal Albert Hall was a real landmark one for me personally.

Bring Me The Horizon fans are well known for being particularly ‘enthusiastic’, so to speak. What’s the oddest fan encounter the band have come across?
There are so many! Someone bought us a turtle in America - they bought it to a signing. That was a bit weird. And then we actually had to find a home for it, so it was kind of annoying but the thought was there. There was an internet meme around one of our songs - someone misinterpreted the lyrics as sandpit turtle and then it became a thing. You know what the internet’s like. There are regularly mental things happening to us. 

And finally, what does the future hold for Bring Me The Horizon?
I think we’ll probably have a bit of time off next year - people are probably getting sick of us! I guess then we’ll have to regroup and find out what we’re going to do with the next album. We really don’t wanna rush because we went straight out the back of the last album, Sempiternal, into That’s The Spirit, so this time I think we want to make sure that we have a decent amount of time away, to get our heads together. Also, I think it helps to build a bit of excitement; when people actually miss you, when you come back, I think it’s better.

Bring Me The Horizon play Barclaycard Arena, Birmingham on Friday 4 November.