Metal Anarchy

During a recent appearance on the Nik Nocturnal Podcast, Bring Me The Horizon singer Oli Sykes discussed the upcoming re-recorded version of their 2006 album “Count Your Blessings” (out July 10). According to him, the band decided to revisit the record after being unhappy with its original sound.

Sykes said the following:

“I think a lot of people think that we hate that record or are embarrassed about it, ’cause we don’t play it and stuff, but really we were just always disappointed with how it sounded. Like, I remember we weren’t stoked on it at all when we came out of the studio. We hadn’t… it was a small band. We didn’t have much budget. We wanted to go with, like, Adam D [Adam Dutkiewicz of Killswitch Engage] or someone that could help us make this record cool. We ended up going with some guy [Dan Sprigg.] The only thing he’d done is — no disrespect to him; I’m sure he’s a good producer in his own field, but he’d done Simply Red. That was his previous credit.

So Simply Red to Bring Me deathcore album is just, like, ‘All right.’ And it was just, we had no idea what we were doing. We didn’t know anything about click tracks, about panning guitars left and right. We had no idea about anything. It was our first time. And he didn’t really either, in terms of a metal band. I think I got ill halfway through it, so around about track five, it just starts to sound like I’ve been singing through a sock. We were getting drunk all the time. No one even sat in with each other when we were recording. So everyone just went in and did their parts. No one was going, ‘Wait a minute, Matt, that’s a bit out of time.’ So it’s just… And you can hear that.”

I remember putting the CD on in the car, and I had this huge subwoofer in the back of the car. We used to listen to All Shall Perish ‘Wage Slaves‘. I remember it just sounded insane on that. So we’d always get in my car and listen to stuff, and it would just be, like, sick. I’d put ‘Count Your Blessings‘ on, and I was, like, ‘Oh, it just doesn’t sound good.’ I remember just driving home going, ‘This does not sound good.’ And I don’t think I ever listened to it ever again, ’cause I was just so unhappy with it. And I think over the years and stuff, I obviously just never really revisited it. We play the odd song sometimes, but…”

He also commented on recruiting mixer Buster Odeholm (Vildhjarta, Thrown, etc.):

“We just wanted to go with who’s doing that today. But actually, we also realized no one’s doing that music today. So even Buster himself, I wouldn’t say he struggled, but the first mix was, like, his classic mix. And the snare: huge, the kick: huge. The riffs kind of like so much gain, you can hardly hear them. And it sounded sick. Don’t get me wrong, it sounded way better, it sounded cool. But we were, like, ‘We can’t have this record sounding like what bands sound like today. It needs to be the best version of what it sounded like in 2006.’

So the kick has to be clickier, more triggered. The snare needs to be nice and pingy. It can be fat on the breakdowns. The riffs have to actually be clear. ‘Cause the whole album’s just riffs. For a lot of it, there’s more riffs than vocals. So you need to hear them riffs, ’cause if you’re not hearing them, it’s pointless.”

He also added the following about the barricade-free “Count Your Blessings” 20th anniversary shows:

“Not only no barricade, there’s actually an extra stage before the stage that you can get on and like just stage dive off [of], run on, mosh on. Basically these guys put on a festival called ‘Outbreak‘ in England. It’s like super iconic festival. It’s like mainly hardcore stuff, hardcore metal. It’s a really cool festival. So we’ve kind of like, they partnered up with us to do it, and that’s their thing. They have this no barricade. I’m hoping it’s as crazy as the shows I’ve seen.”

“We’re going to film it. I think we’re actually, like, we’ve talked about it. We need to put out some kind of like pre-safety video like, ‘this is the deal, look after each other, be safe, but also this can and will happen.’ So, yeah, pick where you want to stand basically ’cause it could get a bit lairy.”

“I’m like lowkey don’t even know how it’s legal. But like I’m like, ‘what are the rules and stipulations of like how this works?’ ‘Cause like they can basically… I mean and and they’ll get kicked off, but they can just walk on stage if they want. Do you know what I mean?”

[via The PRP]