C’mon Bring Me, do the locomotion
Before Bring Me The Horizon returned to Glastonbury 2019 for a blistering set on The Other Stage, they sat down with NME to talk to us about the problem with most festivals, their love of Kylie Minogue, and thoughts about what new music could bring.
Watch our video interview interview with Bring Me The Horizon above
The last time Bring Me played at Glastonbury was in 2016 on the exact same stage as the one the band played on this year. Sharing a lineup with the likes of Dave, Slaves, Circa Waves, Billie Eilish, and Christine and the Queens, unfortunately for the band their schedule won’t allow them to enjoy the diversity Glastonbury offers.
“It’s quite cool to play at a festival that’s got such a varied lineup – even though we’re not going to have any time to see anyone,” keyboardist Jordan Fish told NME. “I’d have liked to have seen Kylie but we clash.”
Yes, you read that right, it wasn’t sarcasm. Bring Me The Horizon are actual fans of Kylie Minogue. After reeling off a couple of their favourite songs by the Aussie pop queen – ‘Spinning Around’, ‘Kids’ – they recall the time she gave them a private gig.
“We played with her a couple of nights ago and when she was warming up her six musicians did this like barbershop performance basically just for us,” explained Jordan. “It was like four or five songs and she just went through them all. It was amazing. It was like having our own private Kylie gig.”
Moving from Glastonbury to All Points East, the boys curated their own headline show back in May at Victoria Park featuring Architects, Run The Jewels, Idles, Nothing But Thieves and others. “It was great,” said Matt. “We were really nervous about it and everyone worked super hard on getting it all together and spending a lot of time on working on what we were gonna do and the setlist and all that kind of stuff. We put a lot of time into it…it was probably the best show we’ve ever played”
During the All Points East performance, frontman Oli Sykes proclaimed that “rock is alive,” after previously saying it didn’t “feel genuine.” For Jordan, he thinks the problem is that some festivals aren’t forward thinking enough.
“Sometimes you look at festival lineups, especially the rock festivals, and I feel like they’re not that forward thinking, especially with the headliners,” he admitted. “But with APE we wanted to try and like, at least combine some acts we really respect from outside the rock world with some of the acts we most respect in the rock world, like real varied but still the core of it is rock bands, you know?”
He continued: “I guess we see a lot of lineups and it’s bands who have played it 10 times over headlining, and for us that can be a bit frustrating. We know we’re ready to do it and we know a bunch of other bands who are ready to do those big slots as well. So yeah, doing All Points East kinda proved that there are bands who are ready to take the step up to headline.”
“One of the big things about that lineup was it was mostly UK bands,” added Matt. “And I think especially if you look at a lot of the festivals, they do rely sometimes on a lot of international acts to bring in people. I think it was good for us to have that strong UK lineup.”
A band not from the UK that was featured on the lineup was Run The Jewels. Comprised of El-P and Killer Mike, Bring Me regretfully didn’t get to meet the MC duo.
“It was a big day for us,” explained Jordan. “That’s probably my biggest regret of the day to be fair, not getting to even see them because I was in the focus zone at that point.”
Quizzed about any potential new music and what it would sound like, according to Jordan they’ll figure it out when the time’s right.
“One day I wake up and think I’d like to do something like this but until you sit down and really get into it you just don’t know how it’s going to come out,” he said. “I wouldn’t wanna try and say ‘Yeah, it has to be like this.’ I know it’s not going to sound like anything we’ve done before.”
He continued: “We’ll figure it out when the time’s right. Sometimes it takes you a while when you finish an album to really work out what it is you’ve made, and you have to know what you’ve made in order to know where to take it next. It’s a weird album, I’m still trying to figure out what it is. It’s like pop, rave, a bit of everything so I don’t really know. We’ll have to see what feels right.”
Check back at NME for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2019.
