Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes opens up more about the situation with Jordan Fish

Jordan Fish’s exit from Bring Me The Horizon was a consequence as they had “got to the point where we weren’t happy as a unit anymore”. In December of last year, word leaked out about Sheffield band Fish’s resignation as keyboardist, producer, and percussionist. Since joining the group in 2012, he has played a significant role in influencing the present sound and songwriting approach of the group, especially with the addition of more electronic elements on the 2013 album “Sempiternal.” Additionally, he performed with the band on the albums “That’s The Spirit” (2015), “amo” (2019), and “Post Human: Survival Horror” (2020). He departed before the group had finished recording their most current album and the “Post Human” follow-up, “Nex Gen.” That’s when he said:

I’m really grateful for my 11 years with the band, and extremely proud of all that we have achieved together.

The band stated instead:

We want to thank him for the musical journey he took with us and wish him luck with everything in the future.

Sykes has now discussed the separation in a new interview with NME. Sykes called Fish his “right-hand man” and “a massive part of this band,” considering that he had joined at a point when Sykes had just left treatment.

I know that a lot of the time we were spoken about as a duo. Where we started to break off was the fact that after ‘Survival Horror’, I started to think about and address the way we were being. It was all a part of not stopping, and that fear of, ‘If we stop, we’re going to drop off, the band’s not going to be big any more, someone’s going to take over, someone’s going to be bigger and better than us’. At some point, you’ve got to accept that this is how big your band are. You’ve also got to ask yourself how much do you want to do to earn that extra [popularity]. Do you really want to go on TikTok and do all the dances? Do you want to be killing yourself in the studio every day when you don’t even want to write music just out of that fear? There’s a finite amount of success out there. We’d got into a mindset together that I was trying to move away from, but Jordan couldn’t to some degree.

Throughout the process of creating “Nex Gen,” Sykes became aware of his unhappiness, calling himself “so miserable” and expressing a desire to “go back and live a normal life.” But once Fish left, he observed a shift in the dynamic of the group.

What I realised after Jordan left was that the atmosphere got better. I asked myself how I could have got to the point of fucking hating the record when I love making music, creating and art. I do it for fun. If I’m not making music, I’ll write a story, I’ll draw, I’ll make a t-shirt for Drop Dead or whatever. I love that. How did it get so bad that I said I want it over with? I realised after that without Jordan it was going way slower. I’m not going to sit here and go, ‘Oh, it was just creative differences and we wish him the best and we’re all on good terms, and blah, blah, blah’. It’s never like that. Just like all breakups – they never end. Even the most amicable ones. There’s a split. It’s also very boring. There’s no headline there. He served our band really well, and the band wouldn’t be where we are without him. I don’t think I’d be able to sing. He was an agent in that and helped me do that. I’ve learned so much from him. I think he’s learned a lot from me. I’m sure one day we’ll see each other again and we’ll talk. Nothing’s happened where it couldn’t be sorted out over a drink. That’s that. We just got to a point where we weren’t happy as a unit anymore.