The Downbeat - Jordan Fish - Bring Me The Horizon

Episode Date: July 2, 2020

My guest this week is Jordan Fish of Bring Me The Horizon. Jordan tells me in detail about how he came to join arguably the biggest heavy band in the world. We also talked about the band's unique writing process for their new single 'Parasite Eve', our lockdown FIFA tournament, and the time I barged into Bring Me's dressing room naked.

Hi. I did originally just have like a really short intro because people keep leaving comments like skip for three minutes in for the real podcast or for the real interview. So I did it really fast and I thought, you know what? Fuck those people. I'm doing this for free mate. And I'm not even trying to sell you like mattresses or anything like that. There's no like, you know what guys? The other day I realized I needed a really good mop. So I use MagicMop. Go to MagicMop.com and use the code

Craigie, Craigie Mop for 10% off a little fucking mop. I don't even do that, even though technically I just did that. So, I don't know, skip to five minutes in if you don't want to hear me not sell you a mop. I'm just sat here trying to enjoy a lovely Northern Monk Brewery Passion Fruit IPA

without selling you any kind of adverts or products and you know, you're just berating me. You're just discrediting my hard work. I'm joking. This, of course, is a joke. If you want to skip this bit, skip this bit. I know there's going to be a lot of new fans because my guest this week's Jordan Fish from Bring Me the Horizon.

Big band, isn't it? Big me the Horizon. Huge Horizon energy. Jordan is, I guess he's a keyboardist live, but, you know, he's a songwriter. I originally thought he did everything when he joined the band because the band changed a lot. And I since found out he actually does less than I thought he did,

but more also than I thought he did. That makes no sense. When I say that out loud, it makes no sense. But when you listen to the next two hours in which me and Jordan Fish talk about his glorious rise to a member of one of the biggest bands, I would say, in the world, it will make more sense. We had a great chat.

I know Jordan from way back, and it's honestly amazing. He was very talented back in the day, but it's amazing to see where he is at now. As I said, we talk about how we joined a band. If you're a news website that's going to nick some of this for your press release, do me a favour and just link to the podcast, please. If it's your first time listening to the Downbeat on Notfest, or wherever you're listening to it, thanks for coming. Check out the other episodes.

You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Renlord, weird name that I sort of decided on when I was about to anyone. You could go to www. the downb-de-de-a-t, so it spells downbeat. And there's t-shirts and that. And if you don't fancy a t-shirt or you're like a nudist, you could just donate if you liked it or not. Suit yourself.

Jordan Fish on the Downbeat podcast. I'm going to count to four, and we're going to clap four times, and then that's when the podcast starts. Okay. All right. One, two, three, four. Check that, producer timing.

Was it meant to be in times? I didn't know if you were counting it in. What, we weren't? Musically. What do you mean? I didn't know if it was like, if you were just counting it in, you counted it in quite steady. So I thought, okay, maybe we stick to that timing for the four claps then. Yeah, obviously that's how it works.

Okay, cool. I got it right now. Hang on, you're a multi-award winning producer and you didn't realize that's what I was doing. The big awards I didn't win. So we've been, I've been runner up for a lot of them. But never won. You ain't got the big one? What's big to you?

The Grammy was the one I really wanted to really would like to win, but I think that's a ship's saying. Why didn't you get a Grammy? No, he didn't win. Who won? The first year, St Vincent won for the Best Rock Song, and then last year we were nominated for, was it last year or this year? It might have been this year. I think it was this year. February?

There were still, things were still happening in January, February, weren't they? They were like, yeah, on their way out. So, yeah, I think this year, my mind is just a mess at the moment. So I think in January, we were nominated for the best album. But again, we didn't win. So whenever... Was it what, flat out best album? No, best rock album.

Not best album. Sorry. Definitely not best albums. Is that even a thing with the Grammys? Best album ever. They have best... The main best album is like hip-hop. And then they have a second...

They basically have two different ceremonies. They have like the ceremony for people who... For the ones. that people care about and then they have like another because there's loads of Grammys like hundreds so they have another they have a ceremony earlier on that's so the main one is presented by

Alicia Keys but the ceremony that we go to we go to both but the ceremony that the award the Rock Award is in is presented by Shaggy and that's that's earlier on in the day so we so they look so Rock is in

the shit the shit Grammys I'm not going to call them the shit Grammys no it's like just told me that it's a shit grammy and a good gramming. It's like lots of classical music, jazz. It's just anything that's more niche. It's in the, that's like an earlier ceremony that's not televised, basically. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not complaining.

It's still pretty cool, but yeah, you get shaggy, and the main one gets Alicia Keys, so. And who, sorry, who, who pipped you this year? The first year was St Vincent, and this year was, it was Cage the Elephant. Cades the Elephant one for the best album, best rock album, yeah. Wait, the perfect service. circle album no cage the elephant the band cage oh i literally just heard the word elephant

no cut out a little bit then and i was like what eat the elephant i think that's the name of the perfect saga album in there i haven't heard it to be honest it's not grammy award winning i'll tell you that much i didn't like the i kind of stopped listening to them after that second album they had the the one that was had covered it was like a covers album or it had a cover version or something that was the nurse something about a nurse something about a No, I'm thinking of a nurse. Nurse was on the second one. I didn't like that second album either.

Didn't you? The production's fucking, some of the best drum production I think I've ever heard. Maybe I'd like, to be honest, I might like it if I gave it a spin again. I just remember Medanon was the one

that I liked and then, and you're right, the nurse song, I can't remember what it's called. The nurse song was a bit shit. Let me have a look. But that album fucking does rip and the drum production on the song,

the noose in particular, my favourite kick and snare drum sound of all time. It's coming back to me now. See, I remember this production as being, feeling a lot more sparse than the first album, so I didn't love the, it kind of sounded a little cold to me. I know it's very clean, but I liked the full sound of that first record. I mean, yeah, Murder Noms mix is fucking insane as well. It's like lots of reverb, isn't it? They did something crazy.

I don't know if it's on Murder Noms, or actually it might be on, whatever the 13th steps the second one isn't it I think they used a different mix for every song I think on 13th step I feel like I heard that or at least I know they had different mixes for the singles is that a thing I remember like the singles sounded quite different or something like I think maybe that weak and powerless

sounded quite different to the rest of the album that kind of thing bothered me when I was younger different mixes like for singles versus the album and now look at you now look at yeah well we haven't we don't do it that's one thing like we've always retained having the same mixer do a whole album like a lot of bands. Yeah, but you've got like,

you've got wacky songs. Yeah, but we have the same mix. I mean that in the nicest possible, like, yeah, I guess it's the same. They're quite varied,

but I mean, at least sonically, they're kind of, I mean, I don't know, they're kind of the same. To be honest, I'd probably hate our band

if I was a fan of our band. Because I was that, like when I was younger, I hated it when bands changed. And we do that, you know, we've done that a lot. So.

Oh, We can go straight into this conversation now because I actually, other than sort of vaguely knowing the guys from back in the day, didn't like Bring Me the Horizon until, I'm not going to fucking gnawereux you off too much, but until you put your fucking spin on things. Yeah.

And that will be because we know each other from back in the day. Yeah. And you were always in really good bands. That's, first of all, that's absolutely not true. I've been in loads of shit bands when I was younger. And also, for me, I think I feel like, as weird as the sounds, I like, they bring me The Horizon before I was in the band,

more than, not more than I do now, but like, because I'm separated from it, I'm more appreciative of it than, it's almost like someone else's band, so I like it, I'm more of a fan of it than... Yeah, but that's more... That's more being, what's the fucking word, like self-deprecating probably. You probably, like many artists, do something, release it and then think, well, that's a

fucking giant big steaming pile of shit. Yeah, a little bit. But also, I feel like I appreciate the type of music, like, especially on the album just before I joined. I think there's some really good songs on that album. And they're really good to play live. So I'm always the one who's pushing to play those songs live. And basically it's like a fight between me and our drummer.

You know Matt, don't you? Yeah, of course you do. Yeah. So it's pretty much a fight. He doesn't want to play the old ones. He doesn't want to play the old ones because they're just obviously crazy, crazy bars. And he's like, he doesn't play like that anymore. So it's like he basically doesn't.

And because he's, I feel like his standards of, um, acceptable drumming of improved. Like he's so hard on himself if like even he makes like the tiniest little slip live that he doesn't want to like scruff his way for. them whereas I'm like and those old ones the kick the kick patterns are fucking really really difficult yeah they're basically unplayable from unless you're like a real like someone who was I don't know constantly working on that kind of you know I don't even know what it is just practicing double kick loads basically so yeah pretty much I'm I'm more of a fan of the band before I was in the band although I can see what you know it's just different isn't it just a different type of different type of energy but probably just my

more the album before like there is a hell i think is yeah that's that's the one where i think people who were also in the scene although massively eclipsed by bring me like that was the one where they went well hang on these have got hooks there's hooks in here now yeah it's not just the kick drum stuff yeah so then you but so i want to actually talk about this because i don't know the answer and i don't know if you've ever talked about the answer um um And I will relay what I heard happened. And then you'll tell me, A, if that's true, B, if I'm allowed to have said that. Okay.

And if I'm not, we'll delete it. Okay. And there was a C, but there was a C, believe me, I've seen it, but I can't remember what it was. So you were in worship, the band called worship. Yeah. Correct? Yes, right, yeah. Who were from, so I'm going to say, Bukhia.

Yeah, Newbury, really, yeah, where I'm from. Yeah. And I fucking loved worship. Oh, thanks. It was, for anyone it doesn't know, it was basically sort of like radio head, put down the M4 a bit more. Yeah, I would say it's like radio head, but with proper drums. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And maybe like a mixture of old and new radio head. Yeah, with a bit, maybe slightly more rocky, you know, like slightly more gritty. Like mew meets radio head, maybe. That's a good way of putting more. Proper drums hit hard, but still synths and stuff. I remember seeing you at Sub-89. I can't remember if it was your own show or supporting someone or something. It was supporting, does it offend you?

That's who it was. Jesus. And then the next thing I knew you were in Brigham and Horizon. Now, obviously that's not how that happened. But I heard this is what happened. I heard, Olly heard worse. and loved it and wanted

to start a label just to sign you guys and then eventually just went do you want to just join my band I mean sort of like that the label idea was for a couple of other artists as well that he was like I think there was talk of Sony

were going to give him like a label to like give him some money to start like a little subsidiary label nice So then he actually, he came to our shows for ages and he actually got us like 10 grand, which, and we basically were like, we didn't have anything really, you know what I mean? Like we didn't have, I think we might have had a manager, but we'd been for a couple of managers,

but we didn't have any, there was no sign that we were going to make any money, really. And they gave us some money to go and write some songs and stuff. And they did give us that money. We ended up getting screwed out of a little bit by the person who was managing us at the, the time. So there was it was a real, um, it was a real thing that Sony were going to do. And then it was around the time that he was like going through his personal issues and going to rehab and all that stuff. So I think he had a break away from the band. And I remember he, that was when he, that was when that idea got kind of mooted because he was obviously away sorting that

stuff out. And then, and I was obviously wanted to like, fish from a purestores. And I was, obviously, wanted to like fish from a purely selfish point of view i was like oh i want my band to get signed i didn't really know him that well um yeah and then he just said oh do you want to you know we're doing some stuff do you want to come and work on our do want to come and do some stuff with us on our music and i was like oh i think i said yeah but it was one of those like didn't think it was actually going to happen situation i was like yeah man that'd be cool and then the next weekend he kind of said it again followed it up and was like oh you know you still want to come up and do some stuff and I was like oh fuck it all right then yeah I'll come when do you want to do it kind of thing

it was one of them moments because it's not really something I would normally do like go it's one of them things that you have to actually make a bit of effort to do you know what I mean and I think I was kind of imagining that I wouldn't I wouldn't bother I don't know that it just didn't seem like it was really going to happen and then he kind of pushed it and I was like oh fuck it I'll I'll give it a go so yeah I just I literally put he said oh maybe this weekend so I put my in my car and just drove up Sheffield. I'd never even been Sheffield before in my life. And I had met the other guys briefly.

They'd been to a show in Manchester to see Worship. So, yeah, I just went up and they were in the studio with Phil Gournell. Do you know Phil Gournell? Yeah, I know that. They were in the studio with Phil Gournell, demoing, like, just working on some music they've been writing. And then I sat there for, like, an hour, and it was really awkward. And at that point, I had that feeling of, like,

because Oli kind of is quite like he would just do things without he doesn't think about he don't worry about what is the appropriate thing to do or what or like what people think so he didn't really think about the fact that the others might think it was a bit weird that I was there I think or that I might feel a bit weird so it's like yeah come up and I was like okay cool so I kind of sat there for a bit and then I think maybe I was just awkward because I'm quite quite awkward at first and then he was like yeah well do you want to go back to my house instead of like being here and we'll just we'll just chill and right there and i was like okay cool so yeah we just went back to his and set up and then we just started pretty much like that day he was like we've got this

little it was like a little guitar demo like guitar and drums and stuff and we just we just started working on it and he had lots of ideas like loads and loads of ideas um so the first song was pretty much he was just saying can you do this can you do this can you do this can you do this can you do this And I was like, okay, I can do that, you know, it was all stuff I could do. So it was, you know, it would be like this section, it'd be cool if it kind of had this like like, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo kind of noise. And I was like, okay, cool. Try and make, try and make that sound.

So I think for him, it was like, it was like suddenly, you know, he was like, you know, he was like, holy fuck, I can make whatever the fuck I want, basically. And for me, it was like, this is quite easy, but I didn't feel like, at first I was like, this is this is fun because i'm not worrying about like with my with my band it we'd we'd got ourselves it was wasn't that fun you know what i mean it was more like it was a bit pretentious and it was like everything was too cool you know you couldn't do there was loads of things that i felt like we couldn't do because they would be yeah very serious yeah it was very serious and it was just like you know there was no there was no randomness to it and so obviously like writing with with ollie and that

was more he's got he just had this like more random you know i'm gonna try doing this and try doing this and i just found it really fun so at first i kind of felt like it's not my thing but i'm enjoying it and it's a little bit of extra money or whatever so i'll come up every weekend and they were paying me 200 quid uh per weekend so like to come up to sheffield and back down again and i was like sweet 200 pound for two days yeah i mean that was just like wait wait wait with petrol or just that it might have been i'm I can't remember if there was a bit of petrol on top. Oh, fuck me.

No, this was... Biggest fucking band going. 200 quid. Well, bear in mind, I think that's probably what I asked for. I mean, at first it was really just like a... The story changes... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

I need to say the story changes quite quick. Very rapidly, I got more money than I ever had in my life from that session. So this was like weeks after. Because I wasn't... I didn't have any money. I had my studio in Newbury that I'd built up over like, five years, but I didn't make any money off it. I just made enough to basically live. I had no savings. So I wasn't skint, but like, you know, I also had no money. With me and my wife were living

in our, we're living in our friend's spare room, I think, at that point. So, so yeah, and then they did that for a couple of weekends. And then it was like, then it moved to being slightly longer. So it was like, it was like four or five days a week. And then they kind of put me on, they started paying me monthly, you know, like a decent amount. And then it was almost like I was on it. I was on, not a decent amount, but enough, you know, I'm not complaining about the money whatsoever. It was, at the time, I was just like, this is sweet.

And I was happy, I would have done it for free because it was the biggest thing I'd ever done already. You know what I mean? The biggest artist I'd ever worked with, so. Do you remember what that first song was? The first one was off, was obviously Sempaternal. It was snakes start to sing. It was kind of like a, I guess you'd call it,

a dramatic rock kind of song. It was quite emotional song, but it wasn't my chords. It was something they'd already written. So it was more like, if you listen to the song, it's very production heavy. Because we just, because obviously it was just like, Olly coming up with loads of ideas and me doing it. So there's a lot of like, blah, blah, blah, funny noises and shit like that. And then after like a, after a week or two, I think,

I said, I think we were talking over text and he said, oh, you know, if you've got, you know, if you've come up with stuff at home, if you have anything cool, you know, send it over or whatever. Something like that. And I was like, oh, okay, like that's a bit different. You know what I mean? Like, that's a different level of, it's one thing for me to add. Yeah, a little bit because it was like, you know, I could write, I could write shit at home and send it through. And I didn't, I mean, a lot of people are very precious about their, you know, band. and it was not like that at all.

It was so, it was like, it was like he didn't give a shit about any of that kind of shit. I was like, oh, sweet, okay. So I sent a bunch of stuff through. And it was like, yeah, this is cool, this is cool. We should work on this. And then it was like, from then on,

it was just like we were all writing together, really me, Olly and Lee, mostly, but everyone was kind of involved. And yeah, it was just, it just happened really quickly from that point on. And then we started to get songs. You know, we had like a bunch of devoured, demos. And then that was when the singing element came in, which was like he really wanted,

we'd written a bunch of music, probably like five or six songs. And a lot of it was quite melodic. So I don't know how many of the songs off that, that centipaternal that you would know. But the first song is called Can You Feel My Heart? It's quite a like, um, melodic song, really. So I think he started to feel like, well, I mean, it was kind of obvious that it, just, screaming would would just sound weird you know what I mean yeah because because it was so melodic from that album onwards I'm pretty well versed with everything yeah but like the early stuff so like I'll probably know every song you're talking about from that album onwards maybe on I'm probably only know the singles that much so it was it was really we were working on

can you feel my heart which is the first song on the album and Ollie was like I really I really want to sing but he'd never sung melody before he could only scream so and that was something he really pushed he was like you know i want to be able to to sing melodies and stuff so then that kind of the focus of a lot of it became that side of it you know like how how he could sing and him learning how to like pitch his screams and and all that kind of stuff because he couldn't he didn't i mean he would admit he was like basically what you would call tone deaf so you could sing a note to him and he wouldn't be able to sing it back. He obviously had good timing and stuff because he,

because he was so used to screaming, but all of his techniques and everything he'd learned was, was screaming based. And he was not a natural singer in the sense that, you know, some people can, I've always been able to, like, sing a bit. You know, like, I could, if you put something on in the car,

I'd sing along and it'll be in tune, ish. Just, just naturally, he didn't have that. So, so, yeah, the first thing was just really like a blag, a studio black. We just tried and tried and he persevered. And to be honest, like without trying to suck his dick, like the hours we were putting in

to try and just like get one chorus or one verse or it was fucking actually sick in the head, to be honest. Like we would work for a whole day. I mean, like a 16 hour day on like, on like a small section of vocals, you know what I mean? like it was crazy. Do you feel like he feels like

he's got a lot to prove because back in the day he was like fucking you either loved him or you hated him? No, I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think he has any chips on.

I mean like his work ethic, do you reckon he's like? To be honest, I think it was purely motivated by musical. I think he just wanted to do it because he wanted to do it. I don't think it was to prove anyone wrong or think he just thought

it would sound really good. Usually the motivation is just making some sick music as cliched as that sounds. And I think that's what it was. It was like, oh, this, if I could sing on this, it would, it would be awesome. It would sound way better. And we could do it.

And we could, I think, I think we both had the sense that, I mean, I felt like from my point of view, not knowing the band that well from before, like if we could pull it off and he could sing, then think how big this band could be, because they were already massive. and they became fucking you became stratospheric that album is fucking insanely good though oh thanks like the uh i just remember because that is the first track and that

all right whose idea was the synth in that whatever that fucking noise is what's the noise give me the scientific term that's kind of a chopped up vocal mix of the synth it was probably ollie's idea the thing that you play the thing that you play on the yeah it's probably ollie's idea to be honest. I mean, all of the pitched choppy vocals and stuff, I hadn't really done much of that before. That was something he was,

he kind of like made that into a bit of a thing. So, yeah, I guess that was probably his idea. That's fucking cool. Let's get the hymn bit out of the way because there'll be some people that just listen to this

because they want to know about him. I've only met him once, maybe twice. The time that I met him, you might know about this. I burst into their dressing room with my mate and I put my dick in my mate's mouth. I don't know if I've heard a lot of dick in mouth stories about various people

so I can't remember that one in particular but it was there was someone on the tour package I can't remember who it was what tour was this oh shit I've just facetamed you oh you just put hello we're on video now

how do you get out of this do I just leave it I'll just leave you oh camera off there you go I've got it swipe up and then go camera off Is that a thing? All right, okay. There you go.

Thank God. Someone on the tour package. I can't remember what it was. I wasn't even on the tour. I just went to it. There was someone in one of the support bands. I can't remember. And there was some rumor that some guy was homophobic.

And it wasn't any of you bring me. It wasn't, no, mine was the dick that was sucked. And it wasn't atch. Oh, no, hang on. No, yeah, it was my, I put my dick in my, mate's mouth completely flaccid may i add okay it wasn't actually like a you don't have to prove anything to me i mean it's not even i don't mind if you had a semi it's fine but there was um i can't really remember this the specifics but there was someone on

the tour package that was rumoured to be homophobic and i was like what the fuck in this day and age you're going to be homophobic so i just burst into the dressing room it wasn't of any of bring me it was just like someone in one of the support bands or something it's probably just a nasty rumor anyway i just burst in put my dick in my mate's mouth. What did your mate? Was your mate prepped on it? Yeah, 100%.

I'm not just going around to fuck it. Okay, yeah. Thank you for saving my cancellation there. No, it was a pre-planned thing between me and my friend to try and weed out who the homophobe was. But it obviously didn't work and it was probably not even a homophobe there in the first place.

So you just did it for nothing? Yeah, that is the lasting sort of impression that I made the first time and met any of those boys. Yeah. Which is, yeah, so he probably maybe he remembers me for that, maybe he doesn't.

I don't know, I'll have to ask. Whose idea was it to, anyway, off this, off this bit about me, whose idea was it to start playing that shit live? What's it live? The fucking noise from the song and not just having it on track. The noise, you know, all the little,

boingy noises that you do i've got no technical terminology i'm sorry well i mean i's obviously i'm trying to do as try and play as much as i can so generally the most the most leady sound of the the most leady sound is the one i'll try and play you know what i mean yeah and that's obviously the loudest this the the issue is with our stuff is like especially like that song there's just so many sounds that it's like I can't I physically can't play even to be honest I can't play like 20% of them yeah but you just play a lot more than other bands that don't that have these sort of sounds I just tell my I tell myself that I sing a little bit so that's like my that's my kind of like get out of jail free card is like well I do backing vocals so and you hit you do hit the pads

I have a big drum moment where I was like Oh, they're like playing quite a lot of this live. That's cool because I assumed it would all be on track. Yeah. Well, I do my best. As to the production a little bit. You do have a big drum. You have a big Tamer drum.

Do you not? I do, yeah. Both endorsed by the same company. Mine is sort of by proxy, obviously, because Matt's our drummer's on Tamer, same as you. Is that right? Yeah, loved it when he went to Tamer. Shout out to Bushie.

Wee. Shout to Bushie. Bill loved that. I'm terrible. I'm the worst drummer in the world. And that's not even a lie. I can't physically, my left hand is, I can't physically even do like a basic, I'm basically terrible at drums.

So it's embarrassing that I've even got a drum, but whatever. It's there. It's fun to hit it every so often. As long as you're in time and you give it a little hit. That's the problem. I'm not in time. Oh, okay. Well, put it on track.

Right, let's stay on subject. So you're, by this point, they are paying you a bit more and you'll write, you start writing stuff. Sam, yeah, I'm doing a bit of writing, but I'm not in the band. So then, and worship is still, I'm still in worship, basically, which is my other band. And then, we'd had a couple, we'd had a couple of tours. We'd been offered a tour in worship, and there was a big debate about whether we could do it. And the singer at the time was like, I've got work.

And I had, obviously, I was running my studio, but I could basically, I was down to do whatever. I was like, I just want to, I just want to tour. I want to try and make the band work. So I would have dropped anything to do. do the band kind of thing. Yeah. And we'd had this slight kind of issue where I was like, I kind of was feeling like, well, what's the point?

If we get these things come in and it's like 50, 50 about whether we're going to take them or not, I was like, well, your heart's obviously not in it, which is fine because we were a little bit older. I was 24 or 25 at the time. So, so yeah, this thing came up. And then I pretty much just said, I kind of had a feeling, it's weird when you're kind of like first dying with a band because it was like almost like a little. like beginning of a relationship like

courting courting yeah so I had the feeling like they would want me to join the band but it was kind of like well you're already in a band kind of thing um so you wouldn't want to be in this band so oh that kind of vibe anyway and I was just like oh fuck this song I just said I'm not going to do this band anymore

yeah isn't it like who's not quitting their band doesn't bring me in a right soon it was a bit of it was a no brainer and I was the thing is I was enjoying it so much the writing process and and all that stuff. And I was getting on so well with all the guys. And to be honest, in particular, Ollie, like, I just got on really well with him. So I was just like, this is a writing partnership

that I'm, like, really super enjoying. So just going to stick with it. So I just stopped doing my band. And then it was like, then as we got near the end of the process and we had almost the full album, it was there was talk about, oh, who are we going to use to produce it.

And I was involved in all these conversations, which is again strange because it was like I was in the band you know my opinion was obviously like being kind of arced and stuff so then we decided to Terry date because of like his work with Deftones and Pantera so then Terry came over to the UK right near the end of the process and around that time I was kind of like you know am I coming to the studio because there's like a whole two months booked in the studio like do you want me there and it was like yeah yeah if you want to that was like the vibe

yeah if you want to come and I was like well yeah of course I do so I just kind of to be honest I didn't really get like invited into the band I just self I don't know

it was weird you just like fell into it I mean that's like most relationships as well anyway isn't it you sort of get to know each other you fuck a little bit and you're like

you want to not fuck anyone else yeah that was it exactly and then except we haven't fucked I mean the the hypothetical. Not even hyperthetical is the wrong word. The metaphorical. Metaphorical fucking, yeah.

Yeah, musical fucking. So then, and then when the album came out, it was, then our guitarist left, which was another big thing. So they had another guitarist called Jonah before I was in the band. Did you know him? Australian did? Yes, I did know him. So their relationship with him kind of broke down or had broken down.

And that kind of reached ahead. when around the time we were recording sent paternal so that whole dynamic was going on which to be fair I wasn't really involved in because I didn't know the dude that well I'd seen a little I'd seen a little bit of you know

I'd seen a little bit of him and stuff but like that kind of happened that was more between them and him but then when when I was announced in the band which I guess is when I technically joined the band they just put out a press a press statement said bring me the hurried Horizon is Olly Sykes, Matt Nichols, Matt Keane, Lee Malia, and Jordan Fish. Jonah Weinhofen is no longer in the band. That was all it said. So obviously it just looked like,

for all the fans are just like, well, who the fuck is this? And it basically, because obviously I'm a keyboard player, basically, technically. It's like they've sacked a guitarist and replaced him with a keyboard player and who the fuck is he. So a lot of the fans were like, do they know by now? Do the fans know by now how much you've fucking done? Or do they blame you? it's a mixture of to be honest it's a mixture of either people giving me too much credit or or hating me for ruining the band which again is too much credit because i don't i haven't done even so i sometimes feel embarrassed when people give me all the credit for like the change of the band because it's just not true at all that's interesting because i i thought that as well a lot of people do but

it's it's not the case at all. I think I helped facilitate the change, but I'm not going to come into someone's band and change the sound. You know what I mean? It's not, I mean, for the first year, at least, I didn't feel like I had any say in which direction the band were taking. It was, it was definitely, I mean, it's mostly led by Olli. He's the creative director of the band, I would say, in terms of, like, what vibe were going in and stuff. And even now, it's, that's really still the way, I would say. It's more just like, he'll, have a vibe of what he wants to do and I'll be like, okay, I'll be thinking more of like the the literal way that that's going to be made. You know what I mean? Yeah. So he'll have more

conceptual ideas of like, I want to do something like, I think we should do something like this or like this and I'll be like, okay, well, what kind of, I'll start thinking about what kind of actual music that would be and how I would make it and stuff. And then that, I imagine, I just don't. Sorry, carry on. That's all right. Sorry, you hit me. No, mine is pointless, so you just go.

Well, I can't remember what I was going to say now. Right, I was just going to say, I imagine that's how he probably is with his clothing thing as well. He probably just has the ideas, doesn't know how to physically do the thread, and then just get someone else. Do you know how to do this? Well, I think at the beginning he was photoshopping the designs,

and then, and he still does, he still does, I just, to be honest, I don't know how, I don't know much, about drop dead. Just get him. Just get him to fucking send me some shit. He was going to send me some shit, not him, who ever worked there.

And then that person got fired, I think. Just before that cradle of filth drop. I was like, come on. You'll have to get him on the podcast and ask him yourself, I can't do. This is the thing, right? I didn't even want to ask you. Because obviously, if anyone doesn't know,

we've known each other for quite a long time. And until I had a minor mental breakdown, we would play FIFA in a lockdown FIFA cup. still going on. It's not. Is it scrapped? I think it's fair to say it's finished now.

We had a good run. Did everyone just start rage quitting and stuff? Well, the last league finished and then nobody has sent a message since. So I think Ali and Sam from Architects quit. And then Brian from Paris quit. Ross from the 1975 stopped talking. And didn't play four or five of his games in a row.

And then he played me once and I beat him eight one. and then he never was seen again. So we've lost a lot of people in the last few weeks, so I'm pretty sure it's finished. It was great. It was a good while it lasted. It was great. I just had a moment of like,

I've got fucking, like, serious insomnia struggles, and they just sort of came about towards the third league. And I was like, I was just getting beat in like 10-0 because I hadn't slept in days. I was like, I can't do this. It ruins my day even more. I can't even remember what my point was. I had a point.

We were talking about, let me trace the thought process. We were talking about people thinking that I do all the, have forced the change in Bring Me the Horizon and how people either give me too much credit or give me too much shit for it. Like I said, I think the change is definitely not all me. Obviously, I'm not the driving creative force behind the band. So I have a part in it, but it's not, I'm not the one going,

you know, we need to be this or we need to be that. I'm just there to try and make the music as sick as possible, really. That's, as dumb as that sounds. That's literally all I'm trying to do. So, yeah, there's that. Oh, because I started talking about Drop Dead. You started talking about FIFA. You started talking about you.

I don't know why I talked about that. That's fine. I can't remember. I really had a point. This is how unprofessional the podcast is. I had a real good point. I mean, I think I had a good point. How did I get onto the FIFA thing?

Oh, no, I didn't want you, no, it's a side note. I didn't want to ask you because we've known each other a while, but your band is, other than V-Man, I mean, probably around, arguably the same, if not bigger, like... And slip-not, absolutely not. In different genres, though. You're like a pop band now. But, do you know what I mean? It's like, I hate calling in that favour, so what I do with my friends that are in ginormous bands,

I just wait until there's a hint. and then the other day you sort of hinted and I was like okay come on the podcast please so I'm certainly not cold calling fucking Olly or anyone else I just hate doing the fucking hate that must have been I'm surprised you didn't ask Matt first

being a drummer I think that would be for your audience I think they'll be they'll be disappointed it's called the downbeat yeah but that's just a that's a you know what honestly it was

yeah but you know what honestly it was it was originally I wanted a phrase or a word that encapsulated the fact that I am almost always massively depressed and also something vaguely to do with my career. And there you have downbeat, because I'm often quite downbeat. I get it, yeah.

And to do with drums. You don't seem like a downbeat person. It's very much I will only post content or do podcasts when I'm on the upswing. That's why he's, that's why he come across, more mental than downbeat. Yes, exactly. Okay, cool, that's fine.

There's definitely an upbeat. Everyone really only sees the upbeat, you know. But I'm not like, I'm not, it's not really a drum podcast. It started because I did do a few drummers at the start and there is, you know, I'm a drummer and I know more drummers than anything. But all of the most listened to episodes are non-drummers. The drummer episodes get fuck or. cool listens. I apologize for making presumptions of your podcast. No, it's fine. I know you don't

exclusively. I'm only coming in hot on that because people will be listening to this and I just it annoy, it's starting to annoy me because I'll get like, you should get this guy in a podcast and it's like some fucking YouTube drummer. I'm like, what am I going to talk to him about? Like, how many fucking megabytes of RAM have you got? Like, no shade on YouTube drummers, but like I just no what's a YouTube drummer somebody just does covers

then just exclusively does covers which is again fine but I couldn't talk an hour and a half with them about that no it's not that interesting is it you should get Nichols because he's got he's got endless stories about everything

he's one of the funniest people I've ever met and I would definitely love him to come on here I will never ask him okay I'll hope maybe he'll listen to this if literally if

if if people are ask me, I'll do it, or if they even hint, I'll do it. But I just hate the like, hey, I've got, I've got this podcast. I'd love it if you'd come on it. I just don't want to do it. I don't want to be that guy. Yeah, fair enough. Well, you're never going to get anyone on there, then, I know, yeah, other than me and V-Man.

Well, that's, you're going to have to start, you have to start being a bit more bold. Nah, I mean, I have done a few where I've been bold and sort of got it out there. And the people have said, yeah. Have you had any knockbacks? Any nose? Actually from a couple of drummers, there's a girl drummer called Anika Niles, who's phenomenal,

one of the best drummers in the world. And, like, I know her, we've had drinks together, like, like a minor symbols event and stuff. Like, we've, like, we're on speaking terms, message her about it. Ghosted me.

A real ghosting, a scene. Not even a sorry, can't do it. And then, but I had people say yeah that I never thought would say yeah. So like, fuck, I think Mike Manjini from Dream Theater said yeah. And then I couldn't do it. But if I do the cold calling, even if it's with a friend, I can't be sure they really want to do it. So who cares?

No, so then it becomes a chore to pick a time. I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have done it if you hadn't mentioned it. It's not on those things. I'm like, oh, I'm scared. I was nervous. I get nervous for this kind of shit, to be honest. So it's like, you've got to ask.

And then it's like, when you do it, it's like, oh, it wasn't so bad actually. But there's also like, I know you, so I know the conversation would be good. Like, already, we're like 40 minutes in. I think enough information has been shared for it not to be shit. Like now we've covered the first six months of my time in the band Yeah, exactly That's it, that's fine But there's a lot more to come

Ah, so moving swiftly on then So you do that You're in the band now Album comes out Album comes out Well, this is the thing So we went on tour Our first tour was Soundwave in 2013

And at that point I was like technical I was in the band So that was your first tour Oh my God, what a fucking amazing first tour I was scared of flying. I had like a phobia of flying. So I hadn't flown, this is so crazy,

but I hadn't flown for like years and years because I was like, I had this like major phobia of flying. And I'd had like hypnotherapy like multiple times and all this shit. Oh wow, like a serious fear, not just someone trying to get that in. I'd avoid it going on holiday and like I drive on holiday and shit. I was that scared of flying.

It was crazy. And then obviously like I joined the band. It was like all the first first things in Australia. So I was like, oh, fuck. So I just got loads of Valium, basically, and just got so, so fucked, basically, like, on Valium that I was just like, I've basically passed myself out pretty much for the whole 24th hour flight to Australia. And then for the first year, I was, I had to fly with, like, loads of Valium and booze, basically, to get through it because I was still nervous. So, yeah, that was my first experience with Soundwave. It was just fucking absolutely crazy.

um different hotel every day fucking great show flying between shows coming straight in at the top i'd never been to australia and it was in january obviously so it would have been lovely weather love it and i met loads i look back now actually met loads of characters that i still like know which is quite crazy like at the time i didn't know any bands from like i guess you'd call it the scene, the kind of warp tour scene. I didn't, I wasn't my world, so I didn't know any of these people. So like, we taught, we did side, side, side waves, I think they were called, or like side shows, basically, with, like, Charriott and Pierce the Vale. And I'm still good friends with Stivas from Charriott, because he's in fever now. Right. Um, I'm not going to say,

I'm good friends with Pierce the Vale, but there were so many bands like on that, like a day to remember, I remember they were on that, I think. And, um, I'm not. And, um, I'm not going to, I'm good friends. And, And I didn't know who these bands were, to be honest. But yeah, it was really cool, really cool first touring experience doing that show. I remember the stage set on fire, like in my second show. We played out, I think it might have been Adelaide or something. And someone chucked a flare and it caught the top of the stage and was dripping. All this plastic was dripping off the top of the stage.

They stopped the stage was on fire. They stopped the show for like 10 minutes. Someone sprayed a fire extinguisher up from the stage. up to the top and put it out. And then they just carried on, just carried on going. Bonkers. It wouldn't happen nowadays.

Fucking, I mean, yeah, it definitely won't that festival. I think the guy, didn't the guy book a year and then did not pay anyone or some shit? I can't remember. I mean, we were booked on that last one that didn't happen, so we'll get onto that anyway. But, yeah, so that was my first tour. And then while we were out there,

there was a... The fucking Jordan Fish discography. We get in the history. Once that first part's over, it basically gets, we're just settling into just normal. It stopped being exciting, so the rest of it's just normal. But yeah,

this bit is interesting because our album leaked while we were there. So this was my first tour. And obviously I'd been working like three months, four months on this album. And you left Napster running at home, lime wire. I didn't, don't blame me.

It actually was we went to France, like a couple of weeks prior to that, and we were doing like a promo. And I was super paranoid about shit leaking. So I was always giving our management a hard time saying like don't give out CDs and be super careful with streams and all this shit and we got there and one of the kids who was interviewing us it was me and all He had like a CD and he said can you sign this for me and it said It said shadow Moses And I was like what the fuck is this? Like to the guy and he was like oh it's a like a promo album we give out and I was like

We're not meant to be giving out CDs to people like the album's not out for two months And he was like oh it's okay we only give I felt like 10 11 CDs. That's my French accent. Yeah. And I was just going to check that that was French, but we're good. It's French, yeah. Is it bad?

No, it's fine. Okay. Okay. It's definitely French. And I was like, oh, okay, well, 10, 11 CDs, it's not so bad. But can we, can we, like, chase them and get them back? Because obviously, if someone puts it online, then... Who the fuck was doing this?

This is our French press, our French press people in Sony, French. So anyway, we got back. we emailed our management when we're on the Eurostar on the way back we're like this isn't good and they said oh we've just chased it down the 76 CDs have gone out to the press so so then we sent this massive email back to me like our album is going to fucking leak basically because of this how many months before it's supposed to come out or weeks or two months before oh my god so 76 CDs have gone out in Paris two months before and we're like our album's going to fucking leak so two weeks later we're in Australia doing soundwave and the album leak and the album leak online so it's probably about seven seven weeks ahead of release pretty much so way way early it was meant to come out I think it was meant to come out May the 24th oh no I can't remember but anyway it leaked way early and it was just a total fucking nightmare so in the end we we kind of rushed the release early and we put it online it was like we didn't really know what we were doing so we put it online to stream

and then released it early and it still went to number three in the charts which obviously was not was quite good it was more than the band had ever charted before a lot more and i think maybe in hindsight it might have actually helped a little bit in a weird way because it was so different that at first people were like oh is this is this actually their album kind of thing yeah and you might have had people actually who didn't like bring me before who heard the leak one and was like fuck this is actually really sick. I'm going to buy it. Yeah, exactly. And I think the question mark of it, like, is this real or is it fake? Because some people were like, oh, it almost sounds like them, but it sounds so different at the same time. So yeah, it still did well. And then for that whole

first, that whole cycle was just, we had warp tour then, which is where I really not got to know, like, architects, lads in, that was June of that year. So it was only, yeah, good boys. Only like a couple of months after that. That was architects, let, let, live, who else was on that tour? So still touring with heavy bands? I mean, Sampeterna was so fucking heavy

and even, even that's the spirit's got some heavy shit on it. But now, who the fuck? Who the fuck are you going to tour with? What was your last tour? I mean, to be honest, we pretty much just,

we was poppy and, I mean I can't remember to be honest our last American tour was Poppy and and sleeping with sirens Hmm So

So I mean You've got some I mean that's a bit of an old school That's a bit of an old To be honest we That's we're very We tend to kind of avoid Like bands from that walk tour scene for our support

So usually our Usually our bills are quite weird Because we're trying to like do anything but bands from our, what you would call like our original scene. But...

Well, that's what I mean. It just wouldn't make sense now playing stuff of ammo and then you've got fucking, I don't know, some metalcore band supporting. Especially if you're saying, I mean, don't get me wrong,

I'd love to see it, but I don't know. And we still do. I mean, I guess the closest thing, I can't even remember what are. We haven't toured UK for ages as well, so that doesn't help.

We did Fever and Yonika. That was another. one. Fever are kind of heavy-ish. They're not a metal band, but they're like, I don't know what we'd call them, like, punk-ish band. But yeah, I don't think we would tour. I don't think we would probably tour with a metalcore band unless it was like, there's a bunch that Ollie's into, so maybe one of them, maybe one of them. I mean, whatever, it doesn't matter. I think most people who come to our shows are open to whatever, aren't they? You guys still, I mean, it'd have to be. You still pick the support? Is it? And it's like, just whatever you're into, or like, I want

to help this band or a bit of both or people that are friends with. We're still picking supports, partly based on like ticket worth if we're trying to do a venue, which is, you know, there's still venues that we're playing that, you know, are a reach for us, for example. So before anyone takes that out of context, that's how every single band on earth picks a fucking tour. You need to think about who you want to take, but then you also need to think about they need to sell this many tickets.

Just before anyone goes, Yeah, it's a mixture. Jordan Fish says he'll only take a band on tour if they can sell a lot of tickets. Like, because people don't know what happens. To some extent, to some extent it is true that obviously, like, if a band is worth, if you're trying to play a venue that's 15,000 capacity, for example, and their booking agent estimates that we can pull 8,000 tickets, then you have to decide, do we want to, you know,

do we want to play to a half-empty venue? or would we try and fill it out and get another big support? People don't know that. Guaranteed some people listening to this, that will be the first time they know that. Okay, well, they do now. But it's a mixture. Obviously, it's not as simple as that

because there's obviously like there's so many other factors. It's like trying to find, trying to find a bill that all works together and trying to find stuff that complements, like, what we're doing at the time, music-wise or whatever. So, yeah, I mean, it depends. It depends what music we're doing and stuff.

So, yeah, I don't know. It is a tricky one. There's a bunch of bands that we actually supported a day to remember at the end of the, that's the spirit cycle in America. We supported a day to remember, which is the only support tour that we've done. And that was a good, that was a good tour. So they're a band who I'd play with, a day to remember, they're kind of from this, they're a scene band, but I like them.

How good is it, though, when you've been headlining for ages and then you get to do a main support? Oh, it's amazing. We, we supported baby metal last year in Japan. fucking hell it was amazing in it you're on at early you play fuck all there's no pressure

because everyone's there to see the other band and then you can have a couple of drinks maybe even have dinner at a normal fucking time exactly you're in you still get to bed by 1130 brilliant have a shower everything

beautiful yeah it was bonkers and they're quite the whole thing in Japan's very different like their culture was is just weird and amazing compared to what we like in terms of like how they treat foreign bands though it's they do loads of stuff differently so we had like mad production like full

we basically had a production that you could go into like headline wembley arena with they gave us that as a support and they have no reason to do that like we can probably pull 2,000 people in japan we're not big there at all so i think just because we're a bigger band elsewhere they like treat you like with way more way more respect than stuff like that so it's really cool even at our level where we're only doing sort of like 500 kids max in japan but like you'll get there and all your gear is already set up you haven't had to bring anything but someone like in-house has researched your symbol and drum set up and set it all up exactly the way that you do it like that doesn't happen so far i think so i heard

someone telling a story about like that one of them festivals last year someone's like someone's like kick drum was sliding forward as they were playing and one of the one of the one of the in-house guys like laid down in front of it for the whole show to stop it from moving i can believe it the level of in-house sound guy as well because we never take a sound guy with us to japan just try and save some money as you know like mid-level band and uh the the the level of in-house monitor guy is next like they're just amazing attention to detail i i don't think so you have different monitor you have you don't take a monitor guy. Oh no, we are, we are a punk band. We don't have that. How many, what's your crew then?

Two. Uh, we have sound guy, merch guy and photographer who, shout out Gabe, shout out Mikey, shout out Ronnie. Uh, but our photographer sort of turns into a stage manager if things get a little bit hectic. Um, but that's about it. Yeah, we don't. And then do you have any techs? Use tech for yourself? No. Tech for myself. I had, in fact, on our last headline run, I had a drum tech. Shout out Josh. And that was the best thing that's ever fucking happened in my life ever. Yeah, just rock up and play.

It was just, that's the first time it's ever happened. The second time, I filled in for death of Anna for a bit. But that was the first time I've had my own one. Fucking glorious. Yeah, so our crew is like massive, basically, pretty much these days. Especially at the moment. It's since we introduced dancers that a crew's got ridiculously big because there's four of them as well.

And they travel everywhere with us at the moment. How many buses you got? What are you working with? We haven't done a bus tour for ages, but I think last time it was three. Wait, what's above bus tour? I just mean like the last few things we've done have been fly tours. Okay.

Nothing fancy. Like we did Japan and obviously there was no bus. It was just hotels and flights. So the last bus tour we did was America in October like maybe September, October last year. I think it was three at that point. So we have one which is banned pretty much. And I think maybe we had like one of like an assistant on there or something.

There was like seven or eight of us on there. And then then we have one which is like pretty much all of our like actual crew, like our main crew who stay with us all the time. And then there was one which was more like more like people who I don't know kind of thing. like obviously there's like people i guess there's people doing the video walls and staging shit and all that kind of shit the big production shit more the production kind of stuff yeah which so i don't think we always have three i think sometimes we can get into two depending on your current touring guitarist if anyone doesn't know

john jones was in johnny was in viatchery with me back in the day shout out to john jones congratulations John Jones on the birth of his child yesterday. What? I didn't know that. The day before. There you go. You know now. We put it on his Instagram. He's had a baby.

Happy fucking birthday to that little kid. I didn't know that. But yeah, he used to play in Viatchery for the longest time. And then I used to play in a band The Seventh Cross before Viatchfrey with him. And then he was the drum tech for Bring Me Horizon. And then he became the touring guitarist. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

So he was, when I joined the band, JJ was the drum tech. for years. I love JJ. He's a great man, isn't he? Just a fucking. Great guitarist as well. Amazing.

And a great drummer. Oh yeah. Annoying. And he's actually way, he can play piano as well, which is like quite annoying for me because I'm not, obviously I have a piano,

like a keyboard on stage. And like if he comes over and plays on it, he'll like play some like real music. And it's like really embarrassing because obviously I can't play at all. So, and he just shreds. You really are self-deprecating.

No, that's the truth. I can't play piano. It's the actual truth. Right. So that album, that album's out, there's a smash hit. The fans, the fan, I'm setting the scene. The fans are on your side now. Are they? Or are they still, still annoyed? Pretty much. Yeah. I think, pretty much, yeah. I mean, there's some people, there's always some people that just like, you know, don't like the progression or prefer the heavy stuff. I don't really know, to be honest, what the zeitgeist of the fans and how much they like me is so i don't know that most of them probably don't care do you write any lyrics or does

ollie write all the lyrics no hell no i that's not in my allie all he always all the lyrics all he's clever little man isn't he the only thing i would do is like sometimes i'll like say if i think the flow of a lyric could be better like if i feel like it doesn't fit well with the melody we've written and then he'll be like he'll either be like yeah i see what you mean and he'll try and change it find another way to make it work work or he'll be like no i i think that i can deliver that fine and then that's that i think yeah pretty much pretty much just him so usually we'll map out melodies like we'll figure out melodies just with gibberish um and then he'll kind of on at some point he'll be like i've got a bit of an idea

and then just go from there and then we'll try it out and it's kind of a back and forth process but yeah i don't do any lyrics at all all right so i'm still setting the scene all that shit's done you've done that album smash hit you're you're pip no there's no grammy nomination by this point no no no grammy nomination what did we win we might have won a corang award maybe and then you got to do the follow-up the difficult Jordan fish well that cycle finished with our Wembley show that was like the round off for that for the semper-ternal album cycle so we had like our as bands do when they reach that kind of level we had like our one-off big Wembley show just joined a band playing Wembley?

Well, two years. It was a long cycle. So that was like pretty much two years since I started. But yeah, yeah, Wembley, which is a DVD. You can watch that back. So yeah, that was the end of the cycle. Mixed by Ramesh. Excellent mix.

Mixed by Ramesh, who came back to then, obviously, we brought him back eventually to record ammo. He recorded ammo, engineered ammo. Where did you record that? We'll get on to that, but I just remember. Yeah, we'll get there. In L.A. Oh.

flew him out. Great mixer. Yeah, we flew him out. Yeah, great engineer. He's a great dude as well. Yeah, good guy. So, yeah, that finished. Then we just went and we just went and wrote the, right, that's the spirit. So that was two of, we finished that in December and then we wrote and recorded that's the spirit in the first few months of 20, 13, 14, 15, I guess. Anything different? You're swinging that big musical dick by this point? Like, yo, what up? This is what we're doing now?

No, not really. It was just more. maybe a bit more some stuff was beginning more with like synth than would have been on Sempaternal some song ideas but really not much of a difference to be honest it was just Ollie was a much better singer because he'd been singing he'd been performing those songs for a couple of years

so we had that to work with where he was much more capable singer and then yeah I think we just I don't know we had we'd already released Drown as a single and that would been probably our biggest song so we so we kind of bounced off that and we were like right let's keep going and just and we put that on the album in the end that that song doesn't sound like it belongs on that album no it's because it didn't but interesting it was our biggest song so we originally weren't going to put it on that

album and then we kind of thought about it like a single in between yeah it was it was a sing it was a single for wembley it was a single to to help you know we was like oh we need a big song to to play at Wembley. It was weird that whole time because everything we did worked worked out perfectly, which doesn't happen anymore. But like, you know,

it was like, right, we need to write a big arena-y song for Wembley to play at Wembley, and we wrote it in. It was immediately like our biggest song by far. So I think we might have even played it last at Wembley, I'm not sure, but it was just,

it was exactly what we had intended it to be kind of thing. So initially it wasn't meant to be on the album. And then I think at some point during the recording, process. Ollie was like, oh, I think it would be, if you look back on our albums, it'll be a shame if it's not on one of them, because it's such a big song of our band. You know what I mean? So then when I thought about it like that, I thought, well, that's actually true. It would be weird for it just to be a standalone single, but to have never been on an album.

Were you initially like, look, this doesn't fit the vibe? I didn't want it to be on there, and he had not wanted it to be on there either. But it I don't think it doesn't fit the vibe. It's just a bit more emotion. I know what you mean, but at the same time. I'm just saying it's, I always think that album, that song is from Sempaternal. Sem paternal era. It's more in between, isn't it?

I can hear that. I can hear that, yeah, but I'd never actually really thought about it, to be honest. But yeah, I can hear that. Did you re-record it or did you just slap the song on? We did re-record. We recorded the drums and the guitars, and we tried to re-record some vocals, but we couldn't. It was Mike Demoitis. We couldn't get the vibe back.

We do the same thing in between every album. We do a single and then it gets to the album and we're like, it's got to be on the album. But then we try and change something. But then when we change it out of principle... It's not as good. It's not as good. It's that the people that like the original go fucking mental.

Like we had the song The House Always Wins about the 2016 election, obviously, about Hillary Trump. despite what the internet says, our opinion was that we're both fucked either way. And we were like, by the time the next album was coming out, it's like,

well, that's already happened, but the song needs to go on an album. So we got a second verse and we got the rapper Vinnie Pazin to do the second verse and he fucking smashed it. And people went mental like,

oh, you're ruined the fucking song. But it's like, we needed to change, they were mad about it. So mad. And it's maybe my favorite part on the album.

But they can just listen to the other one. Exactly. That one still exists. Yeah. It's not... You can't have that argument with people, can you? Oh, you really can't. The old stuff still existing argument is crazy. Like, people just expect...

Well, hang on, you're not exactly what I want right now. That's... Yeah. I feel personally attacked by that. It's difficult, isn't it? Right, so that's the spirit. You record it very much... So, yeah, we put that on there.

We recorded... We wrote it at Ollie's house in Sheffield, and then we went to Santorini. So they said, where do you want to go to recording? So we just literally... We just googled like the best studios in the world. And that one came up as like the most amazing studio. And it was like, can we go here?

And they said, yeah, okay, we'll just, we'll see how much it is. And it was within the budget or whatever. Because we're on Sony, so the recording budgets are... Go on. You know, well, they're quite high. I guess they're quite high. I don't know. Can you give me a number? I get, or you don't know.

There is no number. That's the thing. There isn't like a... Infinite. That's what I wanted. That's not what I mean. I just mean like, I think if you took the piss, at the end of the day, we've got to pay it back. I've read between the lines. Infinite. Sony, Infinite.

I mean, I could give you a ballpark figure for how much an album cost us, but I don't. Which, we're relatively cheap, to be honest. Santorini, best studio in the world, relatively cheap. Although I guess there's some pop artists that just don't get the fuck. We, this is the thing, okay. We went out there with, there was the, there was the, band our personal trainer which is admittedly a bit of a luxury but he was very cheap at the time and it was good because we were i was not in good shape and i came out of it much better shape

and then we had an engineer that we took out and that was it so seven of us went out to santa rini for two months that was it so which for a band like us is relatively with no other producer on that's the spirit me and ollie produced the album i did all the drum editing i did all the bass and guitar editing. I Compton recorded the vocals. It's all DIY album. So other than the cost of the studio, there was no other peripheral costs for our label. That was it. So, you know, it's, it isn't that much money in the grand scheme of things because we do so much stuff ourselves kind of thing. Yeah. There was no production team. There was no co-writers. There was nothing. It was just us. And really, that was the same with Sempaternal, even though we had Terry Date there. He didn't,

He didn't produce the album in the sense that he made no suggestions on the music whatsoever, not one. I don't think. He just recorded the music. I recorded the vocals with Olli. We did the synths. He recorded the guitars and drums and the bass based on the guide parts that we'd already worked out. And then he gave it all to me.

I put it all together and I gave it to the mixer. And that's the same way we worked. That's the spirit is when we brought Dan Lancaster on board, who's the mixer who we've worked with ever since. So yeah, that was totally diR. I. Album, really, which is quite crazy.

That's the first album I ever produced. That's the spirit. Wow. Yeah. Which is sold over a million albums that record without me to show off.

But I think that's quite fucking mental, really. It's really fucking good. Yeah. Oh, thanks. It's definitely the one where I was like, okay,

I liked songs on 10 paternal, but on that one, and I was like, oh, I like bringing me the horizon. I still feel like some of it's a bit crap when I look. What do you think is crap? There's like some of it, I think, is really good, but there's some songs that aren't not so key. Let's have a fight about your own music. What do you think is crap?

I'm pulling it up. I don't love the song Run, which is like this. It's like that seventh or eighth song where you've like run out of ideas a bit. Do you get them on your albums? I'm really bad at names. You wouldn't remember that song because it's just the like the filler one on that album. It's okay, but it's just a shame. I'm just playing it now. It's not

like that song. No, I like that song. It's got the weird noises at the beginning. I really like that song. Yeah. That's just not my favorite personally. But there's always things you look back on and think. It's got a good vibe though and it's before drown and it's after Avalanche. Nah, it's good. You're wrong. Next. Avalanche is a song I like. Yeah. I don't think there's a bad song on it. Blast for me is pretty old school.

It's got a hint of like a bit of a kind of like what is in you don't like vibe no I don't not like it I'm just saying like it's a bit it's it's is that it's not a vibe

that I would want to put on a song now it's a bit of it's a bit of you got hell to pay yeah yeah yeah exactly

exactly um still good though I don't hate I don't hate it it just has aged compared to what I would think of as our band now

is the weakest one on there, but even then, not even weak. Week is bad. I couldn't fucking write anything that good. I would say that's my least favorite. But like... True friends. I like true friends,

but maybe that one is not my favorite. Oh, hang on. It's got a bit of a bullet for my Valentine vibe. Yeah. It's a bit of an orchestral metal vibe, which is, again, it's one that I wouldn't... I don't want to slag off the album. I love the album.

I mean, you're slacking it off. It's not bad. You're offending me and I didn't even write it. I'm just saying it's not, I don't think it's like fucking, the same with St Paternal. People like, oh, San Paternal, man, it's a flawless record or whatever for our band. Our fans would say that. And like, it's not at all.

There's definitely, there's some really good songs on there. But like, there's definitely some stuff where we didn't, you know, do the best, not the best song ever. But I think it's quite hard to write like 10, 12, 13, like fucking perfect songs. You need some shit songs to make the other one sound better, maybe. Yeah, but they're not shit. say that's that's almost the perfect shitter. Shitter. I'll give you shitter.

Yeah. I'll give you that. Um and that's when Matt fucking stepped up as well. There's some like shit on there that's really hard. In fact, even on ammo, I can't remember what song I was listening to the other day because me and my misses, sometimes we'll get fucked up. We'll listen to Ammo. It's a good getting fucked up album. Um, it is, yeah. It's about what it's good for. So, nah, come on. Don't be like that. There's one. The kick pattern, I was like, I've not seen any live footage of this. But that kick pattern sounds like a fucking pain in the ass.

And it's not even like a double pedal one. It's just a lot of 16th notes. Bumpa-dum-Badum. I can't remember what fucking song it was. One of the singles. One of the ones. I won't know, to be honest. Yeah, but he definitely, I think he just more, his style changed.

Obviously, like, we slowed down a bit. So over the course of those couple of albums, the speed slowed down. So his style just adapted. to the music we were making, I guess. But yeah, definitely he's a sick drummer. Did he write the film in Throne? You know the film. Which Phil? I think you mean Avalanche.

Is it? I thought Throne had the fill with the closed hi-hat in it. Nice little... Uh... Hang on. Is it at the beginning? Hmm. No, it's like in the second verse.

Maybe it's happy song. I don't know. Oh, do you know the... I know that, Phil. Is it a happy, so? I think it might have been a mutual effort, that one. Tiki, diga, diga, it's, um... Degana, do you know, do, do, do, do, do, do, do...

Oh, yeah. It's got a... It's got a... I can't remember it. It goes up onto a closed hi-hat. It's got shades of Craig Reynolds in that, if I say to myself. Yeah, no, I can't, to be honest, I can't remember, but probably. I mean, usually, usually when we're demoing, it'll be like, I'll put,

something in and then he'll be like oh that wouldn't i wouldn't be able to play it like that or it would be more like this and then we'll fit then we'll kind of jiggle it around and then when we get in the studio sometimes they change a little bit more because he's obviously when he's actually playing them they just can't adapt a little bit um so yeah fuck knows i can't remember to be honest sure i just remember so yeah i just remembered i was supposed to do a little side project with lee and nick from dead swans really and there were songs really and there were songs really and and everything. It never came out.

I feel Lee's always doing side projects that don't happen though. Someone else was telling me that they've got a side project with Lee the other day. Do you know Lee went and played in a bunch of clubs around Sheffield with his old function band like last year? Really? Which I didn't even know about. I thought that was quite crazy. He just like went and rocked up and played like Bon Jovi and whatever fuck they play. That's fucking sick.

Obviously no one knew, like there's no one there. So like no one who would know he wasn't bring me their eyes and just went and did like a club tour up. in like working men's clubs up north. I love hearing people in massive bands who are still doing shit just for like the love of it. Yeah, it's pretty cool, isn't it? That makes me wish I could properly play like a shred on instrument because it'd be so cool just to do that.

Just go and do a fucking open mic night. Yeah. Right, so we've established you hate your best album. So we've done that. I don't hate any of our albums, but I just think there's no such thing as a perfect album. They're just different, aren't they? Right.

Anything good from that's the spirit. At this point, get asked to co-produce yet because there must have been millions of people go in come and do that yeah I've had a I've had a after that album I had a few people asking me yeah but it was it was mostly

mostly bands that I wouldn't want to work with anyway go on you want to rinse no no I can't even remember names particularly but there was a bunch of people who asked me to do to do stuff but nothing that I felt like would would be good for me so I just kind of thought I'll just wait and we were so busy touring and stuff and

anyway like so um and also i had a kid towards the end of that cycle so that also changed my yeah changed my perspective a little bit so i try not to take on too much stuff um so yeah that one went to number two so it was like sem paternal was number three in the uk charts and then that one we had that do you remember there was like a chart battle for number one with us and the stereophonics is that what it was they were still banging out albums they were still well enough to enough to enough to to compete with us. Yeah, they still had, and they won.

We were convinced we were going to win. And it was like, it was so weird during the week because it was like dirty tactics, basically throughout the week. From you or from them? They did, they started it.

So it was obvious that they were going to be close. And you know, you get like updates every day. They were like, oh, we think they've done this and you've done this and blah, blah, blah. And we weren't bothered about it to begin with, but within like a day or two,

it was like, you know, we were hooked in kind of thing. It was like, we really want to be, you know, we really want to get that number one. And then they put on, they put on some shows with, like, ticket bundles. Because you're allowed to do, like, shows, aren't you? It's like, you buy a ticket to our, we'll put on a show. Oh, the big pad. The big, kind of, like, so basically it'll be, like 30 quid for a ticket or 31 quid for a ticket plus the album.

So everyone does it. And so everyone gets the album. So it basically allows you to, like, sell a load more albums. So they put on, we were in America. touring and they put on a bunch of shows after like three days they they put on these shows for sale with ticket bundles and obviously we were like oh fuck they're and that's going to put them over us because obviously there's like 5,000 so we were like what do what do we do so we got on to paul ryan who's our agent he was like okay we're going to do a UK tour with five shows um academies

so we just put these we just basically put made a tour in 24 hours um with whatever availability we could for like three months later because you can redeem them as soon as they're redeemed and people get the download it counts as an album sale so even if the tours in six months if you sell the tickets and they get the download they count towards the charts so again every motherfucker does this before anyone goes oh yes it's it's standard I mean I don't know what the rules are nowadays but at that time it was like a standard thing but still happens yeah but anyway it was just like okay they did this and they were going to go ahead so it's like oh fuck we're going to try and do something to like get back to them so we put on this tour and it was like it was like

it was it was how many basically how many tickets can we squeeze out of this thing so we ended up doing a matto we had two shows in birmingham academy a matinee and an evening show Jesus so we had to do we had to do five shows in five days and a double in Birmingham so it was and it was in our only week off of about three months of touring so they basically said you know if we put this in here, you're going to have zero time at home in the next three months. And you're going to have to do six shows in five days just before we go and do like some other horrible run with arenas and stuff. So it was it was basically like if you're doing this, you realize it's going to be fucking horrible. And after the fact, not, we can't do it now.

So it's going to be horrible for you in two months. And obviously we were so keen to get it. We were just like, yeah, put it in. Let's go. We're going to fucking beat them. And yeah, got to the end of the week. and we sold, I think, 44,300 albums in the first week, and they sold 44,600.

They beat us by about 300 albums. Oh, they beat you by the fucking Mamaroos, Birmingham. You could have stuck a third show at 9 p.m. We could have done it. We could have done another matinee, a double matinee, and we could have added them. So, where do you draw the line? If it makes you feel any better, I only really remember. Stereophonics for whatever album came out after performance and cocktails, I bought it the same day

I had my first wank. And I remember after having the first wank that I was feeling all very good about myself. And I was like, I'll just pop this CD on. And it was shit. And it ruined my day. That is such a strange. It's 100% true as well. That's why it's so funny. Strange that you've linked those two things. My first wank. I can't remember my first wank. You can't remember. No, there's no way you can't remember your first wank. I don't need to hear the details, but there's no way no one, that first wank when... No, I can't, I can't remember my first wang.

That's just the truth. I can't remember it. Can't remember it. Maybe I am with. What is your first, what is your first way? The first, you know, the first one with, with the credits. With an ending. Yeah.

Anyway, let's get back on track. Right. So, yeah, we lost by 300 albums. and then, yeah, so that was that. That was that. But obviously two months later, we still had to do these fucking shows. So it was like the most miserable tour ever

because it was like you didn't get the number one album. Now you could be punished for five days and have to do like a matinee. We had to play an hour and a half matinee. We went back, I remember going back to the dressing room after like that show. And you know how you feel after a show? Yeah.

And it's just like you're fucking exhausted. And it was like, right, half an hour. We're going back on stage again. They just turned the venue round. I had to do it all again. It was just mental. I wonder if it's... By that point, it was all for nothing.

We did that. We've done that twice, I think, two shows and one day. And I think both times they were at Hamburg Logo, which is my least favorite venue in Europe. There's no backstage. The stage is shit. The shows are always great, but there's nothing around.

And a matinee show and then an evening show. And I think it might be the only time I've ever played drunk, because I was like... Why did you... Why did you do a matinee? Because it was under 18s and over 18s, wasn't it? I think it was actually they sold. No, it wasn't like an Australia thing.

Fuck, yeah, I have done matinees in Australia. But it would know, it was, I think the tickets sold far too fast. And there wasn't a choice to upgrade. Yeah, so they just doubled up. Oh, must be nice. Sold too many tickets. Let me ruin my day. Right.

So you've done, that's a spirit. That's done. anything good after that or you go straight into ammo? We had a break after that because I'd had a kid and we'd gone straight from Sempaternal into that's the spirit so it'd really been like four or five years non-stop without being home for other than at Christmas without being home for a big chunk of time

so we had like three months off I did the mount, I climbed up Kilimanjaro for charity you and Olly me and Olly in that period yeah before we'd got started and then and then we started on ammo so yeah and that was that was a long time ago what the the Kilimanjaro it was the 19th of October 2017 so hang on so you spent three years writing that album no two years writing that album I guess that's normal isn't it two years writing it no we tour for we toured both those albums for two years non-stop we didn't

write while we were touring we were just we were just touring okay right and then We really used to like tour and then write. You know what I mean? It was like, right, we finished the cycle. Now let's start writing, which we don't really do now. We're kind of constantly writing. But yeah, before previously we'd kind of like sit down and be like, right, let's start writing. It was kind of a bit of a different process.

So yeah, we finished that cycle, had three months off, did Kilimanjaro and all that shit. And then after Christmas we kind of, or over Christmas, we got back into it. and we wrote through till i think and then i think we ended up going to america in may may june um to record it so we did that in l a we wrote it in sheffield and then we carried on writing it and finished recording it in in in 2018 so that was another two months we lived in l.a for and this is sort of the one where you got the pop the pop fans the pop side on you're a pop rock band now i'm afraid Yeah, well, I don't know, maybe a bit.

I mean, it's good. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but you could be... Some of it has no thing that would let anyone know that there's a rock band in there. Yeah, I guess so. In a good way, I'm not saying it's bad. There's a lot of, like... I would say there's a lot of, like, almost like, prodigy vibe to it. You know, the way that prodigy were never really considered a rock or a dance or a pop band,

were simultaneously. Yeah, they just had bits of guitars and stuff, yeah. So I guess it was, yeah, that one's probably our most, our most out there album in terms of, like, varied styles. And it's not very rock. I think we kind of avoided trying to do anything that we'd done with regards to, like, rockiness on purpose. I don't know why.

I just, I think we were just so fed up with, we were just so fed up with what we've been doing that we just felt like we wanted to do something, try and do something completely different. so I don't know why it was probably the worst idea ever but we just felt like we wanted to try and push ourselves to do something that felt completely different so every song come out quite different because of that so yeah I mean I actually think it's probably our best album but in some ways but it's definitely our most like divisive for sure did you get backlash

yes yeah definitely that was probably the only time I've ever had backlash from music we've put out that's actually like hurt me. Really? Anything stick out? A little bit, yeah. We got, around the time we've released Medicine, which is probably the most pop-rocky song on the album.

We got a lot, a lot of, I got a lot of, I got a lot of, I just looked at it and I was so excited to release it. We'd put so much work into it that I was just like open to getting hurt by the comments kind of thing, I think, just because I'd got myself so excited. and we went we went to radio it was me and nichols went to radio one to do the the the annie mac promo and yeah i just remember like i was super buzzed out about it and then just like obviously a lot of a lot of people saying not a lot but i mean

enough for me to see the comments kind of like and yeah it's just i was just like i'd worked so hard on the album and everyone had it was just like oh god what's the point you know I mean. It just kind of gave me that feeling of like of, uh, just overwhelming depressed. To be honest, I was actually a little depressed after that for, for a little while. I had to, I had to see someone. There's no shame in that, mate. For a couple of, a couple of, couple, couple, yeah, I'd never had that before and, like, having to actually talk to someone to try and, like, get myself out of the, like, feeling of, like, not wanting to get out of bed. It's quite a weird feeling. Especially if you haven't experienced it

until like your 30s you're like wait no i i i'm never some people deal with this all the time yeah i think it was just overwhelming i'd put so much pressure on myself and worked so hard and then to have it like hit me in the face that hard after after really putting that much into it i was just like yeah but from who from fucking shit eds i know it's dickler we had it when we released the song that was like so politically divisive that all the comments from the other side of politics went psycho and even though they're people I would never want to listen to my music anyway, when you read like 10,000 of the comments, you can't help but just lose a bit of whatever is keeping your brain going.

Well, after that, I sort of changed my, it kind of put a bit more of a, I put a bit more of a divide between myself and the fans of the band, I would say, which is the only downside, I guess, of that is like I definitely don't feel like I have. any kind of connection to our fan base in the way that I did before. Like I definitely, before I felt like, you fucked it. I mean, I don't care. You've got it. I don't think it means anything to anyone, but I definitely don't feel like no one could

say anything that would hurt me now. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I don't care what they think. Whereas before that I'd been, yeah, you get a thick skin. Whereas before that I'd been, I'd allowed myself to be so open to like what people's opinions were and stuff that obviously like I left myself susceptible to. that and after that I realized like I can't ever let this happen again because I don't want to

get out of bed and I've got children yeah you know what I mean that's like I've got too much I've got too many important things to worry about them to be bothered about what some kid thinks about the music I'm making well that video is good as well isn't it which one medicine video the fucking CGI shit oh the extra wet guy yeah he's so cool that shit's crazy have you seen his Instagram page the guy who made it all right it's literally like his style of video is just that. That's what he does. It's like heads that blow up and suck in and come out of toothpaste and little bodies that all fall into each other and shit. That's like his style. He's a German dude. So did like Ollie find that guy and then be like,

yeah, Ollie found him and said, I want this guy to do a video. I kind of love how hand, like finding out how hands on he is with shit. I would imagine sometimes. Very hands on. And then the singer just goes, well, I'm the singer. So I'll just do. Our band is like super DIY and that's the weirdest thing about our band. So like we've got a song coming out in, well, I mean it's meant to be coming out in three, four days. So we recorded that ourselves. He's done the video. He's done the video guy.

He's like our tour video guy. He kind of works with us all the time. But self-directed. He's cut it himself on Adobe or Final Cut whatever he uses. Wait, it comes out in four days. It's just common knowledge. Yeah. I think he, Ollie's come out and said the song's coming out.

I don't think anyone knows that we've done a video. Is this the shit that you've been doing those videos for where you're like writing? What is that shit? Yeah, exactly. You're like doing FaceTime writing sessions. Yeah, exactly. So that was us writing this song. So we've made this song over, you know, Skype effectively.

So that's coming out in like three or four days. Unless we push it, we're still kind of debating whether it's appropriate to even release a right now with everything that's going on. So if we push it back, it gets pushed back, but we'll see. You know, I think we're going to judge it on Monday and see, it's really hard, isn't it, to know what, you know, what to do kind of thing. So, without wanting to get into it. I mean, this is going to come out way after this.

Yeah. Hopefully your song will already be out then, won't it? Was it called? If anyone hasn't changed it out. It's called Parasite Eve. Parasite Eve. There you go. Yeah.

And it's going to be really great. It is a good one, I have to say. I'll send it to you if you want. Please. I love that. I like, I forgot I got ammo really early as well. You're allowed to say that? In fact, you're not allowed to say that.

I think, no, it already leaked when you sent it to me. But I had a story about leaking, actually. But when you said the thing about, um, sent paternal leaking, I have a friend who's a producer. And he sent, I mean, I might be wrong, but I'm not going to name any names anyway. but he sent the guitarist of a band one of the mixes from the album they were working on what he was mixing their album

the guitarist then accidentally leaked that song and then the label sued the producer for sending it to the guitarist for quote unquote loss of earnings and he had to settle it out of court Blimey. Fucking bunch of cunts. Cunt snakes.

It doesn't sound possible, does it? But it does. At the top, the vermin that runs some of the record labels, you know who you are, you fucking wankers. Anyway, that's a bit much. Shout to Sony. Sony, UK. No, they're nice, aren't they? Represent. They're nice, people.

Nah, none of them are nice. Whoa! Fuck. They're all terrible people. I suppose you're big enough that you could just fucking, you just rinse. No, they could drop us. No, I'm only joking. I're a label actually brilliant. I hate to say it because I feel like really corporate saying that they're actually really good label same of us they are that's

that's another that's another thing people don't believe people often think that like our record label have something to do with our band in terms of like in terms of anything anything they don't have they do loads of stuff for us but in terms of like the direction of any element of our band they don't they have no pretty much ollie says this is what we're going to do for a video here's what we're going to do for here's you know or we'll give we'll give them an album like they didn't hear ammo until they haven't heard any of the three albums we've done until they were basically finished and other than I think maybe one of them or two of them have voiced an opinion on like what they think the single should be they maybe say oh we think that one should probably be the second single

instead of the third and that kind of feedback I don't know I don't give a shit they're all our songs like I don't find that offensive at all well you're fucking you're still punk rock you're still doing it DIY you've gone all muffled it's because and I can hear myself back hang on what's happening is my AirPods are running out of battery, so we're actually probably going to have to fucking... Call it soon. I mean, yeah, we're going to... It's long...

To be fair, it's been an hour and a half, isn't it? It's been an hour and a half, which is actually longer than most episodes by the time I've done some waffling at the beginning. So unless you've got any... Well, let's wind. Where do we get to, then? Let's wind up, then. Ammo's come out.

Pretty much. Ammo's come out. Blah, blah, blah, blah. An album that wasn't... Perfect Circle won the Grammy. Very disappointed. It makes with Forrest Whitaker. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Have a mates with Forest Whitaker, yeah. And that's it, really. That's about it. That's about where we finish. And then new material now, so we're going to do, we're not going to do albums anymore next. We're going to do a series of EPs starting with, I think so.

We're going to do like a sort of six, seven or eight track, almost like a mini album, but we're going to try and do a series of them that are all connected. Is that announced? No. Are you going to get in trouble for that? because that will no because we've said

as much already Ollie's already said we're not going to do albums we're going to do EP's but we haven't exactly and then this can all change as well we're still figuring it out because obviously like

we don't really know but I definitely know that we're doing an EP soon that's because we've written half of it so what's your how are you doing this

face time writing because I've seen the videos like do you have a specific app you're using or you just stick your FaceTime on so what we do is I use this thing called audio movers, which is like an app that it's like a plugin that I put on Pro Tools and then it

streams to Chrome or to another like DAW and Ollie can listen to the high quality like a high quality MP3 stream as we're working. And then yeah pretty much he'll like sit with his like headphones on and he's got his mic there as well and then he'll like write stuff down like lyrics or and he'll tell me what to do I'll play stuff back because a lot of the time when we work Like he's not doing anything hands-on. He's just listening and I'm making and he'll be like, yeah, no. So to be honest, it's not really any different. Like, he's mostly just listening and trying to assess from like more of a background position.

And I'm like hands-on trying to make chords and be like, what do you think of this? What do you think of this? So in terms of that process, it hasn't actually made that much of a difference. That's fucking cool. But I have him on FaceTime as well, so we can still see each other. So I've got so used to it now that it doesn't feel that weird, which is kind of crazy. So I think to some extent we'll probably carry on with it because it allows us to do like small sessions

without me being away from the kids and shit. So yeah, it's cool. And it's worked. He records himself. So I play the music down. He records with a road fucking NT2A. No, that's a, that's a noeman. Oh, right.

You shouldn't have the logo. It's my mic, so. All right, why has he got, I was literally, when I saw it, I was like, that can't be a road mic. You're like one of the biggest singers in fucking any band. on earth and that looks like a road. Well it was because when we were there last time it was like the lockdown was beginning. So I kind of like left my interface and all my shit set up there so that knowing that basically

the only recording we're going to have to do is him. Because obviously the rest of the shit I can do with either DIs or just like MIDI. So it was like, okay, I'll leave this here, set you up. And then he just figured out how to record himself. He records himself on logic, I think. And then he dumps them into Dropbox for me, the audio files. I drag them into Pro Tools, comp them up, and then make a take,

and it's like sweet. That's how me and Tom write stray stuff at the moment as well, the drop box thing. But the annoying thing is, we both use logic, so what happens is if he's recording guitar, obviously all the little tiny takes he makes, my drop box will go,

Thomas changed 1,085 files. My Dropbox is like... Oh, so have you got the session in there, then, in the drop box? See, we don't do that. We just literally, like, he'll make a long audio file and drop the whole thing in,

not imported. Interesting. So we're not sharing a session. Probably sharing a session would be a better way to work. Accidentally deleting and it's actually a nightmare. So just stick to what you do.

I don't want to be responsible for your destroying the Horizon EP. Let's call it unless you've got anything to say. That's it. That's all I got to say. It's been wonderful. Yeah, thanks very much. We should do it around too.

I feel like I've got more to talk about. I feel like you do as well. There's a lot of Newbury, scene history. What we're going to do? Silosis. In person. We could do one in person

talk about Josh from silos. We could talk about Josh from silos all day. Or exit 10. I feel like there's a lot to talk about. We're not doing that now. We'll do that in the next one. The next one will be far more mating. It's like a nice beer or coffee or whatever.

I'm doing little teasers. There's like a cliffhanger. In the next one it's going to be talking about cellar bar. Old bands that you don't give a fuck about. Face bar. Exit 10. Silosis. Who else?

No made sense. No made sense. Right, fuck off. This is fine. This is done. I'm running out of Bali. This has been emotional. I've really enjoyed it.

It's been nice to catch up. Send me your file. Thanks very much. Don't delete it. I'll see you later, mate. I won't. I won't. Bye.