Bring Me The Horizon

Prior to their performance at Qudos Bank Arena tomorrow night City Hub sat down with Bring Me The Horizon bassist Matt Kean. We spoke about the UK band’s goals and intentions for this tour, as well as their recently released record amo.

“We’re hoping to be the gateway band for a lot of people [to discover heavy rock music]” explained Kean. The group is hoping to do this both with their updated live show and the new record, which sees them breaking many genre boundaries. This direction began to manifest itself for the band naturally said Kean, “We didn’t sit down thinking we needed to write a specific album, it just came naturally. The big influences on the album were the things we grew up listening to, whether that was dance music or pop or rock.”

The new direction the band took with this record was to make their “sound a little more appealing to a mainstream audience whilst keeping the roots” of what got them to this point. In order to do just that the group looked towards electronic dance music and other pioneering bands of this style.

“There is a huge crossover [between rock and dance music], which started in the 90s with bands like The Prodigy,” explained Kean before adding, “Growing up in the UK you were surrounded by dance music, even if you were into rock, so it was fairly natural for us to incorporate those elements.”

The band wanted to explore this direction because they believe that, “There’s definitely an appeal in heavy rock music for people who enjoy the music at the heavy end of the EDM scene.”

Obviously, this new direction is finding an audience as the album quickly surpassed one million streams, and also received a Grammy Award nomination. Something which came as a significant shock for Kean and the band. 

“We’re just five kids from Sheffield who started a band when we were 17 or 18 years of age. We never even thought we’d play outside of the UK when we first started so it’s all been beyond even our wildest dreams.”

The group looks to continue to live out their dreams tomorrow with their performance in Sydney. For this tour, the group has reworked the production and setlist, which has refreshed the live performance aspect for the band members.

Whilst you may immediately think they’ve added elements to the live show Kean was quick to point that they have in fact done the complete opposite.

“To be honest we’ve actually taken stuff away compared to our last tour because we wanted to make it a little bit more organic. You guys have not seen this show before, we mix in the new songs with some of the old classics to create a really varied set list that is a really cool experience for people who come and see us.”

Apr 12. Qudos Band Arena, 19 Edwin Flack Ave, Sydney Olympic Park. $99.90-$119.90+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.bmthofficial.com