Oli Sykes Reveals Exact Reason BMTH Split With Jordan Fish

Bring Me the Horizon's Oli Sykes has opened up, sharing more of the specifics of why the band and keyboardist Jordan Fish went their separate ways.

In a previous interview with Revolver, Sykes chalked it up to "personal reasons within the band" and that "things weren't good last year as a unit," but in a new chat with NME the singer got into more specifics as to where the divide started to take place.

What Was at the Center of Bring Me the Horizon's Split With Jordan Fish?

In a more detailed explanation of their split, Sykes revealed that one of the biggest issues came to their divergent approaches to working on the music. A few years back, Bring Me the Horizon had envisioned a four-part EP series under the Post Human banner that initially was meant to spread out over a year, but after issuing the first part, the second part kept getting pushed back further.

“I know that a lot of the time we were spoken about as a duo,” Sykes recalled of his creative partnership with Fish. “Where we started to break off was the fact that after Survival Horror, I started to think about and address the way we were being.”

“It was all a part of not stopping, and that fear of, ‘If we stop, we’re going to drop off, the band’s not going to be big any more, someone’s going to take over, someone’s going to be bigger and better than us,’" says Sykes.

“At some point, you’ve got to accept that this is how big your band are. You’ve also got to ask yourself how much do you want to do to earn that extra [popularity]. Do you really want to go on TikTok and do all the dances? Do you want to be killing yourself in the studio every day when you don’t even want to write music just out of that fear?,” he questioned.

The drive to continually push ahead is where the breakdown started to occur.

“There’s a finite amount of success out there. We’d got into a mindset together that I was trying to move away from, but Jordan couldn’t to some degree,” posited Sykes.

Bring Me a Change in Atmosphere

Speaking about where things were before and after the split with Fish, Sykes notes a difference. According to the singer he was "so miserable" and wanted to "go back and live a normal life" in the early stages of their most recent record and the push to always be working on it.

“What I realized after Jordan left was that the atmosphere got better," says the singer. "I asked myself how I could have got to the point of fucking hating the record when I love making music, creating and art. I do it for fun. If I’m not making music, I’ll write a story, I’ll draw, I’ll make a T-shirt for Drop Dead or whatever. I love that. How did it get so bad that I said I want it over with? I realized after that without Jordan it was going way slower.”

Post-Split Reflection

Reiterating his comments from his Revolver interview, Sykes noted that the split did not occur out of animosity between he and Fish.

“I’m not going to sit here and go, ‘Oh, it was just creative differences and we wish him the best and we’re all on good terms, and blah, blah, blah’. It’s never like that,” he explained. “Just like all breakups – they never end. Even the most amicable ones. There’s a split. It’s also very boring. There’s no headline there.”

“He served our band really well, and the band wouldn’t be where we are without him. I don’t think I’d be able to sing. He was an agent in that and helped me do that," Sykes added, complimenting his former creative partner. "I’ve learned so much from him. I think he’s learned a lot from me. I’m sure one day we’ll see each other again and we’ll talk. Nothing’s happened where it couldn’t be sorted out over a drink. That’s that. We just got to a point where we weren’t happy as a unit anymore.”

Bring Me the Horizon in 2024

Bring Me the Horizon have a new album to promote, with Post Human: NeX GEn out now. The group just kicked off their summer tour June 8 in Gdansk, Poland with shows booked through July 26 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

They also have dates at Summer Sonic in Japan in August and a late November performance in Brazil. All dates and ticketing information can be found at their website.