Oli Sykes says Arctic Monkeys ‘have always inspired’ Bring Me The Horizon and recalls meeting Alex Turner

The frontman went to school with the fellow Sheffield band

Oli Sykes has praised Arctic Monkeys‘ latest album and said the band “have always inspired” Bring Me The Horizon.

The Alex Turner-led group released their sixth record ‘Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino‘ in May. In a four-star review, NME said: “This is the Arctic Monkeys like you’ve never heard them before. If you’re here looking for banging festival-sized anthems, you’ll be sorely let down.”

Appearing BBC Radio 1 earlier today (August 21), Sykes discussed his own band’s forthcoming and “different” new record. “It’s always the best stuff you don’t get right away,” he explained. “You’re like, ‘Oh no, this ain’t right, this isn’t them. This isn’t what I know.’ And then after a week or two, or even a month, you realise, ‘Oh this is amazing’, and it’s not that it’s better than the thing that came before, but it’s different.”

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That led DJ Annie Mac to ask the frontman if he liked Arctic Monkeys’ new album. Sykes replied: “Yeah, I do. Arctic Monkeys are actually one of my favourite bands going, which is really weird cos I went to school and college with them.”

He continued, recalling meeting Turner backstage at a festival last summer. “He actually remembered me from school,” he said. “He was like, ‘Yo, yo, I’ve been waiting for ages to meet you.’ I were like, ‘No way you remember me.’ It was really cool cos I was like, ‘This is weird, I’m inside fanboying but I shouldn’t be cos I know this guy. I went to school with him.”

Sykes added that he “really admired” Arctic Monkeys and praised them for constantly pushing their sound forward. “You know for a fact that, whatever the next album’s going to be, it’s not going to be the same as the last one,” he said.

“I just think that’s so cool. This one’s a bit more of maybe a passion project and it hasn’t got the hits like the last one [2013’s ‘AM’]. I love everything he says and I love how he always pushes that box out and [makes you go], ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe he’s said or done something like that.’ He just always surprises you.”

The star added that that attitude had inspired Bring Me The Horizon, although not on their new material because they had “already done a lot of stuff before that came out.

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“But they’ve always inspired us because they don’t really care what they’re big for,” Sykes said. “They could always come out with a new album and do the same thing, and it’d be fine. But they always go, ‘You know what, we’re doing this.’ I feel like that’s lacking music at the moment, to be honest.”

Bring Me The Horizon returned with their new single ‘Mantra’ today after weeks of teasing fans with mysterious billboards and cryptic phone messages.

Meanwhile, Avenged Sevenfold‘s M Shadows has said he believes the Sheffield rock band can step up to headline festivals in the near future. Speaking to NME, he said: “I think they’re a band that has a deep connection with the UK audience and I see it. We travel the world and we see how these bands are bigger in some places and smaller in others. I think Bring me the Horizon does it right in the UK and always play hard to whatever audience is in front of them. They’ve got the songs.”

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