Oli Sykes: "I think there's more diversity in rock music now"

A chance for the band to embrace a path they’ve woven by sticking to their guns, for vocalist Oli Sykes, it’s also a chance to check in on just how they found themselves on the Mediterranean Island surrounded by a bunch of peers – new and old – and 6000+ diehard fans. It’s down in the cavernous, subterranean stables on the final day that I get to talk with vocalist Sykes. Tucked away in a small space, while injury-recovering drummer Matt Nicholls is ratting and tatting on his practice pad, after a night delivering his band’s greatest hits, Sykes is in good spirits.

Tonight they’ll dig deep into their back catalogue. Triumphantly pulling out cuts that haven’t seen the light of day for 15-plus years, including a little help from names across the lineup including Static Dress’ Ollie Appleyard for “Alligator Blood” and metal newcomers Spiritbox’s Courtney LaPlanet for a crushing version of their second album staple “Chelsea Smile”. It’s a resounding end to a weekend that promises to only be bigger in the future, much like the band itself.

OLI SYKES: It’s kind of surreal

Yeah, just the whole thing, man. I’ve just been hanging around the city and you see moshers and rockers everywhere in what feels so out of their natural habitat

I mean, for me, it's not so bad because I've just got to remember the lines, and just make sure I scream. The hardest part is for Matt, he broke his wrist playing football like a month and a half ago so he's not been able to practice – he couldn't even drum until about a couple of weeks ago. And obviously, we haven't played them in so long...we're having to remember the set that we've been doing, and then all the songs that we haven't played in like 15 years so it's been a lot on him. We wrote a lot of these songs when we were kids. And some of it's just mental, like the drumming, and the guitars...a lot of it is just like, we were just blagging at the time, but now it's like how the hell do we do this bit?! It should be fun.

I mean, it's been cool. I’ve been watching in rehearsal, just standing back a lot because I've just been like, I'm not going to blow my voice out doing these songs. I'm just gonna do bits and bobs, remember how it goes, so I've just been sat back a lot, watchin'. It's actually given me a new appreciation for a lot of it because we've always felt that we've improved our songwriting on every album over time so we don't give those records a lot of credit. But watching it it’s technical stuff that I'm like, wow, we were doing some mad shit back then so it's been cool. And I know it brings a lot of happiness to a lot of people, and people are so excited to hear these songs which makes me more excited about it as well.

With our first album that was the thing – we didn't have any ambitions or goals. We weren't really even...it's not that we weren't taking it seriously but there was no goal or place we wanted...I mean, apart from going on tour and playing shows. We really did just take the piss. We went to Birmingham to record that album – Count Your Blessings – and we just got drunk and partied every night, and then we'd turn up to the studio. It weren't until the record after where we started to take it seriously because we started to get some momentum. It was like, wow, if we actually try maybe this could be good. I don't think we even thought it were gonna be our job, do you know what I mean? I'm not sure what we thought. So it is just funny to look back on it all like, wow, like, how's it gone from that to what we're doing now? How have we managed to get to this point?

Our band was so polarising when we started it was like...I don't know if a chip on our shoulder's the best way to describe it, but we've always had this mentality that we always still feel like we're hated even though we get to do things like this, like seeing the community, seeing people parting with a lot of hard earned money to come over and see our band and be here. It's like yes, they still back our band, and we actually have fans?! I know it sounds stupid – obviously we have fans – but stuff like that makes it so there's no part of your brain – [especially] that negative part of your brain – that could really argue with that, that there are these people here because of our band, it's really cool.

That was what propelled us, and I think it's really good because we've never felt safe. We've never gone 'Oh we're big now we can sit back and can take a couple of years off and can chill'. You know, we don't have to. We've never had that, we're always like ‘No, we've got to be better, we got to do better, we got to do this and that.’ I mean, it is good. But also at some point, you've got to stand back and go, ‘No, this is good.’ Because otherwise you'll just kill yourself. If you never like, what, you'll just carry on driving and driving and you'll never be able to go…

I should be doing it, and I am doing that way more. But in my head, I'm like, ‘Okay, I'll stop when I'm...not stop but I'll chill out when I'm 40.' Like, the band will be big enough then that I can have kids or whatever. Like, that's my mentality where it's always pushing towards something else, that's when we'll be safe. When we're headlining this festival, or doing that, we'll be safe that but I'm learning to be like, 'No, you're you safe now. Like this is...you're doing alright.

Fairly recently. I think it came with a change in my attitudes after lockdown and the quarantine because like for a lot of people, what you did for a living and what was normal just went out the window. I think I struggled a bit with an identity crisis and who am I? I put so much stock into it I didn't even realise because I always felt like...not that I slightly resented being in a band or anything, but like we toured so much – we did so much – that I used to look forward to going home. So I always used to feel like someone who wasn't obsessed with their job.

I would always love being at home but that was because we were so busy that it was actually a break. But when it was all taken away from me I realised that I really did love it, like touring and all that stuff. It made me appreciate how good that is and how much I do love it. But also it made me realise that I was putting too much of my self worth or whatever into the band. For me it were like if our streaming was really good on Spotify, I'd feel good, or all statistics, shows – yeah, gratification – I were getting all that from just that world and not enough from anywhere else, not anything personal or from reality. So that were a massive thing through lockdown, it's like, 'Who am I…what am I’ you know?

So I spent that time rewiring the way I thought, realising that I've got to stop taking gratification because if it's all [from] there, and it goes, like events or albums slow down, or we're not big anymore or whatever I'm going to be depressed. It's very similar to just the world in general, and how the world works. When it works, when we're all spending money and going to our jobs and working and doing the way we've kind of made our society work – it works. But as soon as there's a little spiral....and that was my life. So yeah, when we got back on tour after the pandemic I would really stand back and go, ‘This is amazing', and I should just appreciate it for what it is and stop worrying about the next thing all the time.

And I'm making the music I love and people are here to see it and they’re willing to travel across the ocean and stuff like that is enough.

In some aspects it feels very similar I think because when our band was coming up, and it was there was so many rock bands, and there were a lot of different stuff in that. I think there's more diversity now. And I think the spectrum's bigger of what people classify as rock, which I think is really good, because I think it was quite fractured before. And I think there's not enough rock bands that do that anymore. But I think that's a great thing. Because I think if you like rock music, you should be open to it all. I'm just seeing a lot of different things.

You see like the other day Halsey complaining about the way it is....for young bands, she's not lying, it is true. My wife has just started making music, and she's going through this very same thing where it's like, the label, want you to be like an actor as well as a musician and you have to embrace it because it's tough shit, like, they're not gonna stop. And at the same time it is frustrating, because no one really knows what makes that work. So they're just going 'Oh, just do summat like what fuckin' Gayle's done,’ but that rarely works. It’s just them going, 'we need you to post a video on Tik Tok everyday' and I feel like it's quite draining artistically for a person who just wants to make music unless it's something that comes naturally to them.

Yeah, for sure. And I think there is a new set of challenges but again, I think that in time dividers I think people get caught it's getting so sick that you got to kind of make a choice right? Right. Do I want to do that play that game because the thing about all that is didn't always convert into actual fans are gonna come to your shows and stuff. He's gonna have like a massive viral hit. And it's like I think at some point is gonna have to go well, no, I'm not doing that. I want to I want to build a fan base and I'm willing to be a bit smaller, but maybe that would get me because I don't really want to play that game. And I think that's why there is enough to make a decision. For sure. Yeah. Awesome.