{"id":754827,"date":"2026-07-10T14:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T14:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/754827\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T14:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T14:56:12","slug":"bring-me-the-horizon-the-story-behind-count-your-blessings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/754827\/","title":{"rendered":"Bring Me The Horizon: the story behind Count Your Blessings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oli Sykes has his head in his hands. A couple of weeks ago, the Bring Me The Horizon<\/a> frontman uploaded a video to Instagram. It showed him re-recording the death growls of Pray For Plagues, the opening track from the band\u2019s 2006 debut album, Count Your Blessings.<\/p>\n

The accompanying caption read: \u2018Took me a minute to work out how to do some of this shit again.\u2019 The pile-on in the comments was immediate.<\/p>\n

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\u201cInstantly, it\u2019s like, \u2018Fucking hell, his technique is awful. What\u2019s he doing? Why is he doing that?\u2019\u201d Oli groans today.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

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He left a comment trying to explain \u2013 it was an inhale approach he\u2019d used sparingly on the original album \u2013 but it only fed the algorithm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t go on Instagram much, but when I do now, I guess because I\u2019ve engaged with it, it\u2019s all these rock blogs: \u2018Oli Sykes comes back at the fans,\u2019\u201d he despairs. \u201cI hate it. It makes my stomach drop…\u201d<\/p>\n

Bring Me The Horizon are no strangers to hate. The clip Oli uploaded was part of an announcement that the band had re-recorded Count Your Blessings and would be releasing it under the name Count Your Blessings | Repented, as well as playing the album in full for the first time ever at two gigs in Manchester in July.<\/p>\n

Under-produced, juvenile and messy in its embrace of deathcore, Count Your Blessings captured the young band \u2013 Oli was just 19 \u2013 at their most raw and disruptive. It immediately won the hearts of thousands of scene kids on MySpace, the nascent social media site that launched countless alternative bands in the mid-00s \u2013 even though metal\u2019s old guard tried hard to keep Bring Me from getting through the gates.<\/p>\n

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Since then, Bring Me have released six more albums, evolving dramatically by bringing in metalcore<\/a>, melodeath and electronics, and \u2013 especially with 2013\u2019s seminal Sempiternal<\/a> \u2013 creating a blueprint for modern metal in the process.<\/p>\n

Today, the Oli Sykes who greets us over a Zoom call is the leader of one of the biggest heavy bands in the world. He\u2019s dressed in an olive check shirt, his bleached, ice-blond hair buzzed short enough to show off the string of tattoos across his forehead. He\u2019s dialling in from backstage at the Bell Centre in Montreal, where Bring Me are two days into their North America tour \u2013 which includes a sold-out show at iconic New York venue Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is, unfortunately, part of the lore and what Bring Me is now,\u201d Oli says of the heated conversations in the comments. \u201cThere\u2019s forever going to be arguments about which the best era is, which the best album is, if we\u2019re better now, or if we dropped off after Count Your Blessings\u2026 that\u2019s going to be there until the end of our band\u2019s career. You have to accept that it\u2019s all just passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d logged into MySpace in 2004, you might have come across the profile of budding frontman Oli Sykes. He liked American deathcore bands such as All Shall Perish and As I Lay Dying, had a thick, sweeping black fringe with blond and brown streaks hanging down past his ears, and was dedicated to maintaining his own page and that of his band, Bring Me The Horizon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was an HTML wizard,\u201d he explains today, speaking in a soft, serious Sheffield drawl, undimmed despite the fact he\u2019s lived in Brazil for the last five years, with his wife, model Alissa Salls \u2013 their twins Grey and Z\u00e9lia arrived last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did all the Bring Me MySpace stuff. I\u2019d learn how to steal the code from other bands or artists and then change the images, so I was a real little nerd and proper into it on there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first social media platform to gain significant cultural traction, combining music and alternative fashion, MySpace had none of the polish of Facebook or anything else that would take hold later, and featured cluttered backgrounds and autoplaying songs. Crucially, it was easy to upload demos so that anyone, anywhere could hear them. Bring Me regularly played local shows, but this was exposure on a new level.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s forever going to be arguments about if we dropped off after Count Your Blessings<\/p>\n

Oli Sykes<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did all these terrible-sounding demos where we recorded the vocals in the bathroom,\u201d Oli explains. \u201cWe did all the clich\u00e9d things that someone who hasn\u2019t got a clue about making music does! Suddenly, this music were going across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

They signed to UK label Visible Noise, and in 2006 went into Birmingham\u2019s DEP International Studios with producer Dan Sprigg (Napalm Death<\/a>, Cradle Of Filth) to record Count Your Blessings. Splicing Oli\u2019s love of US hardcore and screamo with guitarists Lee Malia and Curtis Ward\u2019s passion for death metal, thrash<\/a> and trad, by their own admission, there was little in the way of a grand vision for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have much ambition outside wanting to make an album where our friends would come to the shows and mosh,\u201d admits Oli. \u201cWe struggled to get 10 songs on that record. That\u2019s why there\u2019s two interludes on there.\u201d<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t overthinking the lyrics, either. For Stevie Wonder\u2019s Eyes Only (Braille) features the line: \u2018It\u2019s 3.18, mouth tastes like the corpse of every pregnant teen.\u2019 In (I Used To Make Out With) Medusa, Oli sings: \u2018Oh, your beauty is no, no more \/ So why don\u2019t you just fuck yourself, you stupid fucking whore?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess at the time we were inspired by bands like Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation. So it was just, \u2018What\u2019s the most evil, fucked-up thing we can say?\u2019\u201d Oli explains of the lyrics generally. \u201cBut [revisiting them for Repented] I started to realise, \u2018Oh, no, there\u2019s a message here.\u2019 I could see it\u2019s songs about being on tour too long and missing family and loved ones. There\u2019s some that could be interpreted as misogynistic. It\u2019s not a sentiment I would put in my music today.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Repented, they considered changing some of the words, but decided against it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe realised, for better or worse, if we start trying to censor it and change things, it\u2019s pointless doing it,\u201d says Oli. \u201cA lot of opinions and attitudes have changed over the years\u2026 and we just have to accept that it is what it is. It lives in its own capsule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Count Your Blessings was released on October 30, 2006. Famously, the band were unhappy with the result.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still can remember pretty clearly, coming out of the studio in Birmingham \u2013 we had it burned to a disc, and I put it on in my car. I had this huge subwoofer in the boot,\u201d Oli recalls. \u201cI was so unhappy with the way it sounded. I obviously loved playing shows, but the way I feel about our music now when I get onstage and play certain songs \u2013 I\u2019m like, \u2018I fucking love this song!\u2019 \u2013 I can\u2019t remember ever feeling that way about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Count Your Blessings was released into a metal scene that, in the UK at least, viewed \u2018MySpace bands\u2019 with suspicion. Metal Hammer\u2019s top three albums of the year were Mastodon\u2019s Blood Mountain, Slayer\u2019s Christ Illusion and Iron Maiden<\/a>\u2019s A Matter Of Life And Death, and traditional metalheads were offended by Bring Me The Horizon\u2019s studded belts, hairsprayed fringes and skinny jeans.<\/p>\n

Some magazines painted the band as obnoxious. They had to grow thick skin \u2013 and fast. One interviewer asked Oli about a website that had leaked nudes pictures of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like, \u2018Oh, so your dick\u2019s on the internet? Do you like the fact your dick\u2019s on the internet?\u2019 And I was like, \u2018No, who would want a picture of their dick on the internet?\u2019 And it said I\u2019d leaned in and I was snarling at him. We didn\u2019t have no media training, we weren\u2019t briefed and we were very naive. When we got the magazine, my mum were really upset. Everything that was a joke or lighthearted, he\u2019d twisted it to sound aggressive in tone\u2026 we were on our guard after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Bring\n<\/p>\n

Oli onstage in 2006. (Image credit: Eamonn McCormack\/WireImage)<\/p>\n

Oli compares it to his experiences of being bullied at school. Even though he was now a professional musician, his interactions with the industry felt similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just became this thing that you hated Bring Me The Horizon, and Bring Me The Horizon weren\u2019t actually a metal band, and we were these little shits, and we were these snotty people, and I think they kind of turned us into that. We had our backs up against every interview.\u201d<\/p>\n

The backlash spilled into their live performances. When they opened for Killswitch Engage<\/a> in Europe in 2007, some in the audience turned their backs. They were also heckled at their own shows, where, now and again, fights would break out between band and audience in the pit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very hostile. We didn\u2019t go looking for it whatsoever,\u201d Oli says. \u201cWe just had to tread that line between getting on with the gig and looking like it didn\u2019t hurt us, but, you know, backstage after gigs, it did affect us a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

They even cancelled a festival appearance for fear of being attacked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said we were sick, because there were another band there that said when we got there, they were going to shave all our hair off and beat us up. It were mental at first. It were that era, when people latched onto something, like, \u2018We hate this band, we hate My Chemical Romance<\/a>.\u2019 It were everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The volatility around the band escalated, and Oli made headlines in 2007 when he was arrested for allegedly urinating on a female fan who was on their bus \u2013 something he has always strongly denied. Charges were dropped.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all lessons that I needed to learn,\u201d he reflects. \u201cI can sit here and defend myself from all that stuff, but at the end of the day, we were being idiots, and it was that realisation that there\u2019s people out there that can hang you up to dry for that kind of shit. I\u2019m glad all that stuff happened because it gave me pause personally. It gave me time to go, \u2018Where the fuck am I going in my life?\u2019, because it could have been something much worse.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThings could have got way out of hand if we just carried on that trajectory, just getting pissed every night, getting into fights, bringing people on our bus that we didn\u2019t know,\u201d he continues. \u201cMate, I think back on my life and the amount of times I could have died, could have crashed my car. I\u2019m so, so lucky to be even alive, let alone to have a career at this point. It gives me fucking shudders.\u201d<\/p>\n

20 years later, Count Your Blessings is being re-released in a different environment. Deathcore is in its blockbuster era, with bands such as Lorna Shore<\/a> and Slaughter To Prevail proving disgustingly heavy music can flourish on a mass scale. For Oli, the timing is more than sheer coincidence \u2013 it\u2019s a reflection of a turbulent global landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt couldn\u2019t have come at a better time,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing this real revival and love for it, and all these kids getting into it. It makes perfect sense, though, because in the early 2000s, America was starting [to go to war] with the Middle East, and there was a lot of uncertainty. I think that kind of tension fuels a yearning and a need for something more extreme.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s two types of people in the world: some people want to listen to Happy by Pharrell and make themselves feel better and disassociate, and other people need to face it head-on.\u201d<\/p>\n

And you\u2019re the latter?<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely, yes. I want to talk about it. I want someone to agree with me that the world feels scary. That makes me feel better. I think deathcore is almost like escapism in the opposite direction: if everything\u2019s fucked, let\u2019s just press the fucking button and go to the core of evilness and live in there for a bit, because I\u2019m already feeling like that anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Repented, they worked with Buster Odeholm (who produced Orbit Culture<\/a>\u2019s 2025 album Death Above Life, and is also a guitarist in Humanity\u2019s Last Breath and drummer of Vildhjarta), who\u2019s cleaned everything up and given the music a sharp slap. Some fans may mourn the grittiness of the original, but this new version is what Oli longed to hear on his car stereo \u2013 \u201cWe would have been over the moon!\u201d<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s this new wave of kids going, \u2018Oh my god, Bruno Mars and Sabrina Carpenter don\u2019t do it for me.\u2019 And I think that\u2019s why we\u2019re still connecting.<\/p>\n

It might even end up being some people\u2019s introduction to metal…<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s this new wave of kids going, \u2018Oh my god, Bruno Mars and Sabrina Carpenter don\u2019t do it for me. I want to tap into something a bit deeper, a bit more raw.\u2019 And I think that\u2019s why we\u2019re still connecting with kids even today, because our band does that,\u201d says Oli.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a different era for Oli. Now a family man, who goes to bed early, has a personal trainer on tour and plays arenas, re-recording Count Your Blessings gave him \u201ca lot more appreciation and love and respect\u201d for his teenage self \u2013 the kid scrabbling around to fill 10 songs on a scrappy debut that would somehow end up meaning the world to their fans.<\/p>\n

Three days after our chat, Bring Me play Madison Square Garden. As the set ends on a triumphant Throne and confetti streams from the ceiling, Oli stares out at a crowd that represents 20 years of progress, tears running down his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t take anything for granted,\u201d the frontman had told us. \u201cWe have this massive underdog mentality because of the trauma we faced from all the hatred. It doesn\u2019t matter how big we get, how well we do, we always think that someone\u2019s out to get us. I think at the same time, we have managed to counteract that with, \u2018No, stop and smell the roses, appreciate what you\u2019ve done, and be grateful.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in Metal Hammer issue 415, July 2026. Order your copy now and get it delivered directly to your door.<\/a><\/p>\n

Count Your Blessings | Repented is out today (Friday, July 10) via RCA and Sony. Bring Me The Horizon will play the album in full at B.E.C. Arena in Manchester tonight and on Saturday (July 11). The band will then tour the Americas from August to October.<\/p>\n

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\"Bring\n<\/p>\n

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