UK metal band branches out
Adam Elmakias Photo
Bring Me the Horizon builds on heavy metal with electronica elements and ambient sounds.
Jona Weinhofen is Bring Me the Horizon’s new guitarist — his first studio work with the Yorkshire, England quintet, There is a Hell, Believe Me, I’ve Seen It. There is a Heaven, Let’s Keep It a Secret, came out last month — but he’s no outsider. His old band, I Killed the Prom Queen, befriended BMTH back in 2007, opening a UK tour for them and hosting them on an Australian Prom Queen tour the following year. When Weinhofen joined BMTH last year, the transition was natural.
“I was in another band called Bleeding Through and I bumped into the guys from Horizon early last year,” Weinhofen recalls. “I found out they were about to fire their guitarist and they found out I was about to quit my current band, so it all made sense.”
As fan and friend, Weinhofen has perspective on BMTH, one of the most polarizing new metal bands. Their 2006 debut album, Count Your Blessings, earned critical acclaim and a sizable fan base but 2008’s Suicide Season caused a schism between those who loved the album and those who pointedly did not. In readers’ polls in Kerrang! and Rock Sound, BMTH and Suicide Season were nominated in both Best and Worst of 2008 categories.
“Count Your Blessings got them noticed but it was lumped in with bands that had a similar sound,” Weinhofen says. “With Suicide Season, they’d been touring more, meeting other bands, and the plan was to reinvent the band’s sound. It was praised by press because it’s a solid album and [for] the ballsy moves the band made. At the same time, they were seen as shunning some of their core fans. Any band that tries new things is going to piss off people who like their old music, but the aim was to broaden the sound and gain new fans. Likewise with the new album.”
Weinhofen’s history with BMTH (Weinhofen, frontman Oli Sykes, lead guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean, drummer Matt Nicholls) and his novice status were useful while recording There is a Hell. His perspective reinforced BMTH’s foundational elements and his new-guy role allowed him to suggest possibilities beyond their standard mode.
“There were new influences; I have bands that I listen to that the other guys don’t and vice versa,” Weinhofen says. “When we wrote the first song, which ended up being ‘It Never Ends,’ we thought, ‘Well, that’s kind of weird but let’s see where it goes.’ And we just had that attitude with the rest of the album. We didn’t want any limitations, but we wanted the music to make sense. We managed to find ways to tie in our electronica and ambient influences into the heavier stuff. It’s a little different from Suicide Season and we tried new things, but it still has the core Horizon sound that the band invented for itself.”
There is a Hell is slightly more serious in tone than the party-out-of-bounds vibe on Suicide Season, and instead addresses the consequences of that lifestyle. So far, the new album hasn’t profoundly impacted Bring Me the Horizon’s live presentation, although there’s a growing sense that it will.
“We’re only playing two or three things off the new album,” says Weinhofen. “It usually takes about six months before the fans fall in love with the new songs. The set feels quite choppy/changey at times, but the new songs have been received really well so far. It feels strange playing ‘It Never Ends,’ with an electronica/rock and roll feel, and then playing ‘Pray for Plagues,’ which is straight-up death metal. It makes sense to fans because they see us as the same band. But it does feel a bit strange going from old songs to new songs.”
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