Oli Sykes reveals that Evanescence sued Horizon over "ripping off" one of their verses… but it led to the Amy Lee collaboration on their new EP.
Update 5pm, October 30: Oli Sykes has clarified that it "wasn't exactly true" that Evanescence sued BMTH, and that their "managers just exchanged words and we offered them songwriting credits. [Amy] didn't want a thing from the band in her words has nothing but love for us."
Bring Me The Horizon's new collaboration with Amy Lee is by far one of the most powerful songs on the band's new Post Human: Survival Horror EP, but it came about through surprising circumstances: Evanescence sued them last year, leading to their management getting in touch about doing a song together.
Frontman Oli Sykes has revealed to NME that the Arkansas rock titans sued Horizon last year over amo track Nihilist Blues (featuring Grimes), filing a lawsuit claiming that it ripped off their song Never Go Back.
Read this: The 20 greatest Bring Me The Horizon songs – ranked
“The weird thing about Evanescence is that we got sued by them on our last record,” Oli explains. “On Nihilist Blues we ripped off one of their verses. It was subconscious, but when it happened we were like, ‘We’re not even going to argue.’”
Happily, of course, it actually brought them to working together, with Evanescence's team reaching out to Oli and co.: “They were like, ‘Amy really likes your band and would love to work with you,’” the frontman continues. “That was the silver lining.”
Of course, the new collaboration – EP closing track One Day The Only Butterflies Left Will Be In Your Chest As You March Towards Your Death – was also incredibly beneficial to Amy in the end, with the singer telling Revolver that it helped her through writers' block as she worked on Evanescence's new record The Bitter Truth.
“I don’t really know them personally, we’d just been fans of each other’s music, and you know how music is – you feel like you know that person because the music lives in you,” she said.
“…While I’d been very busy working on our album, and getting a little bit stuck on some of the words, they sent me this track to work on, and it was such a beautiful escape and release for me. It felt like something I wasn’t supposed to do, like my secret little side thing, and it really was just so fulfilling to go back and forth, to collaborate, to have all these conversations everyday with Oli. It felt beautiful to finish something. It was the boost and the inspiration to take the Evanescence music with a new satisfaction and fuel, where I’d just been frustrated before.”
Catch Bring Me The Horizon at the following live dates on the Post Human Tour next year:
September 2021
21 Glasgow The SSE Hydro
22 Cardiff Motorpoint Arena
24 Sheffield FlyDSA Arena
25 Birmingham Utilita Arena
26 London The O2 Arena
Read this: Why BMTH’s amo was the best British album of 2019
