Bring Me The Horizon frontman Oli Sykes has spoken about the chances of the band ever headlining Glastonbury or Wembley Stadium.
The topic arose as the singer sat down with NME ahead of the Sheffield band’s mammoth headlining slots at Reading & Leeds festival 2025 – where they broke out an immersive, hit-filled set that mimicked a horror gameshow and introduced state of the art production.
Speaking about his mindset going into the milestone show, Sykes said that recently becoming a father had led to him “never [feeling] so calm and peaceful before a headline festival.”
“I’m usually just sat worrying about if the screen’s going to work, if the pyro’s going to go off at the right time, if I’m going to sing a bum note. You know, all this stuff – but that’s all gone,” he explained. “It’s not just another gig, but the most important thing is now waiting for me at home. It has instantly killed so much stuff that I had before.”
“I used to keep myself awake with regrets, fears, the future and what could happen – worrying about petty stuff with a band. [Having kids] just obliterated it overnight,” he added.
The set marked the second time that Bring Me have headlined Reading & Leeds festival, with their first being a co-headline slot with fellow Sheffield rock giants Arctic Monkeys back in 2022. They have also advanced to headliner status at other huge festivals in recent years, taking on the colossal slot at the 2023 edition of Download Festival.
That Donington set saw them join metal heavyweights Slipknot and Metallica at the top of the bill, and the latter played two completely different sets across two nights to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the festival.
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As for if the band have a headline slot at Glastonbury on their radar next, Sykes dismissed the idea as the Worthy Farm festival may not be the best fit for their sound.
“Glastonbury’s not our world. I don’t even know if this is our world. We’re always going to feel like the underdog, and it’s hard to see ourselves as like a gen-pop mainstream band,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Is anyone going to be here for us?’ That stuff’s gone now, but it’s so hard for us not to think about ourselves as this underground rock band still.”
“Maybe five or six years ago, that would have been our ambition. Maybe playing Coachella and stuff like that. That’s not our world. We’re not the cool, trendy barista-core band. We’re our own thing,” he continued. “We’re this weird and wonderful thing that do all this. We’ve just crafted our own thing and we’re really enjoying it. We’re really happy, the band are best friends, and it’s all good. Why rock that? Why try and force ourselves into a round hole when we’re a square peg?”
He extended that mindset over to hopes of Bring Me announcing a headline slot at Wembley Stadium, saying: “Yeah, when 100,000 people actually want to see our band and we’re not doing discounts at Morrisons, then yeah. Until then, I don’t give a shit. I’d rather play two O2s, one O2 or whatever. I just want to have fun.
“That’s all that really matters when it comes down to it. We’re getting paid, we’re all happy, we’ve got what we need. We don’t need much more in life.”
Bring Me The Horizon’s 2025 headline set at Reading Festival was given full marks by NME in a five-star review. “The sci-fi blockbuster cinematography and immersive graphics of the show (peaking with Sykes turning into a demon in real-time) are overwhelming enough, not to mention that each song is delivered with enough pyro and energy that they all feel like a finale most other bands would kill for,” it read.
“Those scrappy skinny-jeaned metalcore brats from way back then are unrecognisable from this tour-de-force before us tonight,” it added. “In terms of spectacle, they out-pomp Muse. For performance, they couldn’t give more. A hiatus and long wait to the follow-up to ‘Post Human: Nex Gen’ awaits, but what a parting gift that was.”
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