Oliver Sykes

Oliver Scott "Oli" Sykes (born 20 November 1986), is an English musician, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Bring Me the Horizon. He also founded the apparel company Drop Dead Clothing.

Early life

Oliver Sykes was born 20 November 1986 in Ashford, Kent, England. As a baby, he moved to Australia with his parents, Ian and Carol Sykes, moving between Adelaide and Perth during a period of about six years. The family returned to the United Kingdom when Sykes was about eight, settling in Stocksbridge in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. As a teenager, he attended Stocksbridge High School.^[3]

In 2003, while still in school, he began crafting compilation CDs and short tracks under the name Quakebeat.^[4] He also played in the mock hip-hop band "Womb 2 Da Tomb" with his brother Tom Sykes and fellow Bring Me the Horizon member Matt Nicholls, and in metal band "Purple Curto" with Neil Whiteley, as the drummer/vocalist under the pseudonym "Olisaurus", which he would later use when releasing solo material.

Clothing line

In addition to his vocal and song writing contributions in Bring Me the Horizon, Sykes is also the founder and owner of the alternative clothing line Drop Dead Clothing.^[5]

Writing

On 1 February 2013, Sykes launched a Kickstarter project to fund a graphic novel created by him and Drop Dead Clothing artist Ben Ashton-Bell, entitled Raised By Raptors. With a £15,000 goal, the project exceeded its target within weeks of launching, attaining a final total of £39,223.^[6]

Personal life

Since the age of 12, Sykes has suffered from a form of night terrors known as Sleep Paralysis, which is the inability to move during sleep.^[7]

Sykes became a vegetarian in 2003 after watching a documentary about animal cruelty online, "When I saw how animals are tortured on factory farms, I couldn't justify being a part of that cruelty." He went on to become one of the faces for PETA, eventually designing charity T-shirts with the slogan "Meat Sucks" via his Drop Dead clothing line.^[8] He later became a vegan in 2013. Sykes has been quoted as saying he is an atheist, "I don't believe in God. I was asked to believe in him when I was in this bad place. I couldn't understand why I needed a god or, in my opinion, something that doesn't exist."^[9]

After receiving the Album of the Year award at the first Alternative Press Music Awards in 2014, Sykes revealed a history of addiction and abuse of the drug Ketamine. Addressing the crowd, he said "My band wanted to kill me, my parents wanted to kill me, my fucking brother wanted to kill me," and also admitted, "I went to rehab for a month, and you guys were sending me texts and e-mails. When I got out of that rehab, I didn't want to scream anymore, I wanted to sing from the fucking rooftops."^[10]

On 12 July 2015 in Tuscany, Italy, Sykes married model and tattoo artist Hannah Pixie Snowdon.^[11]

Controversies

Videos with Architects

During a tour in 2008, Bring Me the Horizon and the band Architects filmed two videos. The first showed a fight between Sykes and Architects' lead singer Sam Carter,^[12] while the second showed an ambulance with Sykes supposedly inside.^[13] The videos were uploaded to YouTube, leading to outrage from many Bring Me the Horizon fans which resulted in hate mail being sent to Carter. However, it was later revealed that the videos were a stunt staged by both bands, and that they are in fact good friends. Sykes said, "All-day events can get boring very fast so we conjured up the first idiotic thing we could think of and made it as unbelievable as possible."^[14]

Moshing incident

In June 2013, Sykes and Bring Me the Horizon were sued by the parents of a 12-year-old girl due to injuries received in the mosh pit while watching the band's performance during the Warped Tour 2013. This led to Sykes announcing via Twitter that legally he was no longer able to start any form of moshing activities during his concerts.^[15] However, Sykes later stated that the suit had been dropped and that moshing was not going to be banned.^[16]

Music

Bring Me the Horizon

• Count Your Blessings (2006)
• Suicide Season (2008)
• There Is a Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven, Let's Keep It a Secret. (2010)
• Sempiternal (2013)
• That's the Spirit (2015)

Singles

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Music videos

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Graphic novels

• Raised by Raptors (2013–present)

References

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Oliver Sykes.