Bring Me The Horizon are chasing No.1 this week with Post Human: Nex Gen (RCA). It would be their third consecutive chart-topping LP.
It follows the band’s huge UK & Ireland arena tour for 140,000 fans and their BRIT Award for Best Alternative/Rock Act.
Bring Me The Horizon pulled off a chart double with previous album Post Human: Survival Horror in 2020 – a Top 5 result for the digital and a No.1 for the subsequent physical edition (140,464 sales to date).
Can they do it again?
Post Human: Nex Gen is the latest chapter in the UK rock act’s Post Human series. Following its No.5 debut for the digital-only release in May 2024 (with 39,223 chart units to date), the physical edition is now available and its chasing for this week's No.1.
In the Official Charts Company Midweek sales flash, Bring Me The Horizon are currently at No.2 with Post Human: Nex Gen (18,436 sales so far), very narrowly behind Shed Seven’s Liquid Gold (19,067). BMTH are currently ahead on physical sales by 126 copies (17,913), but Shed Seven are pushing for their second No.1 LP in 2024 with 1,140 downloads so far this week. Ed Sheeran’s Mathematics Tour Collection hits set is also in pursuit in the Top 5.
Here, Raw Power Management CEO Craig Jennings talks us through Bring Me The Horizon’s relationship with their label and fans as they aim to make a second chart impact with Post Human: Nex Gen…
What was behind the decision to surprise release Post Human: Nex Gen back in May?
“Oli [Sykes] had been working on it for a while. After Jordan [Fish] left, he was working on it with Zakk Cervini and Dan Lancaster and it was a work in progress but he finished it and really wanted to get it out as soon as he could. He’d been working on it for quite a long time and at the start of the process, it was going to be four EPs in a year – during Covid, everyone was thinking to themselves, ‘What if this lasts for three or four years’, and some artists were getting very creative and some weren’t getting very creative. Horizon were making [Post: Human] Survival Horror and there was a genuine feeling that they could make all this music and get it out in a short space of time.
“Coming out of Covid, the demand for the band had grown in terms of live so we ended up doing a lot of touring, there were a lot more demands on the band, so the [new] record took a lot longer than we expected. It gets finished and Oli is like, ‘Can we get it out as soon as possible?’, so we spoke to Sony and said that’s what we’d do, a surprise drop knowing we’d have to split it with the physical. But we did that last time anyway. It felt like a modern way of doing the release.”
Did it feel like a gamble splitting the digital and physical?
“We did it on Survival Horror and went in at No.5 on the digital alone, which for a band in the rock and guitar world is really unusual. We knew we could do 10-12,000 digital sales [equivalent streams] in one week based on what we did before. Top 5 was a target – I mean, what do charts mean any more? But we did want to do well with it. Sony were very supportive of it all. It’s obviously always challenging keeping it under wraps for those two weeks before you release it, but it’s worked out well.”
Is that gap between digital and physical specifically planned, or is it a case of when the physical is ready?
“In an ideal world, you would maybe have it earlier. The thing is Oli had such a vision for this for the whole YouTopia thing that a lot of the products we were making to come with the physical took time to manufacture. He had such a vision for it and he was working with Jacob Harry Carter, who’s come on board as Oli’s creative director, and working with Jumana Brinkley Abbas and Daisy Blackford on the team and led by Matt Ash, they’ve come up with an incredible story with the world they’ve created. So if it takes a little minute here, then it takes a little minute.”
Sony have been absolutely brilliant, fantastic partners, they’ve got total respect for Oli’s vision
Craig Jennings
Have you noticed if that helps ramp up excitement for the fans when there is that gap?
“It can go two ways. Sometimes the bands are saying, ‘The fans are gonna be pissed off, it’s not coming for a while’, but Oli and Horizon are great at doing that and keeping fans aware of stuff and being active on social media at the right time. I think Horizon are a band that uses social media in a clever and good way. Certainly when you’ve got a band that the fanbase is as rabid as it is for us, people get more and more excited.”
Did you learn anything from when Post Human: Survival Horror went to No.1 in 2020?
“In an ideal world, there’s still an argument that says you finish a record and you then have two months to put the digital and physical together. I think Sony certainly would have preferred that. When you’ve got a band that’s modern-thinking like Horizon, you want to get the music out there and you accept that you’re splitting it, there’s a challenge but the target for both [digital and physical] was Top 5 and that is something that definitely would not be possible for any other rock act in the world right now, in our world anyway [note: Raw Power interview conducted before the return of Linkin Park]. And then the target was to have a No.1 physical. We managed it on Survival Horror. We were hoping we were going to manage it on this one but Ed Sheeran announced he was putting a record out the same day! But we don’t get too wrapped up in it. It would be nice to have the No.1 but at the end of the day, it’s a fantastic piece of art and something I think the fans will love.”
How does the dynamic work with the label when you’ve got a band with so many ideas about how to execute the campaign?
“It’s an interesting one. Myself and Matt Ash, the way we see our job is that Oli gets on with what he wants to do, he’s got his vision, we don’t have an A&R person, nobody gets involved in the making of our records, nobody from the label gets involved in the creative and the artwork. We allow Oli to get on doing what he does, he then delivers the music and it’s our job to motivate the label, to get the label excited to deliver Oli’s vision to the fans. Sony have been absolutely brilliant, fantastic partners. I can’t speak highly enough about them, all of the people there, the marketing department and the digital department through to Stacey Tang and, at the top, Jason Iley, they’ve been brilliant and they’ve always gone along with Oli’s vision. We’ve been with them now since 2012 and you could count the arguments we’ve had about things on one hand. There’s never been friction with us and the label, they’ve got total respect for Oli’s vision, total respect that he gets the zeitgeist. Even if people doubt it on some levels, he’s usually right. On the creative side of things, he is the man that does all of that, delivering every piece of creative content. It’s a big job for us to make sure that happens and he can get on with what he needs to do without any interference.”
Honing in on the various physical bundles, is that Horizon tapping into the age of the superfan or simply a reflection of demand?
“I don’t think it’s ever been a feeling of taking advantage, I think first and foremost Oli would look at what he wants and go, ‘That’s an item I want’. Some of these items are quite expensive but they’re bespoke. The volume you get with the vinyl and stuff like that, that maybe is tapping into the age of the superfan but I genuinely don’t think we’d ever take advantage of that. I don’t think anything that’s going out there isn’t something every Horizon fan would want. But I do think there’s a limit. But this is something that’s very special.”
Do you anticipate the release of the physical will drive the streaming consumption?
“Definitely. The week the physical comes, the digital always goes up and every time we release a new piece of music or do anything profile-wise, we find our monthly listens at Spotify going up. I think we peaked at 15 million, we’re at 14.6 now. That can be driven by the new physical release, people streaming more. What we find now is recently we did a show in Tokyo headlining Summer Sonic, that goes global straight away. No longer are you restricted by what territories you’re doing. We’re going into our first stadium headliner in November in Sao Paulo, 45,000 people, that will be another moment. For us, it’s taking advantage of those moments. The next moment in the physical release, then the next moment is that South American run with the jewel in the crown being that Sao Paulo show, then next year there will probably be a deluxe version of the album and the headline slot at Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park. All those trigger points definitely do drive the streaming.”
Interview by Niall Doherty
PHOTO: Vasso Vu
