Party 'til you pass out / When the party's over

Leeds Festival

August 2024

Alison

Some people say that photography is a way to make time stand still. Every frame is a moment frozen in time, a memory to be kept forever. If you would ask me what I loved about photography so much, my answer would always be that. I realized that once again when I had worked through the massive number of folders on my hard drive, looking for video material of Bring Me. It was their twentieth anniversary as a band this year, and together with Tom I had created a video of all usable material we could find. It had taken us over a month, Oliver had gotten involved with some edits, but the result was a video that lasted over a minute and showed the evolution of Bring Me The Horizon as a band. They now used it during the intro to Doomed at their shows, and I got emotional every time I looked at it. Looking through all those pictures, taken over the course of twelve years, had opened up a well of emotions I didn't think I had in me. As I had ran through photos of the first Drop Dead shoot I had ever done, I could still feel the anxiety that had washed over me as soon as I realized Oliver would be my model. The photos of Warped 2012 made me long back to that time of total freedom, and the fun we'd had with everyone. Warped 2013, tours and studio sessions, behind the scenes on video shoots, Drop Dead collections, memorable shows Bring Me had played – I had photographed it all, and would hold on to the memories forever. So many memories. So much growth and development.

It was insane how big Bring Me had become at this point. A few years ago, everyone thought that their popularity couldn't get any bigger, but the band had proved me and themselves wrong. During the past years, they had worked sohard; they had been touring almost non-stop, while working on new material in the meantime. And if that wasn't enough, Oliver had been involved in the entire production for the band, from video shoots to stage production and everything in between. Bring Me The Horizon wasn't just a band anymore, it had become a brand. With their new album being released a few months ago, the second part of the Post Human series, they had never been more relevant in the music scene as they were now, proven by the fact that they had won a this year's Brits award for Best Rock Act. Totally deserved, seen as the production of their shows was mental. Oliver was a perfectionist, and the rest of the lads went with his clear vision, sometimes pitching their own ideas. After all, they had been together for twenty years already, and there wasn't a closer group of lads than the four of them. Yes, four, since Jordan had left the band last year.

Oliver had been really upset about it, since he and Jordan had been the driving force behind the sound Bring Me had these days. But creative differences and Jordan's desire to spend more time with his family led to his irrevocable decision to leave the band after more than a decade. At first, it felt weird to go on without him, but it was just the way it was, and the band quickly found their way to continue as a four-piece. They had to. It wasn't that they could take a break to lick their wounds before continuing; tour planning was tight, their shows way too big and expensive to reschedule or cancel. So they just worked it out, came with a solution for Jordan's empty spot and went on with business as usual.

But I knew his departure affected Oliver more than he cared to admit. I had noticed it in his moods, trying to make it easier on him. He had stayed true to his promise that he would let me in when he felt down, and he had talked to me about his feelings and thoughts. He had always done in the past years. It wasn't that his mind had been easier on him – by far not, because Oliver would always be Oliver. But we had both opened up to a level of connection that had helped us through some hard times we had gone through as a couple. And luckily for Oliver, he had his way with words and knew how to use them. It had always been, and forever would be, his way to deal with the mess that his mind sometimes was. Writing took the pressure of his thoughts and emotions, no matter how dark they were. And they had been dark sometimes. There had been days where he had almost begged me not to leave him alone because his mind was so violent on him that he didn't trust himself staying home without me. I had never even once questioned it, and had always obeyed to his requests to stay with him, because no matter how much time had passed, the memory of finding him on the bedroom floor had always haunted me.