Oli Sykes's Spiritual Rehabilitation Experience, Spend 1 Not With Monk Hare Krishna

Oly Sykes (Instagram @olobersykes)

JAKARTA - For many people, the past year was the darkest period in the modern world. The COVID-19 pandemic hits, a number of countries impose lockdowns and social restrictions. However, Bring Me The Horizon vocalist Oli Sykes recently overcame these "dark times" by spending a month at an ashram (where a saint performs austerities to live in peace and happiness in the midst of nature). He lives with the monks of Hare Krishna.

In an interview with The Sun, the vocalist talked about his recent "spiritual rehabilitation".

"For a while I went to a very dark place, a place I have been before, but it was the beginning of a wonderful thing to find myself again," Sykes said.

"I think everyone goes through some level like this during the lockdown. Even the most positive people can't hide the fact that these are really dark times. Depression is indeed for me, but the worst kind of depression where it's not like you feel sad but where you don't feel anything at all.You are really just out of your own emotions.

Sykes continued, “A few hours from where (my wife's) Alissa's family lived, there was actually an ashram, a Hare Krishna ashram, and they invited us to go and live there. So during the best part of the month we went and lived in the ashram, without our gadgets and cut off from the outside world and basically living as if we were Hare Krishna for a month. "

She said of the experience, “We got up at five in the morning and prayed to Krishna and sang and danced, just to connect with who we are. And these people are the happiest people in the world, these monks, you go and meet them and they are the most positive and spiritual people, and I thought, I want to feel it even if it's just a little. I want to see what it feels like. "

The singer - who previously spent time in a rehabilitation center for ketamine addiction in 2014 - has compared her experience to the therapy she received in rehab.

“When I came here, it was a detox, but of all, emotional problems, dependence on gadgets, dependence on being a musician. I just learned how to shut up and wake up and think I have nothing to do today and that's fine. "

Bring Me The Horizon was quite busy during the pandemic, publishing the EP (mini album) Post Human: Survival Horror last fall. The group originally planned to put out a series of EPs during the year, but keyboardist Jordan Fish recently revealed that their release plans are changing.

"The distance is going to be a little longer than expected," said Fish, adding, "Just because this EP will probably be bigger than expected. It doesn't matter, as long as everything is really good."