A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO BAD OMENS

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What’s going on everyone, welcome back to the No Skip Blog. Today we're back with another A Beginners Guide on TikTok’s favorite hard rock band, Bad Omens. There’s arguably no rock band to have had a better 2023 than Bad Omens. The genre bending hard rock band have catapulted from being called a Bring Me the Horizon ripoff to becoming one of the biggest breakthrough bands of the 2020s, with several major hits on both Tiktok and rock radio and welcoming millions of fans into the heavy music world. So what led to the rapid success of this band?

Despite being a huge recent breakthrough band, Bad Omens have actually been in the works for a decade now. Early lyrics from the band sprouted as vocalist Noah Sebastian was secretly writing lyrics while playing guitar in the Washington DC band, Immoralist. After leaving that band in 2014 with a brighter future in his mind, and notebook, over the next year he would bring together old friends Nicholas Ruffilo and Vincent Riquier, who introduced him to Jolly Karlson from Sweden. Now with the band pieced together the members left their hometowns of Richmond, Virginia and Sweden to pursue their dreams. They didn’t waste a second by adding Nick Folio on drums and quickly creating an untitled demo EP. The band’s name actually was intended to be the title of one of their songs, later named Glass Houses. After the demos caught the eye of current label Sumerian Records, they sent the band to New Jersey to work with famous producer Will Putney at Graphic Nature Audio and rework many of the demo tracks and other songs to be on their debut record.

In December of 2015, the same year they formed, the band announced their signing to Sumerian Records and released their debut single, Glass Houses. That is an incredible first year already, making some of the risks the band had taken worth it. With this release, in 2016 the band got to play on the Sumerian Records 10 Year Tour with Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya, After the Burial and Erra, while simultaneously releasing Exit Wounds and their breakthrough single, The Worst in Me, which launched the band into stardom. The Worst in Me would accumulate one million streams in a month despite the band disliking the track now, but with that they got the chance to open for Asking Alexandria’s 10 Years in the Black tour. This generated hype for their debut self-titled album, which was released on August 19, 2016. The album received fairly positive acclaim, getting praise from Metal Injection and other metal forums. However, many critics compared the band to Bring Me the Horizon, even some calling them a clone of the British band, but between you and me I don't know if I completely see it. I mean you can be influenced by a massive post-hardcore band and draw inspiration from them without being a carbon copy, Noah Sebastian even described the comparisons as "flattering, yet frustrating." Despite what the naysayers think of their debut record this release opened the door to many tours, including Vans Warped Tour 2017 and opening for Parkway Drive and Stick to Your Guns.

But 2019 was set to be the biggest year for the band yet, however some early controversies stunted their initial growth. They were scheduled to be on the Misery Will Find You tour with The Amity Affliction, Senses Fail, and Belmont but the day the tour was announced Bad Omens announced that they allegedly were dropping from the tour due to the size of their logo on the tour poster. The band stated that obligations in the contract were not fulfilled and that the headliners were bullying them over their failure to comply. After this the band released a shrunken logo tee-shirt to parody the situation then went silent. But in the summer of 2019 the band came back better than ever, releasing their sophomore album Finding God Before God Finds Me on August 2, 2019. Featuring a new, evolved sound with huge tracks like Careful What You Wish For and the almighty Dethrone, becoming a staple for the band's live shows still to this day. This album was monumental for the band, charting at number 4 on the heatseekers chart and breaking onto the top 10 hard rock charts. At the end of the same year the band released two of their biggest singles to date, Limits and Never Know on the deluxe edition of Finding God. These tracks got them their first airplay on rock radio, and with that they had their first full US headline tour in February and March of 2020, with support from Oh Sleeper, Thousand Below, and Bloodline. This was actually the first time I saw the band live and was blown away from their set. I knew this would be the only time I saw them in a 400 capacity room, and although a section of the tour was canceled due to the pandemic, this tour proved the band could sell rooms.

But during the pandemic the band worked hard on honing their craft, writing and self producing a new album. The band gave us the first taste of what they were working on November 10, 2021, with The Death of Peace of Mind, the title track to their third album. This track showed a huge influence of R&B and electronics but with haunting guitar work throughout. The band then released several singles throughout early 2022, including the heaviest track on the album and one of the bands heaviest overall, Artificial Suicide, proving that the band hasn't gone entirely soft. They also released the massive rock banger Like a Villain, really showing Noah’s insane vocal range, and then The Grey, a straightforward pop meets radio rock song ready for the radio. Finally on February 25, 2022 the band's third album was released, featuring 15 tracks spanning influences all over rock, metal and pop subgenres with so many highlights on its 53 minute runtime. The band officially broke away from the Bring Me the Horizon comparisons, nowadays many bands being influenced by Bad Omens instead. With the release of this album the band toured heavily to make up for the missing years, touring with the likes of A Day to Remember, Underoath, The Ghost Inside, Beartooth, and Spiritbox in 2022.

When we thought the hype for the album couldn’t get any bigger we were graced by an unlikely surge. In the summer and fall of 2022 the deep cut on the band's most recent album became an overnight success on the social media platform TikTok. Just Pretend quickly became the band's biggest hit, and one of the biggest rock songs of the decade, welcoming a legion of young Gen Zers to the heavy music world. Even though the track was written with the intention of jokingly writing a radio rock song, and it is one, it clicked with the casual audience, launching the band to over 4 and a half million monthly listeners as of this post. Just Pretend is also the bands only RIAA certified Gold single and was at number one on the billboard rock and alternative charts. As this TikTok virality was going on the band had announced a headlining tour with support from Dayseeker, Make them Suffer, and Thousand Below. Every single date of this tour sold out quickly, with the band playing 1000-1500 capacity rooms, upping their production, and even covering Too Close to Touch’s hit Sympathy, paying homage to the bands late vocalist Keaton Pierce who was a huge inspiration and friend to Noah Sebastian.

Coming into 2023 the band had developed a huge buzz on social media platforms like TikTok and Youtube as well as SiriusXM and Octane Radio, with nearly every track rotating the success, specifically Just Pretend, The Death of Peace of Mind, Like A Villain, Concrete Jungle, and Nowhere to Go. The band came into 2023 with a plan to take over the rock and metal world, playing featured slots on major rock festivals like Sonic Temple and selling out every single date of their headlining tours with support from Erra, Invent Animate, and the return of I See Stars on their Concrete Forever tour. This Tour included their biggest headline show of their career at Stage AE Outside in Pittsburgh, PA selling out the 5000 capacity venue in just one day, which I gladly attended. With a deluxe edition of The Death of Peace of Mind on the way and an arena tour likely on the horizon, the band has proven that there can be successful modern rock bands coming out of the post hardocre and metalcore scenes. Bad Omens have smashed everyone's expectations and have become a gateway band for millions to get into rock music.