Blossoms: ‘We’re in our sociable era’
Blossoms are at their playful best as they throw themselves into another bright new era with sixth album Songs from the Wedding Cake
There’s a palpable buzz in the air around Manchester’s Oxford Road. A swarm of hopeful teens clutching their phones have set up camp outside The Deaf Institute in the hope of getting themselves inside. The reason for the scramble? Just upstairs, hometown heroes Blossoms are throwing a one-off intimate bash to celebrate 10 years of their self-titled debut album.
Given that anthems like ‘Charlemagne’ have found their spiritual home on the biggest British festival stages over the past decade, you’d think it might feel alien hearing them in the confines of a sticky-floored, 250-capacity venue. Yet, as they dispatch soaring emotive hits including ‘Blown Rose’ and ‘Cut Me and I’ll Bleed’ on a stage the band last graced 12 years ago, there’s an angst at play that somehow suggests the songs do belong here.
“A lot of those songs were born in those rooms, so it felt like taking them back home again, in a weird way,” says Tom Ogden from his Stockport home a few weeks later, on the same day the band are due to play a mainstage performance at Leeds Festival. “It was such an important album for us and so many other people. It just felt really special because we had a lot of our family and friends there who saw us there the first time around!”
The band could have staged much grander celebrations for the anniversary, but all eyes are on the road ahead with the arrival of sixth album Songs from the Wedding Cake, which is released on Friday. “We’re always looking forwards, and I liked the fact that the main focus is the new album and arena tour,” says Ogden. “I know a lot of people who had missed out on tickets, but the fact it was just one night to a handful of people shows where our priorities lie.”
Beyond deep cuts and a handful of modern classics they play on the night, the encore brings three brilliant glimpses from the forthcoming LP. A sunglass-donning Declan McKenna appears for the live debut of ‘Additional Driver’, a choppy, 70s-infused banger. The song sees them at their most playful as Odgen sings about pranging his car in Manchester city centre: “No indication from the Fiat Panda/I’m sure you caught it on your dashboard camera.”
Ogden says the album’s predecessor Gary gave the band a collective swagger and confidence to let loose thematically again. “We’ve picked up where we left off with the last album with the hunger and the vibe amongst everybody. Gary definitely lit something in us again. I think the last record brought us to a younger audience which feels so great.”
With the adventurous ‘Additional Driver’ being something of an outlier on the album, Ogden explains the songs come from a more inward-looking place this time around. Even the album’s title is a reference to the town hall in Stockport where Ogden got married in 2021. “This time it was very personal. Once I had songs like ‘Joke About Divorce’ and ‘Husband’, there was a jumping-off point. They all felt like they were pulling from that world, even ‘Additional Driver’ is still me: it’s Katie’s car and I lost her no claims bonus, so it’s still related!”
Ultimately, it was a natural lyrical departure. “It was just the headspace I was in, I think. I’d obviously written about it in the past: Foolish Loving Spaces [2020] kind of has a bit of that on there and Ribbon Around the Bomb [2022]was more insular. It just felt right for where I was at now. Sometimes you can’t quite put your finger on why you start writing about certain things.
“The humour aspect is still there in terms of some of the songs,” he adds, pointing to track titles like ‘The Kardashians’ and ‘Uma Thurman’. “I’m enjoying my songwriting with those kinds of references. Working with CMAT on the last record opened my eyes to some of the specific references you can make in songs. I just feel quite free with my writing at the moment.”
Of course, Blossoms are no strangers to collaboration these days. The video for ‘Meet Me In Love’ features media personality Maya Jama, ‘Additional Driver’ includes a cameo from rising comedians Durk and Ski as two shady coppers and Hollywood star Jack O’Connell even rustles up a mean shepherds pie in the video for ‘Husband’. Given the band were such a tight-knit gang of mates at the outset, have they dropped their guard when it comes to letting people into their orbit?
“We’re in our sociable era,” laughs Ogden. “It’s got to work naturally, and it took us a good few years to get to this point because we didn’t let anybody in for many years.It was just us five, the family, and everybody working with us had worked with us for, like, 10 years. It was all very closed off and that’s a really nice thing about the band.”
It’s a journey he attributes to the five members all still living in Stockport. “I think because we didn’t move to London we found our own pace. As we’ve gotten a bit older, we’ve made friends with more people and asked them to come into our world, and it’s fun for everyone involved, I suppose. It’s a buzz having someone in it you wouldn’t expect, maybe, and they get to pull the curtain on our side of things and see it in a way they hadn’t before.”
You do get the sense that songs like ‘Additional Driver’ wouldn’t have been possible had the band upped sticks. “The line at the end of the song is ‘should have got the 192’, which is the bus from Stockport to town,” says Ogden. “Anyone from where we’re from will know it’s like the bus you’d get going out when you were younger; it’s a part of many people’s lives. If we’d have moved away, we wouldn’t be pulling from those references.”
Songs from the Wedding Cake also signals a sonic departure for the band. It’s the first time they have fully moved away from working with their long-time mentor and producer James Skelly (The Coral), who has encouraged them towards new horizons throughout their journey. This time, the band enlisted Shawn Lee from London duo Young Gun Silver Fox. For the band’s guitarist Josh Dewhurst, it was something of a full-circle moment.
“We reached out because Josh actually knew him from when he did a soundtrack to a game called Bully and Josh credits that as the reason why he got into music. When Josh was 17, he found his email address online and emailed him, because he was a quirky kid.” Did Ogden ever play the iconic Rock Star game? “I didn’t myself, I was more FIFA and Grand Theft Auto! It still very much sounds like us but it’s definitely a different flavour,” he continues. “I thought the songs I was writing should have that kind of sound with the harmonies. A lot of it was done live in the room to tape and that influenced how it sounded as well.”
Tonight’s show at The Deaf Institute feels all the more poignant given the band’s next shows in the city will be two nights at the 20,000-capacity Co-op Live this November. But for Blossoms, the fact that they’re stepping up into arenas across the UK and outside of their own stomping ground is equally as important.
“People have always said we should do arenas, but before we had Gary as a collection of songs, I thought we’d have been a couple tracks short of an arena show. Now, it feels like we’re definitely ready to do this. Even as a band I think we’re way better than we used to be. I’m way more confident up there to hold my own through an arena show.”
You’d be hard pressed to think of a band with a better CV to make the leap. Blossoms did, after all, cut their teeth opening for the likes of The Stone Roses, Courteeners, Arctic Monkeys and, more recently, The Killers. “I’ve studied people to fuck,” declares Ogden.
“Back in the day, when we were 20 years old supporting these people, you’re kind of just getting pissed, happy to be there and running off fumes, but when we were doing those Killers shows, I was watching it through a different lens like, ‘OK, what are they doing there?’ We’re focusing on how we can make this the best arena show possible. There’s definitely a lot of pride amongst the band for getting to these kinds of shows but also seeing them sell out.
“We don’t feel like the new kids on the block anymore. We’ve got bands coming up like Arkayla who are supporting us, they’re huge fans of Blossoms and grew up listening to us. Then, the other day, I got a message from Lime Garden, saying ‘Me and my sister love the band and grew up listening to you. It’s nice when the new, cool bands are bigging you up and reaching out. It reminded me of growing up and supporting the [Arctic] Monkeys or Courteeners back in the day because I grew up listening to them.”
Is he proud to have survived long enough to see it come full circle? “It’s the fact we’re still in the mix that I’m most proud of. We’re bigger than we’ve ever been, and it feels like we’re still relevant to people; we’re not just running the old songs around.”
Nearing the end of the night at The Deaf Institute, Ogden says, “See ya in another 10 years. Fucking hell, I’ll be 43 by then!” Asked about the band’s future hopes, he says, “I feel like we’re enjoying it more than we ever have done and we want to keep that up,” he beams. “Sometimes you’ve got to find who you want to be as a frontman. I feel like I’ve got a grip on who I am and I’m confident in myself.”
And one last burning question, what will become of that eight-foot primate Gary as the band hurtle into this bold new era? “Mate, he’s gonna be on the tour, he’s, like, the mascot of the band. What’s mad is the amount of kids that love him. A lot of our friends and fans are all having children and that’s always their favourite tune. You can’t play the song and not have him there.” He won’t be decaying in the yard then? “No, the man was born for the arenas!”