Every two or three years, Manchester churns out a great new pop band – something that’s of the time, while also remaining true to the city’s roots. That’s not to say Blossoms are going to be the next Oasis or The Smiths, not one bit. At the same time, it cannot be denied that this group have a promising future ahead. Speaking with The University Times, lead singer, songwriter and frontman of Trinity Ball headliners Blossoms, Tom Ogden, reflects on the group’s journey to date.
For the past three years, Blossoms have been tirelessly grafting their way up the UK charts, with the kind of blood-knuckled work ethic that is becoming increasingly uncommon in the modern music industry. “We started off the band about four years ago and just did it the old-fashioned way of gigging as much as we could and releasing a single every four months or something and building it up that way. Everything that’s come as part of the success of the band we felt we’ve worked really hard towards.” Reflecting on starting out in the music industry, Ogden further notes that “you don’t really have that much time to just sit back and take in everything that’s happening”. Their omnipresence didn’t go unnoticed, with Blossoms shortlisted for the BBC Sound Of 2016, galvanising their already growing support.
By the time Trinity Ball comes around it will have been nearly nine months since Blossoms debuted their eponymous album, delivering a sound that falls somewhere between Brett Anderson’s Suede and derivative post-britpop sounds like the Arctic Monkeys. It’s the kind of stuff that used to be the lifeblood of NME and Melody Maker throughout the 80s and 90s. The album went to number one in the UK, preventing the group from solely being pigeonholed as “up-and-coming artists”. Ogden notes that: “We’re just artists now I suppose. There’s always more up-and-coming artists I suppose isn’t there? People a lot of the time when they write up about us now don’t tend to refer to us as that up-and-coming anymore, despite the fact that we’re still relatively new having released the album however many months ago. We’re still new but that build up before your album, it’s kind of your entry into the big music world. Until then you’re an up-and-coming artist, so since then people have been like, yeah ‘These guys are here now’. People see a body of work and the venues grow don’t they? And people sing all the words and it just keeps going and going…”.
Ogden describes the band’s progress thus far as an “evolution”: “I don’t know where it’ll go though. We’ve been demoing for the second record and it’s sort of following in the same footsteps as the first one. Obviously the first one is in two halves. Up until “Charlemagne” we didn’t have a record deal, we were just putting out singles. Something like “Blow” is a lot more guitar-based, bit heavier, bit dirty, but something like Charlemagne is a bit more like synth pop isn’t it? A bit sparklier. So we evolved and just naturally got to that point, an extension of Charlemagne and Honey Sweet and songs like that. But then again there’s moments where it doesn’t sound like that. It could go anywhere really …”.
According to Ogden, the band owe a lot of their evolution to producer James Skelly, also known for his work as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of britpop band The Coral. Blossoms were introduced to Skelly through Alan Wills of Deltasonic Records, and from there never looked back. Skelly had the ear and ability to polish and tighten the underlying pop sounds of Blossoms. “Our first single, before we recorded it with James we had “Blow” out which we recorded ourselves and – this is going back to early 2014 – we had a demo of it online and a little cool video … We recorded that on an eight-track in our rehearsal room and by its very nature it was quite garagey and dirty but that’s just because of what we had on front of us, using the tools we had.”
The connection between the band and Skelly was evident before work even began: “Obviously at the time we were buzzing because we’re big fans of The Coral, and he was the first person that reached out to us … He knew how to produce it. On all the early recordings we had like the Hammond organs and that, and he was like ‘Why don’t you try this synth, it might sound a bit more modern?’” Further explaining the development of Blossoms’ sound, Ogden commented that: “We love pop music, all the influences are in there, but they’ve all got real subjects to them and an attitude from where, geographically I’m from that bleeds through.”
The relationship Skelly and the band share still has a clear influence on Blossoms’ work to date: “It’s like another member of the band, sort of like what George Martin was to The Beatles. You go to him and talk to him about songs, he’ll send me songs he thinks I’ll be influenced by and it’s cool. It’s just, we’ve met a lot of people in the music industry who are bellends and he’s not, he’s a gem. He’s only into the music and he’s really passionate about it … Great to work with.”
Finding evidence that shows that Blossoms are on track to be one of the hottest acts on this summer’s festival circuit isn’t difficult. Following their Trinity Ball performance, the five-piece are set to play Coachella before launching into a relentless touring itinerary. Highlights of the tight schedule include Governor’s Ball, Benicássim, Lollapalooza, Bestival and Reading & Leeds, not to mention a supporting slot with their heroes The Stone Roses at Wembley.
Ogden acknowledges the chaotic nature of touring, but takes it in his stride nonetheless: “Yeah we have loads of festivals, loads of gigs coming up”, adding that “in between we’re going into the studio and recording. The second half of the album [Blossoms] was like that we didn’t really have time to jam it out or anything like that. We kind of just had to do it in two days in the studio … We’ll definitely keep going though. We’ve got our heads screwed on. We’re all pulling in the same direction. We all know what we want and what we’ve got to do to get where we want to. We just like working hard, and this is what we like doing. What else would we want to do?”
Blossoms will play Trinity Ball on April 7th.
