Interview: Tom Ogden from Blossoms
British pop-rockers Blossoms are having a massive year in 2016. Having just completed a huge European tour (including a set at Glastonbury), the band are getting set to drop their self-titled debut album. However, before then, they’re coming all the way across a few ponds to hit the stage at Splendour In The Grass as well as some sideshows alongside Jake Bugg. We sat down for a chat with Blossoms’ vocalist Tom Ogden to find out about their crazy touring schedule, their plans for Australia, and how much they love your parents’ record collection.
How are things over on your side of the globe?
Really good! We just got home yesterday, off the back of a 20-day European festival tour. It was very intense. We kind go lived in each other’s shoes for most of it, but it was great. We did Glastonbury and loads of other ones across Europe – Switzerland, Belgium, France, Sweden – yeah it was really fun!
How was the Glastonbury experience?
It was really good. We were on the Other Stage with is kind of like the second biggest one, and we had a huge crowd of about 30,000 people, and it was so much fun. Just great exposure doing a gig like that. For a band at our stage, just that at the album, it was perfect timing. It was a special moment. And everyone talks about Glastonbury so highly for a reason, it is a great festival. We were gutted we couldn’t stick around longer, we had to shoot across to Germany for a gig the next day. Next year we’ll have to stay a bit longer.
Your last ‘At Most A Kiss’ EP brought together a whole stack of different sounds, who would you say are the band’s biggest musical influences?
All the obvious ones, growing up. My parents collection, when I was growing up was Oasis, The Smiths, The Beatles, ABBA, and a lot of greatest hits of all of those. And us being the age we are, the Arctic Monkeys were a big band for us, and collectively, probably are the biggest influence on our music. Catchy pop music, and a lot of 80s stuff with all the synthesiser sounds. Nothing too obscure and fancy, kind of just great pop song writing throughout the years.
The lyrics in the EP all sounded deeply personal, with a real storyteller quality to them, what were some of the tales behind the tracks?
A lot of the tracks on there are really personal. In the past I tried to disguise things in metaphors and be a bit more clever about the lyrics. Like Charlemagne is a bit more metaphorical. I saw that Amy Winehouse documentary, and I saw her lyrics coming up on the screen, I saw how honest she was with her lyrics. I was going through some stuff at the time and I tried to channel that into it. I think some of the best things come from that, because it’s personal. People can relate to it. Everyone’s been there and felt that heartbreak. It’s a little more brutally honest, and I liked the outcome of the songs, and the honesty.
So will this be your first trip Down Under as a band? Are you looking forward to getting out on stage at Splendour in the Grass?
Yeah it will be our first time, and we’re dead excited! Definitely! Can’t wait! It’s one of the ones I’ve most been looking forward to, I think.
You’ve played some absolutely mammoth festivals back in the UK, with Reading and Leeds, and T In the Park, for you, what is the difference between playing these huge festivals and playing a more intimate headline show?
It depends. Each festival is different. Things like Glastonbury and that, where you have huge outdoor stadium, and a huge crowd, but obviously the album’s not out yet, so less people know the songs. It’s more of a showcase, and you’re picking up fans, which is great for the stage we’re at.
And then at some festivals you’re in a tent, with your lighting guy, and you can create a great atmosphere in one of those tents. Sometimes they can be some of the best gigs. I’ll tell you those gigs in those tents can be more like a headline show where people know the songs more, and you can engage the vibe more. The lights and stuff take you a long way in those tents. It can give you that extra 10%.
That’s probably the similiarites and the differences. Each has their pros and their cons. Doing that gig at Glastonbury, gave us great exposure, and you can’t compare that to the others, even some of the tent gigs, but they both benefit you in different ways, I suppose.
You’ll be playing some sideshows with Jake Bugg, what would you hope to take away from performing alongside an artist who is both so young, but also so well established?
They’re the best ways to pick up fans in new places where not many people knows you really well. In the UK we did some shows as supports for bands like The Courteeners and James and off the back of those gigs we picked up a lot of fans.
The fact that we get to play some shows with Jake in Australia is a head start, and we’re gonna pick up fans off that, which is great. It’s showcasing your music next to an artist who’s been carefully picked. If people are fans of Jake then they’ll probably be fans of us. The more established we get, then there’s bands that support us, and that’s how the cycle continues, doesn’t it?
What would you hope to teach him about the way the Blossoms does things live?
I don’t think he’d pick up anything from us, we’re a different band in that way. He’s one of those solo artists, and he’s got his band with him, and his songs are in a different vein. We’re more of a keyboard/synthy guitar pop, so I don’t think things we do would rub off on him.
But there are a lot of songs on his new album, like Love, Hope and Misery, which has an RnB vibe on that that I can hear, which some of our songs have too. And I know that he’s a big hip-hop fan, and we are as well, so maybe we share an interest in some of those drum sounds and beats, I don’t know what will come of that while we tour. We’ve had a few chats and I think we’re on similar pages when it comes to musical interests and vibes.
Aside from the performances, is there anything else you have planned, or hope to get up to while you’re in Australia?
We’ve got a day off, I think, in Sydney, and we’d like to have a look around there. It’s not often that we get a day off in some of the great places we go, so we obviously if we do get the day off we’d love to have a look around. Just indulge and get a taste for what it’s like. Hopefully we’ll make enough connections to be able to get people to want us to come back again!
What should your Australian fans know before we all come along to watch you playing at Splendour?
Maybe check out a couple of songs, so you have an insight and you’re not going in blind. Then when we play the songs, you can kind of go “oh yeah I like this one”. We’re just singing pop songs from a real place, in Stockport. We’re real and we’ll speak to anyone. There’s no pretence with us and we’re honest people who love what we’re doing. If people come to see us they’ll really enjoy it and might go away wanting to see us again.
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