Blossoms frontman Tom Ogden has spoken to NME about commemorating a decade of their self-titled debut album, the band’s rise from those early days, and their upcoming collaborative single with Declan McKenna. Check out our full interview below.
On Wednesday (August 5), the band celebrated 10 years of their Number One debut album by playing it front-to-back at Manchester’s 260-capacity Deaf Institute. Marking their first show at the venue since 2014, the Stockport five-piece also brought out deep cuts, fan favourites and previewed songs from their upcoming sixth album ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’. The one-off gig was recorded for an accompanying live album titled ‘Live At The Deaf Institute’.
Having launched the upcoming LP in June with a pop-up van gig outside 42nd Street Nightclub, vocalist Tom Ogden spoke to us after the Deaf Institute gig about the magic of intimate shows. “It’s nice to do these moments that feel more grounded, in a way,” he said. “The first time we played The Deaf Institute, a photographer called Debbie Ellis shot us, and we invited her back to come and shoot us again. We had a nice email from a fan called Joe, who we stopped seeing, the bigger we got, because he obviously prefers the smaller shows.
“He exchanged email addresses with Charlie [Salt, bassist] back in the day, and he emailed saying, ‘I still follow the band, it’s great to see how much you’ve risen, but to see you in this venue again would mean a lot to me.’ In 2014, we gave out little carnations to every person who came to the show – Charlie’s aunty was a florist – and he was like, ‘I’ll wear the red carnation again!’. Little things like that, there is a real old-school togetherness with the fans, and it was a really special night.”
The buzz upstairs at the sweatbox of The Deaf Institute was palpable, as NME entered through armies of teenagers piled outside the Oxford Road venue, begging for spare tickets. With The Lottery Winners’ Thom Rylance spotted in the audience, Blossoms took to the stage shortly after 9pm and exploded straight into ‘Charlemagne’, their traditional show closer, promoted to pole position as the opening track on their debut album.
“It was Joe’s [Donovan, drummer] 22nd birthday the last time we played here,” recalled Ogden, after asking if anyone else here was in attendance 12 years ago. “I still can’t grow facial hair!” An elastic ‘At Most A Kiss’ and guaranteed sing-along ‘Getaway’ kept momentum sky-high, while Ogden pre-warned the crowd before the first outing of ‘Onto Her Bed’ in a decade: “If I fuck the words up, I have an excuse!
“We thought we’d give you an authentic 2014 experience where there’s loads of silence in between the tunes, and it’s not as slick,” he joked. “It’s nice, a bit of nostalgia every now and again, isn’t it?”
‘Texia’ had echoes of The Last Shadow Puppets, and the outro of ‘My Favourite Room’ turned into a crowd rendition of Oasis’ ‘Half The World Away’. Things soon descended towards full-blown story time, as Ogden recounted keyboardist Myles Kellock’s audition for the band plus the occasion The Coral’s James Skelly gifted him a guitar.
Returning for latest singles ‘Joke About Divorce’ and ‘Meet Me In Love’ in the encore, the latter saw Declan McKenna – who seems to be gearing up for a new era himself – pop up on stage to contribute backing vocals, before picking up a guitar and quipping “Here’s ‘Wonderwall’!” Introducing unreleased newbie ‘Additional Driver’, Ogden explained on stage that the collaborative track is about a “minor collision in a car at the Apollo roundabout.
“I was pulling out and somebody cut me up, but the police were right behind us, so we had this whole exchange of, ‘Just making sure you’re insured.’ As it happened, some lad tapped and asked for a selfie.” The track had art-rock, funk and disco influences, also briefly nodding to The Beatles’ ‘Drive My Car’ as Ogden and McKenna traded vocals. As for the song’s title, Ogden told the crowd: “I was an additional driver on the insurance.”
In his interview with NME, Ogden said the song came about in the same AirBnb in Anglesey where they wrote 2024 single ‘I Like Your Look’ with CMAT. “I had to give a little disclaimer of what it was about, because it is ridiculous, but a lot of fun… the whole thing felt like a fever dream,” he reflected. “We wrote with Declan for a week. One day, it got to 9 o’clock, we had a few drinks, and we started getting that groove of what the song is, and that bump – it wasn’t a crash, it was a bump – had just happened a couple of days before.
“We started spitballing these ideas and ended up doing the vocals in the hot tub. It was, as you’d imagine, ridiculousness, but it ended up being fun the same way as [2024 album] ‘Gary’ was fun. I knew it had something, because ‘Gary’ gave us licence to do whatever the fuck we want… it was an element of trusting our gut. The video is ridiculous – which makes me want to do it more – we had the 192 [bus] going down the A6, and we recreated the scene outside the Apollo with fake police. It was a lot of fun.”
Check out the rest of our interview below, where Ogden spoke about the legacy of their debut, similarities with Wolf Alice, and what to expect from ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’.
NME: Hi Tom. What were the feelings on stage as you pressed pause on your upcoming album campaign to indulge and celebrate 10 years of debut album?
Tom Ogden: “Pure joy, really. For the vast majority of our career, and as a person, I’m always looking forward, but it is nice to take it in and actually appreciate the moment. Them old tunes, there’s a rawness, the youth of making them songs. You couldn’t do it again now because you’re a different person, you sing about different things. We’ve never been ‘punk’, but there’s a youthful energy to it, an aggression in the singing, which is charming, in a way.”
While you’ve been so busy evolving over the past decade, have you kept an eye on what your debut album has grown into, and what it means to so many people?
“Only of late. [When you] have success off one album, people might take their foot off the gas and think, ‘Oh, we’ve made it,’ whereas I never felt like that, so I was constantly like, ‘We need to stay in the mix.’ After ‘Gary’, I had a moment where I felt like I could take stock. Up until that point, I was always restless… I’d beat myself up about things and kept a barrier on how much I could let myself enjoy it. Seeing people take to ‘Gary’ made me take stock a little bit and go, ‘We’ve done all right here. We’ve got a new album and arena tour on the way.’”
How do you contend with the idea of Blossoms existing only as an arena band? When some bands make that jump, they never look back…
“A lot of fans online have said, ‘You should be in arenas,’ but we’ve choked it to a point where we’ve got a catalogue to do those shows now. If we’d made that jump too early, we’d have been out of our depth. I think we’re a better live band, I’m a better frontman, I’m way more comfortable. I know who I am now, I’m 33. For many years, I felt a bit lost with it, self-conscious, whereas I’ve evolved into that role and I love it now. It feels like the right time to go to arenas, and it’s not daunting. It feels like where we should be, in a way.”
How do you think your debut album would fare if it were to be released in 2026?
“I’d like to think it would stand up! On the second album [‘Cool Like You‘, 2018] there are a few stinkers – maybe because I had less time and that ‘second album’ thing – but that first record, there’s no songs I’d get rid of. Playing them 10 years later, none of it felt outdated, it felt timeless, to me. I think if we put out ‘Charlemagne’ tomorrow, people would still jump on it. Maybe not – maybe we’d stay at The Deaf Institute and never evolve! It’s hard to say, but I’m going to back myself.”
Looking back at other British indie bands who released exciting debut albums around 2016, you have acts like Wolf Alice who are flying, but others like Sundara Karma have split, and The Hunna are about to. Blossoms have so much still ahead of them, but what does it mean to be so creatively stimulated as you hit the 10-year mark?
“From the start, we wanted longevity. Resting on our laurels was never on the agenda for us, to be honest. Maybe because of where we’re from, once we got that opportunity with the record deal, we thought, ‘This is it. We’re going to grab it with both horns and go for it.’ It’s nice to see we’re still in there. It feels like the biggest we’ve ever been, which [doesn’t] often happen – like you said, you can fall off – and I think that’s because we are so hungry.
“I’m a huge Wolf Alice fan, we know them a little bit, and seeing them backstage does remind me of us – on a friendship level. They go to the pub together, hang out and live and breathe it the same way we do. Obviously, making great songs, you have to do that and keep evolving, which they have done, and I think we’re doing that as well, in our own lane. From that era, maybe the friendship is an important thing within that. There are parallels with the creativity. I can see they’re over every element, and you’ve got to be like that these days.
“It’s sad to see other bands not make it. Maybe back in the day, it would have been enough to not be [artistically involved across] every element. But unless you are, I don’t think it always works out. I love The Magic Gang, but they didn’t manage to stay together, and it’s sad to see that. But I think it’s down to the hunger, and maybe a bit of luck as well. We’ve got a lot of great people around us.”
Alongside Declan, we’ve heard Rick Astley doing backing vocals on ‘Joke About Divorce’. What role did Inhaler’s Elijah Hewson have on your new album?
“On an album track, this middle eight section, I was singing like Eli and thought, ‘This bit would sound great with Eli singing it,’ so Joe was like, ‘Well, let’s just fucking message him.’ He sent us the vocals back the next day, he did it remotely at his place in London. In hip-hop world, for example, you’re always getting features and people jumping on each other’s tracks, so at this point we’re like, ‘Why can’t we do a bit of that?’”
You mentioned how ‘Gary’ unlocked the door for things to get even more unserious on ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ – the track listing mentions songs about the Kardashians and Uma Thurman. What would the Tom of 2016 think of the new album, and the style of songwriting you’ve grown into?
“I think he’d like it! I don’t know whether he’d have the foresight to fully understand it, but writing the song ‘Your Girlfriend’ was a game-changer for me, in terms of narrative-based songs where you have licence to have fun with it and go elsewhere. But I think he’d like the playfulness, because that sense of humour has always been there.”
Blossoms’ new album ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ is out October 2 via ODD SK / Distiller Records. Visit here to pre-order, including an exclusive live double CD edition featuring ‘Live At The Deaf Institute’.
Their upcoming UK headline tour dares are below. Visit here for tickets and more information.
NOVEMBER
26 – Cardiff, Utilita Arena
27 – London, Alexandra Palace
28 – Manchester, Co-op Live
DECEMBER
4 – Birmingham, Utilita Arena
5 – Glasgow, OVO Hydro
11 – Manchester, Co-op Live
