Blossoms have spoken to NME about the race for this week’s Number One against The Beatles and Johnny Marr with their latest album ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’, as well as their mission to keep things DIY and handmade in the age of AI.
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The Stockport indie veterans released their sixth album last week (Friday October 2), which found itself sandwiched in-between The Beatles’ ‘Rubber Soul’ reissue and The Smiths icon Marr’s new solo effort ‘The Age Of Everything‘ at Number Two in the midweeks.
“It’s mad, to be honest,” frontman Tom Ogden told NME of their chart placing. “Liverpool on one side, Manchester on the other and Stockport in the middle. If you’d told us this 10 years ago, when we were releasing our debut, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I mean, we’re in good company aren’t we?”
Explaining the vibe of the record, Ogden said that ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ was “about being married and all the everyday stuff that comes with it”, having wed Katie Donovan (sister of Blossoms drummer Joe) back in 2021. Since then, he’s come to understand and enjoy what he calls “the extraordinary ordinary”.
“Saying the wrong thing in an argument, losing your wife’s no claims bonus, crying at the Kardashians, it’s all in there,” he shared. “The album is named after Stockport Town Hall, which everyone round where we live calls the Wedding Cake, and it’s where I got married, so it couldn’t be much closer to home.
“The last album [‘Gary’, 2024] had a song about a stolen fibreglass gorilla, which everyone loved, and that gave us the confidence to bring the same playfulness to this one, just with more personal subject matter this time.”
As well as featuring songs written with Declan McKenna in a hot tub, the new album also features a core DIY and hand-made spirit.
“It started with the recording,” said Ogden. “We made the album with Shawn Lee, playing live straight to tape, and once you’ve done it that way you can’t really go and fake everything else. We sat down as a band and picked the colour palette, and everything visual followed from that. We had body scans taken of ourselves and cake toppers of the five of us 3D printed, put them on a real cake and photographed it. I’ve directed and edited the videos, and the sets are all built by hand, no green screen. For the pop-up shop on launch weekend, a local artist hand-painted the album cover for the sign outside.
“It’s more work, but you end up with a world that’s yours, and I think people can tell when a band’s had its hands on everything.”
It’s a defiant stance at a time when AI and digital trickery are running amok, but for Blossoms “the fun is in the making”.
“Tape doesn’t let you cheat and neither does a real cake,” Ogden argued. “If a set’s a bit wonky, it’s because one of us or our mates built it. I think the more stuff gets generated, the more people want to know a human being actually did it. We’ve been in this band together for over 10 years, five lads from Stockport, and that isn’t something you can ‘prompt’.”
Meanwhile, Maya Jama recently starred in the band’s video for lead single ‘Meet Me In Love’, not long before the new series of Celebrity Traitors launched in the UK where she was chosen as a traitor in the castle amongst the likes of Richard E Grant, James Acaster and many more.
“She was brilliant,” said Ogden of their collab with Jama. “We’d met her at the MTV EMAs in Manchester a couple of years ago, so we took a chance and sent her a DM …and she said yes. Next thing she’s in a theatre in Cheadle miming my vocals while a load of people dressed as me serenade her. She got the idea straight away and was a proper laugh about it.
And what does he make of her chances of winning Celebrity Traitors?
Ogden replied: “As for Traitors, she spent a whole day pretending to sing my song and I almost believed her, so I’d say she’s got every chance.”
‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ is out now. Blossoms will kick off a UK arena tour with The Royston Club in November. Visit here for tickets and more information.
The band will also be performing on SNL UK on Saturday October 24.
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