Blossoms: "You've got to believe your tunes are the best in the world"

Blossoms may have gone straight in at number one with their debut album and be mere hours away from playing the second stage at Reading Festival but it hasn’t gone to their head. “Do you want a drink? Some crisps? Fruit?” they offer as they go through their rider. “You can’t have the fan, we need that. We’ll probably need the mirror as well, sorry.”

Since the band formed three years ago, “it’s been non-stop touring,” explains Tom Ogden. “The more shows you play, the more you come into your own.” And Blossoms have played a lot of shows with a lot more still to come. “We’re more confident. Going to places like Romania, where no one knows who you are, teaches you to not give a fuck, put on more of a show and shake your hips a bit more.”

"[Since the release of their self-titled debut] more people know who we are but we haven’t changed as people. We’ve still got the same work ethic when we were rehearsing four nights a week for one show at the weekend. We’ve always had the work drive, you just get more people around you to make things easier and to get you to bigger levels. That’s what it is. We just want to get our music to massive crowds so they can sing back to us. That’s basically the dream and it’s on its way to happening,” continues Tom.

One of the band has spent £100 on a toothbrush and Charlie Salt has “developed a habit of picking up souvenirs to go on my amp.” “I was going to say shit souvenirs, but that’s a bit tight, isn’t it,” questions Tom. “Nah, they are shit but they’ve got a charm to them. I’ve got a kangaroo from Australia, a lucky cat from Japan and... that’s it.” For the time being anyway. America calls where Charlie wants to add a Donald Trump bobble-head to his collection. “I’ll sharpie something derogatory across his head though, of course.”

[sc name="pull" text="We knew we had something a little special."]

“Even from those very gigs in the early days, we knew we had something a little special, so that give us the fuel for the pursuit,” adds Charlie with Tom reasoning “You’ve got the have the self-confidence and the tunes. You’ve got to believe that your tunes are the best tunes in the world.” “and they are,” states Joe.

“We want more and more,” continues Tom. “We’re not sitting on this thing and thinking we’ve made it. We don’t feel like we’ve made it even though we’ve got a number one album. It’s just the start. Longevity, that’s where we want to strive to be. Come back in ten years. I’m writing for what will be the second album but that’ll be a long way away. We’re going to keep building.”

“We don’t want the momentum to stop. We’re always looking for ways to improve the live show,” explains Charlie as the band start listing possible improvements. Lights, banners, matching costumes, choreography.”

The band know they don’t want to be reduced to a hype band. There’s an excitement around them because they have good songs and while a lot of doors are suddenly opening for Blossoms, the band are “just having fun. We don’t take it too seriously ‘cos this is the best thing in the world to do. You’ve got to have a laugh and still be proud. We take it seriously but we don’t want to be self-indulgent about our sound or shit like that.” [sc name="stopper"]