Blossoms: ‘A cover with Kylie? We’d be 100% up for that’

Right now, Blossoms should be getting ready for their last dates on tour with The Killers.

Lockdown has led to the gigs being postponed, but the band are still keeping busy – and it appears they have another celebrity fan, too.

Just before she celebrated her birthday last week, Kylie Minogue was snapped by paparazzi wearing one of the Stockport indie-pop band’s T-shirts, featuring a heart and the title of their song, Love Talk.

“Yeah, how mad’s that?” says frontman Tom Ogden on a Zoom call from home.

“I think someone must have give her the T-shirt because there’s no way she’s gone on our website and bought that, I just can’t see it happening. Well, who knows?

“Then she put another Instagram Story listening to the song while she was filming her birthday cake, so she must be a fan. We never really have any like, massive celebrity fans, so it was a nice surprise when someone sent us the photo.”

As it happens, Blossoms are using their time in lockdown to record a series of covers, including some collaborations with other artists such as Miles Kane and The Coral’s James Skelly.

Maybe Minogue could be next on their list?

“Well, hopefully we might be able to pull some strings,” says Ogden. “Stranger things have happened I’m sure. We’d be 100% up for it.”

Since forming in 2013, Blossoms have enjoyed widespread success, with their 2016 self-titled debut album topping the charts and receiving a nomination for the Mercury Prize.

After releasing their third album, Foolish Loving Spaces – their second to reach number one – in January, Blossoms were looking forward to playing the new songs live to fans.

But the coronavirus pandemic has led to life changing very swiftly, and like many artists, the band had to come up with different ways to interact with fans while gigs are off the agenda.

With their album only a few months old they decided not to release new material – even though Ogden has still been writing – instead choosing to record covers and re-workings of some of their older songs.

Having gone down well with fans, they are set to release Blossoms In Isolation, an album of all the tracks recorded from their separate homes.

“You can’t ever imagine it being back to normal at the minute, can you?” says Ogden. “It’s surreal but I’ve been able to write a lot of songs… I’ve tried to be productive with the time at home.

“Obviously, we’ve not been able to see each other. That’s been one of the strange things for us, we’ve not been able to play and do what we normally do. It’s probably the longest we’ve ever not played together in like seven years.

“I’ve been writing songs but then normally they come to life when we can demo them together. So I’m kind of just stockpiling them for the moment when we can get back.”

It’s a good position to be in, Ogden says, and means for now they can use the time to perfect their covers – isolation versions of songs including The Beatles’ Paperback Writer, Frank Ocean’s Lost, The Coral’s Dreaming Of You, in collaboration with Skelly, and Tame Impala’s The Less I Know The Better, with Miles Kane.

Ogden admits they got their inspiration from perhaps an unlikely source.

“The Backstreet Boys did one,” he says. “My girlfriend showed it me and was like, you’d be dead good at that, because we’ve edited videos ourselves before and that’s kind of my other passion, really, making films. That’s what I would have tried to do if the band didn’t end up doing well.”

Are Blossoms Backstreet Boys fans as well as Kylie fans?

“I wouldn’t say I’m a massive fan but I’m not averse to singing along to that tune if I’ve had a drink.”

Recorded on their phones, Blossoms In Isolation has been mixed by the band’s keyboard player, Myles Kellock, with the videos put together by Ogden.

“He makes it sound good and I make it look good,” he says.

As a music fan himself, Ogden says he also understands the fascination of seeing stars playing live from their front rooms.

“If I saw one of my favourite bands do what we’ve been doing from home… you know, sat in the back room singing or whatever, it gives it a completely different spin, which you never would’ve thought of until this situation we’re all being put in.

“So yeah, it’s a nice antidote for all the… well, to try and forget about stuff you hear everywhere else, I suppose.”

And when live music does return, “it’s gonna be like nothing we’ve seen before, I don’t think”.

The Killers gigs, now scheduled for 2021, will be “a real highlight of our career” but Ogden says he also feels they have unfinished business when it comes to their own headlines shows.

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“You hit a part of the tour where you kind of feel like you’re in your flow and the gigs are getting better and you’re more confident,” he says. “On this record, we got a load of session musicians in and we had backing singers and extra percussion and it felt really exciting to be playing live. And then it just stopped in its tracks.

“And touring this album, because it only came out at the end of January, it’s not an old record by any means…

“It’s hard to imagine that [live gig] scenario, that many people in one place, but once they say it can happen it’s gonna be fever pitch, as they say. You know, everyone’s just gonna be scrambling for tickets, aren’t they? Wanting to go out there and have a good time. So we can’t wait.”

For now, though, fans can enjoy their covers.

And Kylie, if you’re reading this, get in touch – they can probably squeeze you in.

Blossoms In Isolation is out on 3 July. Their latest cover, Dreaming Of You, with The Coral’s James Skelly, is released across streaming services from 3 June

(c) Sky News 2020: Blossoms: ‘A cover with Kylie? We’d be 100% up for that’