Hits don’t stop Tom worrying
BLOSSOMS front man Tom Ogden admits he’s a “bit of a worrier”.
He’ll notice if one person at a gig is looking bored, even when the rest of the audience are having the time of their lives.
And as the band’s songwriter the fortunes of his bandmates and their crew rests on his shoulders.
Then the Covid pandemic hit. As the group release their fourth album, Ribbon Around the Bomb, Tom revealed: “We couldn’t tour, we had nothing in the pipeline and that made me reflect a bit more on what we have achieved, where we have come from.
“I looked inwards a little bit and wrote songs about what it’s like to do all that at such a young age.
“There’s a lyric in the last track called Visions which goes, ‘Was I complete at 23?’ which sums it up to be honest. I had just got with Katie, who I am now married to, and we had just got a No1 album. I was 23 and I hadn’t had a chance to take stock, appreciate it and look back.”
Now 28, Tom has written two UK No1 albums – the self-titled debut and 2020’s third album Foolish Loving Spaces.
It means there’s a certain level of expectation with the new album. He said: “As the songwriter. If I don’t write the songs it could all fall apart.
“I remember feeling like that and obviously the bigger we got, the more people rely on you. You have crew that work for you and I am thinking, ‘F***, if I stop writing songs, all these people...’
“I am a bit of a worrier. That’s what I’m like. So I have a tendency to go to the worst case scenario, which is something I have got a lot better at.”
Tom got to grips with his worries just before lockdown. But some habits are hard to break.
He admitted: “I would see one person in the crowd who looked bored and then that would just throw me for the whole gig. Even though there are like 15,000 other people who are loving it!”
Not that he wants to come across as miserable. He just thinks sometimes you lose sight of what makes you happy and you have to appreciate what you’ve got. And the pandemic helped to do that. He said: “It made us all appreciate how far we have come and how great it is to do what we do. It’s given us a newfound love for it.”
Blossoms, who support the Killers in June in Falkirk , made history in May last year headlining a “trial” show in Liverpool, the first major festival in the UK for 14 months with no social distancing or face masks.
The gig for 5000 music fans stands out in Tom’s mind as the start of a new era for the band.
He said: “It was like playing our first gig all over again but everyone already knows all the words.
“It was honestly one of the best experiences we have ever had as a band.” ●Ribbon Around the Bomb is released today. They support The Killers at Falkirk Stadium on June 6.