Blossoms have teamed up with Rick Astley once again, this time for a cover of Charli XCX‘s ‘360’ in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge.
The Stockport indie band stopped by the Live Lounge today (October 14) but didn’t reveal that Astley was with them as a special guest until they started performing. Indeed, presenters Melvin Odoom, Charlie Hedges and Rickie Haywood-Williams only found out they’d have a special guest with them just before they came on air.
As is tradition on the Live Lounge, Blossoms picked a song to cover and, about 10 minutes into the programme, chose to deliver a jangly, guitar-led take on the track from Charli’s celebrated album ‘Brat’. Astley then joined in for an interpolation of Stardust’s 1998 hit ‘Music Sounds Better With You’.
“We’ve been in love with the record. Obviously, everyone knows that it’s been a ‘Brat’ summer, hasn’t it?” said frontman Tom Ogden. “We love it the same way everyone else has and this tune I just think is a great pop record.”
Blossoms also performed ‘Perfect Me’, which is taken from their new album ‘Gary’.
Blossoms and Astley have previously teamed up numerous times to perform The Smiths supergroup covers. They first did so in 2022 when he joined Blossoms on stage in London to perform a number of Smiths covers – before they then played a number of full gigs dedicated to the iconic ’80s indie icons. Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr was less than pleased having not been told about it, before telling NME that he’d been in touch with Blossoms and “dealt with it“.
They later performed a full set of Smiths covers for a secret set at Glastonbury 2023.
Blossoms recently spoke to NME about the process behind making their fifth album ‘Gary’. “It’s like an amalgamation of everything we’ve done previously,” Ogden explained. “You take little bits from every writing experience throughout your career, and then you find what you like. The last record felt like an outlier because it was written through the lockdown and it almost felt like it was for a film or something. Before I even wrote a song this time, I knew I wanted this album to feel like a party record. It ended up taking many different turns. It was the most lost I’ve felt in a weird way, but you end up finding your path, and we really had fun with it.”
Ogden was also asked about the possibility of the band opening for Oasis next year.
“It was the best-kept secret in the music industry. We were playing at Wythenshawe Park on Sunday, and on Saturday night, the reunion article breaks,” Ogden recalled. “We’re all like, ‘This has got to be bullshit again’, but it felt a bit more legit. The next day, going to the gig, our manager calls us saying we need to show a video on the screens after the set because they’re showing it at Reading & Leeds. I’m like, ‘Is it Oasis?’ and he says, ‘I can’t tell you’. When we came offstage, we ran around to the front to see the video!”
He continued: “Nothing has been discussed, nothing has been asked; I don’t think they’ll sort it out until next year. It’s sold out. They don’t need to announce the supports. I’d like to think our name might be in the mix because why not? We’ve never shied away from saying how much they’ve influenced us. We went to watch them at Heaton Park when we were 16, and we kind of know them both. I’m not going to get my hopes up, though, because, at the end of the day, it’s up to them. If we get asked, the bags are packed, and we’d smash it.”
