THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Produced by J Lloyd and James Skelly, Flossoms’ fifth album Gary is named after an eight-foot fibreglass gorilla that was stolen from a Lanarkshire garden centre in early 2023. After a campaign to locate him, his rear end was recently found, but his frontage is still missing!
“We’ve recreated the story on screen with Rick Astley playing Andrew Scott, the owner of the garden centre, and the band stealing Gary,” explains frontman Tom Ogden, who co-directed the clip with his brother Ewan. “This video was so much fun to make and was shot again on 16mm film, on location around Stockport, the Peak District, and Derbyshire. The song itself is the centrepiece of the album — and after toying with different titles, we kept going back to Gary. In the end, it could only be Gary.”
Ogden says the album sessions were an old-style experience, with the band recording live in a single room, with collaboration at the front of their minds. “We collaborated more than we ever have on this record, and alongside working with long-time collaborator James Skelly, we brought in Josh and CMAT (Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson),” Ogden continued.
“We hired an Airbnb on the seafront in Anglesey and locked ourselves away for the writing session with Ciara, and it was one of the most inspiring few days we’ve had as a band. During the writing process, we were listening to a lot of Bowie, Blondie, and Hall & Oates.”
The album tracks themselves are based on different stories, mostly from personal experience. “On Big Star, after seeing a well-known music journalist in the Chateau Marmont, I debate going over and introducing myself, but then shyness gets the better of me and I don’t. I Like Your Look is a tipping of the hat to Blondie’s Rapture and a wink to Joan Baez’s Time Rag. And lyrically it explores a tongue-in-cheek approach to high fashion. Mothers is an ode to my and Joe’s friendship and it references the fact that our mothers were friends back in the ’80s.”
The band’s fifth album comes after four Top Five albums in the U.K. Blossoms’ 2016 debut topped the charts for two weeks and went on to earn BRIT Award and Mercury Prize nominations, while 2018’s Cool Like You charted at N. 4 in the U.K. album chart, spawning the anthemic singles I Can’t Stand It, There’s A Reason Why (I Never Returned Your Calls) and How Long Will This Last? Their third studio album, 2020’s Foolish Loving Spaces, was the band’s second U.K. No. 1 album.
