ON THE RISE
Heatstroke is the perfect name for a band whose first album, Empire Statement, is hot, kick-butt rock from tracks one through 11, because rock is the beating heart of Heatstroke.
The single they chose to promote the album, “Times Square Claire,” is what they regard as the least rock of the tracks.
“We chose that song because it’s a song that we think can speak to the broadest possible audience,” said Troy Kirkwood, drummer and one of two founding members.
Orion Anderson, lead vocals, is the other founder. Daniel Beaton is the lead guitarist and Hunter Larabie is on bass guitar.
“Times Square Claire,” said Troy, “is a catchy song and it’s got an important story, as does the whole album.”
Orion called it the most poppy track on the album. He said the thought was that it might draw some listeners who might not otherwise make rock their first choice.
“But it can also expand on the actual rock scene and help it to grow a little more, especially with the way that music is going these days — more toward the rap and the EDM style of stuff that …”
“That we’re gonna stay as far away from as possible,” said Troy, finishing Orion’s thought. The rest of the band laughed their approval.
The poppiest on the album it may be, but it’s got a whole lot of rock, with the kind of driving guitar, rhythm and drum work rock fans want.
And Orion knows how to sing, whether it’s belting out lyrics in the hard rock tracks or putting out a soft flow in the album’s ballads, “Central Park” and “Sail Me Away.”
The album tells the story of a young man growing up in New York City. Except for the first track, “Empire Statement Overture,” and the last, “Sail Me Away,” the song titles are pegged to locations in the city — “Brownsville,” “Coney Island,” “Broadway,” “Times Square Claire,” “Brooklyn,” “Staten Island Ferry,” “Statue of Liberty,” “Concrete Jungle (Subway Station),” and “Central Park.”
The album is a life, Jacey Finn’s, who is the main character, said Troy.
“It’s just what life is like growing up in New York City and the pressures that you face and the temptations that you better avoid,” he said.
Speaking to the “statement” that’s in the album title, he said, “And, yeah, the statement is just see how you make your own destiny. Right? See how you can handle what you’re thrown.”
“Times Square Claire” is about the day Jacey sees Claire, who is hooking in the city’s Times Square.
Saw you standing across the street
Claire my poor heart melted
Don’t have to believe in love at first sight
But if you did I felt it
Just a Brooklyn teenage boy
Too cautious to say hello
“Jacey meets prostitute, falls ignorantly falls in love with her, not knowing what a prostitute is, but to the wider audience who isn’t following the story, it’s just another love song that they can listen to and relate to in that certain way,” said Hunter.
“We wrote it with that in mind, that she was a prostitute,” said Troy, “but it doesn’t have to be that because, really, when I first wrote the song, it was about my first relationship, my first heartbreak, but, you know, musicians find maniacal ways to change that around.”
The album is a fun piece of rock literature. Troy said it can be taken as a movie or as a play.
For Heatstroke, rock is the language of art. In its official bio, the band lists its influences as The Who, Sam Cooke, Humble Pie, the Sex Pistols, Led Zeppelin and Metallica, to which Daniel adds a personal influence, Queen’s Brian May.
Even the ballads feature some killer guitar riffs from Daniel, and “Sail Me Away” alternates between balladic passages and hard rock in its seven-minute run.
The band calls Sudbury, Canada, home. The four members have been together since 2021. They are just getting started.
They expressed their admiration and gratitude for their producer, Brent Wohlberg.
“It would be brutal if we did this and didn’t give a shout-out to our producer and how he really turned us from kind of a mediocre garage band into a really good sounding band.”
Hunter said they have a lot of songs ready to record in future projects, songs that they are already playing live.
Their next gig is opening for the Fortunate Losers, a popular Ontario band, at Sudbury’s Townhouse Tavern on November 25.
Troy said that performing at larger venues is a dream, even though “I feel most at home in the studio.”
“But the shows are getting more and more fun for all of us, and the bigger they get, the more fun they are.”
Asked where they want to go with their music, Daniel said, “We’re going, the base idea is, all the way.”
Daniel wrote the final song on the album, “Sail Me Away.” He wrote it before the group formed, and it wasn’t originally part of the story, but it fits as the end of a narrative about a young man’s destiny.
The final lines could also be talking about Heatstroke:
I embark on this journey
Not knowing what’s in store
Sail me away
It’s time to open another door
See where destiny takes Heatstroke. Stay connected on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
ON THE RISE
Blossoms caught up with NME to discuss competing with The Beatles and Johnny Marr for this week’s Number One album. With ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ in the running, the band also explained why making things themselves remains such an important part of their work as AI becomes more common.
The Stockport group put out their sixth album last Friday, October 2. By the midweek update, it was sitting at Number Two, between The Beatles’ expanded edition of ‘Rubber Soul’ and Johnny Marr’s latest solo album, ‘The Age Of Everything’.
“It’s mad, to be honest,” singer Tom Ogden said to NME about the chart race. “Liverpool on one side, Manchester on the other and Stockport in the middle. If you’d told us this 10 years ago, when we were releasing our debut, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I mean, we’re in good company aren’t we?”
Discussing the stories behind the album, Ogden described ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ as “about being married and all the everyday stuff that comes with it”. He married Katie Donovan, the sister of Blossoms drummer Joe, in 2021. Married life has since given him a new appreciation for what he describes as “the extraordinary ordinary”.
“Saying the wrong thing in an argument, losing your wife’s no claims bonus, crying at the Kardashians, it’s all in there,” he explained. “The album is named after Stockport Town Hall, which everyone round where we live calls the Wedding Cake, and it’s where I got married, so it couldn’t be much closer to home.
“The last album [‘Gary’, 2024] had a song about a stolen fibreglass gorilla, which everyone loved, and that gave us the confidence to bring the same playfulness to this one, just with more personal subject matter this time.”
Alongside tracks that came out of writing sessions with Declan McKenna in a hot tub, the album reflects the band’s desire to stay involved in every part of the creative process.
“It started with the recording,” Ogden explained. “We made the album with Shawn Lee, playing live straight to tape, and once you’ve done it that way you can’t really go and fake everything else. We sat down as a band and picked the colour palette, and everything visual followed from that. We had body scans taken of ourselves and cake toppers of the five of us 3D printed, put them on a real cake and photographed it. I’ve directed and edited the videos, and the sets are all built by hand, no green screen. For the pop-up shop on launch weekend, a local artist hand-painted the album cover for the sign outside.
“It’s more work, but you end up with a world that’s yours, and I think people can tell when a band’s had its hands on everything.”
With AI tools and digital effects becoming increasingly widespread, that approach feels particularly relevant. For Blossoms, though, the motivation is simple: “the fun is in the making”.
“Tape doesn’t let you cheat and neither does a real cake,” Ogden said. “If a set’s a bit wonky, it’s because one of us or our mates built it. I think the more stuff gets generated, the more people want to know a human being actually did it. We’ve been in this band together for over 10 years, five lads from Stockport, and that isn’t something you can ‘prompt’.”
Maya Jama also appeared in the video for the album’s first single, ‘Meet Me In Love’. Her appearance came shortly before the UK launch of Celebrity Traitors, where she took on the role of a traitor alongside a cast that included Richard E Grant and James Acaster.
“She was brilliant,” Ogden recalled of working with Jama. “We’d met her at the MTV EMAs in Manchester a couple of years ago, so we took a chance and sent her a DM …and she said yes. Next thing she’s in a theatre in Cheadle miming my vocals while a load of people dressed as me serenade her. She got the idea straight away and was a proper laugh about it.”
The conversation then turned to whether he thought Jama could take home the win on Celebrity Traitors.
Ogden joked: “As for Traitors, she spent a whole day pretending to sing my song and I almost believed her, so I’d say she’s got every chance.”
Fans can listen to ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ now. In November, Blossoms head out on a UK arena tour with The Royston Club. Tickets and further details are available here.
Before the tour begins, the group is also scheduled to appear on SNL UK on Saturday, October 24.
