ON THE RISE
Cincinnati band Orchid in the Ivy has only one cover, Midnight Oil’s “Burning Beds,” among the three albums and two EPs, almost 50 tracks, they have put out since forming in 2013.
Their “Burning Beds” is not at all like the sedate, measured, summer evening Midnight Oil contemplation of the world. The Orchid “Burning Beds” regards the world from the middle of a fast, loud, raucous punk-rock wildfire.
“I love the bass line,” said Brett Scharf, one of the band’s two founding members. “It has such a groove to it. We didn't change the structure of it, but we really sped it up and gave it more of a punk, hard rock feel.”
How can we dance when our earth is turnin’?
How do we sleep while our beds are burnin’?
How can we dance when our earth is turnin’?
How do we sleep while our beds are burnin’?
They also cut about two minutes off the 5-minute-long original.
Since first appearing on that 2013 album, Minus One, the song has become a staple in their performances. Their audiences like it and expect it, which is one reason the band has released a remix of it in advance of their push into a new phase of their career.
“It’s always done really well wherever we play it, and everybody knows us by doing ‘Beds Are Burning.’ We got an EP coming up, so we’re releasing one song at a time, and we thought it might be a good introduction to lead with something that people know, but it’s got a different twist on it.”
“I don’t really like covers being done where they sound just like the original,” said Brett. “What’s the point, you know? We put our own spin on this. We sped it up and added some distortion to the bass, and I thought it had a great groove.”
They remixed their own original cover to bring the vocals up and out front more. It is a rock track that sweeps you up as it flies through and carries you down the line.
“It always did very well, but we never pushed it really hard in the past. So, as a lead-in to this EP, we thought it’s something people could recognize and jump on as we start releasing the other stuff.”
The musical torch they take to the burning of beds is also a better fit with the world vibe of 2025.
“The lyrics, you know — the beds are burning. Right now, with politics and all, it seems like it’s just — God, you can’t even keep up one day to the next! If you read it every day, you’re just going to be depressed. So, the whole beds are burning thing, it just resonated.”
The band is Brett, vocals and guitar, Mark Schulti, drums, and Chris Saalfeld, bass. Brett was in the band Spindle and toured with Fallout Boy, Motion City Soundtrack and Plain White T’s. After that, he returned to Cincinnati and formed Rosemary Device, which is where he met Mark Schulti, formerly a member of the band Krinj.
Rosemary Device’s singer left for New York, so Brett decided to take a shot at vocals. Brett’s voice is a high baritone with an edge, perfect for the rock they love, and after he and Mark recorded a song, they thought they were on to something but needed a bass player.
They recruited Chris, who Brett met in college when they were music majors together. Both are classically trained guitarists.
The result: “We are a three-piece band kind of like Nirvana — a three-piece powerhouse.”
The band is a candidate to be picked up by a booking agent, and preparing for that they are building their next EP.
“We feel like we’ve got something really good here, and we’re excited about it. I think the EP is really phenomenal.”
He said the band has been developing its sound, and for the EP has circled back in the direction of “some of our earlier stuff, because we really like that sound.”
“It feels very personal, and this one’s got a lot of energy. We always talk about some of our favorite bands, the three or four bands that we really like, influences like Rise Against, Alkaline Trio, Thrice, Bayside. We’re in that genre of bands.”
They perform four or five times a year, he said, mainly in the tri-state area around Cincinnati.
“We’d love to tour more, but we really need a booking agent so we can get out there and get on some good shows. We really need to be on some decent tours, and that’s what we’re hoping happens here.”
The plan is to release a single every six to eight weeks until they have the five for the EP (“Burning Beds” will remain a stand-alone).
“I’ve toured in the past, and I’ve played for the cigarette machine and the pool table before. I’ve already done that, so, this time around, I’d like to have more support before we hit the road.”
He would like, he says, “to be the biggest band in the world,” but what he really wants is “musically driven” fans.
“I would love to tour, and I want fans that are musically driven — they’re not there because they saw it on some TikTok. They’re there because they love music, and they’re diving into it.”
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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.
