ON THE RISE
From the opening electric guitar strum of “No Regrets Only Greatness,” one thing is clear: this song is here to motivate. With big upbeat drums and major key pop punk chords, the new single by Darryn Yates will get your body moving, while its message will have you nodding your head.
“No Regrets Only Greatness” is an anthem for everyone who knows it isn’t too late to follow your dreams. As Yates sings, with a tone reminiscent of gen-X icons like Bon Jovi or the Gin Blossoms, “I didn’t come this far just to give up now… There’s no regrets, only greatness.”
Yates’s optimism has been hard won. Two decades ago, he was a young rocker hustling to make it in the LA and Nashville music scenes. The big break didn’t come, and soon Yates moved on. A relocation to St. Louis, marriage, and three kids, and a music career was all but behind him.
But the rebellious spirit of rock & roll lived on in Darryn Yates — so much that he kept on getting fired from job after job. He hit rock bottom, struggling with depression and a feeling that there was no way forward.
Yates didn’t give up. Instead, he rebuilt his life through coaching others. In helping people with personal growth, he applied those lessons to himself, leading him back to music.
“I realized I could either stay on the dark path or fight my way back. Once I chose the fight, the music came rushing back like it had been waiting for me all along,” Yates says.
Now Yates is making up for lost time. Three singles in 2025 have quickly led to more than 20,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. With more ideas flowing, Yates is just getting started.
Yates’s chief collaborator on these tracks is producer Kevin W. Gates of Reach Audio in Springfield, Missouri. Gates, a specialist in the sound of 90s bands like Gin Blossoms and Barenaked Ladies, has proved an ideal partner for Yates’s retro rock vision. Together they are crafting song after song of anthemic hooks, driving guitars, and, of course, choruses ready for concertgoing crowds to scream at the top of their lungs.
As a Generation X father of three rebooting a music dream after so many years, Yates has his doubters. But he sees them as fuel. He says, “Every time someone doubts me or writes me off, that’s when I do my best work. The hate and the doubt are fuel. I want to see their jaws drop when they realize I’m not stopping. That’s what ‘No Regrets Only Greatness’ is all about.”
“No Regrets Only Greatness” is available now on all streaming platforms. More music will follow soon. Upcoming releases include a baseball-inspired rocker, “Swing for the Fences,” and an ode to all “the ones counted out,” titled “Freaks Rebels Weirdos.”
Follow Darryn Yates at the links below. Get motivated to give your dream a chance:
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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.
