This Friday sees the release of Moose Blood’s sophomore album Blush, the follow up to 2014’s debut I’ll Keep You In Mind, From Time To Time. We caught up with guitarist Mark Osborne to discuss everything Blush, from second album pressures to favourite lyrics.
This week you release your sophomore album Blush – did you ever feel like there was pressure on you after the success of your debut ‘I’ll Keep You In Mind, From Time To Time’?
We only really felt pressure from ourselves within the band. Everyone around us was and has been so incredibly supportive, we couldn’t ask to work with better people. We had around two months in between finishing touring and going to make the record, that we worked pretty much constantly during that time writing and recording demos. We knew we had to make a better record, we wanted to make a better record, and that was there pressure we put on ourselves.
You’ve already previewed a few tracks from the record, did they seem like obvious choices as singles to you when you were writing?
During the writing and recording process of this record we had no idea what the singles were going to be. It was only once the songs were completed and being mixed that we really thought what ones were looking like singles. I think we each had our own ideas of singles when we were recording, but I don’t think it’s until you have the finished record that you can seriously consider what your singles are going to be.
Have you been playing any new material (other than the singles) at your recent shows and festival appearances?
We’ve played a song called Glow a few times now, along with Honey and Knuckles. We did some filming for our management and played a song called Sway which we’d never played before, so that was a bit odd. The first time we played that song to an audience it was being filmed and we had to run it three times. It wasn’t the way I imagined first playing that song to people.
Once Blush is released will you be incorporating a lot of the new material into your sets?
I think we’ll add more new stuff gradually, instead of going straight out there and practically playing a whole new record to people. It’s great being able to have that option now, to incorporate new songs with the older stuff, and play a good mix of two records. We’re all so proud of I’ll Keep You In Mind… that we want to keep playing those songs too.
Is there a particular song on the album that you think your fans will relate to most?
I’m not sure if there’s a particular track, hopefully people can relate to the album in one way or another as a complete thing. The songs are written from such a personal perspective, so if anyone can relate to any of the tracks in any way then that’s awesome.
Is there a song or lyric on the record that stands out for you?
“I could’ve changed your mind, if only you told me.”
You’re playing some instore shows over the next week, will you be playing stripped down versions of the songs or will it be a full band performance?
We’re going to do some really stripped down versions that Eddy and I have been working on. Usually whenever we do acoustic stuff, Eddy does it by himself as we’ve never really had the time to write or practice alternate versions. I’m not a fan of just playing the song in exactly the same way on an acoustic, it feels like you’re cheating a little. Since we rewrote some of the tracks for the deluxe version of the album, we had time to mix things up a bit. We get to do a full band instore in Oxford Street too which will be so much fun.
Finally, tell us something about the album that we might not know.
Glenn did all the artwork and some of the photography himself for the record, and the 7” single. We came up with the pink theme initially, way before we’d even started writing, we had an idea of the aesthetic. He just took that and completely killed it, it’s a really beautiful thing he’s done.
Interview by: Hannah Gillicker
