Bloom’s “The Light We Chase” Opens A New Chapter In Sound

‘I watched it when I was four and it’s always been my favourite movie since. So, it’s kind of metamorphosed into my own personality in a lot of ways. I wore a ring on me since I was eleven, so it’s very part of who I am. Style icon, Aragon, ethically, Aragon, vibe wise, Aragon.’

Bloom drummer and avid movie aficionado Jack Van Vliet describes his favourite movie of all time – the epic journey of friendship, trials and ultimate triumph of Lord Of The Rings – and what it means to him while vocalist Jono Hawkey takes a backseat. We are together to discuss the bands brilliant sophomore album The Light We Chase, however the bands path to this release very much aligns with the epic J.R.R. Tolkien novels.

The story starts of five likely lads in the Sydney shire of Belrose, a suburb that features in three tracks on the new album – opener Belrose, Glen Street and a collaboration with Movements singer Patrick Miranda, Keep You. Jono takes up the story.

‘Belrose is the suburb that myself and Jared lived in. It’s where Andrew, Jack, Oliver, for all of us, it was a meeting point, a middle ground between all of our places where we grew up together. We have a lot of fond memories of Lionel Watts Oval and Glen Street shops, all of these different places. When we started thinking about this album, one of the first things that got brought up as a concept was an homage to this place where we all grew up together and we all hold a lot of fond memories of. I know the backstreets of Belrose. I could draw a map of Belrose just completely from memory. It’s where my parents still live and the house I grew up in. Whenever I go back home, there’s a feeling of this is, I know this spot is, I spent eighteen years living in this house. So, Belrose is a very sentimental place and I think it is between the five of us as well.’

The journey the hobbits, sorry, band has taken them since, now has most of the band settled in Melbourne however the pathway there, and to this album, has taken them around the globe, rocking to crowds with an supporting cast in their thousands.

‘We toured really fucking aggressively this year. We did America, we were there right up until first week of December, got home, did Christmas, then January rolled around and we went into the studio to write the album that’s coming out. We did that for two and a bit weeks. Then we flew straight up to Queensland, started on the Trophy Eyes regional tour, got home, three weeks later we were on a plane to Europe with Silverstein. Then we were on a plane to Japan to do some headline shows. Then we got home, then we finished up the album, then we went on an Australian tour with Chelsea Grin and Currents.’

‘Then we finished the album a bit more, then we started doing music videos. Then we started rolling out the album, then we started releasing singles. We did the ’Withered’ tour and then in two weeks we fly to Europe, then we go to America and then we’re home for Christmas. I know I blazed through that very, very quickly, but I think when you look back on the time that has passed, the last twelve months and even through to the end of this year, have just been by far our most frantic period as a band just in terms of being in different places. Our frequent flyer status credits have fucking skyrocketed!’

Jono continues to explain that while the headlines are impressive, it’s the camaraderie and shared experiences between the 5 that set the groundwork for The Light We Chase.

‘We’re very fortunate and very lucky to be doing what we’re doing, but it does almost all blend into one collective trip that we’ve taken. We still have day jobs, the times that we’re not on the road and we band together as a family. We’ve been doing it for so long together that there is definitely a feeling of, holy shit, this is amazing, this is incredible. How the fuck are we playing to this many people in Cologne in Germany? How are we doing a song in Tokyo? Those experiences are made tenfold and made better by the fact that we’re all still really close friends. A lot of my highlights from tour are things that we do on the off days. The conversations that we have or the long drives that we do are almost more memorable to me in hindsight than maybe that incredible show that we played. It is cool to have five people that are doing this together and stepping away from our partners, our loved ones, our jobs, to really commit to this project.’

Drummer Jack takes the Samwise approach of one step at a time.

‘In a lot of ways it’s felt like everything that we’ve done has been a real logical step ahead from the last thing that we did. So, it’s just looking down at your feet for a little bit and not looking ahead and then just when you look up you’re like, oh, way back there?! That was ages ago and I was so far down that hill! It feels like it’s just kind of rolling and rolling and rolling and then you only get it in hindsight because up ahead it still looks like the thing that you’re after is always so far away. But when you just stay with yourself in the moment, look at your feet, you kind of move along naturally.’

The track Out Of Reach on the new album almost mirrors that journey, the story arc of working towards a goal and when getting there wondering was it worth it. A little like a famous ring. They are not the only themes on the album. Relationships are discussed in Glen Street and the fantastic single Tongue Tied featuring Mikaela Delgado of Yours Truly. Or the story of the band itself in Withered. Loneliness and depression rears itself in Forgive Me Not and Life Goes On Without Us. Each song an exploration within the band’s own personal thoughts, performed as metal poetry as Jono advises.

‘With this album we kind of opened up the concept to something a little bit wider and we wanted to write about the past, the future, and even have songs that kind of touch on the present, ‘Out Of Reach’, striving for and getting it and it’s shit. The title, ‘The Light We Chase’, really encapsulates both that feeling of looking back and nostalgia, feeling like you’ve lost something that was so great that you had in your past. Then also the light we chase is that thing in front of you that you’re always striving for that you can’t catch. You’re just constantly moving towards this thing. The album as a whole, when you listen to it, has a little bit of, I miss the past, I yearn for the future, but I’m confused. I’m conflicted.’

‘There’s a lot of different things in my life that are pushing me and pulling me, my upbringing has shaped who I am and the things that I thought that I wanted maybe haven’t turned out the way that I thought they would, whether that’s a relationship, whether that’s personal goals. In the album we touch on the cost of being in a band, ‘Withered’ is very much written about it, I’ve committed eight years to this project and I’ve given everything that I have to it, and if I give it all up, if I stop chasing that dream, I will lose a part of myself. There’s a nod to the past and a nod to the future and in the middle of that is that feeling of helplessness.’

Jack brings logic on a deeper level as to why, as people, we can be like this.

‘A lot of the past stuff is being used as a coping mechanism in order to deal with the way that you’re interpreting your own future and your present. You retreat back into who you were because it worked for you then because you’re still alive and you became who you are now. But it’s a safe, easy thing to go back into, this is who I was and these are all the things that I remember. And maybe if it’s like that, it can be better in the future, but it’s all just this coping mechanism for the helplessness that Jono was saying in the now.’

The band of brothers are truly a collaborative project, no one takes over one area more than the other, even songwriting is added to by all, as Jono explains.

‘The way that we approach majority of the lyric writing is we do it as a collective. People will bring ideas to the table and some songs will have more bits to them already. Some songs will be a complete canvas. The way that we write our lyrics is the first thing that’s the most important for us is what is the concept? What are we writing? What umbrella does this fit under in that wider scope of an album? Then we will all work out sonically, what does this song sound like? What emotion ties to it, whether if it’s a really angry song, cool, what’s something that fits into this concept that’s a feeling between the five of us, we either feel or can relate to, and how do we write to fit that?’

‘From an actual ‘how the lyrics are written and the style of writing’, my thing has always been really literal. We don’t rely super heavily on metaphor. A lot of it is almost written in a sense of I am this. This is how I’m feeling. These are the raw emotions. We approach lyric writing as a collective, we have so much to pull from. We have five people’s experience across this concept, this idea that we’ve fleshed out. It means that we’re able to pull together a narrative, but we’re able to kind of see how a song will progress. The song ‘Out Of Reach’ starts with a feeling of hopelessness and desperation, by the end it’s like, fuck this, I’m sick. I’ve experienced the song. I think something that our fans connect with is raw emotion. It’s not super flowery language for a lot of it. That’s what people connect with the most.’

Recent single ‘Tongue Tied’ dropped with a unique video of a couple leaving together but a split screen and faded shadows show how apart they are, a visually gut-wrenching one-shot scene set to equally emotional music and lyrics. Like the aforementioned movie running through this, it’s stunning visually.

Jono takes the lead here however the movie guru Jack, finishes it off in rather typically understated fashion.

‘I had an idea for mounting a camera in the back of a car and doing one take of a couple that are arguing because the whole song is about that inability to express how you’re feeling, fearful of saying the wrong thing. Not wanting to deteriorate a relationship, but not wanting to not speak what’s on your mind. Having that fly on the wall thing would be really cool. After that, I can take no further credit. It was both Jack and our videographer, John, who really fleshed out the concept more with the two silhouettes interacting and the split in half thing. That was just a natural evolution of the idea that the fixed camera.’

‘It was my car though, so I don’t know if that counts for anything.’

It counts for everything Jack, didn’t Samwise teach you that?

Interview By Iain McCallum

THE LIGHT WE CHASE – OUT OCTOBER 31
https://purenoiserecs.lnk.to/BloomStores