Posted by Bloxx have supported bands such as The Wombats, Twin Atlantic and Two Door Cinema Club. Now, they are preparing to take to the stage again but this time on their own headline tour (in 2021). It feels like Bloxx are on the verge of something very exciting, especially with their debut album ‘Lie Out Loud’ being released at the end of this month. We spoke to Bloxx’s frontwoman, Ophelia ‘Fee’ Booth (via Zoom) about touring life and creating new material.
The band met in college where they were studying music (with the exception of Joe, who later auditioned to join them). “(At the time) I was playing some shows (acoustically) and I was writing music that needed a full band formation and I asked the guys to come and play a show with me and it just kind of happened and we started playing more and more shows, we recorded some music and released it and it just…happened,” Fee explains.
Their current single ‘Off My Mind’ is about “relationship(s) and sex, ” as Fee puts it. “It’s quite a fun song. I wanted to make a song that was more intimate than any other record that I’ve ever written so the lyrics are quite crude in that one. I like it”.
‘Off My Mind’ was played by Annie Mac on her BBC Radio 1 show as her ‘Hottest Record In The World’. That must have been pretty wild? “It’s so cool”. It’s also something Bloxx, as a band, have been aspiring to for quite a while. “ It’s something that I think all four of us have dreamed of having. I remember when she first started playing us on the radio, me and the boys would be like, ‘Wow, yeah, when are we going to be Hottest Record? So that was like a dream. I remember when we got the email, I was like, ‘Woah, yes! It’s finally happening!’ That was a surreal feeling.” It’s a very well deserved title. ‘Off My Mind’ is a brilliant track.
The debut album ‘Lie Out Loud’ is right around the corner. Fans can expect a mixture of songs which “show a lot of growth and maturity”. There is also a range of emotions tied to the album, from upbeat and “pop-y” to more acoustic ones where you “learn about (our) emotions”. It’s an album that was written over a period of three or four years, throught their defining years as young adults.
“I think the record in itself is quite a journey. I think it shows personal growth and also the band’s sound growth, I think. I think we left that angsty, teenage thing behind us and moved into this more mature sound where we know what we want to go for”. The track ‘Lie Out Loud’ was written while they were in the studio, during some down time, which inspired the album title. “It’s quite personal to me,” Fee tells us. “Every song on that record is about something that I’ve been through, or something that my friends have been through”.
When it comes to supporting bands, there must be a favourite? “That’s difficult. The Wombats are always great to support. They’re really cool guys. We all get on really well. The Wombats are probably one of my favourites…I think, my favourite to support. We had a lot of fun on the Two Door (Cinema Club) shows. That was a cool tour, because they were bigger rooms than we’d ever really played, so that was really, really cool. They’re lovely guys too. Just recently, we toured with Twin Atlantic and they’re so good live. They’re great live”.
What’s next for Bloxx? “World domination!” she enthuses. With a debut album soon to be released and a UK tour announced for 2021, we don’t think she’s kidding!
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Words: Narzra Ahmed