Blooming Marvellous: The Voom Blooms

When life in the small Midlands town of Loughborough got boring, George Guilford, Thom Mackie, Craig Monk and Brett Young found a way out. Forming a band was the exit route out of the monotonous grind of seeing the same faces, same bars and same old random statue of a man putting on a sock in the town centre. The Voom Blooms were born out of collective motivation to find something new, something exciting, something different. Gigwise caught up with guitarist Craig to talk about biscuits and sharing a stage with Babyshambles…

So perhaps the ‘sock man’ monument wasn’t the best way to celebrate Loughborough’s glorious contribution to the hosiery industry but the statue never fails to amuse and confuse visitors, including celebrated producer John Fortis. “I took him to see that when he came to see us. He just didn’t get it,” Craig said on first meeting Fortis, who travelled to Loughborough to work with the band on pre-production at their humble five bed detached house.  Although The Voom Blooms have been together for only a year, their debut single, ‘Politics and Cigarettes’ sparked critical acclaim as they became ‘Fresh Meat’ on Zane Lowe’s Radio One show and Steve Lamacq’s new favourite band on BBC 6 Music. After watching the band in the makeshift rehearsal room in a spare room in their house, Fortis began to do what he did to Razorlight, The Prodigy and Art Brut by giving The Voom Blooms a trademark sound of their own, consisting of distinctive riffs and driving baselines. 

The Voom Blooms being in their infancy hasn’t stopped them receiving numerous accolades and comparisons to established bands such as Bloc Party and The Libertines. “Obviously getting compared to those bands is a huge compliment because they’ve done so much and made great albums, the first Bloc Party album is great and The Libertines’ ‘Up The Bracket’ is probably one of the best albums of the last ten years,” says Craig. “They are some of the obvious comparisons, but every time we write a song, we don’t consciously think and listen to say, ‘Silent Alarm’ and anything like that. We listen to say, Jackson 5 or The Beatles or Animal Collective or Miles Davis or whatever.”

The eclectic tastes of the foursome shines through on their forthcoming double A-side singles, ‘Anna’ and ‘The Models of Soho’, which have both received record plays on the band’s My Space site.  Whilst ‘Anna’ is a result of repeated plays old motown tracks, ‘The Models of Soho’ was inspired by the unlikely combination of reggae and The Clash. “I’ve not really read that many reviews but comparisons are always interesting especially when you get compared to bands that you’ve never heard of as well, then its quite interesting when you go and listen to them and you sometimes think, well I just don’t see it,” says Craig thoughtfully. “We’re still on a massive learning curve, finding our feet and experimenting with different styles.” One comparison that the band certainly didn’t see was to Arcade Fire. Why? “They’re absolutely brilliant!” Craig splutters. “What they did is just genius and there’s no way we should be compared to something like that at this stage!”