Oct
22
7.57pm

BLOOM // Dealing with Passing


Sydney melodic hardcore act Bloom have followed up on their 2018 debut EP Past Tense with a much more emotional effort on their latest EP In Passing.

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While hardcore music is no stranger morbid messages, In Passing centres entirely around an event deeply personal to vocalist Jono Hawkey, his grandfather Bryan’s passing.


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“All of our stuff in the past had roughly been written around relationships and breakups and that sort of thing, and when obviously all of this stuff went down and I sort of spent some time digesting it, I was like, ‘Well, I’ve kinda got something to say about this and I want to be able to retell it.’ And I hope that, you know, that someone will listen to it who maybe had gone through a similar circumstance and be able to relate to it,” says Hawkey.

Something as personal as the death of a loved one is not an easy thing to sing about. For Hawkey, while the experience was traumatic, it almost felt natural expressing his thoughts and feelings around this harrowing event through Bloom’s music.

“The entire experience when I went over and visited my granddad as he was passing,” Hawkey says, “It was one of those things where it felt like it went so quickly that when it came to being, like, I want to write about this, it was more like recounting everything that had happened and sort of speaking it out into existence and talking through with all the boys and being like, ‘Okay, well, what is it that we want to talk about? What is it that we want to show in this song?’

“Obviously, songs like The Service are very literal. They are written sort of play-by-play; this is what happened. but songs like Daylight can be interpreted in a much more general sense of like, ‘Hey, when is the last time that I may see this person?’ So, writing it, I can’t say that it was overly tricky to write, because we had a lot of stuff that we wanted to say and ways that we could write. It was kind of like, ‘Okay, well we’ll do something that’s a little bit more literal here. We’ll do something that’s a little bit more wide scope than that on here.”

While Hawkey’s grandfather’s passing is something personal to him, it’s also something that the whole band played a role in telling for the writing of In Passing; and a story they all believed was worth telling, according to guitarist Jarod Mclaren.

“I think it was something that was worth talking about,” Jarod says. “Like it had the value and, also on a personal level, it can help with the grieving process as, you know, it’s putting your story into art and out to the world. And I think at that time in our lives, like a lot of music is kind of like when it’s written, that’s a reflection of what those people are going through or feeling. So, at that time, that was definitely the most important thing that had been going on in [Hawkey’s] life.

“When we were originally wanting to write about it, I had wanted to write something that was a bit more general, basically what Daylight’s about, the general anxiety around losing someone. So, I think I focused a lot on that. And then also, trying to put myself in Jono’s shoes…Like I remember I wrote, in The Service, the line about carrying Jono’s grandfather out, and hearing his mother cry, because he had mentioned that that was a really important moment to him.

“And that’s what really hit him, is hearing his mother going through that. Cause obviously she’s losing a father, it’s a lot more raw and personal. Then I sent that to Jono to kind of say, ‘Is this genuine to what you were going through?’, and then we tweaked those lines a little bit to make sure that it did line up with what he was going through.”

Writing a story so unique and personal to one specific member couldn’t have been an easy job for the band. However, Bloom were already good friends before they were musicians, which made the whole process a lot easier for Hawkey.

“One of the things that we are super, super fortunate with is the fact that outside of music, we are all best friends. Like we’ve had a really, really good friendship that spanned over multiple, multiple years. So, when an idea gets brought to the table, when these harder subjects that aren’t, like can be tough to talk about, I generally come to my friends with those first.

It’s obviously about the grieving process of losing someone, but I think it’s open enough that people who have gone through that can kind of envision their version of that within the songs. Like everyone’s been through different versions of that passing process, so I hope that people can listen to it, and in that context of front to back, take away what will help them in their process.
[ Jarod Mclaren]

“And because, you know, we write and we collaborate in a way where everyone’s ideas are, we want to sort of make sure that what we’re writing is a true representation of something that we can all sort of relate to in a way. Even if it is something that is literal to one specific member of the band, I would say that like, even while all the shit was happening and I was going through it, my friends were my support network. So, they experienced it, I guess, vicariously through me.

“I had my friends there and it just so happened that my best friends are also the people that I write music with, and that, it was just such a beautiful culmination.”

While In Passing’s connection to Hawkey personally sets it apart strongly from their previous EP Past Tense, according to Mclaren and Hawkey, this latest EP is leaps and bounds ahead of anything they’ve released before it.

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Mclaren laughs. “So much better, and I think that’s one of the reasons we like it so much, is that it’s like a progression for us. It’s like, it feels so much better releasing this than our previous EP. We’re better musicians, we feel like the mixing, the recording is like, we’ve found where we want to sit as a band and how we want to sound. So, it’s been awesome.

“I guess every release, you want to be better than your last, right? So hopefully we continue with that, and then in five years we think this is trash, when we’re writing like top 100,” he laughs.

“Yeah, I can’t wait to hate this EP,” Hawkey laughs. “I can’t wait to be sick of this EP like that. That’s when you know that we’re ready to keep going forward. It’s like, ‘Oh man, fuck all these songs.’ At the moment we love them so much, but I know there’s going to get to a point where we’re like, ‘Fuck, we have to keep playing it’”.

As for when their next release that will make them hate In Passing will be coming out, it’s not exactly certain what’s next on Bloom’s release calendar; but they’ve got high hopes.

“We’re shooting for an LP. I will say that I’m, fuck, I’m shooting for an LP. I want to do an album, but we’ve just got to, I don’t think we’d do an album if we didn’t think that we had an album’s worth of material,” says Hawkey.

“You don’t want to do it if people aren’t, like if people don’t want 11 songs from us, then, you know. I mean we can do it, but I think a big thing is like, we want to make sure that if we’re putting an album out, it’s going to be something that people listen front to back. They don’t shuffle. Like they listened to it. Cause like, you know, when I listened to the Alpha Wolf record [a quiet place to die], the Knuckle Puck record [20/20], I put those on and listen front to back, because I’m super invested in those bands.”

“So, I think once this release comes out, we see how it goes, and you know, if people are gonna listen to it and want it then I think that’s definitely what we’ll push for, for sure,” adds Mclaren.

A full-length Bloom record isn’t the only big plans in the band’s future. While touring is still in a place of uncertainty in 2020, Hawkey and Mclaren have some big (albeit ambitious) ideas for the kinds of tours they see in their future.

“Yeah, world tour. Metallica supporting, they’re opening,” jokes Hawkey.

“Yeah, they’re opening the night,” Mclaren laughs.

“I think if we realistically had to set some goals, it would be get international,” Hawkey says. “Play some shows in other countries, take our music with us and just get to play it in front of more people. Like the end of the day, the thing that we love the most about Bloom is the shows, it’s the interaction that we get to have, and it’s the performing. So, if we could make that be bigger and something that we could go away and spend a bunch of time together in another county, like, oh my God.”

Goals for the future aside, Hawkey and Mclaren hope listeners of In Passing can take something away from this intimate story, whether losing a loved one is an experience they’ve faced or not.

“It’s obviously about the grieving process of losing someone, but I think it’s open enough that people who have gone through that can kind of envision their version of that within the songs. Like everyone’s been through different versions of that passing process, so I hope that people can listen to it, and in that context of front to back, take away what will help them in their process,” Mclaren says.

“I definitely think we’re not trying to push a message. We’re not trying to make people feel it, like we’re not trying to force anything. I think for us internally, like, or even for myself, it’s therapeutic. It’s putting thoughts to paper and creating something from them, and if people are listening to it and they’re resonating with it, that is incredible.”

Hawkey says, “at at the end of the day, like we wrote this, I don’t want to say for ourselves, but this was the work that we wrote together around a specific moment with things that we care passionately about, and we love to share it with people, but at the end of the day…we’re not trying to push anything with it. It’s something that is therapeutic.”

An emotional record with an intimate message that we can all relate to; Bloom only have one request when listening to In Passing.

“Listen to In Passing. Don’t put it on shuffle. Let it play through,” says Hawkey

“Please listen to it front to back,” adds Mclaren.

“And hopefully we’ll get to fucking play it at a show sometime soon and get it live, because that’s how it’s meant to be played. How it’s meant to be heard,” says Hawkey.

Bloom’s new EP In Passing is out now via Greyscale Records.


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