A BUNCH OF (PRI)MATES

From the story of 'Gary', the title track of Stockport band Blossoms' fifth album inspired by a fibreglass gorilla, to breaking new ground with their own record label and staying friends after 10 years, the tightknit band tell Rolling Stone UK all about it

- NICK REILLY

'When we first got Gary, he was dead cold," Blossoms guitarist Josh Dewhurst reflects. "But I'm convinced he's smiling more and more every time we open the doors to our lock-up. You can see him on our CCTV app. Look, there he is! Aww, he's facing away." From the way Dewhurst is speaking, you'd be forgiven for failing to realise that the undoubtedly beloved Gary in question is not a living, breathing creature, but an inanimate, eight-foot fibreglass gorilla that currently guards the band's Stockport lock-up and unofficial HQ.

He's fast becoming an imposing mascot for the band's latest era, and they're desperately hoping that this Gary doesn't meet the same fate as that which befell his fibreglass namesake, whose reallife story inspired the title track of the band's upcoming fifth album, Gary. When frontman and lead songwriter Tom Ogden heard the bizarre tale of a fibreglass ape that was stolen from a garden centre in Scotland last year before eventually being found sawn in half in a lay-by in March, he was inspired to write a song about it.

The result marks a surreal and exciting new evolution in Ogden's songwriting for their latest album and - in a not-so-crowded field-probably the greatest indie-pop song ever written about the theft of a gorilla. It's given the band the chance to offer up some pretty unexpected visuals, too. The track's music video sees Everton gaffer Sean Dyche - a friend of the band - portray a fictional gang leader who planned the theft, while their frequent collaborator Rick Astley takes the role of IRL garden centre owner Andrew Scott (no, not that one). With all this in mind, it's perhaps no wonder that Scott began wondering if the band had masterminded the theft themselves in the name of publicity.