A Dirty Dozen with JACK VAN VLIET and OLIVER BUTLER from BLOOM – October 2025

Photo credit: Jack Fontes

According to a recent press release: “Melodic hardcore group Bloom has today debuted another new single from the band’s forthcoming album The Light We Chase. The Light We Chase is set to be released on October 31st via Pure Noise Records. The album reflects a period of emotional turmoil – relationship breakdowns, struggles with trust, and wrestling with hopelessness – offering the band’s most visceral collection to date. Steeped in emotion, nostalgia and experimentation, album #2 for Sydney melodic hardcore collective Bloom vigorously cleaves together the group’s past, present and future, relishing in self-reflection and searing musicianship and ultimately facing the darkness with open arms. A significantly personal and musically diverse collection of songs, it’s fitting that this brand new chapter for Bloom captures them in an entirely new light. Enter: The Light We Chase. Following the release of their debut full length album, the conceptual 2024 masterpiece Maybe In Another Life, the journey to crafting Bloom’s sophomore full-length, The Light We Chase (due out in 2025 via Pure Noise Records), found vocalist Jono Hawkey, guitarists Jarod McLaren and Oliver Butler, bassist Andrew Martin, and drummer Jack Van Vliet adopting multi-faceted change, including starting and finishing the entire album in the space of a few short weeks.” We get Jack & Oliver to discuss new music, influences, and more…

1. Tell us a little about your latest release.  What might a fan or listener not grab the first or second time they listen through?  Are there any hidden nuggets you put in the material or that only diehard fans might find?

Jack: There’s a whole lot of easter eggs scattered throughout the record, referencing earlier songs in the run order and even older material is constantly being reworked or interpolated in new contexts. Die-hard fans should catch references to “Cure Me,” “Sink into the Soil,” and “An Entry” pretty quickly but there are some real deep cuts on there. I think we always try and craft a record that’s an experience from start to finish, and incorporating parts of our own musical history is a fun way of showing ourselves how we’ve grown as artists and how some ideas that we’ve had are still relevant to how we’re all feeling now.

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?

Jack: For me it was probably playing for the first time with my primary school big band. At the beginning, I picked up the drums as something else to do in the afternoons at school, but after performing with people and really being in the music, it changed my whole perspective on the art form. It’s really about togetherness and free expression in a wordless, instinctual way, and I find that a really special way of bonding with the people around you. That’s what it’s all about.

Oliver: My parents got my siblings and I into learning instruments at a pretty young age. I was having piano lessons and sitting grade assessments from the age of 5 or so, but I had an older cousin who played guitar, and I thought that was way cooler – so I begged my parents to let me learn guitar instead. I remember watching live DVDs of bands – specifically Paramore’s ‘The Final Riot’ and thinking it was the craziest thing I had ever seen and that it was something I needed to do.

3. Building on that, is there a specific song, album, performer, or live show that guided your musical taste?

Jack: Radiohead has always been my biggest taste anchor in music. I really admire how they experiment and refuse to box themselves into a genre, whilst still being so harmonious and accessible. I think as a performer and an artist though, my biggest inspirations are my own bandmates. The way we can work together and gel as performers will always be special.

Oliver: Paramore is my all time favourite band and they have been my biggest influence for a long time.

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be, and why?

Jack: I say this every time I’m asked and the answer is always going to be Frank Ocean. In part because I know it is actually impossible, and that’s so alluring.

Oliver: I think you see where this is going. Hayley Williams would be a dream to collaborate with.

5. What is your favorite activity when out of the studio and/or not on tour?  What do you like to do to unwind?

Jack: Going out somewhere I’ve never been before, talking to strangers and hearing their stories, cryptic crosswords, going to the cinema, art galleries etc.

Oliver: Running. If you know me at all, you know that I am very passionate about running. Even on tour, I will find time most days to get out for a run. I have found it is the best way for me to unwind and decompress and it has become a very important part of maintaining good mental health, especially on tour.

6. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before? What is the one comparison a reviewer or fan has made that made you cringe or you disagreed with?

Jack: Our music is like a blend of core bands we used to hear in youth centres in 2010 and modern metalcore. We like to blend the past and the present in our sound. I don’t know if I’ve heard a comparison that has felt cringey – we get Counterparts comparisons a lot but we love their music so it never feels unwarranted, even though hearing it with every release does get a little old at times.

Oliver: I think our music is really hard to describe. We have such a varied sound, so it is hard to put us in a box. I still like to think we have our roots in Melodic Hardcore, and it is still the centre of our range of sounds – with the heavier stuff dipping into metalcore, and the softer stuff falling into more of the emo rock/alt rock sound.

7. When your band is hanging out together, who cooks, who gets the drinks in, and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

Jack: We all cook for ourselves, I’ll have too many drinks and get on everyone’s nerves enough that they have to give me the acoustic guitar for something to play with and not bother anyone.

8. When was the last time you were starstruck and who was it?

Jack: When we were doing a show in Melbourne last year, Earl Sweatshirt did a pop-up store at Supply. I went thinking they’d have some merch and maybe a vinyl or something, but he and his crew came down and were hanging out in the store. I’m not normally one for getting starstruck at all, even when we’re playing with childhood idols like Thursday or Touché Amore, but I was sweating and stammering and couldn’t get two words out to the guy. It was surreal, and the whole time he was so relaxed about the whole thing, it was a funny situation.

9. What is the best part of being a musician? If you could no longer be a musician for whatever reason, what would be your dream job?

Jack: The best part for me is the creation of it all, the experience of making something completely new and expressing yourself with your friends is a really enriching experience. Seeing how your creations are shaped and changed through performing and the audience enhances that even further too. If I wasn’t doing music I’m sure I’d be writing fiction novels instead.

10. What is one question you have always wanted an interviewer to ask – and what is the answer? Conversely, what question are you tired of answering?

Jono: “Can I give you $100?” I would say yes please.

11. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep or you would like to have a “do over,” even if it didn’t change your current situation?

Jack: The set we played at CVLTFEST a few years ago was absolutely full of goblins and ghouls in our tech, so I’d probably go back and make sure everything worked properly because I still remember it being the shakiest set we’ve ever played and at the time one of the biggest.

12. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

Jack: This is such a hard question because do you go back for an album you really admire or a process that seemed really unique? I’d love to go back to when Radiohead were recording KID A and Amnesiac, but I feel like being there when Brat was being made would be so much fun to be a part of. Also, maybe going really far back and seeing Tchaikovsky make “Swan Lake” would be awesome…or Paramore when they were making “Decode” for Twilight! Roll a dice for one of those four and I’ll go back to any of them.

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Category: Interviews