Interview takes place on August 31, 2023 at Continental Club in Houston, TX
For Blossom Aloe, all it took was a pandemic to turn a one-off quarantine project into a five-piece touring band.
It all started in 2020 when friends Josh Vargas (keyboard/guitar/vocals) and Aaron Ruiz (bass) decided to team up on a “bedroom pop project” in Josh’s at-home studio. Despite having no original intentions to start a band, fate made them change their minds.
They have since recruited three other amazing musicians: Henry Huelskamp (lead guitar), Mia Jane (lead vocals), and Ryan Faulkenberry (drums). Today, all five of them sit backstage at Houston’s Continental Club to reflect on the making of their 2023 indie rock album, Summer Days Heavy Rain.
“It was really cool to see kind of how quickly some of the things fell into place,” Mia says, reflecting on the writing process for that album. “Sometimes, a guitar riff would happen, and then vocals would get written that night, and then we would have the whole thing recorded. Tracks were honestly just coming one after the other after a while.”
Wow. If these guys really are such a well-oiled machine, how do they do it? Well, let’s set the scene.
“It starts at 3 AM,” Henry jokes. “Once I kind of get a bunch of demos and ideas together, we’ll all kind of meet at my house,” Josh says. “Aaron will usually come up with a riff or two, Henry will come up with a few riffs,” and then Mia will begin to work her magic.
“We’ll be listening to it, and then a specific part will strike me, and I’ll just pull out my phone and start writing in my Notes app,” she says. “I try so hard to not write my life, but it doesn’t happen. I have to write my life. I gotta write down how I feel.”
“Girl, yesss,” Henry says.
“I will try to make something up out of the blue, and it immediately just turns into the thing that I’m mad about that day,” Mia laughs. “Like, we have a new song that's coming out soon about my upstairs neighbors and how I absolutely cannot stand them.”
Anyway, “Once I figure out a basic structure for a verse or a chorus–something–I will sing it out loud to Josh and see what he thinks. Usually, if he likes it, then we just record it right then and there, and sometimes that will be what’s on the album.”
With a group dynamic like that, it’s easy to see how the band has achieved so much in such little time. “We accomplished a lot in [Summer Days Heavy Rain],” Henry says, remembering some of their goals for that project. “We were able to release it along with a documentary about how we made it… For the first time, we put our music on CDs and tapes. And then we also had a release show that was the same day that the album was released.”
With all of that work finally behind them, you would think the band would be ready for a break, but apparently not. “We stopped for a month,” Ryan says, but “we’ve got upstairs neighbor diss track coming in hot,” he laughs.
Already four songs deep into the next album, it seems this band will stop for nothing. Aaron has us all dewy-eyed as he agrees: “This band is a blessing to me. I’m just really happy where I’m at right now playing with my best friends.”
“I think that it’s amazing that we were able to go from this time last year playing shows in the Big Top Lounge to maybe a maximum of 30 people, versus we were almost able to sell out the upstairs at White Oak Music Hall about a month ago,” Mia beams. “I honestly just can’t wait to get back to it.”
To keep up to date with Blossom Aloe’s future shows and releases, follow them on Instagram @blossomaloeband and check out blossomaloemusic.com. For booking information, contact blossomaloe1@gmail.com.
Photos and Story by Shelby Mathews
*Originally published 9/25/2023 on Houston Music Classified's first website.
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