With a prized Reading Festival slot this weekend and a place on the coveted Mercury Prize shortlist, Blossoms are riding high and, says frontman Tom Ogden, are currently unstoppable.

It has been a great year for Blossoms, but it’s about to get a whole lot better.

On Sunday the Stockport lads step out onto one of the most hallowed spaces in rock culture – the main stage at Reading Festival.

The fact that they are third on the bill, behind headliners Muse and their idol Liam Gallagher, says everything about how far they have come.

And they can be forgiven for having a spring in their step when they strut out in front of that capacity crowd at the sold-out festival, just over the Oxfordshire border beside the Thames on Little John’s Farm. 

They are still buzzing from finding out their eponymous debut album is on the shortlist for this year’s Mercury Prize shortlist alongside Oxford’s Glass Animals (who play the festival the day before), Alt-J, The xx, Ed Sheeran and Stormzy. 

“It’ll be a bit of a bookmark for where we started all those years ago, writing songs in our bedroom,” says frontman Tom Ogden. 

“It’s great for that chapter to end with a nice little nod for best album of the year but we don’t dwell on it and it won’t be the focal point for the rest of the summer.”

The band are now hard at work on their follow up, with 10 tracks already recorded.

“If you’d have told us this time last year we’ll have nearly finished recording our second album we wouldn’t have believed you,” says the level-headed 24 year-old.

“But when you’re in a creative place things move fast.”

He goes on: “We’re excited about the second album and it’s another thing that adds on to a great couple of years,” says Tom. 

“But we’ve got to keep the standard high and stay in people’s minds and not just drop off and be forgotten.We’ve got our heads screwed on.

“We just want to keep making great music for a long time and keep with it.”

The boys join well over 100 bands at Reading, with standout sets also expected by Kasabian, Fatboy Slim, You Me At Six and Two Door Cinema Club tomorrow, Eminem, Major Lazer, Korn, Flume, Andy C, and Glass Animals on Saturday and Haim, Architects, Marshmello, Charli XCX and Oxford four-piece Low Island on Sunday.

And this weekend’s fixtures at Reading, and its sister festival in Leeds, will have to go some way to top last year’s blistering performance – one of 150 live shows last year, including more than 50 festivals.

That commitment to touring begs the question, how did they find the time to do any writing?

“We didn’t have a lot of time off but when you’re on the road and get pockets of space the songs are just ready to fall out,” he says, adding that the high volume of gigs gave the band impetus to create new music so they wouldn’t grow bored of performing the same songs.

Some extra motivation came with the arrival of some new equipment. 

As a youngster, the first instrument Ogden learned to play was the keyboard and, despite Myles Kellock taking on synth in the band, he continues to write songs around them.

“We got a couple of vintage 80s synths and keyboards and a couple of reissued ones as well. 

“It gives us a new sound and gets us to a corner we wouldn’t have got to with just a guitar,” he says.

Like their first album, the follow-up effort is being produced by The Coral’s James Skelly.

“It sounds better than the first one,” says Tom. “We’re evolving as a band and myself as a songwriter.

“The words are better and have more depth.

“Also, towards the end of the last  album we entered a more synthy world so we’ve continued down that corridor and took another little turn off,” he says.

“It’s more upbeat, like New Order meets Kylie Minogue in places. 

“It’s a bit of Fleetwood Mac, like Tango In the Night or Go Your Own Way and a bit of Kate Bushy kind of thing.

“War On Drugs is there a little bit and Arcade Fire has cropped up but this is all in production not the song writing. 

“I can’t really not write songs like     that and I’ve always approached writing in a similar way, classic pop song writing.”

He goes on: “Other moments it just purely sounds like Blossoms.

“It’s always going to be hooky and melodic.”

The link with Skelly is significant, indeed they owe their early success to the leg-up provided by the Coral icon’s support. In 2014, after just a year together, his label Skeleton Records signed Blossoms before they moved to Virgin and he has worked as their producer since.

Their rise has inspired a clutch of other bands to strike out in the North West – a region which has adopted the lads as local heroes, as evidenced by their barn-storming show at the 8,000 capacity Castlefield Bowl in Manchester.

“We’ve been embraced [by Manchester] and have a dedicated following in the area,” he says.  “We just played Castlefield Bowl and it was amazing. That’s just off our first album,” he says.

“I think if we’d come from any other part of the country we wouldn’t have got that. I suppose there is pressure there because it’s a high standard of bands coming from there but if you’re confident and you believe in yourself then there’s no reason why you can’t stand up next to them bands.

“We’ve always wanted to be a big band and on big stages. 

“We take it very seriously in terms of we want to do this for the rest of our lives and we love making music but just because we’re on the main stage we don’t walk round thinking we’re great.

“We don’t take ourselves too seriously in that sense but we see us as headliners one day.”