Bassist Bill Leen and guitarist-songwriter Doug Hopkins had known one another since childhood and previously played in a For the Record … As Wilson noted in a record company bio, “Everything that ’s happened in the last four years has helped to make us a stronger band and stronger individuals. Yet the band emerged in 1996 with a sophomore album, the lead single of which was soon in heavy radio rotation. ” The Blossoms ’ dedication to melody has stood them in good stead in the face of various crises, including the firing and subsequent suicide of one of their songwriter-members. “I want to touch people on some fundamental level, in the same way that I ’ve been touched when I hear a pop song that I really love. “It ’s just pop music, ” singer Robin Wilson told the Los Angeles Times. However, the band ’s formula of bright, guitar-driven hooks, sweet vocals, and melancholy undertow made them radio staples.
Arizona ’s Gin Blossoms were unlikely candidates for fame in the early 1990s, plying well-crafted, melodic pop-rock in an era of loud and anxious alternative music.
