The Body from the Black Country, Tom Aspaul, is back with, ‘Cabin Fever‘ – the first single and title track from his forthcoming album. Inspired by a trippy experience in a sauna in Sweden, Tom was triggered into writing down his trauma. Luckily for us it happens to be a banger.

‘Cabin Fever’ is a cinematic scorcher with some of Tom’s most visual lyrics such as ‘I need a moment of reprieve to get out the steam’ – Mariah could never with that vocabulaire. The album will be with us next year and will tell the entire explicit tale, but for now ‘Cabin Fever’ beckons us in with it’s cautionary tale of carnality and confusion. We spoke with Tom to find out more about ‘Cabin Fever’ and his new side hustle gogo-dancing. 

Hello Tom! Excited to be ushering in this new…era. I’m over this word. What should be the new word? Do we go back to ‘album cycle’? In Spanish it’s ‘epoca’ which I quite like…
I too, am over the word era! It’s been done to death. Epoca works! As this is a Swedish themed album, perhaps the Swedish word for epoch, ‘epok’, is even better!

Today you drop ‘Cabin Fever’ which is sounding so good. It sounds like it has quite the story behind it…which influences not just this song but the whole album right? Tell us more…
Thank you! Yeah this album came about after a trip to Sweden last year. I was desperate to experience the white nights during midsummer, so me and a pal booked to stay in a cabin for the Midsommar weekend, which is a big deal over there. Like a Bank Holiday, everything shuts, families head to their summer houses and wear flower crowns. I just wanted to listen to ABBA, eat potato salad and swim in the Baltic Sea. I was mid-tour and exhausted.
We were pretty isolated except for the airbnb host who was on the other side of the island with her family celebrating. Thank god she was, because when things took a turn, she patched us up and really helped calm the situation down.
Basically, long story short, we decided to get into the “spirit” of the holiday with some hallucinogenic help and lost our minds pretty quickly. After a couple of hours, things were manageable, but for the next 48 hours or so, the trip turned into this therapy session, loads of deep conversations, some funny, some harrowing, all of them enlightening. I’ve never laughed so much in my life, but I’ve also never been so scared. We spoke about love, sex, friendships, death, the universe, The Little Mermaid featured heavily for some reason! All the while, the trip would come in waves and I’d start forgetting where I was. I would never ever do it again. Honestly, it was a silly mistake, but you learn from your mistakes and some people write albums about them!

Why did you choose this one as the first single?
Well, it’s the title track! It’s a statement of intent for sure. When we were tripping balls, the lovely airbnb host walked over to our side of the island and said ‘The sauna is hot boys, fancy joining us?’ and we were very quick to politely say, ‘Thank you but no way, we’re fucked’ – the thought of a sauna sparked all these memories of my first time in a gay bathhouse, which was fairly recent – and so the song was born! I think ‘Cabin Fever’ encapsulates the way the album is essentially just me regaling my friend with all these lurid stories while in this ridiculous situation – and during most songs, the point of view shifts between reality and imagination/hallucination.

You’ve mentioned this new album is ‘trippy’ which I feel is often a dangerous word in pop. Gaga tried it with ‘Perfect Illusion’ and I’m not sure I would say it was trippy. Dua promised it with Radical Optimism and was then derided for giving us definitely not that. And I feel Olly Alexander/Danny L Harle promised that on ‘Dizzy’ but we did not get it. What are your thoughts on these ‘trippy’ moments? What did you learn from them for this era? What elements in production/song writing have you explored to give us that vibe?
If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it right! And if that means making a ‘trippy’ album, I’m going to fly myself to the Stockholm archipelago and lose my mind. But seriously, I go through phases with my listening habits and it just so happened that during the summer of 2023 I was obsessed with music from the 1970s, Fleetwood Mac specifically. Now I know that’s not particularly ‘trippy’ (more cokey lol), but it has a much more organic, jangly, summery vibe. The mini vacation in Sweden was partly a break from touring, but also just to get inspired by nature and the great outdoors. The hallucinogenic element was an afterthought which kind of hijacked the entire experience and I couldn’t avoid it going forward.
I really like all three of the artists you mentioned, perhaps they were taking acid in the studio, who knows? I certainly kept very sober for the rest of the album’s writing process. I just remember when we were producing certain songs, I’d say to Gil (Lewis, the producer) “can you make that more psychedelic please?” and he’d add some kind of pedal or plugin and we were flying.

Can we talk about the lyrics? Because ‘Drop the towel and I’m looking disrespectfully.’ Like the flow on this one is so good. A real story where the lyrics also rhyme really satisfyingly. How was writing for you on this album?
I wrote 30 or so songs, it was a real drudgery of demos and half written ideas – but certain songs, like ‘Cabin Fever’ materialised so easily. I think it’s because it has such a simple premise – guy goes to sauna for the first time. I struggled most with songs that actually took place during the stay in Sweden, those felt a bit like musical theatre, so I took the decision to lean into what kind of things my mind was throwing up during the acid trip, which was pretty diverse. I had a notebook during the weekend and tried in vain to make sense of some of the ideas, but most of the album was written after the event. I have to say it was probably the most difficult album out of the three so far, getting the tone right. I can understand why the artists you mentioned may not have been able to pull it off.

Also like us, I feel you love a concept, right? Tell us about that…
I do love a concept, and actually the album was originally going to be a lot more conceptual, with songs running into each other and interludes and soundscapes etc, but I dialled that back considerably (there’s still a bit of that) because I wanted each song to be able to standalone too, for the casual listener. I think it’s great to have an overarching concept that ties everything together, but when it comes down to it, people aren’t going to sit and listen to the whole album every time, some songs will resonate with different folks and some won’t.

The original concept Black Country Disco was five years ago. Amazing. Tell us how making music has changed for you since then? How did you mark the anniversary?
It is wild how quickly time flies! I really didn’t do anything to mark the anniversary, although I listened to Black Country Disco the other day and felt an immense sense of pride, I really did that! The first track I ever got a production credit on was ‘01902’, and it still holds up but my ability to produce music has massively improved since then. The lyrics and feelings on BCD just came so easily because pop music is often about breakups and I had a lot of things to take reference from – with this album I felt like I was in uncharted territory and it really did push me as a writer for sure.

You recently performed five tracks in Little Orange Door in Clapham. Why did you choose Clapham and what was the response? Which track went down best? Or will you be making edits too?
I wanted somewhere to test out the new material. Low risk, no stress but also an incredible in-built audience who love new music and were hungry for it, so the Little Orange Door was perfect. I didn’t know anyone, I had a few friends in the crowd, but it was mostly Gen Z kids who love live shows – not my target audience at all. The new stuff went down really well. I was forced to do something from ‘Black Country Disco’ when people began chanting ‘one more song’, but I was happy to oblige. It was a really useful way to gauge people’s reactions and I haven’t edited anything, but I did make some important decisions about singles!

Now we understand you have a side hustle as a gogo dancer? I feel sometimes a gig that pays for our creative endeavours is not really discussed in the industry. But maybe that’s because it’s not usually as fun as a gogo dancer?! How did it start? How has it been? And I’m sure the people want to know – is OnlyFans a future possibility?
Yes I am gogo-ing! When we were coming to the end of the writing and production of this record, we decided that there were so many elements to each song, way more than any of the previous albums, we needed an outsider’s ears to help finish the tracks – so I decided I was going to pay a mixing engineer. We got very good rates and they are insanely talented, so it would have been stupid not to, but still I couldn’t afford it. To pay for this, I supplemented my income with some gogo dancing because why not?
I was only meant to do it once, as a ‘guest dancer’, but 9 months later I’m still going. I feel like Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers tbh – I’m 38 and all the other dancers are literally 19 or 20 years old. They are all so incredibly talented, strong bodied, full of stamina, it’s inspiring to be around. They keep me young and I’m improving all the time, you should come see me!
I drive to and from the club – the amount of nights during the summer when it was 5am and the sun was rising and I’d play back the album with the roof down. That will stay with me, some really fab memories. I feel a real sense of ‘blood, sweat and tears’ going into this record, like I’ve literally had to twerk to get this made and I don’t know why but it feels more earned somehow?
I was actually approached by OnlyFans HQ about setting up an account – and it wasn’t for anything x-rated, just to promote my music. I would never say never, but you don’t have to look too hard to see my arse on the internet.

Love the video of you dancing with Bjork over the top of it. Which is a Tom Aspaul favourite to dance to?
If they played a Tom Aspaul song during one of my gogo dancing sets I would simply get down off the podium and wait until it had finished. That being said, I do like the INNA remix of ‘Kiss It’ after a wine.

You posted about Gaga’s return with ‘Disease’ saying, ‘Paws Up We Are Back.’ Does this mean, like me, you left Gaga during the Chromatica era? Free Woman, Stupid Love, put me off the whole thing.
No, I loved Chromatica! ‘Babylon’ and ‘Replay’ are two of her best songs ever! I think I was referring to her jazzy side projects, which I love to a degree – but ‘Disease’ really is a return to form. The video is so captivating. She is thee popstar, I love her very much! Paws up 2025!

Lastly Mariah is saying the absolute minimum in interviews at the moment. She’s doing another year of Christmas. What do you see in her future?
You know I adore Mariah Carey – but I sometimes feel like I’m the only Mariah fan that can’t stand the Xmas schtick, although I totally get why she does it. She’s had a tough year personally, maybe it’s something to do with that? I don’t blame her for throwing herself into it because it’s probably a big comfort to her and something she can disappear into (and incredibly lucrative!) The whole persona is such a silly exaggeration, she gives the public what she thinks they want – and largely they do – AIWFCIY will no doubt hit #1 again this year and she deserves it.
I’d love another studio album from her in 2025, surely she’s got a lot to write about now? But also like Rihanna or anyone else, if she doesn’t want to, or can’t be bothered, more power to her.

‘Cabin Fever’ the single is out now.
Cabin Fever the album is out next year.
Photo: Kasia Clark