Big Bliss
Photo by, Kevin W Condon
Meet Big Bliss
Here’s a post-punk treat for all of us quarantined kiddos out there. If you haven’t heard of Brooklyn’s Big Bliss, it’s time you pony up and give ‘em a gander. This trio blends all the goodness of ‘80s and ‘70s post punk and indie rock sounds into a delicious smoothie of energetic riffs and pop laden hooks.
Today, we have a good old chin wag about their familial origins, debate the importance of orange over blue foods, and discuss the highs and lows of being an artist in Brooklyn.
A CHARMING STORY WITH A HAPPY ENDING: A Mad-Lib by, PRIME TIME GOSSIP
Handsome PETER and his co-BONDSPERSON, the OBTUSE VERONICA raised FINGERNAILS when they were seen kissing QUICKLY at the screening of their FASTIDIOUS TV movie. The UNFORGIVING couple denies it's a romance; they say they are just RADIANT friends. Here's another RUDE tidbit...love must be in the BOAT. HULK HOGAN and SUSAN who had only PLUCKY words for each other last week, were seen holding DEALERSHIPS and whispering in each other's NOSTRILS at this week's benefit for adopted MARBLES.
Would You Rather
get a full back tattoo of Garfield or Alf? Please explain why.
Garfield, who I just learned was invented to fill a marketing niche as a counterpart to Snoopy in comics - finally a character for cat owners. I love my cat Bruce very much. That’s it. I wish I had a more insightful reason but I guess that would betray the spirit of the question.
*Also, Alf eats cats.
Some questions with Big Bliss
How did you all meet and what led you to start a band?
My brother met me a few minutes after I was born I assume, though I don’t have the full story. He suggested Tim be my name because his best friend was named Tim. Can’t argue with logic. We met Wallace in early/mid 2015 through an ex of mine. At the time I was mainly just mixing and producing bands, so I talked her band at the time, Young Tides, into letting me produce their EP. Cory and I had just started working on what would become Big Bliss, but had only intended on using it as a private creative outlet. We wrote a few tunes with just drums and guitar and pretty quickly realized we’d need a bass player to write with us. Wallace had mentioned she played bass in a (wild) cover band at a theme park in her high school/college years, and for some reason she seemed like a good fit. That was entirely based on her personality, 100%, I’d never seen her play bass nor had I considered whether she still played it or not. Wallace is very cool. I wanted to play music with a cool person. We gave her a 40 song playlist of post-punk music and she understood right away so we hit the ground running. Part of our sell to her after her initial refusal for scheduling reasons was that we wanted to keep things casual, maybe a show here and there, practice every once in awhile, definitely no touring! That’s still hilarious to me. To be honest though, I hadn’t intended on us pursuing the band seriously, but after we played a show and wrote some songs we were psyched about the motivation just sort of snowballed and now we’ve already gone through a whole tour van.
If you had to eat food that was only one color for the rest of your life, what color would it be?
I am eating an orange as I type this, the fruit that's confidently named after its color (or is it vice versa?), so I’ll say orange. Imagine if we called water blue. I guess then I’d have to choose blue, since you can get by longer without orange than you can without blue.
What are the highs and lows of being an artist in Brooklyn?
There’s a staggering number of great musicians in Brooklyn. Maybe it’s a natural benefit of a wide pool, but I think it’s more than that. People come to New York to do something, make something, engage. That of course is largely driven by a misguided romanticism - I’ll admit that was me even though I didn’t move here for music exactly. Transplants are pouring in every year, probably reading Meet Me in the Bathroom (or is that too current? Just Kids? what do people like?), and starting bands, building artist co-ops, taking photos, whatever it is, so that they are contributing to USA’s most major cultural bucket and maybe that makes them feel good and galvanized and with purpose and of use (all good things). So, that means a lot of people come here with specific intent, which also suggests that they know a thing or two about what they are doing. Sometimes the concentration of talent here is intimidating, but I usually find it motivating and inspiring. It’s impossible to participate in the musical ecosystem here and not be influenced, even if only by osmosis. The three of us have been in active bands elsewhere in the country and can tell you from experience that the concentration of genuinely great bands/artists in Brooklyn isn't really mirrored elsewhere. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not to say other cities/regions don’t have great art, they certainly do, but I think most of the quality, innovative stuff happening anywhere (in the states, at least) is probably only one or two steps removed from NYC/Brooklyn in some way, whereas the inverse is untrue.
Speaking of transplants, the products of gentrification hinder artists here constantly. An artist living in Brooklyn has to contend with exorbitant cost of living which forces them to work a full time job, or tour more extensively than others, or generally just spend a large part of their available conscious hours generating means of living, which is less time and less brain capacity available for their art alone in most cases. However, as much as we lament a beloved venue closing down, or luxury lofts jutting up on the rubble of DIY spaces, we have to see our part in NYC’s growing gentrification problem. People tend to flock to places with thriving art and music scenes - you know, hip things in relatively cheap places - and that means more demand which means higher rent and in response the art and music scenes shift, then interested parties follow. As tghe cycle repeats, communities native to their neighborhoods are pushed out. Myself and a lot of my Brooklyn contemporaries play a part in that process, so the cost of living is a trade-off we have to live with - especially those of us who transplanted here. I don’t have a solution, and I’ll admit I’ve only in recent years reached awareness of this in the ten years I’ve been here, but I think we have to start by taking stock in how we contribute to the problem.
What other forms of media are feeding your creative process right now?
Considering the conditions of modern life under quarantine, it’s hard to say what percentage of the media I’m consuming is aiding my creative process or just smoothing my brain to deal with anxiety but I’d bet the intense volumes of trashy true crime documentaries I’ve blown through is having an affect whether I like it or not. I’ve been watching a great deal of concert films - I pulled up Stop Making Sense for the first time in a while last night and if you’re interested in rock music and don’t take some inspiration from that film then you might not find it through a camera lens anywhere. I’ve dusted off some books I’d only made it part way through: a book on the Beatles a producer friend of mine lent me, Philip Roth’s The Humbling, Dorothy Parker’s poetry. Most of the time I don’t reach for things outside of music thinking I’ll pull direct inspiration from it, but everything I watch or read seeps in unconsciously for sure. Occasionally I’ll stumble across a word or image that evokes something I want my music to, and when that happens I write it down and typically come back to it in the lyric writing process, which is the stage I’m at with our LP2. Our songs employ lyrics as connotation over description or story, and so I tend to see intangible, indirect things work their way into songs. For example, something about the lamp light cast during "This Must Be The Place" in SMS may stick with me and come to mind while we're writing a song. Our lyrics certainly have a meaning and a purpose, but they also have to carry the melody in a certain way first and foremost, which allows for more abstraction than traditional songwriting might. That said, this upcoming record uses more direct language/messaging than At Middle Distance, which is an engaging challenge.
Also, I love poetry, but lyrics are not poems. I have a feeling a lot of people will disagree. If you are angry please send hate mail to jeffbezos@amazon.com. Actually, do that regardless.
What are your thoughts on the current state of post-punk?
This is a surprisingly tricky question because “post punk” as a term has suffered the same fate as “indie” in that it’s became so diluted that it basically means “rock band with some angularity about them.” However, we’re still seeing the effects of the early aughts “indie” (wink) boom as central tenets of post punk hold strong at the forefront of independent music for the last two decades. Maybe it’s always been that way, post punk’s standard bearers are actually quite diverse musically - the term I think was meant to capture the trend of bands applying DIY ethos to a more sophisticated, experimental and diversified version of punk. Tons, I mean tons, of recent bands rely on leading, melodic, picked-out bass styles (ourselves included), moody or impressionistic lyricism, synth pads, gated verb all over the damn place, etc. In the last five years, bands have straight up started dressing like Ian Curtis again and hocking his dance moves. That’s not a diss, I like those bands. I’ve often worn a tie while I sing baritone over post punk, so you already know who we are most often compared with. Bits of Big Bliss covered them one Halloween, we were pretty good at it. Anyway, I’ve noticed a marked increase in dark post punk leaning bands like Protomartyr or Preoccupations or The Horrors taking over since roughly 2014, but I think that’s beginning to morph into late 80’s/early 90’s indie rock inspired stuff as well. The post punk influence remains very present throughout today’s indie rock, but it varies in what aspect of the genre is emphasized. Some bands are taking the jagged, icy guitar groove route ala Gang of Four, some are taking Nick Cave’s guidance and singing murder ballads over muscular but arty punk, some are folding pop rock into anxious jangle ala early R.E.M. Speaking of R.E.M., I’ve been reacquainting myself with them as we wrote LP2, and finding there’s a lot of shared DNA between them and bands from the vanguard of post punk, which makes sense. It was a natural progression, and we’re seeing that cycle play out again. Considering the state of the world, I don’t think we’ll see post punk's influence diminish for a while - anxiety still rules the day, doesn't it?
What was the creative process behind the latest remixed release of “Surface”
I can’t accurately speak to the creative process here because I just let James do whatever the hell he wanted, so that would be for him to answer, but this is the first song we’ve ever had earnestly remixed and it was very useful for me at the time. We had finished AMD and I was struggling with some uncertainty, nervousness leading up to the October release. That also meant that I’d heard “Surface” approximately 10,000 times. James’ remix offered a fresh take on it, and because he honed in on his favorite parts of the song, I was able to see what resonated with a like-minded musician, which put my mind at ease a bit. I finally came around to my confidence with the record, but at the time we put it out I had a lot of difficult feelings about it. Turns out what I needed was time away and a new perspective which James’ remix offered. Eventually the anxiety settled, and I’m very proud of that record today, the remix as well.
Here’s some words James has shared on it: “I lived with the track for the better part of two weeks. The chorus was playing in my head even as I slept. It became a perpetual mantra for a minute. I had three objectives: I wanted to present a kind of alternate version of the song, I wanted it to get kind of weird and hypnotic, and I wanted to kind of destroy it in the end (in a good way.)”
What is the most comfortable pair of shoes you own
My running shoes - the brand I can’t place at the moment. I bought them at a fancy running store. They had me jog on a treadmill and analyzed my gait to find the most effective support. Not sure if that’s just a silly stunt they do and then just sell you really soft shoes, but whatever happened that day worked.
Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)
Stepping onto a soapbox in 2020 feels like spitting into the sea - everyone has their own soapbox in their pocket and we’re living through a global pandemic while US democracy crumbles so you bet your ass people are using them. Everyone has a take and they’re all on the internet, for better or worse. BB was supposed to be in the studio as I write this, but the LP2 sessions were pushed due to COVID-19. The void of activity definitely threw me for a while there. So, I’ll just share a reflection/personal advice/self-soothing of mine regarding life under quarantine: you likely have a lot of time on your hands but that doesn’t mean you have to be more productive. Seriously. I don’t know if it’s an internalized product of capitalism that tells us we have less value if we aren’t constantly producing, or if it’s a well-meaning but misguided attitude I’ve been seeing plastered everywhere, but if you’re anything like me, you may find it hard to pick up a pen or a guitar or learn a new skill or finish writing that chapter while the conditions of our lives are as unstructured, restricted, and isolated as this. That’s not to discourage anyone from making “use” of their time right now if they find the mettle, but instead to encourage you to try to avoid placing more pressure on yourself while we move through a global crisis and to focus first on surviving it as intact as possible. I think it’s absolutely crucial that all of us guard our mental and physical health first and foremost, and if that’s all you’ve done as we pass through this, you’re a champ. We are all facing heaps of uncertainty, anxiety, and confusion, and acknowledging that, for me, means allowing it to take up the necessary bandwidth to process it - and some days that’s the whole damn processor. Remembering this when I can has offered me a great deal of relief, and if you’re experiencing similar difficulties remember that all you have to do right now is take care of yourselves, your loved ones, and wash your hands. I’m looking forward to seeing you all IRL again. Ok, stepping down.