They were still boys when three band members from BLISS were guests at Djammen a few years ago. The eldest of the three was seventeen. Everyone is now a few years older, the men no longer just make grunge and the band consists of four members.
BLISS is gaining more and more control over itself and that is creating its own sound. Just what the boys want.
Last year, the young rockers won the Drenthe edition of the Popsport talent development programme. The search for identity did not stop there. On the contrary. “We’ve been thinking for a long time about what direction we want to go with our music and it’s going somewhere now,” says frontman Jordan Osman.
“We also consciously worked on it,” explains bassist Hugo Schultz. He is crazy about jazz and is also training in that direction. “We have a guitarist who is very much into metal and Jordan does a little bit of everything.” Add rock drummer Mark Koning and you have BLISS 2.0.
“We had the Nirvana label for a long time as a starting band,” Schultz further explains. The boys wanted to get rid of that. “Everywhere you go: ‘Hey, you guys are BLISS, you’re that nirvana band,'” Osman imitates someone from his memory. Even though they want to get rid of the stamp, they understand where the similarities come from. Secretly there is also some pride.
The new trend of the band, call it a professionalization, suits the men like a jacket. It’s not hard grunge anymore. “A little more dreamy, a little more pop-like, a little less raw, a little less rough,” Osman sums up. “And at the same time, we really want to keep that grunge edge that we have in our hearts,” Schultz adds. One of the new songs that the quartet played during the DJ session was In my head.