In this interview spotlight, I chat with Russian rockers Bliss Original to discuss their latest project, motivations, challenges and more.

Full Q&A along with music and links below.

Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)

Hello everyone, we are from Russia, Volzhsky city that is located near the famous heroic Stalingrad city and the great Volga river. We are a trio in that everyone loves music. Let me introduce our band: Stanislav Sotkin – guitar, vocal, lyrics; Anar Gasanov – bass, vocal, lyrics; Sergey Trofimov – drums.

We believe that we try to create music without style borders. But honestly, we started as a pop-punk band, it is clearly heard in our first songs. Everyone of us listens to vary genres (from “Radiohead” to “Bullet For My Valentine”) and it affects us in different ways, as a result – now we compile our tracks to something not linked to a concrete style. We gave the name “bliss” to our style.

What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?

We love this. This is our passion. And as any other creator we want to share our fillings, thoughts, stories to people. Sometimes we compile our feelings into instrumental tracks; other days we express them in songs in English or Russian language. The music for us is a way to feel the unity and relationship with listeners, to be united for some time.

Also, our motivation is that we must keep growing and evolving, constantly improve our musical instrument skill, show and scene skill.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?

The first release (2016 year) is a bunch of old songs that were born in 2012-2013. At the beginning we just decided to record these songs only for one reason: not to make them lost in the memory, not to forget how to play them. Because we performed the old songs on the concerts quite seldom. But later it has grown up to something bigger.

It was our first experience in a studio and we have learnt many things during this recording process.

But the new release is different. It is coming soon this year. The new tracks are more complex and various. We used more instruments (piano, acoustic guitar and other), spent more time in the studio, tried to get the best result as we could, paid attention to many nuances.

Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?

There is so much music in the internet our days, many artists offer millions tracks. It is just impossible to listen to all of them and to be up to date in new released music, to be aware of all events. Also, there are to much similar bands with similar songs. Thus, it is very easy to lose yourself and miss something big, a real great song, because it is hard to distribute the material for a young independent artist especially at first time without having a big budget.

On the other hand, our digital age gives many possibilities, simplifies the release of audio and video content, makes communication between people easier.

At this moment the border between home mini-studio and professional studio is erasing. Sometimes, the simple indie tracks are the same quality (and even better) as songs of the “elder brother”. The concurrency between home and professional studios leads to that these home studios buy more expensive equipment, spend more money for hardware and software, and make more quality result.

Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?

You can find us almost on every platform. Main of them:

• Facebook
• MySpace
• Our YouTube channel
• iTunes
• SoundCloud
• GooglePlay
• Deezer
• Amazon
• Bandcamp
• Or feel free to send email at ziic@mail.ru

Anything else before we sign off?

Please check our new track “My Ideas” on soundcloud!

Thank you and see you later!