46bliss
An Interview Recorded July 27, 2005
by Marc Hirsh

originally published on MarsInvestigations.net, September 5, 2005

(clockwise from top left: Clare Veniot, David Cooper, Jack Freudenheim. Photo courtesy of 46bliss)

The 46bliss song "The Way You Are" played during the Veronica Mars episode "Silence Of The Lamb." I got the opportunity to speak to the band about their history, their music and licensing songs to television programs.

I’ll start out with a hypothetical question. If an incredibly lazy interviewer were to ask you how to describe your music, what would you say?

Jack: They really should be ashamed of themselves. (laughs)

I’m sure that hypothetically this person would be.

Clare: (laughs)

J: Who wants to take a shot at that? That’s probably one of our biggest challenges, describing our music. It doesn’t fit into typical parameters, although it’s not that far left field. David or Clare, you wanna give it a shot?

David: Eclectic electronic ambient pop. In a nutshell.

How did you guys get together? Did you know each other before you started playing music?

D: Clare and I met working in the East Village in a vegetarian restaurant called Angelica Kitchen way back when. We slung tofu together for a few years, and we kept in touch, we kept calling each other from job to job. We ended up working together in another company, and I believe one day I was with Clare in an Indian restaurant and I said, “Hey, we should put a band together. We could probably come up with something cool.” That was the kernel of it all, and then we knew we needed more musicians, or at least one more musician, and I had a conversation with Derek Sivers, who you might know as the owner of CD Baby today. He was playing guitar and had his own band at the time, and he said, “Oh, yeah, here’s a list of a couple of drummers I met that that I thought were cool,” and at the top of that list was Jack’s name. We called Jack and we hit it off on the phone, we hit it off in person, we met at that same Indian restaurant, and the band 46bliss was born subsequently.

D: This would be 1994, I think.

C: Yeah.

Wow, so you guys have been together for 11 years.

J: Yeah.

C: Wow.

Did you not realize that until just now?

J: Just barely.

C: (laughs) I mean, over the last year or two, we’ve realized that. Actually, it’s an amazing thing, because we still really enjoy each other, and it just keeps getting better. It’s great. It’s amazing what happens when you stick to it.

J: We have a CD [Pistachio Home] that came out before the one that you’ve listened to [46bliss], and that came out I guess in 1999. So that one was a few years in the making, and then we finished that one and were promoting that. And then this one took us more than three years to make. We’re very meticulous. (laughs) And so somehow eleven years go by very quickly, like time is speeding up right now. Good things are happening.

Is 46bliss your only musical project, or are any of you in other bands?

J: I would say it’s our main thing. We have other musical things that we’re involved in in different ways, and some as 46bliss, like we’ve done some remixing as a team. There was a thing where we did a remix of a jazz version of “Silent Night” by Mahalia Jackson that was put out on a Christmas CD. And we’ve got some more things like that coming up with the same company that produced that CD. But also, I do some session work as a drummer over the internet, where I do drumming for people without being in the same room, and that’s my main other involvement. But the band is priority for me, and then David’s got another project going.

C: Sounder.

J: Oh, Sounder. Yeah, also I wrote a piece of software called Sounder, which is an ambient music generator. That’s for sounder.com. I did that two years ago, but it’s still selling.

Yeah, actually, I just discovered that about two hours ago and downloaded it. I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet. But I’m keen to see what I can do with it.

J: Cool. Well, I hope you enjoy it.

Is that a substantial revenue stream for you?

J: It’s more of a sideline for me. At the time when I wrote it, I was hoping it was going to make me into an instant millionaire. And that didn’t quite happen, but it got some good reviews, and every now and then I get a sale from Italy or Russia or Germany or something. Or Canada. And it’s always satisfying to see. There’s kind of a steady stream of people downloading the demo and a certain number that buy it. I actually have just let the band be much more of a priority, so I haven’t updated that software in a long time. If I had the time, there are a lot of things I’d like to add to it, featurewise. I’ve also used it, actually, in its original form. We use it sometimes to generate some of the music on our CDs. Both CDs have some stuff that we generated using Sounder. “The Way You Are (part 2)” is Sounder triggering different sounds, including samples of Clare’s voice from “The Way You Are,” the one that’s on Veronica Mars.

Cool. Well, you mentioned that you do some session work over the internet. The press info you gave me said that you guys basically weren’t ever in the same place at the same time when you were recording; you were doing a lot of two-at-a-time and passing it over the internet. How difficult was it to work without ever being in the same place at the same time?

D: Well, Clare and I both live in Brooklyn. At this moment, we both live about a block away from each other, which is great for getting together and doing vocal rehearsals when we can make that happen. And Jack lives up in Katonah, which is a good deal away from where we live, so sometimes it was just more efficient for putting this record together for things to happen in Brooklyn, like things that I know I can do in Brooklyn, while Jack was simultaneously working on things up in Katonah, And then we would just send either MIDI files back and forth to each other or Cubase files back and forth to each other or upload and download audio files and send them to each other, and one person could work on something while the other worked on something else. And we also did meet in person when we required all sets of ears. But a lot, we found out, could be done remotely, without being in the same room. So because we’re all busy and we don’t live near each other like we used to, it just was easier, quicker to get things happening that way. Also, a couple of our songs, Clare and I have never met the musicians. The bass player on “Desire Give Way” [Michael Kay] lives in France, and he did his guitar in France and emailed it to us. So we’ve never met him. (laughs)

How did he end up on the record?

J: He’s actually an old friend of mine from high school. I haven’t seen him since high school. And we’d lost track of each other and then somehow hooked up using email or whatever, we caught up with each other. And when I knew him, he played guitar, he didn’t even play bass. So I found out he played bass and he moved to Paris, where I used to live also, but he’d been to America and moved back to Paris and was there recording demos of new songs that he wanted to try to sell in France, and I said, “Well,  I could drum some if you want.” And so I started helping him out and then we needed some bass playing on a couple songs, so we asked him if he’d want to do it, and he did this fantastic fretless bass on “Desire Give Way,” and he also plays on a song called “Kalimba.” But I haven’t laid eyes on the guy in ages and ages, and he’s never met David or Clare. A couple other songs have musicians that I met up here in Katonah that David and Clare haven’t met yet. (laughs) We have to hook up with them one of these days.

C: Yeah, we still haven’t met them.

D: You need to have a party.

J: Yeah, yeah. Actually, we’re finally putting together a live act – well, re-putting together our live act – because we haven’t gigged behind this CD yet. We’re gonna play in New York at the end of September. The gig is officially on September 27th, the day of the CD release, at Satalla. So it’s probably gonna end up being a celebration of that release as well as our own CD. I’m told that since it’s a restaurant too, minors are allowed, though there’s a $12 cover and possibly a drink minimum, we couldn’t get them to reduce that. We might do something like give away a CD to the first 25 people, too.

How long has it been since you’ve performed live as 46bliss?

J: Three years, right?

C: After 9/11, we were part of a benefit here in the city for the firemen, the children and families of the deceased firemen. And that was in October of 2001.

What’s the biggest difference between you guys on record and on stage?

J: The spandex, probably. Don’t you think?

C: (laughs)

The smoke machine and the lightning bolts?

C: Yeah. Different, hmm… well, probably the vocals. It depends on the club, too, you know? We used to play out a lot on the first CD, and it really depended on the club, on the sound system, and if we had a sound check. Really, to me, that was the most important thing. It depended how good the monitors were, etc., and if we had a good sound check, then we sounded pretty good.

J: Yeah, Clare and David are up there singing, and there’s something, a certain kind of feeling that people get watching us play. We tend to do just the three of us. We’re adding a bass player for this gig. Sometimes we’ve added other people, sometimes we use just the three of us. But it’s just a kind of vibe that people get when we play.

Where did the name 46bliss come from?

D: (laughs) I was riding the #7 train, which you may know of, in Queens. I was riding up to an appointment way at the end of the line, and I was kind of just dozing off, looking out the window, half-falling asleep, and the conductor said, “Next stop, 46 Bliss, 46 Bliss.” And I don’t remember there being a station called 46 Bliss, and I looked up and was like, “46 Bliss? What is 46 Bliss?” And I looked up and the name of the station was 46^th Street/Bliss Street. But the guy just made his own little abbreviation of it, and he said, “46 Bliss.” And at this point, that train station no longer exists, it’s just called 46^th Street. But the name stuck with me, and it was probably about a year, it just was in my head, in the back of my brain. And we were having a band meeting, saying, “You know, we really need a name,” and it just popped out, like, “What about 46bliss?” So that was the introduction of it to these guys, but it had sort of been just bouncing around in my head for a little while, and that kinda was the birth of it.

C: It turned out that Jack had actually lived at that train stop once upon a time.

J: Oh, right.

C: And that David’s grandfather had a bowling alley there.

D: Had a bowling alley right there. (laughs)

J: It’s a spiritual power spot for us, I think. Intersection… (laughs)

C: It doesn’t exist anymore, but we went out there and took some pictures on the subway, it was an elevated train platform, and it was kinda cool. And, you know, New York is a big city, but Queens, I don’t know, nobody really recognized it, except one time we were doing a gig in Grand Central. We were performing there for the grand opening after the restoration of Grand Central, and there was this big event, and there were lots of things going on. And we performed, and there were these cops and one of them came over and he said, “Where’d you get that name?” (laughs) We said, “Well, where do you think we got it?” I said, “Did you live in Queens?” And he said, “Yeah, I know where that is.” (laughs)

J: (laughs) I just forgot that.

C: Funny that that was our name. But he’s the only person in all these years who’s ever recognized the source of the name. It just goes with our music, and also, we went through the numbers, and 4 and 6 is 10.

D: Which is 1.

C: Basically 1, in terms of numerology. That was a pretty good number. And especially our first CD, it was just a very important goal of ours was to induce some sort of blissful state through music. Our first CD had a pretty strong sort of spiritual, for lack of a better word, kind of a otherworldly and worldly, world-musicky kind of exploration. It was like a journey. It’s kind of cool, actually, that first CD had some really beautiful stuff in it. Two songs have Latin, but one is Latin and French. And so, you know, it was this kind of real blissful kind of beginning.

How did “The Way You Are” end up on Veronica Mars? How did the people from the show find it?

J: I was gonna try to make the joke, you know, “Well, Veronica called….” But we have someone who we’ve been working with for a while now who represents us to music supervisors to different TV shows and to advertising and film and television. And he gave that to the person at Warner Bros., Warner Productions, I guess it’s called, who does Veronica Mars. And he told us that she liked the CD very much. But that can happen any number of times, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re gonna get used on the show. But then he called us one day very excited, that it had been used on this particular episode and she was pretty sure it was gonna happen, but we wouldn’t know for sure until they did the final edit. And then it turned out it had made it on, and we watched the show. Did you guys watch the show before that episode? I think we maybe saw one before just to sort of get used to the show.

C: Yeah, as soon as he told us that we were up for Veronica Mars and it was a new show, I started watching it.

J: And then the way that that song worked with that episode was just so wonderful. We were totally blown away by how well the scene and the editing of the scene meshed with the song. It just gave a whole new meaning to the song, and we thought that the song really added to the atmosphere of that particular moment.

D: Just so you know, we told a lot of our friends and family to watch the episode that we were on. And I think Clare, you told me today that some people that you know are actually watching the show regularly now because of that first time.

C: Mm-hmm.

J: And actually, the thought didn’t occur to us ‘til maybe that day or the day before to go and see what kind of fan sites might be out there. And lo and behold, there was quite a few. And so we emailed everyone that had a contact email address on their site, which I think included you guys and Neptune High and a few others like that, to say who we were and that our song was going to be on, and where people could find it if they wanted to buy the CD or something afterwards. And the response was great. It was great to see a lot more hits on the website and people downloading it, and we’ve been having a lot of downloads through iTunes and MP3tunes.com, a number of sites like that, and we can see that a lot of it is happening because of the Veronica Mars websites. So we’ve got a real nice relationship going with these fansites.

C: Also the music supervisor for the show, I can’t remember exactly what she said, but she told Steve that it was one of her favorite placements all year, or something like that, that she loved it. And so it kind of stood out in their minds. And it was great for us, and I think that had something to do with getting on the compilation that’s coming out.

A bunch of fans had a Veronica marathon this past Sunday, and “Silence Of The Lamb” was one of the ones we watched. And when the scene with your song came on, somebody who had no idea that I was planning on interviewing you guys said, “This music is perfect.” I think it was around that time that the words “Put yourself in my place” started reverberating over a scene that showcased Mac’s anguish over being switched at birth.

J: (laughs) I know, it’s so great. That’s great. We looked later that night and over the next few days there were people posting things on forums, saying like, “What was that song? I picked out the word ‘the way,’ and I Googled it, I’m looking everywhere for it,” and other people were saying, “You can get it here.” It was just so fun to see this traffic happening over our song, which up until that point, really, we had just released the CD, and suddenly in one night, three million people have heard that music, whether they all paid attention or not. A lot of people sat up and noticed, so it’s really very satisfying. And we also heard that Rob Thomas was quite pleased with that particular placement and the way that those things fit together, so it’s really exciting.

How much of a consideration is the quality of the show that your song would appear on? Do you put your foot down if it’s a show that you don’t think is particularly good, or do you just assume that because it’s three million people or whatever, that doesn’t matter? That sounds like a loaded question and it’s kind of not, but…

D: (laughs) We’re hopeful.

C: No, we have to trust Steve on that. He’s the guy who reps us at Steve Scharf Entertainment. I don’t think he gonna send us out for something that we’re gonna feel badly about. He’s got some really good contacts. He’s been in the industry for a long time. We had a couple of placements on a show that one episode was really good. The next one, I thought it kinda sucked. But I think that we’re at the point where it’s kinda thrilling for us to see our music being used that way, and we would love to do tons more of it, and we plan on it. And to actually be able to compose for it, that’s the thing that would be really cool. Right now, we can’t, so our music is being used like a palette of colors; somebody’s choosing this part of the song, and I think our stuff really lends itself to the medium. But again, we kind of trust Steve on that. He’s got a lot of integrity, and I think usually we’re gonna end up in good hands. And so far, we haven’t been disappointed. It’s just been a really great learning experience. In my experience, the best of all them has been Veronica Mars, and it’s been so much that’s come out of it, really. And I’d like to do another one. I mean, I would love to do something actually that we created for the show. That would be a lot of fun.

D: We got a lot of good feedback on the Veronica Mars show. A lot of our friends and family told us that they really enjoyed the show and that the actual moment when the song came up was very dramatic and kind of goosebumpy. I didn’t get to see the episode when it first aired, because I was actually on an airplane heading to Florida, but a couple of my family members TiVoed it. And when I got down there, I got to see it that night, and it really was kind of a goosebumpy moment when the song came on with what was happening on screen. So I can see why people do have that reaction to it.

How important is licensing your songs to TV shows or commercials or movies or what have you? Is that just a bonus, or is it crucial to your whole approach?

J: Well, for us, so far we haven’t been a touring band. We’re not on the road. We’re more of a studio band, so if we can get our music out there in a way that gets our name out there and brings an income at the same time, then it’s a great way to do that.

D: These songs were not written for hire or for any particular purpose other than just to write music that we like to create. So the fact that someone appreciates that and wants to use it in another context, it’s very interesting. And it’s rewarding, too, just to see how that goes. And also the fact that we can earn some income from this is also great.

C: Yeah, the whole mixed-media thing… a lot of artists like to work in different mediums, so here we get a chance to do that, rather than just being pigeonholed or being stuck in being around New York City or doing our studio stuff. It just opens up a whole new world. It really opens up a whole other world for us as artists. And it’s a really great experience.

D: I just want tell you, we haven’t really set the scene here tonight. Clare and I are laying on the floor in front of a candle talking into my cellphone on speakerphone in the dark because there’s no electricity here, and Jack’s in another room laying on the floor in front of another candle talking on a different telephone. (laughs)

C: (laughs)

D: We really should set this mood to get the full effect.

I feel like I should ask different questions now.

J: You’re in Boston, aren’t you?

Yes.

C: Has the heat wave broken yet? Because ours has with this storm. It took down a lot of trees. In fact, the house next to Jack, a giant tree fell right in the guy’s yard and across his driveway. But now the heat wave has broken here.

J: And what’s the story behind Mar-, oh! We just got electricity!

C: Electricity just came on.

J: Wow.

Turn off all the lights! Stay on the floors with the candles!

J: (laughs) Yeah, right. Mars Investigations, it’s a volunteer effort, or is it a for-profit kind of thing, or why do you do that?

If it’s for profit, then I’ve got a lot of conversations to have with a lot of people.

J: (laughs)

No, it’s all volunteer.

D: Great.

J: So you just all do it for the love of the show, basically.

Yeah.

D: Great.

So do you watch the show now? Are you fans of the show?

J: I watched right up until the end. I haven’t been watching all of the reruns. But I watched through to the end. And I thought the final episode was great. Did you guys see that?

D: I’m currently without television service. I moved about two months ago, and I’ve been so busy that I haven’t even bothered to hook up cable or DirectTV. I don’t watch TV at the moment, which is an interesting experience in itself.

C: I I didn’t see the last episode, but I think I saw up to the second-to-last. But I have a question. You know what date the season starts in September?

Actually, I found that out this weekend. It’s September 21^st. [It was later changed to September 28^th.]

C: Oh, great. Because that means that the CD is gonna be coming out for that episode. And we have a party gig that we’re doing the week after it. Really, that’s very good. That’s very good.

D: We invited, we’re gonna invite a lot of people down, it’s gonna be a party.

There are a couple questions that are always asked of the various people that are interviewed on Mars Investigations. One is, how much taller are you guys than Kristen Bell, who is 5’ 1” tall?

D: Wow.

C: She’s five-one?

Yes.

C: Aaaah.

D: I think we’re all taller. We didn’t know that she was that teeny. But someone just told me about a new magazine that came out called Now Playing. I think it’s published by the people who do PC Gamer. And no one who’s already a big star ever goes on the cover of Now Playing. But the magazine picks who they think are the superstars of the future, usually a year or a year and a half before they expect them to be superstars. And on the current issue of this magazine is Kristen Bell.

C: Is she on the cover?

D: I believe she is.

Is it a life-sized picture?

J: (laughs)

So how much taller are you than her?

C: Well, I am an inch and a half taller than Kristen Bell.

D: I am, I believe, nine inches taller.

J: I guess I’m just about eleven inches taller.

Excellent. What we plan on doing with that information, I have no idea, but there it is.

J: I heard she sings, though, so she’s welcome to come do a recording session with us.

Have you come across Reefer Madness at all?

J: I’ve seen ads. I haven’t seen it yet.

D: Reefer Madness? The old, old, old movie from the 1930s?

No, there was an off-Broadway musical that was a parody of those types of movies. And she was in the off-Broadway production and they did a televised version of it for Showtime, and she was in that, too. And she sang.

D: We’d love to see that.

C: When did they do that? I remember the theatre thing, ‘cause I remember seeing it around.

It was a couple of months ago, this past spring.

J: Yeah, we have to get our hands on that. So was she living in New York at that time, or she just came out to do the off-Broadway?

I wanna say that she was an NYU theatre student.

J: Oh, no kidding.

And the big scandal was the fact that she actually left a couple credits shy of graduation because apparently students in her theatre department got credit for interning in New York theatres but nothing for actually performing on stage. And so she couldn’t get credit for being a performer on a nightly basis.

D: Wow.

So she’s I think officially a college dropout because she couldn’t get credit for actually making a living as an actor in New York.

J: Well, maybe they’ll give her an honorary doctorate in a couple years.

D: I was just gonna say that. I bet you they will one day.

But yeah, she does sing.

J: Yeah.

So maybe invite her. Who knows? Stranger things have happened, I’m sure.

J: Definitely.

One of the other questions that we generally ask is, which Backup do you prefer? If you’ve seen, there were three Backups. There was one in the pilot episode, there was a stuffed Backup that’s referred to as Backup 1.5 and then the loyal dog that we have now.

J: Oh, that’s a dog?

Yes, her dog is Backup.

J: Oh, gee. I think we just proved that we’re not really true fans, by not knowing that. (laughs) Sorry.

D: When I hear the word “backup,” I usually think of backup vocalists.

C: No, the dog, right.

J: I was thinking of backup software. That’s what a nerd I am.

Well, that’s three different types, so it’s like a yahtzee. Let’s see, I know that you guys did an unreleased cover of Badfinger’s “Day After Day.” Why that song and where is it? What happened to it?

D: Very good question.

C: It’s looking for a home.

D: Yeah, it actually currently is looking for a home. First of all, it’s a beautiful song. It’s a really great song. We have done a couple of covers. On our first CD we did a cover of “Across The Universe” and a cover of “Lay Down,” the Melanie song. And I think on this new CD we didn’t want to deal with cover songs. It was going to be all original. But in between these two CDs, we set out to do a cover in a very different style, very hyper electro-pop, and that song, as you may remember, is a really beautiful ‘70s ballad. Acoustic guitar and pianos and great vocalists and production by George Harrison and great guitar playing and just a beautiful song. So, I don’t know, one day I think I just heard the song and I said, “This is such a good song, it’d be interesting to do a completely radically different version of it, but make it very, very poppy.” And so we did that, and the consensus from people that we played it for was, “This is not 46bliss. This does not belong on your CD, this is a totally different thing.” Some liked it, some people really hated it. So we are actually looking for a home for it. We don’t know the licensing situation of a cover song. I’m not sure how that would work from a publishing perspective, but I think one day, we’ll find a good home for it.

It’s interesting that you just mentioned “Across The Universe” and George Harrison, because one of the things I noticed when listening to the CD is that “Inner Sensation” actually seems to do a lot of the same things that George Harrison did with his Indian music excursions in the Beatles, like “Within You Without You” and “The Inner Light.” And it’s not even just the sitar, but there are a lot of the same melodic ideas as well, especially in the intro. Was that intentional?

D: I think I’m probably the most Beatles influenced as far as in the writing of the three of us. I’m like a pickle, I’m just totally marinated in their music that I think it’s not necessarily intentional. It’s more like it’s just a very strong influence, and so it comes out. I also write children’s music for another project, and most of those songs sound very much like Beatles songs, except more like the Paul McCartney kind.

“Kalimba” in some ways sounds like mid-period Kate Bush. Which might just be the fretless bass, but is that something that you guys listen to?

D: Hmm… No, actually, I don’t think that we’ve thought about Kate Bush, although I love Kate Bush, that period of her music, the mid-’80s. I think we’ve heard some people say that we remind them of Annie Lennox or Morcheeba.

J: Cocteau Twins.

C: We haven’t gotten a lot of Kate Bush, but I can see what you’re talking about.

D: That’s interesting.

“In A Long Time” was the winner in Pop category of the International Songwriting Competition.

D: Well, we were not the winner, we were a winner. We did not come in first place. We came in tied for third place, I think.

C: Yeah.

D: And that was out of I forgot how many thousands. It was a lot.

C: Eleven thousand.

D: Out of eleven thousand entries or something like that. So we felt like winners. We were not the grand prize winner, but we felt very empowered by that.

What did you guys get for placing third?

D: Oh, the big bucks went to the big winner, but what did we get? We got some software, we got some books…

J: We got some guitar strings.

C: A lot of guitar strings.

J: (laughs) We really don’t play guitars.

C: We have guitars, but we don’t really use them.

J: Actually, do you play guitar, because we have some extra guitar strings?

I do play guitar.

J: We’ll send ‘em over. (laughs) They might come in handy one of these days.

They’ll be my 46bliss guitar strings.

J: (laughs)

Back to articles