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Written by Joe DiRosa
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A collection of your paintings that I saw were called Subway Series. Can you
tell me a little about that?
Well, I grew up in Los Angeles and, of
course, everybody drives their cars everywhere in that town. So when I would
travel to New York, I was just mesmerized while riding the subway. I mean,
you're staring right at people's faces... right into their eyes. That never
happens in LA. I've lived in New York now for seven years and every year I have
a gallery showing of my paintings of subway passengers. That exhibition you saw
was a five-year retrospective. These are not pretty paintings- they are dark,
raw and gritty close-ups of faces. Fortunately, collectors seem to be buying
them up.
Now you are a Creative Director at and AD Agency, an Artist
and a Musician. How do they all balance out?
Well, for better or
worse, I've always worn a bunch of hats at the same time. On one side of my
studio is my big music computer setup. On the other side is my advertising
creative director computer and in the other area are my canvas and paints.
During an average day, I work on all kinds diametrically opposed stuff. For a
couple of hours today I was creating comp print ads for a new Juicy Couture
fragrance launch and then a TV commercial for Max Factor in Japan. Then I ran
over to my music rig for a few hours trying to finish up this big orchestral
movie score that is due. Then late into the night, I will work on these intense
paintings!
You have a new CD out called The Pillory:The Battle. It is
a collection of
quite a few different types of music including Ambient,
Electronic and industrial.
I read somewhere that you came up with the idea in
an epiphany coming down a Volcano. Can you tell me about it?
It's
true, I was down in Ecuador climbing Cotopaxi, the world's tallest active
volcano, and when I was coming down I started running like a total madman and
tripped. I went tumbling down the hill and as I was lying near the bottom, the
entire concept for the album came to me. It was a very weird yet exhilarating
experience. It was a really big project and so it took me a bunch of years to
complete it and get it released.
Wasn't there was a unique and
innovating way that you compiled the music for this album?
I wanted a
global feel and perspective to the music so I ran classified ads in cities all
over the world looking for people who played unusual instruments. It's cool, I
got hundreds of interesting emails back. I then emailed the musicians some info
about the piece or the score and everybody recorded their parts digitally and
emailed them to me. From there, I imported all the parts into my computer and
then manipulated literally thousands and thousands of files to create the final
piece. The symphony has an orchestra of over 100 people and not one of them have
met each other! I swear this must be the first orchestral recording ever done
this way!
What does it mean to be Jasun Martz?
My mantra in
life is simple... I never go to bed in the same day I wake up. Which means, I
always stay up past midnight working on something. I try to keep pretty busy
doing all kinds of different things. One year I toured with Frank Zappa, one
year I played synthesizers on a couple of hit songs with Michael Jackson, and
one year I helped arrange that horrible song, "We built this city on rock and
roll" for Starship. Oh yeah, one year I was awarded a U.S. Patent for an
invention I developed for a sponge disinfecting system called the Super
Spunge®.
What can we expect from you in 2005
Last year I
recorded the new CD which has 2 1/2 hours of music on 2 CDs and I composed it,
scored it, engineered it, organized it, produced it and played about 20
instruments. I definitely bit off way more than I could chew (laughs)... so
this year I am going to try to take it easy. But that is easier said than done.
The New CD by Jasun Martz with The Intercontinental Philharmonic
Orchestra and Choir is available at CDBaby.com and Amazon.com. You can find more information
about Jasun and win one of his paintings at JasunMartz.com
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