Meet Jack Martins | Songwriter & Vagabond

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jack Martins and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jack, is there a quote or affirmation that’s meaningful to you?
My favorite quote would have to be Arthur Schopenhauer’s, “Do it or don’t do it: you will regret both.” If you can believe that, then there’s really nothing to hold back on. A regret kind of loses its own possibility that way, loses the element of fear, it at least makes the fear useful. I like to think of that while I’m trying things in my songs that I know might not work.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I think if I do anything is try to make sense of being alive, try to get to what’s bigger than myself in being alive. Writing songs is how I approach that. Not knowing what will come out when I sit down to write a song is what excites me—discovering a wildly ridiculous phrase I hadn’t known was living in me. I never think it’s going to be easy but once I start there’s nothing easier in life. If I’ve learned anything along the way it’s that I never knew a thing, and I hope I never do know anything—that I’ll always find I was wrong in my thinking, so that I can grow and change. I’ve never really thought about what the world would think about it all, I just don’t know how to live any other way.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If my best friend was visiting LA it would be because he’s having an existential communistic family-man life crisis and he would have need of a people-people’s bar and the best place to find that is The Frolic Room. After recitations of new chapter-readings from his latest work of fiction and vodka shots and beers we would mosy down Hollywood Boulevard for the first meat-heavy street-food we could just lay our eyes on, preferably one with low plastic chairs, as those establishments always have the best food, food that satisfies your soul when it is a little weak and battered.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’ve always found that strangers have nothing to lose when you meet them— there’s a sense of freedom in being in communion with the unknown of another person. You don’t have to tell lies, but the truth can turn into a myth. I’ve learned a lot about life from people I’ve only seen once and never again. On a more personal level, there’s been no one more supportive of my path in life than my mother and father. But the one person that puts a sting through my flesh and lightning in my brain is Emily Lopez. If the universe is in my songwriting, I owe it to her.

Instagram: @jackmartinsmusic

Image Credits
Ashley Golightly