We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Timothy Martuch. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Timothy below.

Hi Timothy, thanks for joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I often have difficulty answering this kind of question, but I think it’s important to explore.

Am I happy as a creative? Yes, mostly, I would say so. But it seems to me that that’s only one dimension. And it also seems to me that most artists–myself included–do our best work in difficult times. When tragedy or hardship strikes, I’m obviously not happy but I am fortunate enough to be able to cultivate all that into something that may provide others joy, inspiration, or comfort. It may also provide happiness for me down the line, too. So, for artists to be in optimal condition, we need to be constantly walking the line between order and chaos.

As for the regular job question, I really don’t need to wonder. I actually worked for a mortgage company shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic struck. During the pandemic, the school I worked for closed, my private studio dwindled as a consequence of moving private lessons online, and performance opportunities completely evaporated, I was put in a terrible financial position. So, I was connected with some folks who worked for United Wholesale Mortgage and I secured a job there and worked for some 6 months. It was the first job I took that was truly outside of my field of study and interest.

It was good job, I had good management, excellent coworkers, adequate pay/benefits, and I felt valued. …but it was absolutely miserable for me to work there.
I worked as a mortgage underwriter and I was pretty good at it. I spent my days reviewing documents, examining appraisals, and speaking with mortgage brokers in an extremely efficient and regimented 8-5 work environment.
Let me tell you, I would spend all of that time daydreaming about music, which wasn’t so different from how things where in my k-12 experience.

I was grateful to have been offered a job School of Rock in Ann Arbor about 2 years ago, which has greatly improved my satisfaction with my professional life.

All that said, I feel like the better variation on that question for me would be something like “Am I *happier* as an artist than I otherwise would be?” I can say with a high level of certainty that the answer is yes.

Timothy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Timothy David Martuch. My professional activities fall into one of two categories: Education and Performance.

Truthfully, when I started, I did not initially see myself doing these two things. I knew very early on in my life that I needed to be a musician. I recall saying it out loud when I was in 8th grade but even as early as 4 or 5 years old, I was obsessed with Disney’s Fantasia. When I enrolled in my undergraduate studies at Adrian College, I found music theory to be quite attractive, as well as classical composition. I happened to be pretty good with the technology, too. These facts drove me to pursue, and eventually earn, a Bachelors of Music with an Emphasis on Music Theory and Composition, with a Minor in Communication Media Arts.

This somewhat unique combination helped me to be really well suited for a number of graduate schools, not the least of which was the music department at The Academy of Art University in San Francisco. There, I pursued composition for film and I earned a Master of Fine Arts in Music Production and Sound Design for Visual Media with an Emphasis in Film Score. As an aside, you’ll notice that neither degree contains much about either education or performance.

However, all while I worked on these academic things, there was a little but growing fire in the background. When I was in high school, an interest sparked for me in rock and metal music. As a classical musician, I found rock and metal bands to be dazzling and captivating but outside of the musical language I spoke. Then, this fire for rock only grew while I was in college. I started a couple bands that didn’t really do much, but I wrote a pretty sizable catalog of songs.

After graduating from Adrian in 2013, I joined my first serious rock band: Oxal Pointe. Those guys really showed me what being in a band was all about and I was HOOKED. It was unfortunate that that band ended up breaking up.

This led to a frenzy of band joinups and startups that forclasted years. The Runarounds, The Tie-Dyed Giants, The Moonlight, Never Decaf, Vox Ad Nil, Galaxy Kat, Liz Ivory, 7 Story Fall, Blurry, The Cover Bandits, and Extremis just to name a few. Most went nowhere and those that did fizzled out for one reason or another. Fast forward to early 2020 and I decide I’m going to found the project that I’m going to take the distance.

So, I settled on borrowing the name of a latter work by Austrian economist and philosopher F.A.Hayek: “Fatal Conceit.”

As a performing rock/metal musician, I am proud to have had the great fortune of sharing the stage with Eva Under Fire, Stryper, Kaleido, Nonpoint, Danny Worsnop of Asking Alexandria, Anvil, Marty Friedman of Megadeth, Powerglove, We Came As Romans, Currents, Oceans Ate Alaska, HedPe, Ross the Boss of Manowar, Diamondhead and countless other gifted and talented musicians.

In parallel to my activities in rock and metal, I also was taking jobs in private instruction and higher education. I was sort of surprised to learn that this would be the most easily monetized service I could find in music. Since graduating from AAU, I had taken many contracts providing music for short films, documentaries, commercials, podcasts, etc. but those weren’t shaping up to be as lucrative or consistent as higher ed and private instruction.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

There are two articles of media that I recommend every artist dig into, if they want to make it in this field.

The first is very easy. It’s short video, accompanying a talk by author/educator Ira Glass, titled The Gap. It describes what is necessary for artists to do good work.

The second takes some doing but it is worth the time. There is a “self help” book by Robert Greene called The 48 Laws of Power.
It’s a curious and somewhat shocking book, as a surface level reading gives the reader advice on how to be manipulative, cunning, vengeful, Machiavellian, and deceitful. But that’s certainly not what the book is intended to be.
Greene is heard in interviews saying that this book is merely an exploration of one’s shadow and should be used as a guide for spotting and mitigating problems as a consequence of others in your proximity playing the games described in the book. The 48 Laws is also described by rapper 50 Cent as “his bible” for navigating the extremely competitive and often dishonest commercial music industry. And for good reason.

There are some other resources that are worth the time that I’ll include for further examination but may not be as pertinent to the subject.

-The Art of Possibility by Zander
-5 by Zadra
-The Inner Game of Tennis by Gallwey
-The Rest is Noise by Ross
-The 50th Law by Greene/50 Cent

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

When I was going through my formative years, I encountered a number of bands that deeply resonated with me and I was able to extract profound meaning from their music. Blue October, Avenged Sevenfold, Breaking Benjamin, Nonpoint, and Shinedown, to name a few.

If I am lucky, I will be able to serve in that role for others, as these bands have for me. That’s what I’m pursuing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.fatalconceitband.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fatalconceitband/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FatalConceitBand
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-martuch-3a0a842b/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/FatalConceitUS
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/fatalconceit
• Other: https://www.bandsintown.com/a/15473613

Image Credits
Jason Caine Photography