Interview with Justin Lassen
Your cinematic style brings which CG Artists paintings, scenes to life and how you benefitted with this?
I know this sounds cliché, but the Synaesthesia series has changed my life. Don’t even get me started on the benefits. They’re numerous and glorious.
Over the last couple of years on the three sets of Synaesthesia compositions; I have had the distinct and undeserved pleasure of working with (in no particular order): Philip Straub, Linda Bergkvist, Laurent Ménabé, John Wallin, Alexander Casteels, Olga Antonenko, Björn Börkur Eiríksson, Kirsi Salonen, Steven Staulberg, Specimen, Blaz Porenta, Nykolai Aleksander, Paul Gerrard, Erlend Mørk, David Ho, Benita Winckler, Lance Larson, Kornél Ravadits and Vitaly S. Alexius.
Though the art is the thing, it takes a lot more than that to create a phenomenon. Hold on to your hat size, but frankly, it requires journalists at respected magazines to act as talent scouts and spot a cool project and popularize it. I think all of us who dig Synaesthesia owe a lot to you guys. So this list includes Paul Hellard who helped me kick start the promotion (CGSociety), Ben Barnes (3DCreative Magazine), Nelson Medina (RevolutionArt Magazine), Patrice Leymarie (ITS ART Magazine) and of course Ashish Rastogi from CGArena.
Till now on which commercial projects you worked? And on which projects you are working these days?
Some of my favorite ‘commercial’ achievements are more on the technological side. I’m really interested in cutting edge technologies and getting the chance to see the future of it is pretty inspiring. Some of those were when I got to remix and produce on a cutting edge 6.1 DTS Surround DVD-A with Gary Mraz and Ted Price at the Voodoo Mansion to work on their project Studio Voodoo (2002). That was back when that stuff was just taking off. I learned a LOT about studios, the industry and production from both of them. Doing the soundtrack for the flagship game released with Intel Dual-Core processors was a fun one (2005). I have been doing software and technology demos for different music and hardware companies, including a demo for the world’s first-ever 64-bit DAW; Cakewalk’s Sonar 5 Producer Edition (2005). Most recently I did the flagship demo for Cakewalk Project5 2.5 (2007). They are a very cool company with amazing people and always have cutting edge fun stuff for us musicians. I am honored to even be associated with them in that small way.
A few other commercial achievements I’m happy to have been a part of are doing epic remixes for several different artists like Madonna, Nine Inch Nails, Linkin Park, Garbage and ton of others. That taught me a lot about music and technology and combining the both of them into new creative works of art. It also taught me about crazy fans.
These days I am working on a few different projects doing various tasks, not all are musical. Some of those, which I can’t say too much about are game mod projects (Out of Hell with Long Nguyen: we were just recently featured in The Escapist Magazine together and Hexen: Edge of Chaos), a start-up business with a pal of mine, consulting and advisement to a few up and coming developers and artists, tons of e-mailing and interviews as of lately and a whole basket of unmentionable randomness. Oh yeah, I just released my 3rd set of Synaesthesia compositions ‘The Darker Side of Synaesthesia’.
What is one piece of advice you would give to any person looking to get into music field?
 Have rich parents or find a wealthy fan. Barring that, my best advice would be to stay inspired, keep rocking, and never relent- no matter what. This is a cutthroat industry, and musicians and ‘artists’ are over-saturated here. It’s getting tougher for the majority of artists to stay afloat.
I know this sounds gloomy, but there is some good news. There’s a neat trick that not many musicians leverage that can give you a huge edge and an ability to beat the odds: reading. I would recommend to any young person wanting to get into music to read as many books on the subject as possible. On the subject of paying for your rent and food while being a musician, recommendations that come to mind are ‘I Don’t Need A Record Deal!’ which has tons of good advice about making it as an independent artist, with anecdotes from several successful indie musicians, Moses Avalon’s ‘Confession’s of a Record Producer’ is also a great read and of course ‘Creating a Life Worth Living’by Carol Lloyd, which has some fantastic interviews and ideas. Those are good starting points.
Obviously, don’t listen to the nay-sayers. Well, if they’re giving you some verifiable facts, certainly fish those out before discarding the rest. A quote that has ALWAYS helped me, at least for a number of years is this: “Never take a ‘No’ from someone not in the position to give you a ‘Yes’ in the first place. Go straight to the ‘Yes’ person.”
Anything you like to add? It is your chance now to state your opinion about anything.
I want to give some mad props and shout outs to all of the amazing digital artists who have painted me or manipulated photos of me for posters, wallpapers and splash screens over the years. I treasure their friendship and continued support, and my lust for their approval is giant motivator for me. I don’t know where I would be without them. Every time I see a new creation, I am humbled. One that comes to recent mind is Danone Rolli, whom has created tons of the most recent photo manipulation pieces, from photos by Lance Larson and Hal Bergman.
Thanks a lot Justin for taking out sometime for us from your busy schedule and making this 3D-2D industry more beautiful and expressive.
This interview was first published in CGArena Magazine June07 Issue
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