By Alanna Berman
For Jakob Martin, the present may mean writing and performing music that’s widely appealing to those who like emotionally driven folk-rock, acoustic tunes, but his past is tightly bound to Jewish music. Though he’s played supporting gigs with artists like Everclear, Blues Traveler and HelloGoodbye, the San Diego native and now Angelino (born Martin Axel Storrow) remains humbly connected to his roots — and some of his first performance experience — as a Jewish song leader. A product of his upbringing, his talent was nurtured early at Temple Solel in Encinitas and Beth Am in Carmel Valley, where, in eighth grade, he led kindergarteners singing Debbie Friedman songs. He did, after all, grow up in a Jewish home in North County.
“A lot of the traditional Jewish melodies have stuck with me since I was a kid, and a lot of that has also crept into my music,” Martin says. “I think that whatever your experiences are when you are younger obviously has an effect on you as you grow up, so for me, it was all Jewish music.”
On his most recent album (“California Songs,” released independently in June), inspiration from at least one element of the Jewish experience makes its way into the music, in the song “The Devil in Me.”
With lyrics like “I don’t even know your name/ you don’t even know my creed/ tell me/ how can you pretend to find the devil in me,” the song is about people in his travels who, having found out he was Jewish, told him in one way or another he would go to hell.
“No matter where you are in the world, there is hope and fear and pain, [so with this album] I wanted to delve below the surface in terms of what people really experience,” he says.
That sounds like something everyone can relate to. And fans of the soulfulness in fellow Jew Bob Dylan’s music or the playfulness in fellow San Diegan Jason Mraz’s would probably find themselves tapping a toe to Martin’s music, too. And like both Dylan and Mraz, Martin’s talent and interest in music were evident early in his life.
“I think I knew from a very early age that music was something that would follow me for the rest of my life,” he says. “So, ever since I was a kid, I’ve been experimenting with music and exploring performing. I was trying to turn things that weren’t instruments into musical instruments, like banging pots around, and pretty much every toy my parents bought me I tried to turn into a musical instrument.”
Fed up with her kitchen being torn apart, Martin’s mother bought her 3-year-old son a nylon-string guitar at a rummage sale. He wrote his first song, “Where Can I Get Raw Pizza?” that very same day.
“It was the worst song ever,” Martin says. “There’s probably an old recording of it somewhere, but it really was a horrible, horrible song.”
Thankfully, his music career didn’t end with “Raw Pizza.”
Over the years, he took up piano and attended vocal coaching while continuing to lead Hebrew songs. He’s still most comfortable with a guitar in hand, and just as easily switches gears to play piano on “California Songs.” He even took up the harmonica recently, a happy accident when looking for something to keep him busy on the road between gigs (often as the headliner on college campuses and at small music venues, but occasionally as a guest of other more prominent artists). He performed at the end of August in Rancho Bernardo, and many of his most recent gigs took him other California cities, as well as others on the West Coast and in the Southwest. Of course, California is home for Martin. For the singer/songwriter/musician, “California Songs” was a way to explore his upbringing in what many people refer to as paradise and address what many see as living the “California Dream.”
“San Diego is, very stereotypically, beautiful all the time, with beautiful people everywhere,” he says. “So what I wanted to write about on this album, or what this album ended up being, is more about what’s below the surface of that. [In my travels all over the country] people have a view of those people from California as being literally perfect, and part of the title track and the album is about the fact that there is a lot below the surface, and there’s a lot of intensity there.”
His own life’s imperfections also inspire his drive to create. In 2004, his mother tragically lost her battle with breast cancer. Nearly two weeks later, a friend and band-mate died in a tragic accident.
“I had never dealt with loss before, so this was a total wake up call for me,” he says. “My mother was…a huge part of my connection to [the Jewish} world, so when she passed away it was very difficult to continue on that road both spiritually and musically.”
But continue he did, and in fact, those two deaths even served as a wake-up call for Martin.
“I decided life was too short to not spend time doing what makes you happy,” he says.
Although he admits that being an indie musician presents challenges (he is not signed to any label, and is proud of it), Martin says his fan base and solid friendships have helped him along the way. Last year, he looked to his fans for financial support to produce “California Songs;” they responded with $12,000 in personal donations.
“I literally could not have made the album without their support,” he says. “It was a really exciting process, but it was also a little nerve-racking because when you have more than 200 people who have put their own money on the line to make it possible for you to make an album, you want to make it good. You want to live up to that expectation.”
One quick glance at Martin’s official Facebook page (Facebook.com/jakobmartinmusic), and it looks like so far, his fans aren’t disappointed.
“California Dreams” is available for purchase on iTunes. Previous albums include “Matches,” released under the name Martin Storrow, 2007; “Masking in the Mirror,” 2008; “City of the Nameless,” 2009; and “Leave the Light On,” 2010. For more information about Martin and his upcoming tour schedule, visit www.jakobmartin.com.
