J. Wiles

Music:

Member Since: 6/29/2005
Band Members: My first and most commercially successful band was Strange Occurrence. I played guitar, we all wrote, it was musical utopia until the post-grunge fad died and a certain nameless self-titled producer brought our brightening sunrise to a cold, dark midnight.www.myspace.com/StrOccThe second project that I invested my time and efforts into was called This Diminishing West. It was beautiful. Songwriting bliss. Until someone decided to move out of town and another decided that they'd rather find a more religiously appropriate songwriting partner.www.myspace.com/ThisDiminishingWestThe music business is a rough, rough go. She's a bitter whore who'll give you a post-ejaculatory punch to the balls, laughing while she runs into the night with your money. Ok... maybe it's not THAT bad, but the music business wasn't really my thing. Or maybe it was just the Christian music business. I guess I'll have to rest in never really knowing.
Influences: As my bands were dying and my creative heart was searching for another outlet, I fell in love with teaching. It started as volunteer work at a local, after-school non-profit program called Rock School. After a year of volunteer work, I was voted onto the Board of Directors, given a paid teaching position, and I was eventually placed as a director over the main facility. Good times.www.myspace.com/rockschoolseattleBut, working for a non-profit was hard work. Sometimes, hard, unpaid work. And I realized that if I got a few of my own private students, I could easily make the same amount of money and not have to drive nearly as far. Driving a two and a half hour round-trip for 2 hours of work started to get less and less appealing. That realization, and the embarrassment of being suspended off the Board of Directors for what I thought was a friendly punch to the arm of the vice president, helped me get the motivation to start my own program in my home town. I call it The Rock n' Roll Conservatory.The focus is on the mentoring of students, as opposed to merely teaching them instrument lessons. It's the most fun I've ever had. I get to teach kids, jam with them, instill a passion for music, and get paid. It's incredible. And I have a no-punching-in-the-arm policy.www.myspace.com/RnRConservatory
Sounds Like: It was the fall of '07. I had a budding music school and a heart for inspiriing young musicians. I had a growing roster of students and my bills were being paid. Finally. I decided to answer some Craigslist ads looking for actors.I'd only acted in one high-school stage play. I'm sure I sucked. The only people that knew me that came to the performance was an old mentor of mine, Steve. He brought his wife. They stomached the entire performance just to see me play the Friar in my high school Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing. My parents didn't even come. To their credit, I'm not sure if I remember telling them I was even in it.That was well over 10 years ago and here I was, answering a Craigslist ad for an extra in a local zombie movie. I got the role. I was stoked. At the time, I thought, "if I could just be an extra in a zombie movie, that would be the pinnacle of my 'acting' career." But the bug had bitten. I started answering more ads, eventually moving on to paid roles. I landed feature-length, speaking roles. Rapists, rock stars, and drug dealers. I was beginning to think I was being type-cast, but then realized that these were the roles I was wanting. Dark, seedy, alternate-me roles.So, I was suddenly an actor. I was having to audition against other, more experienced actors. But I was getting the roles. So, fearing that I'd have a problem performing on film as a rapist, drug addict, child molester, or creepy rock star, I started acting under a stage name. I didn't want MY name to come up under a simple Google search and come up RAPIST or HEROIN JUNKIE.If you care to know about my acting projects, just ask me. But I won't divulge it publicly. I guess I'm worried that my name will be cross-associated with my music school in some sort of drug-dealing, music mentorship, rapist, rock n' roll, drug-dealing, songwriting fiasco.
Type of Label: Major