Published: September 08, 2007 10:13 PM EST
By: Isaac Joseph Davis Junior
(Juniorscave.com)
Music Now Exclusive: Mark Hildreth
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Mark Hildreth | ||
For those of you who don't Mark Hildreth (which should only be a few
people), he is an extremely talented and gifted young actor and equally
gifted musician. He began his acting career playing Bradley Ryder in
Love Is Never Silent (1985) (TV) and has never stopped since then.
Equally impressive is that this very handsome young man can really sing
his heart out. When one listens to his voice his lyrics, one can actual
feel his pain his joy his emotions. And that is why I am thinking that
Mark has all the right spices in his music. Recently, I had the honored
to correspond with him via email. We were able to set up this online
interview for Junior's Cave. It is my pleasure to introduce him in our
magazine for September.
Isaac-Joseph: Mark, you have been very busy as of late with both music
and movies. You have been recently seen filming Pirates of the
Caribbean: At World's End. How was that experience for you?
Mark: Shooting ‘Pirates’ was one of the most enjoyable acting
experiences of my life! Working on a big-budget project like that one
was truly awesome, the cast was great, and the lushness of the
production really blew me away. When you’re on a set and you look
around and even the EXTRAS look AMAZING, you know the production has a
lot going for it. More than anything, the experience of working with
Gore Verbinski, who directed the films, was a real honor. In my
experience, he is such a professional, he never lost his cool, even
with 5 or 6 other department directors milling around him, and he was
relaxed and joyful despite the chaos of such a big movie. Talk about
trying to ride a wild elephant!!
Isaac-Joseph: Who would you say Mark Hildreth is in a couple of words?
Mark: Two words I would use to describe myself? Learning and growing.
Isaac-Joseph: Many people may know you more for your acting.
How has the experience been crossing between making music and your
acting been for you?
Mark: I taught myself to play the piano and started singing when I was
about 10 years old. But in the last few years, I’ve been pouring my
assets from acting into my music career. It is a tough climb, since in
many ways I am starting right from square one. But when you are doing
something you love, something that allows a pure expression of your
essence as a person, the rewards outweigh the difficulties. In fact, I
am learning that the struggle in an endeavor is often actually what
makes it interesting!
Isaac-Joseph: Mark, your music seems to come from your heart.
Explain to the readers of this magazine what it is like when you are
singing?
Mark: It’s a challenge to sing honestly, just as it’s a challenge to
live honestly. There’s a process I learned as an actor where you do
your homework, learn your lines, find your character history, your back
story, your intentions, your sub-text, and you do all this discovery
and learning…and then you forget it all when you play it on the stage
or for the camera. You must be completely present in the moment of
performance, or else you’re just showing us your homework, not living
truthfully in that moment. I bring my understanding of this process
when I sing, and in some ways it is easier, since I am not only the
player of all of those things, but also the author. It is such a joyous
experience to sing like I mean it, and not just to try to sound good.
And the irony is, when I try to sound good, I tend not to, and when I
just try to sing like I mean, I tend to sound pretty awesome!
Isaac-Joseph: Many people today want that overnight success.
What are you ultimately hoping to gain from your experience of making
music?
Mark: I want to have a lasting career as a musician, and to move the
world forward through music by using it as a vehicle to effect positive
change in the world. I have a hypothesis that real change comes on an
individual level; that when individual people choose to live mindfully
and make choices that are integrous with an ideology and are ethical,
that the effect is peace, love and the building of value in the world.
These are things I explore in my songwriting, and discover and
understand for myself as I do it. So, I gain first, and then try to
share my gain with others!
Isaac-Joseph: I read on your homepage that your song
Ready to Fall was chosen as the winner of the 2006 New Generation Song
Contest. Explain your thoughts after winning this contest:
Mark: It is a pleasure to be recognized by others for my work, and I am
honored to receive recognition by anyone for the products of my
efforts.
Isaac-Joseph: If you had a choice and you could only choose
between one, would it be acting or music? Why would one out weigh the
other?
Mark: I have been asked this many many times in my life, since I’ve
been doing both since such a young age. If I HAD to choose one, I think
it would be music, since I have the privilege of expressing myself in
both mediums, but with music, the stories are my own. But acting has
certain nobility to it, in recreating the life of a person in imaginary
circumstances, and I don’t think I could give that up!
Isaac-Joseph: What can the fans of Mark Hildreth look forward to in the months ahead?
Mark:
I am currently finishing a new record, called “Complex State Of
Attachment,” which is due to be released in Spring ’08. We will break
some of those songs in the Internet in the coming months, so people can
check in at www.myspace.com/mhildreth, or at my website, www.mark-hildreth.com.
I’m also working on a couple of new films, “PVT. Wars”, based on the
award-winning play by James McClure, and another untitled film that has
just gone into pre-production.
Isaac-Joseph: You have named some of your influences as Stevie
Wonder, Elton John, and John Lennon. These are all great icons. What do
you hope that your music will bring that their music have bought us in
the past?
Mark: Elton John remains my first and biggest musical influence. He was
the one who really inspired me to become a songwriter in my own right.
And since then, I have been really following the Stevie Wonder school
of music, in the sense that I want to write songs that come from a
place of and promote compassion. I can’t think of a single Stevie song
that promotes suffering or destruction, as so many of the songs we hear
in popular music do today. I think he is truly a revolutionary artist
because, aside from being a truly gifted and skillful musician, he
seems to have a perspective about himself and the world that can
inspire others to live more joyously and that is a most powerful thing.
That is what I hope to continue in his legacy, in my own way.
Isaac-Joseph: Describe how has your upbringing and environment play in the current decisions to do movies and make music?
Mark:
I was very lucky to have the parents and siblings that I have, they
have always kept my feet on the ground, and have truly done their best
to help me be the best person I can possibly be. It is supremely
important to parent children integrously, I don’t think I can overstate
that. A person’s primitive understanding of reality is formed in those
fragile years when we are children, and having had parents who raised
me the way I was raised has been a blessing I cannot over-value. As
well, looking around at the world we are creating and living in, it
seems to me that the human race as a whole could afford to live more
mindfully and compassionately with one another, and would benefit
greatly from a better understanding of introspection and
self-knowledge. There are so many problems in this world that, it seems
to me, have their basis in fear and a lack of sense of self and
self-esteem. Seeing and understanding how I embody the things I dislike
most about the world and the people around me influence my song-writing
in a remarkable way.
Isaac-Joseph: Mark, this is your time to let all the dirt out.
We would like to know anything that you would like to divulge to
Junior's Cave:
Mark: Well, it’s not really dirt, but I would like to leave your
readers with a final thought: “Inner honesty and integrity are the
highest human values, and the foundation of the human psychology. All
other values arise from them.” A great man I know once said this, and I
think it bears repeating in as many forms as possible!
Isaac-Joseph: Final thoughts as we part ways:
Mark: Your
questions have been insightful and engaging. Thank you so much for the
opportunity to share my thoughts and feelings with you! I feel so much
love for the people of this world and, to quote a GREAT band, it’s
getting better all the time!
It has been a pleasure emailing you these questions and I hope will you find them to your liking.
Isaac-Joseph: I have. This has been a great experience only to be topped if I were to meet you in person.
Photos used in this story were provided by Mark Hildreth.
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