A Note About Tomo From The Band 30 Seconds To Mars

I just wanted to offer some thoughts about Tomo Milicevic, the latest addition to the band 30 Seconds to Mars. Recently, Tomo rejoined the band for the current wave of studio production and corresponding performance of THIS IS WAR Volume II, the upcoming 30STM album. He was last part of the band during the THIS IS WAR Vol. I era, which at the time was not called Volume 1 but only THIS IS WAR. He's thoroughly featured in the documentary Artifact, directed by Jared Leto, which was a companion to the album, documenting the band's lawsuit struggle with their label during that time.  

The reason I wanted to write about Tomo today is only because, his name seems strangely missing from my Timeline ://A\\rc)}’Hi\\V//e: which documents all my interactions with 30STM so far. In fact, I've never mentioned him at all, and I realize that this slightly implies that I have no interest in him as a musician or as a person — but that's not true. I thought just to avoid misunderstandings, it might be good if I would say a few words about him. 

First of all, Tomo seems very nice, and he seems to have a very positive atmosphere as a person. Personally, although it's a little different in fandom, that's the number one first thing I look for in a musician before I show any interest. Musical skill and various types of prowess in the band world which I sometimes speak of really interest me less than personality — at least just first and foremost.

I am intuitive, and based on that as well as reading his public persona, I'm certain he seems nice. He also strikes me as actually pretty tired and worn out at this stage of his life, and I noticed recently that he put out a podcast sharing that he experienced some really difficult times with mental health over the years since he was last in the band. I haven't had a chance to listen to that podcast, but I get the idea. For me, that just explains that tired energy I get from him. But I also feel that he puts his 100% all into being in the band, and he's very passionate about it. 

It was actually long before he recently joined the band again that I realized I had the option to check in with his vibe and see if maybe I'd like to be a fan of his distinctly, even separately from 30STM. At that point, I passed on taking any special interest, because I sensed intuitively from him that he and I would agree on just letting me stay focused on Jared and Shannon right now since that's what seems most strategically optimal for my organic process of development.

I even called out to his spirit in my diaries and thoughts, asking if there was anything I had missed which was important from Tomo, and I felt a spiritual response "It's OK, just not really (lol) — you're doing the right thing, and just stay in your natural feeling and flow." And sometimes I feel a bit tired and overworked myself, so I think I relate to Tomo on that level actually. I do just feel like it doesn't need to feel like a job just pursing research into bands. It should be just fun and spontaneous anyway. 

But the reason I mention this is because since he joined the band, I was informed by Echelon (30STM fanbase) that there had been a sense of divide in the community between likers and dislikers of Tomo. People had felt like his exit from the band earlier in history symbolized his failure or flaw somehow. I personally disagree with that, and I just wanted to clarify myself. I didn't want my lack of mentioning him to make it seem I might be of a camp that somehow imagines that a mentality of division and separation is the right response to an album which focused on those themes (THIS IS WAR). I really think that's taking it the wrong way, or taking it too far, responding to how the album was about polarity, division & conflict. 

In my way of understanding bands, I naturally assume that they always make impeccable choices of who they will musically collaborate with. When there is a musician collaborating with one of my favourite bands, who I don't necessarily get into musically or in other ways, I never assume this means that the band may have made a mistake and collaborated with a lesser artist or person. It's the opposite : I assume that the musician is impeccable but in my own unique experience, perceptually or for whatever long winded reason, I just haven't found it with that artist yet — and that's just something about me. Not a flaw on either end, but a natural ideal to my way of strategically optimizing where I invest my focus. 

Now, that all said, it's hard to ignore the fact that some musicians do strike me as FAR more mindblowingly impressive than Tomo. For example, recently Tim Skold joined the band Marilyn Manson, and I was absolutely exploded by this event in history, where one of the greatest musicians of all time and one of the most impressive human beings I've ever seen, joined a band of the same quality, making it some kind of a super-band. This time Marilyn Manson shocked just by that extreme combination factor where 1 + 1 = infinity. 

But again, I say that hoping you'll take it with a grain of salt. Because again and again, that's just my unique story, perception and experience. Tomo's vulnerability and quiet, gentle way of opening up inspiration with grace and ease may be just as powerful (but in a different way) as Tim's magic, which strikes me like many lightning bolts at once. And besides, this is all just perception, and really has so much to do with my personal journey and unique path of what's important to me on many subtle levels, just as such a characteristic and idiosyncratic individual. 

I feel actually more like my opinion of Tomo shouldn't matter. It's 30STM's opinion of Tomo which matters, cause they are the ones that know best for their own band. Obviously : Who am I to even voice my opinion at all when I'm not an authority on the issue of what's best for them? But the only reason I say this is just to make it clear that I'm not against Tomo, since there was some controversy about him. 

And there was a little bit of internal social controversy as well within my clique in the Echelon. My best friend Mary was cruelly blocked by "him" aka his account which I'm sure must be managed by someone other than him in this one way, when it comes to blocking accounts. Whatever took place, it was obviously a total misunderstanding to block her. She could have been restricted rather than blocked, so I view this as a cruel action, considering that she was innocently hoping so much to connect out of love for the band. She was absolutely devastated by this. It broke her heart so much.

And I petitioned directly to Tomo in his comments, asking very politely for him to please unblock her as this appeared to be an uniformed mistake. I felt any people in charge of blocking accounts would have accidentally behaved according to a smaller, de-contextualized and ill-framed moment in history rather than the larger story. She really has a beautiful history with the band, and this is generally apparent from her fan page, but I think perhaps they thought that her requests to be directly interacted with would make restriction a strangely more rude way to respond. Anyway, I felt this was a mistake. I believe Tomo would have definitely listened and made sure of unblocking her personally. It seems my comment would have been seen and considered with love, as there were not many comments on his facebook page anyway.  

The only problem is, my friend was so upset about this that she actually blocked him back so that if he would unblock her now, she would not be able to see that. So, it's certainly not clear that Tomo was unresponsive to the mishap. I thought she was being very stubborn towards him in that way, but I understand she struggles with very painful attachment issues and emotions that come with it, so it was quite understandable in her case that she didn't feel emotionally able to unlock the possibility of resolution between them. This is certainly a mental challenge of hers, since him resolving the blocking issue really represents the level of connection she had been seeking and felt robbed of. But anyway, these things happen sometimes with emotions running out of control. She was probably afraid to unblock him and find she was still blocked.

Considering this was unable to be resolved, I went on, but definitely felt slightly awkward posting anything about Tomo, tagging him in my 30STM posts, and all that — because she is my best friend who will see all my posts, and I didn't want to trigger her pain. However, it was no problem, since I didn't have anything special really to say about Tomo anyhow. Tagging him or including him would be just for the sake of being inclusive at this stage of my process. So it was no problem to protect Mary's feelings by not mentioning him. 

But later when I found out that there was so much division in the Echelon for years about him, I realized that Mary's experience may have been a product of that issue. Actually this story interests me on the level of brujería, which I've been speaking of lately in regards to my story with 30STM. I really imagine perhaps that Tomo experienced a certain type of brujería which may have been the cause of his mental health struggles after leaving the band. I also feel, that type of brujería would have really latched onto the idea that the war theme of the album means that there should be increasing division in the Echelon growing now that he has rejoined, as if he represents conflict somehow. And then, I think this influenced Mary. 

I think that Mary shows signs of falling victim to certain types of brujería in her life. Already, her attachment anxiety condition seems to be coming from the medical sector and perhaps also the church, just as a study-based read of how it looks as a condition basically. But when she makes her attachments all about the band, what happens is that a healing is made possible, you see. I've always thought this since I met her. I felt that what happens is, her usual brujería wants to mix and integrate with the brujería surrounding the band, picturing it as a story about their dynamics so much more than her own. So her attachment issues start to seem about their war or things like that, whatever, fictional though it may be. Then, as they work through the album and the music, using it to remove illusions about conflict within their own group, this ends up actually having a major effect on her psyche. 

Progressively I feel she is healing even from what might be considered a chronic mental health condition, in a way that doctors and mental health science cannot understand. Because it seems the larger issues behind her trauma or whatever you'd define it as, are actually from brujería. It works as a catch net. The brujería is trapped within a system with the band which is destined to resolve itself. When she has mentally associated her problems with these topics, the art facilitates her to witness the magic and meaning in how her brujería is lowering and being removed through the band's progression. The art is shown to her, and she sees stories and pictures of meaning to resolving conflict in art. This addresses her psychological and internal experience of finding some relief from her patterns due to the brujería's tangles disappearing. 

That way, I do see it as fairly destined to some extent for her to experience ups and down and struggles with the band. I might say the same of the rest of the Echelon. When they rudely project against Tomo, they are actually speaking from their own unprocessed internal insecurities anyway. And later through progression, learning to understand his synergy with Jared and Shannon helps them connect with synergy within themselves. 

In that sense, I can ironically appreciate how Tomo comes off as tired and beaten, not performing technically at a level such as Tim Skold, by any means of typical definition. I think that looks to me like a worn soldier near the end of his fight, tired and brutalized from many years of struggle through the fields, but ready and willing to now, even so, win the day for everyone at the last scene of like "Saving Private Ryan" or whatever (lol). Or perhaps just an image of frailty which is designed for healing for fans, so that when we see the exhaustion, the weakness, the difficulty in his vibe, we can learn to accept ourselves when we feel that way. Then we can know, just like Tomo, even when we don't seem to necessarily measure up, by comparison, it's not even about comparison (or shouldn't be at all), and we can still succeed beautifully just like him.