Joman Shares the Story Behind His 'Another Life' Remix

Artimus: With the release of Joman's "Another Life" remix from my Ghost Servo project, I asked him to share the story behind his decision to do so for the blog. What he sent is truly incredible, and moved me so much, I decided to post it in its entirety.

Joman: In 2009, I met a slick-talking photographer who told me that her camera liked me. And the rest is history.

At the beginning of 2020, we met up at the diner down the street from my new, sterile, little two-bedroom apartment. It was time to have the conversation we’d been putting off for as long as possible, about how to walk away from the roller coaster of a decade we’d spent together. Something had to change, and I hoped that the distance and time would eventually heal both our wounds. The words we exchanged in that stuffy little wooden dining booth play like a reel being projected onto a screen in my mind; they didn’t feel real when they were being said, and they still don’t. But how could we continue in the state we were in? How much worse were we going to allow things to get?

The words fell out of our mouths like strangers, and that was it. In so many words, I promised I wouldn’t disappear, and I meant it. She hopped into that SUV that had been on countless road trips all across the USA, and I watched her roll out of the parking lot while wondering to myself, “What the hell just happened? Is this real? Was this the right decision?”

Then, one of my Facebook followers left a comment that said, “I think this is the one.”

They were referring to COVID-19, which would shut the entire country down just two months later.

That first year of the pandemic was the worst year of my life. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve plugged into a support system, but that was no longer an option. We didn’t know what this thing was, or how many people it was going to kill, or permanently disable. So I did what I felt was the responsible thing to do and only went out for essentials and hung out with people who were taking it as seriously as I was. She had already found someone, and I’m so glad she did (it’s not surprising; she was not hard to fall in love with). But that was not the case for me for a while. All I had was the guilt and shame I felt for the role that I had played, and the minted memories, and entertainment media to disassociate with, and an increasingly bleak online world to drown in.

I’ve spoken as carefully as possible about all of this, out of respect for her, her bereaved partner, and everyone else who loved her. I don’t want to minimize anyone else’s pain or appear that I am doing anything other than trying to process a paralyzing mountain of permanently life-altering grief. We had both been in long-term relationships for a number of years when she passed away at the end of 2023. But when you meet someone like her at 22 years old, and experience the things that we experienced—the kind of rock & roll lifestyle most people only ever dream of, with all its highs and lows, and take on the arduous task of learning how to be adults together, for better or worse, regardless of the outcome…the impact never goes away.

So, since the moment I received the worst phone call of my life from her son—the phone call that I dreaded more than anything in the world since the day I met her—the phone call that I could feel coming just two days before, that had me texting her in a frenzy just to make sure she was all right—since that moment, I’ve been trying to honor and respect her memory, because she deserves to be remembered for the brilliant, creative, tenacious, insightful, witty, fiery, persistently loving spirit that she was. She deserves to be praised for the gravitational impact she had on my life and many other lives. She was the definition of a social butterfly. Her eyes—which earned her the nickname Owlie—revealed her depth. Of course she was a person, and people aren’t perfect, but it’s hard to exaggerate when describing her. She knew how to bring people together who would probably never have crossed paths otherwise and make them laugh until their stomachs hurt. She took a socially awkward kid like me who would hide in the bathroom at house parties and propped him up and dusted him off and told people to check out his music, and because of her endearing charm, they listened. She could sell anything to anyone, and I’m living proof of it. She loved her son with everything she had to give. And as painful as it all is, I wouldn’t take back one second that I’ve known her.

I did a tribute song and video last year called Distance and Time, where I edited as much footage as I could of our lives and projected it onto a screen on a CRT-TV/VCR combo that I placed on train tracks to commemorate one of the first photoshoots she did with me for the indie label I was on at the time in Denver called Velcro City Records. Shortly after making Distance and Time, I wrote a song with Adrianne Grady and Mr. Pink called "Solace," to honor not only her memory, but everything lost in the Lahaina fires (I spent three months in Lahaina with our mutual friend, the aforementioned Mr. Pink, exactly one year before it burned down in August of that fateful year of 2023).

Then one day, while aimlessly surfing social media, I heard Artimus Wolz’s song “Another Life” that he had released under his side project Ghost Servo.

When I heard the song and the lyrics, I broke down in tears. It was as though it was written to encapsulate this exact moment. It was everything I had been trying to express and more. I said to myself, “I have to remix this. It’s not an option. I have to. It’s supposed to happen.”

So, I reached out to Artimus Wolz via TikTok, emailed him a brief Cliff’s-Notes pitch about why I wanted to remix the song, and then spent two months just mentally working myself up to doing it. I had to do it justice. And I’m so grateful for both the opportunity and the fact that he loved the end result.

I don’t know what the “right way” to process grief like this is. I’ve never experienced it before and people tell me there is no “right way.” There is no “right way” to prepare yourself for the worst thing you ever imagined happening, happening. It’s not linear and it will never really be “over.” In the moments where I surface and am able to breathe and put my thoughts together, I try to share this experience in ways that will maybe help others who are going through something similar. It is said that you have to put it somewhere outside of you. And that is what has helped me, putting it into words, photo albums, songs, videos, and remixes. And if it helps even one other person go through the worst thing that could ever happen, then I guess it’s worth the effort.

Artimus: Another Life (Joman's Remix) is Out Now on all platforms