How a music photographer found his voice in industrial metal: 'I might be able to do this'

Everything is falling into place for Jim Louvau.

The multitalented creative signed to Cleopatra Records last November with There Is No Us, an industrial-metal group whose Facebook page describes them as a “social movement to expose the failure of the human race.”

Louvau is the serrated howl at the eye of their musical hurricane.

On April 18, There Is No Us released a second music video in two months, both of which Louvau directed with his partner Tony Aguilera in their downtown Phoenix studio.

Louvau also uses that space as a hub for his other creative pursuit — a long-running career as a music photographer, the highlights of which have ranged from magazine covers to an LA gallery exhibit of the photos he took of his longtime friend, the late Chester Bennington. He also freelanced for many years for The Arizona Republic, mostly shooting concerts.

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Those music videos — for “Fame Whore” and “The Proposal” — are the first two singles released in advance of a full-length album due to hit the streets this year on Cleopatra.

The singer also has a record coming out this year on Golden Robot Records with a group he formed with Filter frontman Richard Patrick, A Place to Kill.

“The record's done,” he says. “Right now, it's an EP, but there is more material. To some degree, I’m sworn to secrecy at the moment.”

How There Is No Us tried to make something positive out of COVID

There Is No Us started in 2015 when Louvau started working in earnest with guitarist Andy Gerold, a former member of Marilyn Manson who lives in Las Vegas.

The songs on their forthcoming full-length came together during the pandemic.

“We were all basically locked in our houses like everybody else and feeling we don't really have a whole lot of control over what's going on outside our households,” Louvau recalls.

“But we did have control over being creative. So it was a really good way to block out the noise when you wanted it to be blocked out. Some of the songs are very reflective of that time, whether it was the riots, the BLM movement or just seeing this crazy division of humans around every corner.”

Louvau and his bandmates were shocked to see people react to a global pandemic by making it political.

“You would've thought at that point we were basically trying to save the human race,” he says.

“And as it turns out, humans just can't care or love one another if they have a different viewpoint. We just thought, ‘Is everything completely hopeless?' It was a very frustrating time to be alive. So we started writing songs and taking the downtime to do something positive with it.”

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An album recorded in bedrooms and living rooms

On past recordings, he and Gerold wrote the songs and brought the other guys in later. This time, everyone contributed to the creative process, with Gerold coming in from Vegas for the writing sessions.

“It was really cool to have everybody involved in the writing this time,” Louvau says.

“It made for a really organic and exciting writing process, which when that stuff is working, you never want to stop doing it. So we just kept going until we thought that we had a good batch of songs that really fit the vibe and the message of where we were at when we were writing.”

They recorded the album “in bedrooms and living rooms,” sending the tracks off to Los Angeles, where producer Sean Beavan worked his magic on the music they were writing.

“He's worked with Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Pantera,” Louvau says.

“He recorded almost all of Axl Rose's vocals on 'Chinese Democracy.' He's worked with a lot of people we grew up listening to that were influential to us. He would produce from afar. And we would take his notes, make the changes and send it back over to him and kind of get the thumbs up.”

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How There Is No Us got signed to Cleopatra Records

Louvau reached out to Cleopatra after shooting photos for an album cover by another Cleopatra act he’s worked with through the years, Tim Skold, and asked if he could send some videos he’d directed for There Is No Us.

Cleopatra seemed to like the videos but at a certain point he’d gone a month without hearing a word from the label, so he reached out to Skold to see what he should do.

“I was like, 'Hey, we were talking to Cleopatra and things just kind of stopped and sometimes no response is a response,’” Louvau recalls. “And Tim was like, 'It's 2022. People are busy. Reach back out.' So I did and thank goodness I did.”

Kyle Perera, the A&R rep who signed them, says, "I think it’s exciting working with the band There Is No Us because it brings back the original roots where Cleopatra started. One of my favorites I’ve come across in the past five years. Visuals, artwork and music is all next level."

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How N17 gave Jim Louvau his start as a music photographer

Louvau was in his senior year at Ironwood High School in Glendale when he took a black-and-white photography elective, borrowing a camera from a friend and indulging his love of heavy music by shooting a local industrial metal band, N17.

“My photography teacher, Mr. Benson, came to me one day and he goes, 'If you ever want to have a chance of becoming a real photographer and making a living, you have to stop shooting just music,' Louvau recalls.

“And I was like, 'The only thing I want to shoot is music.' I don't want to go shoot flowers. If it doesn't have a pulse and doesn't move and breathe, I have no interest in it.”

He ended up shooting the album art for N17’s 1997 release, “Trust No One.” But after forming his first band fresh out of high school, he decided it was time to set photography aside.

“I'm probably 19 or 20, right out of school, and I have this impression that the only way you can be in a band is if you only focus on your band,” he says. “Can't do more than one thing. Gotta give 110% to one thing or it's not gonna happen.”

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How shooting Marilyn Manson brought him back to rock photography

It was probably 2005 or possibly 2006 when he borrowed a digital camera from his mom to take pictures of Skold playing bass with Marilyn Manson at an Ozzfest date in San Bernardino, California.

“I took them from the crowd against the barricade and then looked at the photos on this little camera and thought they looked good enough that I said to myself that day, 'I think I might be able to do this for real,’” he recalls. “And that's how that whole thing kind of launched.”

Louvau’s music photography has taken him from shooting local concerts for The Arizona Republic and Phoenix New Times to having his work appear in Rolling Stone, Kerrang!, Revolver, NME, Spin and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

One of his photos appeared on a Nine Inch Nails tour shirt, many years after he showed up to Ironwood High School in a Nine Inch Nails shirt for his junior photo.

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Moving into music videos with Dillinger Escape Plan singer

In 2020, he directed his first video with Aguilera — a solo record by Greg Puciato of Dillinger Escape Plan, who subsequently lined him up to shoot two videos for Killer Be Killed, a heavy-metal supergroup formed by Puciato and Soulfly frontman Max Cavalera.

He and Aguilera have also co-directed music videos for Orianthi and Jerry Cantrell, among others, which in turn has led to more music photography work for Louvau.

“We've become kind of a one-stop shop where somebody will come in, do a music video and also do a photo shoot,” he says. “And they don't have to go to more than one place to do it or work with more than a couple people.”

It took Louvau and Aguilera all of three days to direct those first two videos they directed for There Is No Us.

“We did two videos in three days, which was really cool to take some of the stuff that I had learned directing videos for other people and apply it to my own situation,” Louvau says.

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'You never know what doors are gonna open'

It’s been interesting to see how all three sides of what he does have worked together as he builds more contacts and connections.

“It really is like a funnel that feeds,” he says. “They feed each other. And it's a lot easier to get past the gatekeepers when you're in my situation.”

None of those connections would’ve matter, though, he says, if he hadn’t kept going.

“By sticking around this long, some of those relationships and things that I had no idea would be important later on became part of my story,” he says.

“At the time, you're just meeting and saying hello. But I learned early on, you never know what doors are gonna open. And you never know who's gonna see you and enjoy what you do and take you seriously as an artist.”

In addition to bringing in more than 17,000 views on YouTube, “Fame Whore” has gotten some airplay on two big rock stations here in Arizona — KUPD-FM in Phoenix and KFMA-FM in Tucson.

“The idea that 'Fame Whore' could be an active rock song on mainstream FM terrestrial radio, that was never on the bingo card,” Louvau says.

They’re hoping to tour in support of the album when it is released.

“We want to take it as far as we can and start getting ready for the next one,” Louvau says.

“Luckily, the video and photo side of my life allow me to have a fairly open schedule. Basically, my goal when I wake up every day is to figure out how I'm gonna be creative that day. Is it There Is No Us? Is it I have a band coming in for a photo shoot? Are we doing a video with Jerry Cantrell?”

There Is No Us with Prayers

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, June 3.

Where: Aura, 411 S. Mill Ave., Tempe.

Admission: $30 and up.

Details: 480-210-2872, ticketmaster.com.

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Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How this music photographer found his voice in industrial metal band