Jeffrey Scott Martin (born October 2, 1969 in Windsor, Ontario) is a Canadian guitarist and singer-songwriter best known for fronting the rock band The Tea Party. Martin began his career as a solo artist in October 2005, when The Tea Party disbanded.
Forming The Tea Party in 1990 after a marathon jam session at the Cherry Beach Rehearsal Studios in Toronto, Martin (a self-confessed "control freak") produced all of The Tea Party's albums, including their eponymous debut album in 1991, distributing it through the band's own label, Eternal Discs. In 1993 The Tea Party signed to EMI Music Canada and released their first major label recording entitled Splendor Solis. Martin employed open tunings to imitate Indian instruments such as the sitar, something he has continued to employ throughout his career. Further developing The Tea Party's sound in 1995, The Edges of Twilight was recorded with an array of Indian and Middle-eastern instrumentation while Martin drew lyrical inspiration from occult themes and pagan influenced literature.
Upon returning from successful tours in Canada, Europe and Australia in 1996, The Tea Party went onto record Alhambra, an Enhanced CD which features acoustic re-recordings of songs from The Edges of Twilight, followed by a brief tour around Canada known as "Alhambra acoustic and eclectic". Transmission, released in 1997, saw Martin's first foray into electronica, with Martin conceding that Transmission was "an honest attempt at going somewhere poetically where most people would be unnerved to go. It was very dark, extremely angry and you could only listen to it in a certain mindset. I mean for me, going to where I went with Transmission, almost destroyed me." Triptych followed in 1999; the first single "Heaven Coming Down" rose to #1 on Canadian radio. Lyrically, Martin was less enigmatic than he was on previous albums: on Triptych he wrote about the experiences of his years in the band. After releasing Tangents, a singles compilation, in 2000 and Illuminations, a DVD compilation of music videos which Martin remixed in Surround sound, The Tea Party released The Interzone Mantras in 2001 and Seven Circles in 2004. In October 2005, The Tea Party disbanded due to creative differences.
The band members regrouped in 2011 for a series of shows in their native Canada.
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