Background
Tomislav Milicevic, also known as Tomo Milicevic was born September 3rd, 1979 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Tomo first came to the States as a baby, and went back and forth to Bosnia until the family permanently emigrated to Troy, Michigan when he was in the 3rd grade. He is quoted as saying that if his family had not emigrated, he “…would be in the army by 16, fighting in the front lines by age 17”. In his teenage years, Miličević was standing outside his father’s Dunkin’ Donuts in Michigan when an errant bullet hit him in the leg. He is quoted as saying that he “didn’t feel it, I just looked down and saw I was bleeding and I laughed.” He wanted to keep the bullet, but the hospital would not let him. By the time Tomo was 18 years of age, his parents Tonka and Damir Miličević had opened a restaurant in Los Angeles.
He attended Athens High School in Troy, Michigan, and is a certified executive and pastry chef. Despite this fact, he has never cooked for his band mates. He married his long time girlfriend, Vicki Bosanko, in Crete, Greece on July 5, 2011.
Tomo practiced to become a concert violinist from the ages of 3 to 19 years of age. He started writing his own music by the age of 17. After discovering heavy metal, Tomo told his father that he wanted to play the guitar, and so they made one together. The guitar was used to record the song “A Modern Myth” on 30 Seconds to Mars’s second album, A Beautiful Lie.
He says that the first concert he attended was Nirvana but he has since said in interviews that is “truthfully not true…I think it was Paula Abdul and Living Colour”.
After graduating from culinary school as an executive and pastry chef, Tomo decided to sell all of his instruments and leave the music business. But then he was told about an audition for 30 Seconds to Mars by Shannon Leto. Being that Tomo was already a fan of the group, he decided to audition. He was selected from 200 musicians not only for his talent, but also because he is kind and personable. Five days later, on February 3, 2003, he played with Jared Leto, Shannon Leto and Matt Wachter on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn.