We recently connected with Alyssa Maunders and have shared our conversation below.

Alyssa , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

This year I made a huge life change, all three of us in Down Time did actually, we moved to LA. It was a long time coming for us, we all were feeling that 2021 NEED for change, so we did it. We packed up all our stuff and had a yard sale and moved our many instruments to California. That felt like a big risk, it still does! We are finally feeling really settled out there and just so excited to have made a change after such a long period of stagnation for everyone. The world still hasn’t bounced back, not sure if it ever will, yikes. But we wanted to have some agency over our choices again and its been great. We all live together with our friend Sarah and her dog, Bob. Bob is a good boy.

Unfortunately the music industry really hasn’t bounced back. That is one big reason that the move felt like such a big risk. Will people even come to shows for a band they don’t know at all? That being said, we are playing a show 6/29 at The Hotel Cafe with our friends Heavy Gus and we are all feeling pretty good about it.

Since 2020 we have really had to temper our excitement around live music, which is pretty sad to me. People just don’t seem to have missed live music as much as I thought we all did. I thought people would be coming out in droves once live music was in full swing, but it just hasn’t turned out that way. The emotional rollercoaster of getting stoked to play another show to a mostly empty room just hurts after a while.

We have heard from much bigger bands than us though that even at their sometimes “sold out” shows only 50% of ticketed guests are actually showing up, wtf people? It definitely affects the music scenes at our level too. Go see live music if you can safely and support your favorite musicians. Share their tunes with friends and buy their merch.

We are still a new band though, no one knows us yet in LA, but they will! On that note, we are putting out a new album this fall! We recorded it ourselves and we are truly feeling EXCITIED about it! Maybe we can hold on to that good feeling.

I also became a full-time Tattoo artist, it is going quite well.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I am the front person of a band called Down Time. We got our start in Denver in 2015 when I relocated there from Santa fe, NM where I grew up. We love the music and art that we make together, so that feels like we are on the right track. We are still not doing this full-time though. Our band is definitely not paying the bills. Maybe one day! Thats all we really want from this project financially. If it could just pay for itself enough that we could focus all of our energy on it, that would be so great.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

First of all, I think EVERYONE is a creative. We all do creative things in the way we live, and cook, and celebrate. Thats why I love it so much. But it’s possible some people would want to know why we continue doing something that is so much work for so little pay and it’s just ’cause we love it that much. And we really believe in the power of art and music for positive cultural change and in bringing people together in community. It’s so nice when you go to a show and really feel a connection to the stranger next to you, and to the artist’s work you went to see.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Remember that you love music!! and that art of every kind brightens up our societies. We need these things to buffer us from the harshness of the world we live in, to reflect and refract its energy and to divert it into something better. Go see some music, especially at medium and smaller venues. These are the places where the real “new music” is. Be on the cutting edge of musical discovery! Don’t just wait for your music app to tell you what you might like. Go seek out cool things! or they will cease to exist, I fear. Or at least cease to be a viable career choice. Buy some merch, tell a few friends, get excited.

And more tangibly, folks in power could make more money available for new artists to start their careers! So many artists just never get their feet off the ground and are forced to work dead end jobs instead of make art. They could allocate money to start a project, record an album, or work uninterrupted for a few months.

Contact Info:

• Website: downtimeforever.com
• Instagram: downtimeforever

Image Credits
Holly Hursley