We recently connected with Amanda Alvarez and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Amanda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

Despite alternative assumptions about what the name might mean, “Twice On Sunday” is a simply part of an expression used in show business. In Vaudeville days, theaters would host shows every evening and offer an added matinee show on Sundays. If a show was good, people would say “I would see that everyday of the week and twice on sunday”.

Amanda, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

It’s a bit of a sad story in the onset. I grew up extremely poor to parents who were addicted to gambling and drugs. They were gone or ‘unavailable’ for a lot of my childhood. As an only child with no nearby neighbor kids, parents or siblings to interact with, I found comfort in music. I would spend hours a day tape-recording MTV music videos and radio broadcasts. I studied the singers moves, expressions and their voices. I dreamed I would be a radio DJ one day like Casey Kasem as I created pretend radio broadcasts with the songs I had recorded from the radio.

I have always been a singer. I was in the church praise band, school choir, theater – wherever I could find an outlet to sing, I was THERE. Right after high-school, I began working as a karaoke host 5-6 nights a week for $70 a night and DJ-ing weddings at $150 each on the weekends, for a local DJ company. At 19 years old, that was great money. I cut my teeth on how to talk to a crowd, curate playlists (and I got paid to sing- hallelujah!!) I did that for 10 years to supplement my day-job income as a jewelry store manager. In 2012 I decided to venture out and create my own DJ business. I borrowed $1000 from family members and that was enough to buy a mixing board & 2 speakers. After cold-calling on MANY bars, I landed a handful of residencies that served as my weekly income. I was able to pay my family back and create a viable single-source income. Later that year, Thumbtack was born and I quickly booked 40+ weddings in that first year of the business through that medium. By that time, I had done a couple hundred weddings and had the chops to take really good care of the couples. My reviews were outstanding.

In 2010, I found an ad on Craigslist looking for a singer in a classic rock band. Being an enormous fan of the genre, I jumped at the opportunity to audition. I spent 4 years singing Boston, Journey, Heart, Joan Jett etc in smoky bars for $60 a night. For me, it was about the experience more than the money. That group of guys were 20 years my seniors and taught me so much about live music and performing for which I’ll be forever grateful.

While at a wedding convention in early 2013, I was fortunate enough to be stationed across from an entertainment company that I admired. Chris Davis is the owner of Lost Wax, a prolific events band in KC. I mustered up the courage to go talk to him and ask for advice for creating a band like his. I knew, if I could just figure out how to combine my wedding DJ skills with my passion for live music, there would be NO limit to my success. He graciously answered all of my questions and not to long after, allowed me to sing with the group.

Together, Chris and I created Twice On Sunday in the likeness of Lost Wax to capture the overflow of couples. I scraped together the money to buy the gear & trailer, hired all. my best music friends and we began rehearsing in May of 2014. Our first show was at Kelly’s Westport on July 4th of 2014. For the next 8 years we operated as the secondary band offering to Lost Wax. We were so grateful to have a full calendar.

In 2022, MUCH TO OUR SURPRISE, we won band of the year and a lightbulb turned on. I realized I wanted more for us than to be a replica of an already successful band, I wanted to find ways to stand on our own. That was the year we began including choreography, fancy suits, and developing some of our own formulas for client interaction and music production.

Since then, we have been developing bespoke, immersive music experiences that are thankfully turning heads in our industry and we’re experiencing a renaissance of business growth.

I’m sincerely thankful now that I went through the hardship I did as a kid and fostered a relationship with music and show business that I hope will carry my daughter through college and give her an opportunity to have a successful business at her disposal if she wants to carry on the legacy. I have fought like hell to escape the hopelessness I experienced as a child and I feel like I’m winning that battle with every event we book.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Just a few weeks ago, we delivered a unique experience to our vendor community to showcase our new immersive music experience. We invited some of the most notable event creators and managers in our city to enjoy a four-course meal while the band performed among the dinner tables. Despite my concern that maybe no one would come, we invested a lot of time and capital into the event. It was really a cool experience because I got to plan what felt like a wedding with some really amazing vendors. The event was a major success. I had to take a minute to compose myself at the sight of those people I have admired for YEARS, fully participating and enjoying this concept we had developed.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

As an armchair graphic designer and former print marketing sales person, I came into this business with the notion that all of our marketing needed to look very commercial and supremely professional. Recently, I’ve changed gears with our social media presence. I think in a world where we’re coming into AI and we’ve long consumed cold and overly-produced marketing, people are longing for a much more organic vision of the businesses they choose to enter a relationship with. We’re finding great success recapping events on Instagram using very basic cell phone footage. Our customers appreciate the very real experience and conversation we’re creating with our social presence.

Contact Info:

• Website: twiceonsundayband.com
• Instagram: twiceonsundayband
• Facebook: twiceonsundaykc
• Linkedin: Twice On Sunday Band
• Youtube: twiceonsunday