Balancing Acts is Metal Insider’s new column, in which artists explain the challenges within the music industry by juggling day jobs or multiple jobs while pursuing their musical careers. Guitarist Kyle Mazlik of Atlanta metalcore outfit Sunmancer, who recently celebrated the January 24th release of their new EP, Everything Falls Apart, has teamed up with Metal Insider to share how his day job contributes to his career with Sunmancer.
Hey, I’m Kyle Mazlik, one of the guitarists in Sunmancer. We’re all obsessed with making music and playing in a band, but unless you’re in that tiny percentage of wildly successful groups, it’s not exactly a full-time gig. So, like a lot of musicians, we’ve got careers outside of music that help us pay the bills and fund all the cool stuff we do with the band.
The cool thing is, our day jobs actually come in handy for Sunmancer in ways we never really expected. I work in data engineering and analytics, which means I’ve naturally taken on the more technical side of our live show—setting up our wireless in-ear monitor rig, figuring out all the ridiculously complex gear, and most recently, designing and programming a lighting rig for our stage setup. Our other guitarist, Jeremy, is a welder for film and TV sets, and he put those skills to work by building us some killer aluminum stage risers from scratch. Meanwhile, our vocalist Justin runs his own business, so he’s the guy handling our social media, booking our shows, and designing our flyers.
And then there’s Pat, our drummer, who somehow finds the time to be our producer on top of everything else. When he’s not keeping aircraft running smoothly as an airline mechanic, he’s in the studio shaping our sound, recording our music, and ensuring everything we release meets our high standards. His schedule can be all over the place, which makes full-band rehearsals tricky, but we make it work. We usually manage to squeeze in at least one group practice a month, and when we’ve got shows or a tour coming up, we cram in as many rehearsals as possible.
One thing we’re super grateful for? Our workplaces are actually really supportive of our music. We’ve had coworkers and even our bosses come out to shows, buy our merch, and just genuinely cheer us on. Dan, our bassist, takes it to another level—he always rounds up a huge group of friends for our shows, so much so that we’ve jokingly started calling them the OnlyDans.
At the end of the day, juggling careers and music isn’t always easy, but it’s 100% worth it. We get to make the music we love while keeping our lives stable, and honestly, that’s a pretty sweet deal.
