The Mantles, San Francisco, and The Art of Playing for Fun
In this age of social media and start-ups, it seems like everyone is expected to turn their side hobby into a full fledged business. The pressure is everywhere: if you’re good at sewing, start an Etsy business; if you love baking cookies, become the next Betty Crocker; if you like listening and writing about music, why not start a music blog? (that’s us! yay!) … anyways, the list goes on, and on, and on. A couple months ago, I came across an article on Repeller called, “The Modern Trap of Turning Hobbies Into Hustles”. The author, Molly Conway, explains:
We live in the era of the hustle. Of following our dreams until the end, and then pushing ourselves more. And every time we feel beholden to capitalize on the rare places where our skills and our joy intersect, we underline the idea that financial gain is the ultimate pursuit. If we’re good at it, we should sell it. If we’re good at it and we love it, we should definitely sell it.
And this pressure to stay “busy” and productive is getting worse. With the proliferation of companies like LinkedIn and Etsy, the worsening economic inequality, and our intrinsic capitalistic & individualistic mentality, Americans seem to feel even worse these days about having downtime. In fact, many have argued that being busy has now become a status symbol (Global News)…which is why it was refreshing to read up on The Mantles, a band that rejected this mentality entirely.
Mantles in 2014, https://themantles.tumblr.com/pictures.
Like almost all bands, the Mantles started out as a project among friends who enjoyed jamming together. The year was 2004, and three friends — Michael Olivares, Virginia Weatherby, and Jermaine Collins — were all living in San Francisco. In an interview for Weekly Volcano, frontman Michael Olivares explains, “I had moved to the city [San Francisco], and I knew that Virginia (Weatherby) lived here. She had a drum set. I went over there and asked if she wanted to jam sometime. She was at school, at the time, but she had the summer off. My friend and I - Jermaine, he was the original bassist - we started jamming with her. It was a summer love affair."
The Original Mantles (taken from: https://themantles.tumblr.com/pictures)
It’s also worth mentioning that the Bay Area in 2004 was completely different back then. Hyper ambitious tech nerds like Zuckerberg and Dorsey hadn’t yet arrived. Nate Rogers, writer for Aquarium Drunkard, sums up the city and its eventual transition well:
“In the blissful calm before the tech storm, the San Francisco rock scene was as tight-knit a community as you’ll ever find in music….While streaming continued to take over and revenue plummeted overall, the startups responsible for the financial collapse moved in, almost as if to add insult to injury. Pretty soon the rents skyrocketed and there was nowhere to go for musicians but out. Some, like The Mantles, went to Oakland and others went to LA”.
As the writer states, San Francisco had a tight knit and burgeoning arts community. Ty Segall, who toured early on with the band, described the environment, “No one really had ownership of a specific sound or idea—it was really communal. There were tons of people playing in each other’s bands, and it really felt like it was just about the music. No one was trying to get famous—just make really cool art.”
The Mantles were a good example of this supportive culture. Thoroughly immersed in community and the underground scene, they never really gave two shits about becoming famous or rising up the industry’s corporate ladder. In a 2010 article for Impose, the interviewer described them at the time as “everyone’s favorite hobby band”. By that he meant that The Mantles were always a group that played “just to have fun”. And really it was this genuine and long-lasting passion for music that sustained The Mantles for nearly two decades.
Eventually in 2019 the band decided to call it quits. It was less about money (everyone always had their day-jobs), but more so about the fact that everyone was leaving the Bay Area at that point. In Michael’s words, “[Ending the band] just kind of made sense, because the Bay Area was where all that took place. It was a part of the band’s identity. We’re not like the sports world, where the Chargers can move to Las Vegas or something and still be called the Chargers. We don’t roll like that.” (Aquarium Drunkard).
So with that mentality, the band played their last show a couple years ago, moved to their respective new places, and the chapter of The Mantles came to a close. Virginia and Michael married and currently live in Portland with their 3-year-old son, and even though the band’s done, Michael still puts out music on the side.
From my perspective, learning about The Mantles was a fun way to spend my Sunday afternoon. While I had never heard of them until a week ago (thank you Bandcamp for the discovery), they’ve reminded me once again that there are to ways to look at life: glass half empty or glass half full. Sure, critics and fans can call The Mantles underachievers and wallow in the fact that they never made it. But this kind of criticism wouldn’t bother the musicians one bit. Reflecting on the band’s history, Virgina stated, “I definitely feel like I appreciated our status, because I don’t think we would have stayed a band if we suddenly had one album that was a big hit and then we toured all year… We would’ve broken up” (Aquarium Drunkard). In summary, The Mantles embraced the hobby-ish nature of their band and were always proud of their work. They never lost focus on why they were making music, and it was this love for music that propelled them to produce 2 EPs and 3 albums (again, all the while maintained their day-jobs). So in my view, they did a pretty good job.
As we approach the conclusion of this article, I want to return to Molly Conway’s original piece. Near the end of her essay, she leaves her readers with the following questions:
How did we get to the point where free time is so full of things we have to do that there’s no room for things we get to do? Would the world really fall apart if, when I came home from a long day of work, instead of trying to figure out what I could conquer, I sat down and, I don’t know, tried my hand at watercolors? What if I sucked? What if it didn’t matter? What if that’s not the point?
She continues, “We don’t have to monetize or optimize or organize our joy. Hobbies don’t have to be imbued with a purpose beyond our own enjoyment of them. They, alone, can be enough.” And I couldn’t agree more. I hope sharing her article and the story of The Mantles is an encouragement for others to keep going for their dreams. Don’t stop doing what you’re doing just because it’s not making you a ton of money. Do it because it brings you joy.