When I emailed prolific DC musician Olivia Mancini to see if she was interested in doing an interview for Creative DC, I never imagined we’d end up having so much in common. It turns out we both grew up in the DC area, and have both deepened our commitment to growing DC’s creative community in response to seeing artist friends leave for New York and other cities. “I bristle when well-meaning people suggest that I move to New York or L.A. for my career, because ‘nothing really happens’ in Washington,” Mancini says. “Well, let’s make something happen!”

Amen. We talked over email about day jobs, finding artistic collaborators and tapping into the creative life of DC.

How did you go from being someone who liked to make music to someone who was in a band (or, “bands” in your case!) and actually performing? Was there a period when you thought performing was just a pipe dream, or did you always know it was something you would and could do?

There was no time lost for me between learning how to make music and getting a band together. I played classical music through childhood and then got a guitar and a chord book right before I went to college. I started writing songs, bad songs, right away, because I liked to sing and I wasn’t good enough to play songs anyone else had written. For about a semester, it was just me and a girl on my hall playing guitar and bass in my dorm room, with me singing through the karaoke function on my stereo. I was hooked right away. I went home for the summer, spent all my money on questionable music equipment, and filled out the band when I got back to school so that we could start performing live.

Do you make a living from your music, or do you need to do other jobs to supplement your income?

It is possible to make money by making music. But among my musician friends, it goes without saying that one has to have, as I do, a way to supplement that income. Being a touring musician poses a particular challenge to keeping one’s “day job,” because you’re constantly in and out of town, sometimes on short notice. I’ve had a series of understanding employers (one was my dad for a number of years), but the internet is the most understanding employer of all. I teach a class online, and that I can do from anywhere, any time. I also teach guitar lessons at a cool music school where all the instructors are in bands and the students are primed to hear, “I’ll be doing your lesson today because Olivia’s in the studio,” or at a show. Making that part of it work, finding a job you can keep, is definitely part of solving the overall puzzle.

A lot of articles about your band, Olivia & The Housemates, make it sound like you just lucked into meeting your musical collaborators. You knew Ed Donohue, and then it turned out that all of his housemates and you really gelled musically. Would you chalk that up to luck? What advice would you give local musicians who are struggling to find people who they really click with musically?

My advice is just to be confident about meeting and playing with other musicians, and to keep playing with people until you find an arrangement that works. The Housemates/housemates situation was lucky, for sure, because it was one-stop-band-shopping at one house. But I had been playing on and off with Ed and our trumpet player Dan Swenson for years, and I knew our old drummer Jon Roth from his work in Meredith Bragg & the Terminals, so I was pretty familiar with these guys as players.

Sometimes, though, it really is just serendipity that brings people together: Martin Royle, the singer in the Washington Social Club, found drummer Randy Scope through a City Paper ad. Randy and I played together in the Social Club for five years, and he’s now the drummer in the Housemates–and one of my best friends!

So, I would say I’ve had excellent luck finding people to play with. But you have to be open to playing with people, and willing to try a lot of different scenarios to find out what works, and also be honest about what’s not working. Logistically, City Paper and Craigslist ads can be very helpful.

What brought you to DC? What were your first impressions of the city when you moved here?

I am one of the few DC natives who stuck around. I grew up here, but rediscovered the city as an adult when I moved back after college. I found immediately a pretty robust music scene, in the sense that there were surely plenty of people who played in bands and wanted to make music and build a creative community in Washington. The problem: most of those people “grew up” or gave up or moved away. I have lost a lot of friends and collaborators to New York, in particular, but also Baltimore, Philadelphia and the West Coast, where they tell me that living a creative lifestyle is easier.

Perhaps it’s because I grew up here, but I bristle when well-meaning people suggest that I move to New York or L.A. for my career, because “nothing really happens” in Washington. Well, let’s make something happen! Starting with the idea that it’s okay to live in DC and not have a 9-5 job and that it’s okay to keep making music or art past the age of 28. To cultivate the artistic community that is already here and to attract new members, we need more affordable housing and studio spaces here to make the city a feasible place for artists to live. Easier said than done, of course, but maybe the change in attitude just needs to come first.

Have your impressions of DC changed over time?

Despite my ranting and raving above, I think Washington has come a long way since I moved back here in 2001. I’d like to see more independent development, of course, like the Big Bear Café in Eckington, rather than Cinnabon-Best Buy-Ruby Tuesdays conglomerate up in Columbia Heights. But, in fairness, the last few years have seen new life breathed into neighborhoods that were suffering from under-use and neglect. And I think that can only be viewed as a positive.

Any final thoughts on living a creatively fulfilling live here in DC?

Don’t give up, and instead of being discouraged about the lack of options, create a new option. Talk to your neighborhood Starbucks about displaying local art. Fill out the city paperwork to hold a free concert in Malcolm X Park. Collect some poems and stories from your writing friends and run off a collection that you leave out on the info table at Busboys & Poets. It is definitely possible to live creatively in Washington–or anywhere, for that matter–but the initiative has to come from you. At least, this is what I remind myself of every day.

Olivia will be performing at the Josephine Butler House as part of the Tranquil Space Foundation fundraising gala on Thursday, October 16. Buy tickets here. For more performance dates or to buy Olivia’s CDs, check out her website: oliviamancini.com.

Read interviews with other DC artists:

• Map painter and bike messenger Ian Lorson
• Heavy Metal Parking Lot filmmaker Jeff Krulik
• Improviser Topher Bellavia

Tagged as: creativity, dc_artists, interviews, music, thoughts_on_dc