The 2018 edition of Mo Pop Festival has come and gone, and honestly it feels like a blur. Luckily we were able to have a conversation with Shortly, real name Alexandria Maniak, after her Mo Pop performance on Saturday. The Southgate, Mich. native shared her thoughts on balancing her personal and professional lives with her budding music career, becoming an entrepreneur, mental health awareness and more.
Maniak released the song, “Matthew,” two years ago that caught the attention of several record labels, eventually signing with New York City-based Triple Crown Records in November of 2017. She has shared the stage with blog-approved artists like Phoebe Bridgers and the Decemberists. The rising profile of Shortly made it necessary for Maniak to learn how to manage each facet of herself.
“Balancing school life and music life and work life has been a new battle,” the musician admits. “I’ve always had like six or seven things going on at once, so it’s really just a lot of task management and setting priorities. But it’s also kind of about keeping them separate because I do work in such different fields.
I went to school for graphic design, and then I work in health sciences department and I play music. So a lot of it is like routing around that. I would put in more hours earlier in the week so I can take my Fridays off so I can take weekend gigs. Or arranging with my band to be like, ‘Hey, I have a school break on this time and on this time.'”
Maniak is very open about mental health awareness and how her own experience seeking professional help has been beneficial, which she would encourage others to do.
“I think that everyone should seek a counselor, even if you don’t think you have issues, I think you should talk about it,” Maniak advises. “I’ve been seeing one. I think everyone in my family probably sees one even when they’re doing well. Just something to make sure that you’re still trying to grow as a human being.
Just as an artist in general I think you should because it’s so easy to fall into the trap of doubting yourself, and it’s really easy to walk that spiral and not let it become creative energy. So having something to just kind of routinely keep you in check like, ‘No, you’re doing this. This is a sign of a good thing.’ Like, okay, that’s good.”
Listen to the entire interview below, where Shortly also shares an update about her new record.
Photo credit: Jacob Mulka (@jmulka)
Listen to Shortly’s “Spare Time”
