What You Do For Money Honey takes us beyond the music and into the cubicles, behind the desks, and on top of what local musicians do to pay the bills.
William Malott of Bent Left is a busy man. In addition to playing in the pop-punk trio, he and bandmate Josh Nelson run Recycled Rockstar Industries, a company devoted to promoting musicians in as many ways as possible. However, it's Malott's day job about which we're concerned today. He works for the Kansas City school district, and spoke with Wayward Blog about it via e-mail last week:
I just got home from coaching the Varsity Girl's soccer team after a day spent on Constitutional principles, South American Revolutions, and how to recognize context clues while reading. Last night, we played with Cobra Skulls and Dead To Me in Lawrence and I drove us home around 2am. 6am came early today.I enjoy my job, but it can be a juggling act. I feel bad when I take time off to tour and I hate having to lie to the kids about what I'm doing. However, something about traveling around playing shitty punk rock just seems like it would undermine my credibility as an educator.
I do get to blend my lives in a few small ways. I give bass lessons during lunch once a week and have introduced some of the more curious students to a handful of great bands. Bent Left likes to address societal issues and what better way to know what you're talking about than to immerse in one of our most troubled institutions.
To clarify I am a paraprofessional, not a teacher. I basically co-teach in English as a Second Language classrooms.
Bent Left is currently in Austin, playing the Midwasteland Takeover. For those of you at SXSW, they play the Canvas Bar at 5th and Brazos tonight at 8:45 p.m.
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