Amanda Martinez Interview

This link takes you to the podcast and video versions of this interview, along with the show notes with all the other important links.

Amanda Martinez:

I feel like so much of my childhood, I spent wanting someone to discover me and say, oh, you should do this. I was looking for that from my parents. And then I realized pretty quickly that I had to be the one to discover myself and say, this is what you're going to do, and stop looking outside for people to tell me that I'm good enough. No one was going to say that. So that's probably the advice that I would give to someone like a younger person that do you really believe this is what you want to be doing? Because at the end of the day, you have to be able to do it for the longterm. You don't have to, but to be able to withstand the rejection that does happen in the field, right? So because you are constantly, as you know, putting yourself out there.

Leah Roseman:

Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman, which I hope inspires you through the personal stories of a fascinating diversity of musical guests. I was introduced to Amanda Martinez by Kellylee Evans, who told me that not only was Amanda a wonderful singer, but that she had a beautiful and fascinating personal story as well. Amanda writes and records mostly in Spanish, the language of her Mexican dad who biked all the way from Mexico to Canada, and you'll learn how Amanda's recent album helped her process her grief going through the illness and death of her father. Amanda is also an actor, and you'll hear about some of her experiences acting, including My Little Pony, Kim's Convenience, and Rosie's Rules for which she's composed songs. Amanda came to her acting and music career after pursuing science in business, and you'll be inspired to hear how she navigated serious personal challenges to following her true path.

She shares great wisdom about the importance of talking about mental health and also some of her personal tips for living a full and fulfilled life. You'll be hearing clips from a few songs from the album Recuerdo, as well as Libérame from Libre featuring Kellylee Evans. You'll also find Martinez's music on several Putamayo world music compilation albums. Please check out the links in the show notes. Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on many podcast platforms, and I've also linked the transcript. It's a joy to bring these inspiring episodes to you every week, and I do all the many jobs of research, production and publicity. Have a look at the show notes of this episode where you'll find all the links, including different ways to support this podcast.

Leah Roseman:

Hi, Amanda, thanks so much for joining me here today.

Amanda Martinez:

Oh, thanks so much for having me. Great to be chatting with you.

Leah Roseman:

I want to thank our mutual friend, Kellylee Evans for introducing us.

Amanda Martinez:

Yes, I know. I had forgotten. I think she made that introduction a while ago, and you're busy, so it's nice that we finally got to coordinate.

Leah Roseman:

Well, also, you were just releasing Recuerdo at that time, so you were in the middle of album release,

Amanda Martinez:

Right? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, back in the summertime, I guess now

Leah Roseman:

It's such a special album. I've really enjoyed listening to it as well as getting to know your other albums. And of course, I know you lost your dad. I'm really sorry about that.

Amanda Martinez:

Oh, thank you.

Leah Roseman:

Now, he does have a pretty special story that some listeners will know about, but not everybody. So what was it, 1956? Do you want to tell us?

Amanda Martinez:

Yes. Yeah. In 1956, my dad, Gustavo Martinez and his brother Arturo, they decided to bicycle from Pachuca Hidalgo, Mexico all the way to Toronto, Canada. And the idea was really just an adventure that they were going to go back by motorcycle, but they ended up staying in Toronto, falling in love with it. And at the time, my uncle was an engineer and got my dad a job who didn't have his, he had actually dropped out of high school, so he didn't have his university degree, but they both started working for CN Railway, and then they were so impressed with my dad that they somehow sponsored him to go back to school, and he got his degree in mechanical engineering and ended up opening up a lighting design manufacturing factory that's still around today, all the original kind of modern lamps called Origina Canada.

Leah Roseman:

OK! And I understand your dad had very limited English when he enrolled at U of T?

Amanda Martinez:

Well, by the time he went to U of T, his English was actually quite good because I remember he was taking some literature course and his professor said, why are you not pursuing writing? And he used to always actually correct my essays. But when he first arrived, he just knew literally just a few words of English. And then after working for a while, eventually he actually, I think, took classes and then became fluent in English.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, it's just the internet. Sometimes you read things. So I literally read that knowing no English, he ended up top of his class, so obviously it was a progression of several years.

Amanda Martinez:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. And I understand that he stayed with a singer Raphael Muñez when he first arrived.

Amanda Martinez:

Yes, he was the first. I think what happened was as my dad and his uncle made this journey, they started off with just a hundred dollars. That family and friends had gathered among themselves for them to make the trip, and then the people would find out about them and tell each other, and they would throw money in a hat as they would go through city to city, they would little stops, and the Mexican communities that would find out about him would come and see him, could see both of them. So when they arrived to Toronto, I believe, I don't know, friends of friends let Raphael know about them, and they met him and he ended up saying, come, come and stay with my family. So yeah, it was actually a musician that put them up. And it's just ironic because my dad, throughout my life, I got my love of music from him.

He had a huge collection of albums. And when my friends were listening to whatever's on the latest radio, I was listening to his record collection. And yet when I told him that this is what I wanted to do back in high school and I thought I wanted to do music and acting, he was like, that's a hobby. And he really felt strongly that he had worked so hard to give me this very privileged life and that I had no idea what it was out in the real world. So he was so worried for me about pursuing music, and yet I feel like it's been part of my blood before I was even born. His real, I feel like he was a real artist at heart, and he actually taught me my first few chords on the guitar, but he never was able to take lessons himself, so, so taking piano lessons for me was so important. He just loved watching my sister and I learn and play. So

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, my grandparents were immigrants, and one of my grandfathers I knew, and he worked in a factory after he had immigrated, and I told him that I wanted to pursue music. Same thing. This is a hobby. You can't take that seriously, but when I think of what he knew of musicians lives from where he came from, it would've been totally different. Things have changed too,

Amanda Martinez:

Right? Yes, exactly. And I feel like in Mexico, whenever I would go to visit Mexico as a child, there were always musicians just like, or people playing in the streets and passing the hat. And yeah, it is a very different idea. And even though I feel like the group that I play with and that I played with all these years, my dad has so much respect for, but just not when it was me. Other people that are musicians, he does like that. He just had so much respect for them and real that he made a point of always having a subscription to the symphony and to go out. That was an every day, he'd come home, put on the classical music, put on the jazz, put on. It was always playing in our house in such a big part of his life. So he shouldn't be surprised that that had an influence on me, but he just didn't want, yeah, he was really hoping.

I don't know that I guess he knew I wouldn't end up as an engineer, but he tutor me until I was getting really high marks. And I always tell the story that I ended up being invited into this enriched program for math when really math was a struggle for me, but because that's all I just wanted to get an A so badly, and I put so much time into it that I agree with his idea that everything is just hard work, and you can reach a level, it just might take you longer, you can reach it, but I feel like, yeah, but are you enjoying it? Because if you're not, you can work very hard to achieve whatever you want, but I feel like for something to be sustainable, there has to be an element of natural ability and enjoying it too. I think the two go together.

Leah Roseman:

I'm curious to hear more about this record collection. It must have had a big influence on you.

Amanda Martinez:

Yes. I love listening to his, I mean, I have a lot of his albums now that I've inherited, but I remember listening to everyone from Cleo Lane who had the big curly hair. And at the time, I didn't like my curly hair, so she was such a role model for me to Los Panchos from Mexico that would play all those beautiful boleros with Eydie Gormé and Stan Getz, Mercedes Sosa. Yeah, I feel like I could just spend hours and hours just listening to them. And one album actually in particular, that was Joan Baez's album, Gracias a la vida, with all of the albums that my dad had with singers, had the lyrics on the cover too. So that's also how I feel like I also learned the language too, because my dad didn't speak to, my dad really spoke to me in English and sometimes in Spanish, but it didn't come naturally to me. So I learned a lot just from listening to the Spanish language albums.

Leah Roseman:

Your band mates, you've been together more than 20 years.

Amanda Martinez:

Yes.

Leah Roseman:

And your husband, Drew Burston is a bass player. And on this album also, I understand he plays his dad's accordion on one of the

Amanda Martinez:

Tracks. Yeah, it was funny because I like to just declutter a lot and not have a lot of stuff, and he's the opposite. He likes to keep all these sentimental things, which I do too. But I found this old accordion and I said, Drew, it's doing nothing down here. And he's like, well, it's my dad's. And I said, yeah, but you're not playing it, so we should give it to someone that can use it. And then he took it out and started playing it, and it sounded so beautiful. So it ended up being on the album for a song that I wrote with my friend, Pablosky Rosales, a Cuban singer songwriter and tres player. And then Drew ended up, I loved it. It's just such that beautiful vintage sound. It reminded me so much of after dinner. My dad would often put on these albums when the fireplace was going, and he'd have his wine, and we would just listen very kind of nostalgic music. So that was kind of the feeling that I was trying to evoke with that song, Sol de Ayer, which means the Sun of Yesterday.

Leah Roseman:

And Pablo, your co-writer on that, you said, and what was the instrument he plays? You said I missed that.

Amanda Martinez:

Oh, so he plays the Tres guitar, but he doesn't actually play the tres guitar on Recuerdo, but he has on previous albums of mine for this one. It was a co-writer on the song, and then we arranged it with my core band with Kevin and Drew. (Music)

Leah Roseman:

So this Latin jazz genre that you're in, do you have this Afro-Cuban influence from some of your band mates?

Amanda Martinez:

Yes,

Leah Roseman:

And that started from the beginning.

Amanda Martinez:

I'm trying to remember, because I bumped into a musician that I wrote one of my first songs with Sola from the first album. I literally just bumped into him a couple of days ago, and he said, oh, and I knew you weren't even, Drew wasn't even in your life. You didn't have kids, you weren't married. And I think that what happened was I had been introduced to Kevin Laliberté, who's the producer on the album, and my longtime guitarist, and then I somehow met this piano player by the name of Julio Cesar, and he arranged the whole album, and he knew all these Cuban musicians, Afro Cuban musicians, and introduced them to me and in the studio, and it was from then on, they were part of my band. We just really got along really well. So yeah, they just had that natural, I want to say joie de vivre, but that just love of life, and chemistry, and they just have so much fun on stage when they're playing. You can tell it's just in them, and they're obviously amazing musicians too that have really worked at it, and it's a craft for them.

I just think that when we first got together, they just got the kind of feeling that I was trying to create, because I'm not a schooled musician. I went to school for Science for Biology, and then I did my master's in international business, but music was just always part of what I did. I did study classical piano, but I just feel like it's been really more just of a natural love of performing that I've had, and that I feel very lucky that I've been supported by these amazing musicians. So I feel like only recently have I kind of considered myself a musician because I guess I've been doing this over 20 years. I can call myself a professional musician, but I still feel like a bit of an imposter because so much of what I do, I feel like is just more intuitive as opposed to someone having taught me. So yeah, so I struggle with that identity crisis.

Leah Roseman:

I think all musicians have a little bit of imposter syndrome.

Amanda Martinez:

Do you? Probably, maybe.

Leah Roseman:

I think so. Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Martinez:

Even those that have gone to school for it,

Leah Roseman:

Of course.

Amanda Martinez:

Really? Okay.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. I mean, I've been playing violin for 50 years, and I've been a professional for over 30, and just this week I kind of had a breakthrough in my playing, and it's like you kind of think you're past breakthroughs, but I thought, no, I can still get better.

Amanda Martinez:

Wow. Anyway,

Leah Roseman:

I think it's just a lifelong journey, our relationship with our craft.

Amanda Martinez:

Right? Yeah. You don't just arrive and Yeah, I'm done. That's so true.

Leah Roseman:

But have you had vocal mentors in Toronto or elsewhere?

Amanda Martinez:

I feel like the artists that I listened to have been my mentors. I would just listen to when I love something. I just listened to it over and over and over again. But I've also worked with Diana Gansky, who I was first introduced to, I can't even remember now how we actually met, but when I first decided to make that shift from business to music, and she introduced me to that book The Artist's Way, and I kept saying I had this big vision of what I wanted, and she's like, but you have to start somewhere and just get that first pancake out of the way, the first demo album, and then you can move on to the next one. But I was so making the first one to be such a big deal, and she's like, you're going to have lots, so just get it done and then move on.

And then I did also work with Elaine Overholt, who works with a lot of, I guess more pop singers, and she was more about getting into my body and grounding myself and owning my power on stage. Another one who I worked with over when I was much younger was Peggy Mahon, and she's also an actor, and that's something that I've also done at the same time, but I feel like so much of my childhood, I spent wanting someone to discover me and say, oh, you should do this. I was looking for that from my parents, and then I realized pretty quickly that I had to be the one to discover myself and say, this is what you're going to do, and stop looking outside for people to tell me that I'm good enough. No one was going to say that. So that's probably the advice that I would give to someone like a younger person that do you really believe this is what you want to be doing? At the end of the day, you have to be able to do it for the longterm. You don't have to, but to be able to withstand the rejection that does happen in the field, right. You are constantly as putting yourself out there.

Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

There's several beautiful collaborations on Recuerdo, including you have something with your friend Aviva Chernick?

Amanda Martinez:

Yes. Yeah. Aviva and I have been friends for many years, and we'd always said that we wanted to collaborate on a song or co-write a song, and not for Recuerdo, but for the one before, there was this beautiful song that I wanted to write Spanish lyrics for, so I did, and then we worked on it and did a little demo, and then I realized, okay, well, if we're going to put this on an album, I have to get the rights to it, so we wouldn't ask for the songwriting rights, but just to be able to record it. And the publisher said, no, and we were like, you don't understand how beautiful it's, but they said no, for whatever reason. I don't even know if the artist ended up getting a say in that, but for this album, I said, let's write something so it's original.

No one can tell us we can't perform it or record it. And at the time, my dad was near the end of his life and he had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, and so I was visiting him at the hospital and her father was suffering from Alzheimer's also at the end of his life. And so she's like, why don't we start there? And so yeah, we just improvised together and then we ended up coming to my house, and Drew also my husband, ended up helping us kind of craft the song with Bass, bowed bass, and then we gave it to Kevin and he gave it a whole other spin, and it's one of my favorite songs on the album, and we had the chance to perform it this past summer at my actual Toronto launch at Koerner Hall. So that was very emotional and overwhelming at the same time because Aviva has such a beautiful voice, and she was singing in Hebrew and I was singing in Spanish and kind of feeding off each other. It's called No te vayas, or Don't Go, and it was about just letting go, letting our dads go, and both having been having very close relationships with our dads, (Music)

Leah Roseman:

Thanks for that.

Amanda Martinez:

Yeah, no, thank you.

Leah Roseman:

Your mom is from South Africa, right?

Amanda Martinez:

Yes.

Leah Roseman:

And she's Jewish?

Amanda Martinez:

Yes.

Leah Roseman:

I mentioned this part of my extended family or South African Jews. And in my research about Yiddish, it's something, one of the languages I've studied, including Spanish. It's an interesting connection for people that don't know this about the South African Jewish community who'd mostly come from Lithuania and were Yiddish speakers. At that time, South Africa required new immigrants to be literate in a European language, and Yiddish has written with Hebrew characters, but they accepted that as a literacy requirement, so that enabled all these people to immigrate there who otherwise would've been considered illiterate in other countries.

Amanda Martinez:

Oh, interesting. I never knew that. Wow.

Leah Roseman:

That's a little interesting fact.

Amanda Martinez:

My mom had only been back once when we were going back to South Africa, and then in 2010 I found out that the opening game for the World Cup was going to be between Mexico and South Africa, so we were able to go down there. We wrote a song and ended up bringing the whole family. At the time, I just had my little Leo, who's now 16, but he was just a year at the time or two and brought my parents and my sister, and that was just so crazy. I just had heard so much about South Africa but had never been down. And so it was really special to share our music and then have seeing these Mexican flags and South African flags in the audience. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Did you do other performances there, or was it just that one main?

Amanda Martinez:

Yeah, they actually had arranged for us to do, I think it was either four or five performances at what they call the FIFA fan parks. So all the in different parts, and they put the game up on a big screen and thousands of people came out to watch, so they had entertainment and dancing before each of the games, so we were part of that as well.

Leah Roseman:

Wow. That must have been really something. And your parents, had they been together to visit?

Amanda Martinez:

No, my dad had never been to South Africa, and then at one point we were getting really close to the trip, and then I remember my dad saying, this is crazy. You're putting us all at risk and what are you doing bringing your baby to South Africa? In the end, it was such a beautiful trip, and one of my mom's cousins who still lives there now, even though her daughters have immigrated here to Canada, she put us up, and at the time, her daughters were still down there and just, we had a tour. It was really beautiful to see where my mom had grown up and just, yeah, it's one thing to hear about it, but then to actually go and experience it.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Now, let's go back to high school. I understand you auditioned for Grease and you played Rizzo.

Amanda Martinez:

Yeah. I had always had a love of music, and I would always sing for my parents and sing in the backyard and in my bedroom for my dolls, but I never had the guts to actually audition for something. And then I think we had gone away as a family to Europe one summer, and I remember feeling like my school seemed smaller when I was away from it and put things in perspective. And I remember asking my mom, do you think that I could audition? Do you think I'd have a chance of getting in? And she said, sure, of course you could. So I don't know. That trip somehow changed something in me, and I came back and I auditioned for Grease with the Girl from Ipanima, that's the song, and ended up getting one of the lead roles is Rizzo.

And then after that, I remember people asking me, I was quite shy in high school, and people saying, is that what you're going to do? Are you going to go into acting? And I said, no, no, no. It's just a hobby. And then the next year I got the role of the witch of Evilline in the Wiz. And again, it was a comedic role, and I don't know, I just felt really at home on stage more than in real life almost. But then I remember when it was time to graduate and decide what I was going to do, I had a complete panic attack. I was just falling along what everyone did. And then I knew deep down that I don't really feel that strong in these other areas that was getting high marks in, but I didn't feel like that's what I wanted to do for a living.

So that was my first crisis saying to my dad, he's like, well, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I want to do, I'd love to do music and acting. And he said, well, if you want to wait tables the rest of your life, then go do that. And that just scared me. And so I said, okay. But I don't think I had the confidence, to be honest. I don't think I thought I'm, really could be at the same level as people that always knew this is what they wanted to do and had studied it. So yeah, it wasn't until much later that I went into it as my full-time gig.

Leah Roseman:

Hi, just a quick break from the episode. I wanted to let you know about some other episodes I’ve linked directly to this one, which I think may interest you, with Kellylee Evans, Jean Rohe, Fern Lindzon, Jah’Mila and Kavisha Mazzella. It’s a joy to be able to bring these meaningful conversations to you, but this project costs me quite a bit of money and lots of time; please support this series through either my merchandise store or on my Ko-fi page; you’ll find the links in the show notes. For the merch, it features a unique design by artist Steffi Kelly and you can browse clothes, notebooks, mugs and more, everything printed on demand. On my Ko-fi page you can buy me one coffee, or every month. You’ll also find the link to sign up for my newsletter where you’ll get access to exclusive information about upcoming guests. Finally, if you’re finding this episode interesting, please text it to a friend. Thanks.

Leah Roseman:

And I understand your first love was dance.

Amanda Martinez:

Yes. Yeah. I always wanted to be a ballerina, and I remember even, I think when I was nine, I auditioned for the National Ballet and handled the rejection for that, but I've still actually just started taking ballet again and jazz and, and I was just thinking about how dance is so, it's such a spiritual thing. I can't explain it, but it's like it's not about achieving anything, and it's something you can do, no one's around or in a class, but it just fills my soul so much. So I'm really, really glad that I've rediscovered that because as a kid that I was always singing and dancing around the house, but I do feel like it's something that keeps me in a good mental head space too.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. I mean, you have some beautiful videos out there where you're dancing with a dancer, and you've performed with dancers as well on stage with you.

Amanda Martinez:

Yeah, flamenco dancers, and then also this ballet Jörgen. I was lucky to have the chance to work with them. They were amazing. And I connected with a choreographer by the name of Deborah Brown, who's an alumni from York University where I did my business degree. And she was in the audience when I was performing for this 50th event, I think for York. And she came up to me and she's like, you're a dancer. And I said, no, I'm not. Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed that you're in the audience. I would not have come down because I just came off the stage and was dancing on the floor, and she's like, we have to do a dance video together. And I was saying, oh yeah, okay, whatever, Debra. And then a few years later it happened. So yeah, we kept meeting and she is worked with the Cirque de Soleil, and she works with Jörgen, but in a very innovative way, accessing the creativity side as opposed to doing things in a very traditional way. And I guess that really spoke to me, just speaking to the soul. She's just all about the feeling. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm hoping that we'll get to work together again.

Leah Roseman:

Wonderful. Now, your lyrics are mostly in Spanish. There's a few of your songs that are in English.

Amanda Martinez:

Yes.

Leah Roseman:

Are you mostly writing then in Spanish, or is there a little bit of translation that happens?

Amanda Martinez:

I tend to write in Spanish, even though it's not my first language, and then I always have to have someone else edit it for me. I always remember my dad saying, you live in Canada, you need to write more in English. But I feel like music doesn't have a language. It cuts through the language barrier, and I feel like when we perform, we take people somewhere else. But I did try in this latest album, Recuerdo to write something in English, but I just feel I felt so self-conscious. First of all. I don't think it sounds as nice singing in English as it does in Spanish, because Spanish is such a sensual language. And so I actually, I had written something and I kept criticizing it, and so I ended up calling Kellylee and I said, can I just send you this song and tell me what you think?

And I said, if you can help me with it, that'd be amazing. And she ended up voice mailing me back or sending me a voice text where she was singing the song, but with a few tweaks that she'd made. And I just loved it when I heard her singing it. And she's like, I actually didn't make that many changes. And she didn't, but it was just that she did whatever changes she made, they were really good changes. And just hearing someone else sing it back to me was so, gave me just a whole different perspective. And that one's also one of my favorite songs, Release Me about trying to face your fears and move forward, even though you're still feeling this sense of fear. (Music)

Leah Roseman:

What do you think, I mean, you just addressed several things around that topic, including going back to dance, but I'm curious in terms of new directions for your music, are there your next album? Do you think there'll be a new direction at all?

Amanda Martinez:

For a standalone album? I am not sure, but I have a lot of ideas. I really want to combine my music and acting, so I would love to write a musical in collaboration with, I wouldn't be able to do it on my own. And then I have a lot of ideas around just what I've gone through from a mental health perspective. I feel like we talk so much so openly in our society about physical health and how important it is. We don't wait until something happens to exercise. We just do those small steps every day to keep ourselves healthy. But I feel like we don't talk about that. We maybe are more now, but what are the things that you can actively do daily to keep our mental health in check rather than wait until all of a sudden we find ourselves in despair or anxiety or depression? So I'd like to, I'm working on a project developing something which isn't directly related to my music, but I think it eventually will be,

Because I think for me, music is something that really affects my wellbeing and my sense of my mood. And I feel like it's such a powerful thing, how you can put on a beautiful piece of classical music and all of a sudden access this sadness or this aching in you that you didn't even know you had, but just to be able to release it. And then with the Latin more, let's say, more uptempo music to be able to just get you that excited feeling and bring all the good, delicious juice of life forward. So yeah, I think eventually those two things will find their way, and I'm trying to let go of figuring out there has to be a plan. I feel like my whole life I've just kind of maybe jumped on opportunities or just noticed things when I see them as an opportunity rather than necessarily having a plan if makes any sense.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, I was thinking back, I interviewed my colleague, the cellist, Rachel Mercer a couple years ago, and something she said at the end of the interview really stuck with me. She said, we use music in so many different ways, and I'd never really thought about it that way. And since then, I think about it that way. And I listened to so much different music now because of this podcast. And yeah, I mean, your music is so uplifting. It's everyone's dancing around their kitchen, even the sadder songs. I mean, I think because yeah, just the flavor of the music is very life affirming. And what feedback do you get from your listeners?

Amanda Martinez:

Well, yeah, actually that's interesting. I can go for long periods of time where we're not necessarily doing a show and then I'm like, what am I doing? And then we'll do a show and then I'll just get this reaction from people saying how much it just affects their, sounds so cliche, but their soul. But they do feel so uplifted. I feel really lucky that I can be part of that. It's not just me. It's the whole ensemble that we can provide that for someone. When I was writing the music for Recuerdo, I was not in a good head space, but when I would sit with people like my collaborators, I would say, I really want this to be about a sense of hope. I really want to feel that. And then because we wrote it over a period of a few years when I listened back to it and Kevin was sending me the mixes, he's like, this is turning into - I felt that, I felt that sense of hope. So I thought that was interesting, that you can set an intention of what you want something to be, even though you're not feeling that in that moment, and then it can have that effect.

Leah Roseman:

Now, you mentioned your biology degree and your master's in international business, and then you did have a corporate jobs for a while.

Amanda Martinez:

Yeah, I've had a few. When I graduated from my undergrad in biology, I ended up working with this sales and merchandising company. So I worked on a bunch of different packaged goods accounts from Pepsi and CIBC to Cadbury Chocolate. And then I ended up being hired by Cadbury Chocolate directly to work on sales for them. And that's when I decided, oh, I think I'm going to go back to school and get my master's in international business. A friend of mine was doing the same program at York. I think it sounded like appealing because of the fact that I was seeing a lot of these at the sales meetings, people doing presentations. So I think I really vibed with the people on stage doing the presentations, not necessarily the analysis. And then when I graduated from the IMBA program, I was hired by TD Bank and I was the associate director for trade finance for Latin America. For a very short period of time, I was being groomed to take over the Latin American accounts, but that's when I really realized, this is just not for me. Even though on paper it was the most ideal job, like dream job for anyone graduating from my program. I was in the exact one of the big banks and lovely people to work with and getting to travel, but I felt like I was choking. I felt like this is not for me.

And then it took a while to figure out what my path was going to be, because really I was not doing what I was meant to be doing. I really started questioning everything about myself and really losing confidence in all areas. So I remember my sister saying, okay, well, what about doing music? And I was like, oh my gosh, are you kidding? No, I just couldn't even imagine myself. And that's why I guess I'm so passionate about mental health because you can be completely okay physically, but if your mental health and what you see for yourself what your vision is, is not clear or not in a healthy place, then it's really hard to do anything, even if you are physically okay.

Leah Roseman:

So Amanda, were you singing for yourself during that time?

Amanda Martinez:

No.

Leah Roseman:

Okay.

Amanda Martinez:

No, not at all. I, I feel like I was just stuck. I was really stuck and just in fight or flight, I didn't see other options. I'm like, if I can't do this, I can't do anything because I'm schooled in this. So yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Listening to you sing, it's hard to imagine that you ever were not singing from the day you started to talk. But I'm curious, what was that like when you were younger? Was there singing in your house? Were you singing in a choir?

Amanda Martinez:

Oh, I forgot. I was singing in a choir when I was really young, a school choir, I should say.

And I always, I remember going to sleepover camp and not really loving the camp part, but really loving being part of the musicals. And then, yeah, like I mentioned before, my dad always had music. He loved putting on his music, and so I was always singing in the house, that's for sure. Yeah. Even when people didn't want me to be, I was always singing, and I would always make my parents sit down and do shows for them. But again, it was all in the safety of my home. So I think I do remember my first, I think I was part of this day camp and auditioned and got a part in this Charlie Brown play, and that was my first taste of having a role on stage. But I wasn't singing for that. I was just acting. But yeah, I think for me, it was just this fantasy that I remember my best friend growing up, she was auditioning for the art school for Claude Watson, and I wanted to, but I think I was so afraid of being rejected this, it was such a fragile dream of mine that I didn't want anyone to tell me I wasn't good enough.

So I just didn't even audition. I couldn't handle being rejected, I guess.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Do you feel like your background in business has helped your career at all as a musician and actor?

Amanda Martinez:

I definitely think that it's given me a different perspective than maybe if I had just not had the experience of working or going to school for business. Certainly I feel like the people that I met through my MBA program are still really close friends of mine, and they're people who I can bounce ideas off and are big supporters of mine. They'll always come to my shows. I feel like for me, because I'm so scatterbrained and have a zillion ideas, the program gave me a structure that when you're in MBA school, you're constantly asked to analyze different case studies and look at what went wrong, what was happening in the environment, what were the strengths, what were the business, what were the weaknesses, what were the threats, that kind of SWOT analysis. So I remember doing that when I was first starting out in music. There are just so many different hats that one has to wear, and then I would put it out, make a little framework for myself so that I could see things from a different perspective, because as musicians, we're our own brand, so it's hard to kind of have an objective perspective of oneself.

And so I found that having that framework really helpful. And also that idea, you spend so much time in MBA school working as a group and recognizing that the group results will be better because everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. And so that's something that I've tried to stay aware of with my own business and bringing in people onto my team that have different skills to compliment what I can do. I definitely know my strengths and what are my weaknesses.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Now, we've mentioned Kellylee Evans a few times. I know you've recorded with her Libérame from a previous album.

Amanda Martinez:

Yes, yes.

Leah Roseman:

Could we include a clip of that for people to hear?

Amanda Martinez:

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And we recorded a video actually in Ottawa for that one as well. And then she co-wrote the song Release Me. But she's not singing on the latest album, but she is with the one from Libre, yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Did I say it wrong? Maybe I

Amanda Martinez:

No, no, no. You did.

Leah Roseman:

Okay.

Amanda Martinez:

I mean, you said it correctly. Libérame is the song, and it's from the album Libre.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah.

Amanda Martinez:

And yeah, yeah, totally right. (Music)

Speaker 5:

Takes its own to Finding Peace, its own goal between you and me, you and me, and Walk Inside Connection.

Speaker 4:

I've tried to hide.

Leah Roseman:

You'll find this beautiful video linked in the complete show notes on my website.

Leah Roseman:

And that album, I think it also you have Under African Skies.

Amanda Martinez:

Yes.

Leah Roseman:

So do you want to speak to how you wrote that and that experience?

Amanda Martinez:

Sure. Yeah. Under African Skies was a song that I wrote when I went down to Namibia Africa back in, I think it was 2015, maybe I'm not good with my dates, but I was working with an organization called SOS Children's Villages, and they wanted to film a documentary about what the SOS moms do. And so I went down to spend time for about just over a week living with this family of kids that not all were from the same family, but they really feel like a family because with SOS Children's Villages, children that have lost their parents, either they just mentally can't look after them or physically can't look after them, or they've passed away. And so they're taken in by an SOS mom and a family, and they end up, the thing that I guess I was drawn to with the organization is that they try and keep the brothers and sisters together, and that way they really can still thrive. And when I was down there, I remember thinking that I wanted to write a song before I left as a gift for the family that I was staying with, and it's Under African Skies.

And I brought it back and showed it to Kevin, and he helped me write a bridge for it. And he always create, my songs on my chords are so limited, but he added his harmonies. And then I think Donné Roberts was at our house recording something else, and then he ended up harmonizing with me on this song, and I said, oh my gosh, we have to record this. It just sounds so beautiful with his voice, too. So that's how that song came to be. I think I had recorded it just myself as a single, and then we rerecorded it for the album with him, harmonizing with me on that.

Leah Roseman:

So what's your strongest memory from that time you spent in Namibia?

Amanda Martinez:

I just remember feeling like at the time, my kids were really little, and I have twins and an older one, and they were fighting a lot. The older one, I think was finding it really hard to share me with his brother and sister, so it was really chaotic at home. And then I went there and there were eight kids, and it was like the most well-oiled machine, and everyone was so loving. And what struck me was that they didn't have a lot, obviously, but whatever they did have, they just shared as a community and just were so happy. I guess I was witnessing kids here, my own kids and friends, just fighting over technology. I mean, my kids at the time were really little, but they just had this old TV that they were sharing most of the time. They were just playing outside and just these big smiles and just so happy to be with one another. But the other thing I noticed was that they all participated in the jobs around the house, and they would get up super early, like five in the morning, and everybody had a job, and they would knock on my door. And I guess it goes with that idea of just feeling like they all belonged. And I remember the mom telling me, oh, he didn't know how to do anything when he got here. And he's completely different now, but they just all felt this sense of agency in their life as well.

Leah Roseman:

Well, speaking of kids, you've played roles on a couple of kids shows. I want to talk to you a little bit about your acting life.

Amanda Martinez:

Oh, sure.

Leah Roseman:

So PBS Rosie's Rules, and I believe you also wrote some songs for that, and then you were at the Emmy Awards on behalf of the show?

Amanda Martinez:

Yes. Yeah. So I've always been auditioning and doing acting roles over the years. But during Covid, when our whole US tour got canceled, I landed two roles. One of them was Rosie's Rules as the abuela, the grandmother, and then the Queen on My Little Pony. So that was such a gift to have regular work and on shows that were, I had watched My Little Pony as a kid, and Rosie's Rules was really special because the premise is a little girl that's born to a Mexican father and an American mom. And so she has this bicultural background and goes, and every time she has a problem, she calls her abuela, her grandmother in Mexico. And the abuela gives her advice or a different perspective on how she's looking at her problem. So I channeled my inner abuela. She says this really fun, loving, high energy grandmother, always doing things in a different part of Mexico when she meets up with Rosie when she calls her.

And then I also was invited to write, co-write the music for the show with the writer Ari Posner, who's this award-winning musician and songwriter and worked on. That's all he does is write music for shows. But for me, it was my first time, so it was such a great learning experience and to develop my confidence. Eventually Ari would say, okay, I am really busy right now. Can you just handle this one? And so I ended up working a lot actually with Drew for the music. And then just writing the lyrics, which I didn't realize how much fun I would have. I've always liked writing fun poems just for fun. But it was really a lot of fun to write for kids, especially because I think growing up I loved my kids' albums and they had such a huge influence on me.

And then just recently, so the first season went really well, and then we were waiting to see whether it was going to get renewed, and it did get renewed. And then just a few weeks before the Emmy Awards, I got an email saying, would you like to come down and present some of the awards? And I thought it was a scam. I thought it was a joke. I'm like, are they calling me? First of all, I didn't even know that Rosie's Rules was up for an Emmy, a children's Emmy, which is, it's their third year doing this now, a whole Emmy awards just for children's film and tv. And so I said, yes, I would love to, and ended up going down. And I ended up getting to spend time with my cousin, who's a producer down in Los Angeles, and another cousin who found me, who's my grandmother's great niece. So I didn't know my grandmother had a brother. I always knew about the sisters, but for some reason I didn't know about the brother, and she found me online. And so we got to meet in person and spend time together. So the whole trip was really, really special.

Leah Roseman:

So when voiceover actors voice animated stuff, they must record the voice first and then animate. How does that work?

Amanda Martinez:

That's a very good question. So yes, we do, I think a lot of the times time we are recording before the animation has actually been drawn, and then there's times when they might change things and we're matching to the actual, I can't remember the word, the term, but to the picture of what they have. So when Ari and I were working on the music, a lot of what they would tell us what they wanted to include in the actual animation, and then if we brought things in that would also influence what they would end up putting on screen. And another musician that worked with us on that as well, that played guitar for some of the more Mexican ones was my longtime friend, Jorge Lopez, and his granddaughters, the girl who actually plays Rosie. And Jorge, I bring up Jorge because when I graduated from biology, I remember going to this Mexican restaurant in Toronto, and I heard this guitarist playing all these songs that I recognized, and my friend was like, go see if you can sing with him. And so he let me sing with him, and then we became good friends. He gave me some lessons, and we started performing together. We did my first gig together at Alley Katz, and also just me and him at the Second Cup when I convinced the Second Cup to do live music in our neighborhood.

Leah Roseman:

Fantastic. There's so much about that story. That's great that you made that connection. And you're in a new show that PBS is Carl the Collector.

Amanda Martinez:

Yes. Yeah, this is a groundbreaking show because the main character is autistic, and it's really well done, and it's so wonderful for kids that neurodivergent to be able to see themselves on tv. But the character that I play is the school crossing guard, and she's also the music teacher, and she is also the librarian. So she comes in and out of the show. She's not on every episode like I am for Rosie's Rules, but she interacts with all of the characters, and it's a lot of fun to play her, too. My voice is a lot more similar to my natural speaking voice than it is for my abuela role.

Leah Roseman:

So I'd seen one of your promotional reels where it's clips from different roles you've played, and I was noticing you've played a lot of Spanish speaking characters, but with different types of accents in English. So do you find your typecast or is it just, how does that work?

Amanda Martinez:

Well, yeah, it's interesting. I played, I feel like when I was younger, I got typecast a lot as a Latina, and they wanted me to be speaking English with a Spanish accent. And I still do get asked to do that, but lately, most of the roles I get get a lot of playing lawyers and corporate roles. And I just finished filming three different thrillers this year, but none of them are specifically Latina roles. So I'm glad to see that there is much, there's actually an intention to cast ethnically diverse characters, but they're not necessarily typecast to what we've seen in the past where I think my very first role on television was for, oh, I'm drawing a blank now on Monk, where I played this maid, a Latina maid. But the last few, it has nothing to do with my character, my heritage, I should say. Yeah, I just actually had a film in the Canadian Film Festival, which has been around for 19 years, and I had no idea, but it's all Canadian film and television or film, primarily film, I guess. But yeah, and I was just playing it a very quirky character that in a film called The Legacy of Cloudy Falls.

Leah Roseman:

I was going to ask you about that. So you play a compulsive liar on this movie?

Amanda Martinez:

Yeah, she kind of takes on whatever people she thinks people think she is, and then it eventually catches up with her. But it was a really fun role to play.

Leah Roseman:

You played a role on Kim's Convenience.

Amanda Martinez:

It wasn't a big role for Kim's Convenience, but I played this sort of tired, worn out nurse on Kim's Convenience, and I recently saw the theatrical production of Kim's Convenience at the Distillery, which is where, from which the whole series is based. But wow, I loved it so much, and it was just so well acted and just spoke to probably so many of us that have that story of parents who are immigrants and want so badly for us to follow a certain path. And then that doesn't necessarily happen, and it's really heartbreaking, but it's the journey of the character to figure out for themselves what they really want to do, even if it doesn't follow the idea of the parents.

Leah Roseman:

Is there a connection with memorizing lines for theatrical roles compared to memorizing lyrics for songs?

Amanda Martinez:

Oh, that's an interesting question. I was going to say that I feel like I have had training from my biology degree. There was just so much material in biology that you can't just do it the night before, or I couldn't, anyway, so I would get into that. My method was just to always break it down into small chunks and do a little bit before I woke up, even before I brushed my teeth, I would lie in bed and memorize a little piece and then go back to the one from the day before and then build on that. And so I use that skill for memorizing for acting roles, starting it, overlearning it, so that I can be a lot freer to not have to think about what I'm saying, and it just comes out. But that takes a lot of time for me. And then for memorizing lyrics, it's definitely with the music, I definitely just listen and listen and listen over and over and over again. If I make a mistake, I have to start again before I can continue the song. But I guess just that idea of repetition so that you're not thinking about it muscle memory.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. I was kind of curious because when I asked suggested a time to do the interview, I prefer to do things a little earlier in the morning, and you said, well, I have something I need to do. And I was curious, we talked about mental health. Was that part of your self-care?

Amanda Martinez:

Yeah, so I think it was funny. I said, oh, normally I do my practicing my piano and guitar now, and I'm trying to do voice now, like a warmup

Between 10 and 11. But then I didn't actually do that this morning because I was trying to make sure that I had the Riverside that wasn't on. And I'm like, yeah. So that was just kind of ironic. Everything always takes longer than I think it will. So I was glad I started setting it up before I needed my son, Leo to help me because he's a technology guy and I'm not. But yeah, normally I am very strict with my morning routine. So I usually get up at five and between five and six, and that's when I get to just download all the thoughts that I had and reflect. And then after I've journaled, then I do my yoga and some strength exercises and meditation, small amount of meditation, and then I can get up and get ready. But I'm trying to add to that now, doing a little bit of financial bookkeeping, so I don't leave it.

I hate having to deal with a lot of bookkeeping that's like, ugh. So I'm trying to get into that habit of just doing a little bit every day, and then I get ready and get the kids up, and I just feel like if I can start my morning that way, it just feels like I have time for myself to think clearly, and then I'm just in a better mood and I have time to get dressed. And then once with walking the kids to school, that just kind of forces me to go outside. I could easily just sit at my desk and just focus, hyper-focus and not get up. But now I've actually started doing an accountability zoom with my friend Heather Chatwin. And I had done a concert at her house, and I can't remember how we started talking about it, but she was mentioning that she has an accountability zoom group for her exercise.

And I said, oh, that's something that I just do. I don't need to be motivated. I enjoy doing my exercise or going for a run or whatever. But I said, oh, but something I could use that is my music practice, because I feel like that always gets pushed because there's always some kind of business that I have to get back or email, and then I never end up doing it. And so I feel so grateful to be able to say that. I said, I'm just going to say 15 minutes, but it usually ends up being half an hour. And now I've built on top of the piano, the guitar, and now I'm adding on the voice. But with piano, I literally, I have a piano in my house. I have not touched the piano in literally since we got it, my son was playing it and my kids were playing it.

So I took this piece of music that I loved growing up that my aunt would play that's called Intermezzo, Manuel Ponce, it's a Mexican composer, and it's this beautiful piece. And so I just started really breaking it down, just little bar by bar. And then I said, oh, it would be really cool if I could memorize this. I hate that. I can't sit down at someone's piano and buy anything without the music. And then I memorized it, and then I said, you'll find this funny. Or hopefully, I said, well, why don't I play this piece at my next concert? So we had a concert in Aurora, and I'm like, that could be a goal at least. Why am I spending all this time? Why am I spending so much time every day, and I'm not even a piano player? So Drew started playing bass with it, and then I said, well, I'm going to be so nervous.

I don't like playing in front of people, like singing and playing are two different things. So I went to the Loblaws near our house where that has a grand piano and practiced there in front of people. They're not paying attention to me. So it was really good, low risk. Then when we got, and then I practiced, whoever would come in, I'd force them to listen to me. So I practiced being nervous. And then the night of the concert at the soundcheck, they brought in this big grand piano, and I was fine doing it for the soundcheck, but then I made the mistake of putting my fake nails on for the performance. Oh no. And then I sat down at the piano and as soon as I put my fingers down, I'm like, oh my God, I'm not going to be able to play properly. It just totally screwed me up.

So I had to start three times. I got through it, but it was not good. So note to self, do not put on fake nails when you're going to play the piano, but it's just hilarious. I really thought, okay, I've got this. I thought I had practiced on a grand piano and I practiced in front of people. So different when you're by yourself versus as you know, and I'm just like, normally my hands would be shaking, but at least I got through it and I forced myself to do something that was not comfortable for me because whenever I see, especially a woman playing and accompanying herself, I just know it's something that I really want to be able to do. Not necessarily classical music. I want to be able to sing and play, but that was where I was at. So I'm like, okay, I'm just going to do this piece

Leah Roseman:

Well to close this out, maybe. I was thinking, we talked a lot about family and how important that is. Do you have any reflections on dealing with large family gatherings and how to make everything work well ?

Amanda Martinez:

With large family gatherings?

Leah Roseman:

Yeah.

Amanda Martinez:

Well, the only thing I would say about large family gatherings is that I feel like things go much better if you don't try and imagine what other people, if you stay in your own head and not worry about what someone else is thinking. I find that it's so easy to want to impress when my mom comes over. Her place is so beautiful and she's such an art of hosting and everything is so perfect. So I would get so anxious to make sure everything's perfect before she came over. And then it would just be like Murphy's Law, everything would go wrong and it would not be enjoyable. So now I feel like, and I remember my cousin saying to me, Amanda, just like, don't make it so complicated. Why do you make such an elaborate thing? I'm like, no, I actually enjoy it. I love decorating the table and making it fun, but I'm not good at cooking for a huge amount of people to begin with.

So I keep mine smaller. Plus I have a small house, but I just feel like if I give myself enough time so I can enjoy it and I'm not having people watch me as I'm getting things ready. So I double the time now of how long it takes me to prepare, and then I really try and stay in my own head and just check in how am I feeling? Okay. Am I enjoying this? Okay. So if someone else looks like they're not happy, that's their issue, but I'm not going to make it mean something or take it personally. And also, I guess refrain from trying to convince other people of my opinion just to accept that we might have a difference in opinion and a different way of doing things, and just to be okay with this is the way I do it. Yeah. I don't know if that really answers the question.

Leah Roseman:

That was great. Thanks. But I do want to ask, is there anything you wanted to talk about that I didn't ask you about?

Amanda Martinez:

Not really. I think that was a really good conversation. I feel it was, it was a good therapy session. When I look back or when I reflect on my career from the beginning, I feel like I wasted a lot of energy. Well, not so much I'm being really hard on myself, but I feel like the times when I was not enjoying what I was doing, I was spending too much energy comparing myself to other artists, and I would just share that. I think as artists, we have to really, it's so easy to take for granted the things that we do well because they come naturally to us. We don't think it's a big deal, but I really think it's important to kind of honor who each of us are and the unique gifts that we bring, and to focus on those and learn and collaborate with other people that might have different ways of approaching them, but not to beat yourself up, that you're not at this stage or you're not working fast enough or you're not getting that.

I think that it's taken me a long time to kind of accept that idea that it's a process. I don't have time for process. I just want to get the things that I want to achieve. But I think that if we just look at take things one step at a time and slow down. I mean, for years people have been saying, slow down. I talk too fast or I walk. But just embracing who you are and not apologizing for it, and that's what I'm trying to do right now. It's a work in progress, but trying to embrace how my natural way of being and then just to kind of figure out, okay, how can I work with that rather than work against it?

Leah Roseman:

Well, thanks so much for this today. I really appreciated the chance to talk to you.

Amanda Martinez:

Oh, thank you so much. It was lovely to speak with you. And yeah, thank you so much for taking the time.

Leah Roseman:

I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at Leahroseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. All the links are in the show notes. The podcast theme music was written by Nick Kold. Have a wonderful week.