Terra Lopez has been making music and touring for the last fifteen years. She began her career as a founding member of the duo Sister Crayon which later adopted the moniker, Rituals of Mine. Over her career, which included a stop at a major record label, Terra has built an impressive loyal following. Until the Covid outbreak that audience was a viable outlet for her to earn a nice profit regularly touring the country with a small band and crew.

In 2023, when Lopez toured with the same structure she had been using for more than a decade, she ended up losing money on the entire endeavor. It was yet another sign of the changing landscape for independent artists.

Terra brings all of this experience and more to her day job at Backline, a non profit that connects music industry professionals and their families with mental health and wellness resources. Working with more than 1,500 mental health professionals, Backline has already helped more than 77,000 music industry professionals gain access to crucial mental health services, all for free..

During our chat, Terra and I cover the host of unique mental health needs of the music community; from the financial stress of a creative lifestyle to the unrelenting workload required to simply stay relevant and financially stable in a world dominated by social media content. We talk intensely about how all art is political, despite its subject matter. We also discuss the separated lives of touring musicians, and the stop/start nature of the artist’s existence.

I get some amazing advice from Terra about how to handle toxic positivity and how to help manage my own trauma and grief, or at least my own perception of it. We chat about creating the spaces that you need to be your truest self, and Terra shares a poem that is the best antidote for imposter syndrome that I have ever heard.

This is a remarkable talk with a woman who is making great music and changing lives with her advocacy work. In essence Terra Lopez is doing double duty while she works to make the music industry a safer, kinder, and more equitable space for everyone.

Cheers,

Matty C

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