Exploring Life & Business with Alyssa Hoffman of The Service

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alyssa Hoffman.  

Hi Alyssa, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
The story of how I got into music is a crazy one because I quit my Fortune 500 job, sold my possessions, and moved into a tour bus, leaving everything I knew and all that I was behind. 

My family’s thing was going to concerts together, and while I was working my corporate job traveling state to state each week, they were traveling state to state to see the band, Wayland. They traveled to North Carolina, South Carolina, and then across the country to Michigan… in the snow… on Thanksgiving just to see them. Wayland Christmas ornaments, Wayland airbrushed pumpkins for Halloween, and my mother, father, and sister sporting Wayland tattoos. I can’t make this stuff up. 

When I finally saw them live, the show blew me away, but it was the meet and greet line after that really made me see something here was special. They shook everyone’s hand and knew everyone’s name, two hundred people, including mine. The lead singer Mitch Arnold came up to me to personally introduce himself since I was the “only Hoffman he hadn’t met.” We traveled to see them the next night and it was two hundred more people doing the same thing. I went three, four, five more times and it was the same thing in every state. I knew there was something here, and I confirmed it when I took two weeks of vacation time to sell merchandise for them. I saw that everywhere they went the Wayland Warriors were just as committed as my parents, and I knew that somebody had to do something, and that person was going to be me. 

I quit my job and went from selling merchandise to doing social media to full-blown managing them in what felt like no time at all. I pulled them off the road for the first time in seven years, got them to LA, made a record, lived through the pandemic, moved to the desert, made another record, discovered our sound, hired new members, and found our way home to Nashville where we’re getting ready for our first full-length release together. It feels like all that happened as fast as I just described it, and it did. We’re up at 5 am and in bed most nights not before 11, writing a song a day, demoing a song a night, and I’m taking as many meetings as I physically can to tell as many people as I can about our band, our music, and what we’re here to do. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Almost every part of this journey has been a creative challenge. I knew the music business wasn’t going to be easy and it was going to take all of the blood, sweat, and tears we all had to make this happen going into it, but coming from a family of Wayland Warriors, I knew that I had to do it for the fans. 

I had no experience, no music business relationships, and didn’t go to college for music. All of my strategies was based off of ear and intuition, and both of those things needed serious practice and integration. – figuring out the sound, the songs, the music, how were we going to get to the next level? How were we going to pay for it? How would we make sure everything was for the highest and best good of the fans? 

We went through member changes, we completely stopped touring after being on the road for 200 shows a year for 7 years. We moved states. We brought on a new team. The strategy completed changed and it was a lot for everyone. We had a responsibility to the fans to make sure we communicated with everyone along the way and make sure they were in it with us. We started a fan club and took into consideration everything they said every step of the way to make the challenges seem more like “next steps.” It’s been the hardest yet most rewarding thing we’ve ever done. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Of course, I am the manager for the band Wayland, and our company is called “The Service” and it’s home to what we refer to as the “mom and pop label services.” 

We’re a full-service music management and label services firm with Wayland as our main act and focus. We’re not a major label that has several acts, we have one that has our full heart and focus and won’t take on any more commitments until we have accomplished what we have set out to with them. 

Our company vision is to develop and nurture musicians who create and deliver hit records that impact the world and all its culture for generations to come and our mission is to listen. 

We listen to the fans, to the artist, to the music, to our hearts, to our guts, and to each other. Music is all about listening, and I believe that’s the whole point of life. The deeper we listen to music, the deeper we listen to our bodies, and the deeper we listen to each other, the better all of this gets. 

What was your favorite childhood memory?
My favorite childhood memory is screaming at the top of our lungs Dixie Chicks, 4 Non-Blondes, and Poison in the car with all five brothers and sisters and my parents. We have always been a musical family and I have to thank them for all of this. 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.waylandtheband.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/alyssahopehoffman

Image Credits
Eric Ahlgrim
Annelise Sarah
Jessica Castro