After seven years of calling Nashville home, aspiring singer and songwriter Allison Mahal needed a change of scenery.
So, she left Music City and moved … to Milwaukee.
Born and raised in the Chicago suburb of Lombard, Mahal desired a sense of community that she felt was missing in Nashville.
She admittedly knew little about Milwaukee or what life is like in the 414, other than what she experienced during a few trips north to attend Summerfest. Mahal and her boyfriend, Pete, whom she met in Chicago, had been carrying out a long-distance relationship. She felt a pull to return to the Midwest and, after some soul searching, the couple decided to give life in Milwaukee a chance.
They found a place in the heart of Riverwest, convinced it offered the atmosphere they sought. “It’s been great. I’m so glad I’ve experienced my time in Milwaukee so far in that neighborhood,” Mahal said. “It’s been a great introduction to the vibe in the city.”
After about 18 months in Milwaukee, Mahal, who is 27, is certain she made the right move and has quickly developed an affinity for her new city.
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“I’m stoked to be in Milwaukee,” she said. “I’m grateful for the community that I’ve met here. I recognize the indie spirit of this town. I’m really drawn to that. I want to keep leaning into it. I feel like I’m just tapping into the surface here. I really like the scene in Milwaukee.”
Mahal’s long-term goal – a dream, as she calls it – is to become a full-time musician and she’s hustling to make that happen. She’s essentially working a pair of full-time jobs, focusing on her music career while also employed as a senior publicist with Nashville public relations firm IVPR, which has a bevy of clients in the music industry.
On Sunday night, Mahal will take the stage at the Cactus Club in Bay View, in what she described as her “first proper Milwaukee club show.” She’s on a bill with Next Paperback Hero and Ira Wolf. Mahal with open that show at 7 p.m.
Mahal has performed in a couple of Sofar Sounds shows, which offers gigs in intimate spaces around the area and she’s taken part in “It’s Alive on the RiverWalk,” a busker-style activation of the RiverWalk by the Milwaukee Theater District. Mahal is also on the April bill for State of Sound, 88Nine Radio Milwaukee’s monthly live concert series.
“Milwaukee quicky felt like home,” Mahal said. “Being back in the Midwest after being gone for so long, I had forgotten what I liked about the Midwest vibe. I have so many great things to say about Nashville, but it constantly feels like you have to prove yourself because everyone is there doing that. But that’s also one of Nashville’s advantages. It’s such a cool music town but at the same time there seems to be more of a camaraderie here among the musicians and people in the music industry who I have met in Milwaukee.”
She pointed to Sam Brunelli, Sofar’s Milwaukee’s city lead, as an example.
“Sam runs Sofar Sounds here and has his hands in a bunch of stuff for other artists,” Mahal said. “He was very quick to put me on bills for Sofar and put me on bills for other gigs just to acclimate me to the city. I didn’t really have that in Nashville. You really had to fight for yourself. To have an advocate who is close to my age is wonderful, and it’s just very casual. He didn’t really know me or my music, but he said: ‘I’m going to support this girl.’ It’s nice.”
“The first time I saw her, I thought ‘Damn, she’s got it.’ She’s the real deal,” Brunelli said. “There are so many musicians in Milwaukee and they’re all awesome but she’s a good example of one that stands out from the pack.”
Brunelli said he was initially drawn in by Mahal’s stage presence. “She has confidence and a bad-ass attitude on stage, and then she backs that up with amazing songs,” he said.
Brunelli believes Milwaukee is a good fit for Mahal and she works to grow her music career.
“Milwaukee’s music scene is up and coming,” he said. “It’s harder to stand out in Nashville because it’s oversaturated with really talented people. It might be a little bit easier to stand out in Milwaukee’s scene compared with the really big music cities.”
Mahal also speaks highly of her collaborator Van Isaacson, who, along with Sam Roller, run Lovegrove Studios, with Isaacson in Milwaukee and Roller in New York.
“A big part of my story is my buddy, Van, who I met in Chicago,” Mahal said. “He’s my right-hand guy musically. Honestly, I treat him like a brother and business partner. We’re in the same mindset and going after the same end-goal of hopefully touring and putting out records full time one day. He also produces my music. We’ve been gigging together since I was 20. He and his fiancée ended up moving to Nashville during the pandemic and when I moved up here, they moved to Milwaukee a few months later. We’ve followed each other into the trenches.”
Mahal got her first taste of the Nashville scene as a student at Belmont University, where she studied music.
“Growing up I was always doing music, I was doing theater, I was on the speech team in high school, and I was just into the arts,” Mahal said. “Also, like most 18-year-olds, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I had a cousin who went to Belmont, and it just sounded really interesting to me to go to a music school when all my friends were going to Illinois state schools. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do but I kept saying I think I want to be in the music business, but I had no idea what that meant.”
Mahal decided to remain in Nashville after graduation but didn’t have a clear-cut plan about her future, immediate or long term.
“I felt like I was at a crossroads when I graduated,” she said. “I figured I had to either pursue the artist thing full time or figure out something else.”
A bit of frustration began to set in. “I was interviewing for all these jobs that were going to be 9-to-5 and in a cubicle, or I was getting denied for jobs I didn’t even want,” Mahal said.
With debt from college hanging over her, Mahal knew she needed to make some money but wasn’t willing to give up on her dream of becoming a musician.
Then came a fortuitous break.
Mahal had a friend who had been at IVPR but was about to depart for another job in New York City. That friend connected Mahal with the owner of the firm, who hired her for a part-time administrative position. After six months, the firm was set to offer Mahal a full-time job as a publicist.
“I thought, am I giving up on myself as an artist if I commit to a full-time job? But, at the same time, I’ve always had a clear reality and I was in a lot of debt from school,” Mahal said. “I didn’t have savings to pay off that debt. I needed to work, and it felt like the perfect fit.”
Convinced she could handle carrying out her duties as a publicist while getting her career in music off the ground at the same time, Mahal accepted the position.
“I just knew in my gut I could do both,” she said. “People contain multitudes. I just had to figure out a way to do it.”
Her work at IVPR offers her another avenue in which to work in music.
“I feel I have two identities, being an artist and also being a publicist working on someone else’s music,” Mahal said. “At first, I felt like I had to separate those entirely. Of course, if you get to know someone, they are going to follow you on social media and they’re going to figure it all out.”
Mahal said she’s received meaningful support from the firm concerning her multi-pronged career.
“As long as I was doing a good job doing my job, it isn’t an issue,” she said. “I’ve slowly made it work. They’re very supportive of me putting my own music out there and publicizing myself when I can.”
Mahal is continuing her publicist role while working remotely from Milwaukee with the hope that at some point she’ll find enough success in her music career to make that the sole focus of her professional attention.
“That has always been the dream, since I was a little girl,” Mahal said. “For now, I feel like I’m working two full-time jobs, being a publicist and treated my music like it’s a full-time job, too. Recording and writing and gigging. It would be the dream to have enough income from music to be able to support myself and pay for everything in my adult life. I think I’m figuring out what that looks like.”
Mahal released her debut album Not Over This Yet in May 2023.
“I’m super proud of it. It’s definitely a hodge-podge of sounds,” she said. “It’s songs I accumulated over the years that I put together as an album, but it has a general cohesive story about coming of age.”
A review of Mahal’s music by NPR described her has possessing “a powerful voice and a knack for heartbreaking lyrics.”
Last month, Mahal recorded seven new songs at a relative’s lake home in the Walworth County village of Williams Bay.
“Sam flew in, and we packed my Hyundai Santa Fe and Van’s car full of gear and drove there from Milwaukee through a really bad snowstorm,” she said. “Scariest drive of my whole life. I was white-knuckled the whole time. We set up that night. The next day we woke up to all that snow that was frozen to the trees. We spent the next week there recording the songs. We had drums set up in the living room, a makeshift studio, everything we needed. I’m super pumped for that project.”
She’s hoping to start releasing some of the new material in June.
A highlight for Mahal during her time in Milwaukee is having the opportunity to record a video at the iconic Falcon Bowl in Riverwest. She recorded the video for NPR’s Tiny Desk contest. She chose her song 18 Moving South for the project.
“I live about three blocks away and stumbled upon it quickly when I moved to the neighborhood,” she said. “I love dive bars. Anything that has been untouched for years. I think that’s part of why I really love Milwaukee. I love Falcon Bowl so much. So much charm.”
She said 18 Moving South “feels like the Midwest” to her.
“It’s about moving south to Nashville when I was 18 and reflecting on my life growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, how much of that I’m thinking about and reflecting on and internalizing now that I’m back in the Midwest and seeing old flames, old friends. I feel like when I moved to Nashville, I shed my skin as most 18-year-olds do. I burned relationships. Made new friends. I think that’s just being human. But I’ve definitely felt the repercussions of moving back thinking that I don’t know these people so well or seeing the place where I grew up as a child and now, I’m and adult and everything has different meaning.”
She enlisted the services of Milwaukee area videographer Austyn Meyer for the project. “He just got the vibe we were looking for,” Mahal said. “He totally delivered the aesthetic.”
Mahal said she approached the manager of Falcon Bowl and asked how much it would cost to rent the space for a video shoot.
“She told us that it looks fun and gave it to us free of charge as long as we were out by 4 p.m. that day,” Mahal said. “I feel like no other place in any other city would do that.”
A post about Mahal’s video on the venue’s Facebook page called it “the prettiest thing to ever happen in the basement of Falcon Bowl.”
Mahal’s musical influences are varied, with Madi Diaz among them.
“She has been such a staple in the Nashville scene for a while,” Mahal said. “I’ve also always been a fan of Brandi Carlile and Sharon Van Etten. I grew up on Tom Petty, from my dad, and a lot of classic rock like the Replacements. Anything that has a good story. I’m drawn to the singer-songwriter for sure.”
Categorizing Mahal’s sound isn’t simple. “I feel like I’m still defining what my sound is,” she said. “Folk rock, indie folk. It definitely has a bigger sound than stripped-down folk.”
He music has drawn the attention of NPR, Consequence of Sound and Under the Radar. She’s performed at Taste of Randolph in Chicago and had a two-night gig opening for the Jayhawks at the Barrymore Theater in Madison.
In addition to her upcoming Milwaukee show, Mahal has gigs scheduled for Eau Claire and Minneapolis in March and Pittsburgh in April.
She spoke with excitement about the opportunity to take the stage at the Cactus Club.
“We’ve played some really good spots here and I had heard about Cactus Club for so long,” she said. “It’s my kind of spot. I love the very funky backdrop. I love the setup and that the green room is upstairs. It’s one of the places that has a story to tell. I’m really pumped to play there.”
