For many DIY artists, one of the biggest challenges is finding a balance between paying the bills and being creative. The thing that funds recording and live performances is the very same thing that keeps you too busy to write or too tired to practice. For Greg Mendez, his side job as a laborer in his hometown Philadelphia proved to be an unlikely godsend. “I smashed my head into a piece of metal,” he says of the accidental injury he sustained while demolishing a house. Workers compensation allowed him to spend time at home writing and recording his self-titled album, a collection of nakedly honest and gently strummed indie rock confessionals first released in 2023 and re-issued this month via his new label deadoceans. That time at home was key to the creation of Greg Mendez, though he is keen to stress that he was legitimately fucked up at the same time. “I kept going back to work and getting re-injured,” he says from his Philly apartment. “That’s the thing with manual labor. They’re...