When work is over, some laborers find time for another life as musicians.

It’s a warm Sunday afternoon, but 31-year-old Abdul Ali is not relaxing. He’s driving from his first job of the day to his second when he gets a text message asking if he can work tomorrow. Ali has learned to be pragmatic when responding to the temp agency he works for. That is to say, he always says he is available.

“I have to keep myself occupied,” he says.

Ali likes to describe himself as a builder, although the work he does falls under a much broader category – or at least that’s what his weekly pay stub says.

“We fill over 100 jobs a month that can be defined as general labor,” says Paul Weyant, owner of Monterey-based Express Employment Professionals, the temp agency where Ali works.

General labor can be described roughly as physical work – jobs that span agriculture, construction and housekeeping, Weyant says.

The next day, Ali leaves for work wearing a thick hooded sweatshirt, a back brace and knee-pads. He is prepared for whatever heavy lifting he may be asked to do. After work, he has a different uniform – the brace and sweatshirt go into the back seat, and as he prepares to drive home to make dinner for his kids, he pushes the play button to listen to the mellow Los Angeles-based reggae group, Iya Terra.

“I will listen to any type of music that I can vibe to,” Ali says. “But after I’ve been listening to compressors all day to where my head hurts, I just want a soft melody to drive home to.”

Ali, who lives in Seaside practices music in the evening for his side gig as a drummer for the local reggae group Ras Rebellion. He keeps his drum kit in the garage of one of his bandmates.

He is self-taught and began playing when he was 7 years old; he jokes that as soon as his foot could reach the bass pedal he was on his way to making music.

It was that same giddy energy that led him to co-create Ras Rebellion with five of his friends last fall. “I guess we’re late bloomers,” Ali says.

One block over from where he parks his car in Sand City, 20-year-old Frank Montes pulls open the rear gate of a 22-foot moving truck and begins to load furniture, props and equipment inside. For the last two years, Montes has worked steadily for an event planning company as a loader.

“After I’ve been listening to compressors all day, I just want
a soft melody to drive home to.”

“I do a lot of different things,” Montes says, adding lighting, prop-painting and construction work to his list of duties that extend well beyond the strict title of “loader.”

After he finishes loading the truck, he’s off to another job site to set up an event. And he’s hoping that job won’t leave him too tired, because tonight is rehearsal for Grupo La Insignia, the band in which Montes plays the bajo sexto, or 12-string guitar.

Grupo La Insignia specializes in traditional Mexican music, more specifically, música norteña. The Monterey-based quartet rehearses twice a week and on days that he isn’t loading and unloading trucks – and also on some days that he is – Grupo La Insignia plays for house parties, quinceañeras and nightclubs, some of those in San Jose.

The laborer-musician life can create very packed days. He might arrive to a job site to start work at 8am, then immediately after clocking out, get to San Jose for a sound check before a gig starts at 5pm – then, after the show, drive home and repeat.

Montes’ supervisor, Eduardo Zarate, is unconcerned about whether the moonlight musician is overworking himself.

“He is very young and he is strong,” Zarate says of Montes. “He is also reviving traditional Mexican music. For me, that is inspiring.”

The idea of physically exhausting work stimulating creative output is not a new one. Prolific composer Philip Glass, whose annual Days and Nights Festival takes place in Big Sur, Carmel and Carmel Valley, often tells stories of how he used to work as a taxi driver, plumber and mover when he was getting into music and before he turned it into a career.

But ideals and stories don’t necessarily make things easier. Montes and Ali are part of a workforce that end their days covered in sawdust or dirt and with blisters on their hands and aches in their backs. Music itself can be physically demanding.

“I don’t know what keeps me going,” Montes says. “Playing music is just what I love to do. I’d rather play music than stay home and sleep.”

That’s a sentiment echoed by Ali, who says he makes time for his children and his music no matter what. “I do the things I love,” he says. “That’s where I get the energy from.”