< blog | Musicians talk music with musician Arwen Lewis on the Arwen Lewis Show
Musicians talk music with musician Arwen Lewis on the Arwen Lewis Show
Here at SYV Buzz, our goal is to spread the word about all the fantastic live music happening at the wide variety of venues in Solvang, Santa Ynez, Los Olivos, Los Alamos, and Buellton — and we love it when we find other passionate, like-minded people with a similar mission.Arwen Lewis is one of these. Already well known around the Santa Ynez Valley as a musician and songwriter who performs regularly at Lost Chord Guitars, Dana V. Wines, and other hot spots, Arwen has also recently branched out into radio as the host of her own show in which she interviews upcoming and accomplished musicians, many with local ties.
It started almost by accident. Arwen had been working with local wine hero Frank Ostini to produce a series of live music events at the Hitching Post, and Frank had been invited as a guest on the Jeremiah Show, hosted by Jeremiah Higgins. Frank invited Arwen to come along.
"We did a Zoom call with Jeremiah at the Hitching Post," she explains, "and after the interview Jeremiah invited me to bring all of the artists from the Hitching Post concert series onto his show to co-host and interview them with Jeremiah. From there, he was like, 'Arwen, you're pretty good at this. Would you like to have your own radio show?'"
Well, sure.
He gave her a show under his own platform, and she started reaching out to people she knew and people she was referred to in the music industry.
"Everybody said yes," she says. "I ended up doing like three shows a week."
During the interviews, she talks about music and the music business, plays excerpts from the artist's work, and at the end there's one featured song in its entirety.
"It's basically a show to showcase the artist's journey in music and creating."
The show airs on Terrestrial Radio in Santa Barbara, as well as on an east coast station and a U.K. station, with plans to add a Los Angeles station and another east coast station soon. Episodes are also easily accessible on SoundCloud.
The size of the listening audience has expanded to 500,000 people in the short time she's been doing the show.
As the show has grown, musicians that Arwen did not already know started to reach out to her, and some of these began making appearances toward the end of the second season.
Arwen still has a long list of musicians she'd like to get to. "Oh yeah, now I want to interview Jack White. I want to interview my heroes! But everybody has unique stories. I learn a lot from hearing other people's stories, how they approach being an artist, being in the music industry, what it means to them. I learn something new about myself every time I interview someone, which is really cool."
You can learn more about Arwen Lewis and where to hear her shows by checking out her Instagrams at Arwen Lewis and the Arwen Lewis show.
You can also catch her this coming Wednesday, January 31, where she'll be performing live along with George Adrian and her father, Peter Lewis.