Online ukulele star Molly Lewis says she'll write about any subject, except for one -- Love.
“Nine out of 10 songs on the radio are 'I love you so much,' 'I want to have sex with you,' or 'you broke my heart,'” said Lewis. “And I’d much rather write about Mr. T or the astronaut kidnapper.”
It's these quirky tunes that have made Lewis, a Southern California native, so popular. With over 4 million views on YouTube and a newly released album entitled “I Made You a CD but I Eated It,” Lewis' star is rising and she says she is in disbelief.
"I'm not TV-kind of pretty. And I'm not particularly tall or shapely," said Lewis, 20 year-old.
Lewis is certainly a different kind of sex symbol. Even if she clarifies for fans on her YouTube page, “Yes, I am a girl,” her pale skin and scrubbed-clean looks have certainly won her a following. Lewis describes her music style as, "nerdy and fringe," words sometimes used to describe her instrument of choice--the ukulele.
Lewis started playing guitar at age 12, until one day fate intervened when her dad brought home her now constant sidekick.
“He was like, this is a stupid looking instrument. Do you want to try and play it? And I picked up the ukulele and I think it was sort of kismet," recalled Lewis. "From 9th grade until now--it’s been my main squeeze.”
Since then, it hasn’t let her down. After posting a ukulele cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” on YouTube, she was noticed by one of her favorite musicians--Jonathan Coulton. She was only in high school when she was invited to play with him on-stage in Washington.
“I ran around in circles kind of giggling,” said Lewis. “You know, I’m not a very forceful person, I’m not going to go up to people and say, 'listen to my songs.' But with the Internet, he found my music himself."
One of Lewis' most popular songs is entitled "Road Trip." It was written about Lisa Marie Nowak, the female astronaut who gained fame after driving across the country wearing a diaper with the intention of kidnapping her ex's new lover. Lewis says she wanted to give Nowak a voice.
"As soon as I heard that story, I was like, that woman needs a ballad written about her," said Lewis. " I didn’t want to portray her as a crazy person and I didn’t want to make fun of her. She was in pain and it was a wrenching thing for her to do. And I wanted to get that into music as best as I could.”
Today, that piece of music has almost 200,000 views. She says that the Internet has been instrumental in her success.
“You can sum up most of my songs within a tweet," said Lewis, "and it’s conducive to their spreading.”
Lewis is a junior in college majoring in English rhetoric and writing, and she says if, “this whole music thing doesn’t pan out,” she plans on becoming a high school English teacher.
“There’s nothing you can do to ensure my music will work out, other than to sell your body,” joked Lewis. “But even if twitter and this whole thing goes away, I know I’ll keep writing songs. It’s just what I love to do.”
