How Much Can I Make? - Career Insights For Your Job Search
Jobs & Career Insights with Mirav Ozeri
Your inside scoop on the job market. Whether you’re chasing your first job, switching careers, or dreaming of being an entrepreneur, this podcast gives you the career advice you actually need.
We go beyond the job titles—breaking down what careers are really like, how do you brake in, how much you can earn, and the skills it takes to succeed. From career insights to real-world job stories, you’ll hear from people who’ve navigated the in and out of the job market and came out on top.
If you’re exploring new career possibilities or just want practical, straight-up job advice, this is the podcast for you.
Nominated for 2025 Women Podcasters award.
How Much Can I Make? - Career Insights For Your Job Search
Zoe Lewis' Music Career - From Freight Trains to Netflix.
Zoe Lewis
Zoe Lewis—aka “a band in a body”—takes us on a whirlwind tour of her music career, from her childhood in England to jamming her way through 70+ countries. Along the way, she’s collected grooves, stories, and a knack for turning tiny everyday moments into songs that caught the ear of big brands—and even Netflix.
If music’s in your veins and you can’t imagine doing anything else, or just wishing for a career change, this episode is a must‑listen.
website https://zoelewis.com/
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Music credit: Kate Pierson & Monica Nation
I'm speeding down six. Speeding down six. I've been way too long. I've got my fix. Yes, I'm speeding down six. Speeding down six. I'm hurrying home.
Speaker 2:I remember once I was performing and it was in this cast party in New York, and Liza Minnelli was there and my heart was. I'd never sung the song so quickly in my life, but I remember Liza coming up saying you were great. I was speechless, wow.
Speaker 1:It was marvelous, and sometimes, when I'm all alone with just a ukulele and a microphone, hi, welcome back to how Much Can I Make?
Speaker 4:I'm Elaba Zeri. The song you just heard, Spitting Down Six, is by my guest today, Zoe Lewis. She is amazing. Zoe does everything she writes, sings, performs, produces, and she just has this way of turning regular moments into something magical. The Boston Globe called her equal parts musician and storyteller, which is spot on. Her songs have been everywhere Broadway, documentaries, movies, even commercials and I've seen her live a few times. Honestly, every show left me buzzing. I'm really excited to have her on today, so let's just jump in.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:Zoe, thank you so much for doing it. I've seen your shows over the years. I think you are brilliant your lyrics, your performance. So I have so many questions that I want to ask you. But let's start with. You've been called a band in a body.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a band in a body because I play so many instruments and it was termed many years ago. I mean, I never thought about it. But you know, I'm a piano player first and foremost. But then you know traveling. You can't take your piano with you, so I picked up the guitar and then I found a ukulele and then I jumped freight trains and you can't even jump a freight train with a ukulele very easily. So I put a harmonica in my pocket and that's how I learned to play harmonica. And then I traveled the world. You know people find musical instruments growing on the trees or out of garbage can lids or from the coins in their pocket.
Speaker 4:From all your instruments, which one is your favorite?
Speaker 2:Well, the piano is the one I'm most proficient on. So and that's what I learned as a child and I love it. I can pour my heart out on the piano. But it was very good for me to pick up other instruments and unlearn what I'd learned, because then it kind of came out of a purer place. When I play the guitar, I don't know what on earth I'm doing. I just stick my fingers anywhere and I'm like that's nice. But with the piano I used to think about it more. I mean, I still do think about it a bit, but I broke that thinking about it and now I just sort of play from my heart.
Speaker 4:Did you always know you want to be a musician? At what age did you develop this musician?
Speaker 2:writer, songwriter, my mom always said she was tone deaf and she wanted a child that could sing. And she had me when she was 51. So my brother's sister, 20 years older. So she said, not that we're a religious family, but she said she prayed for a child that could sing. So I always say when I came out of the womb I was singing. I've always wanted to do music and I didn't have a piano until I was 13. Always wanted to do music and I didn't have a piano until I was 13. My dad had a little sort of organ thing that you know we'd plug in and I'd play. He was musical but he never followed it.
Speaker 4:When did you start writing music?
Speaker 2:Well, I was always writing poems. I had. I grew up with a lot of children's verse in England Robert Louis Stevenson and AA Milne. I love all these magical children's poems. I still do read children's poems because they're gorgeous. Especially I've got books, and books of the old ones. So I was always writing poems and I was always singing and I had piano lessons. Without having a piano, I'd go around to an old lady's house every Sunday and I'd do my practice, but of course I wasn't playing the notes that were on the page, I was just making it up and because my mum was tone deaf, you know, and having a cup of tea with her friend, they thought I was just being a good girl.
Speaker 4:Your mum tone deaf.
Speaker 2:Tone deaf meaning you know she can't sing in tune but my dad could and apparently my mom's mom was could have been a concert pianist, you know so so it runs in the family anyway, so how did a girl from the uk ends up becoming an icon in provincetown massachusetts?
Speaker 4:an icon? Everybody knows you, everybody loves you. I talk to some people here well, like you know.
Speaker 2:So I come from a tiny village on the south coast of England. I'm from the water, you know. I grew up going to the sea. I would play my piano. When I did get my piano, I was, they put it in my room and I was in my room the whole time playing piano, teaching myself, basically. And then I joined a band, moved up to London, you know, when I was 18.
Speaker 4:What kind of music did you play in the band?
Speaker 2:Actually it was in the summer holidays and I said to my parents, can I just be in the band? So the first band was sort of punk rock. I didn't care what music it was I was, they wanted a keyboard player and I was in and I thought this was the best. I was happy as a clam. In the back of the Melody Maker, which was the magazine in England, the newspaper, I saw an ad for a keyboard player. I went to London, I took my synthesizer and because I had a synthesizer, then in 2006.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I got into the band and these kids were studying sort of like performance art, like fame. They were going to the Middlesex Polytechnic in London and they were studying all sorts of music and Latin had come in. It was the Latin tinge they were studying, I remember, because Sade was playing Latin music. And as soon as I heard this Latin music we didn't have that in my village, you know, it was hard enough for me to find out what jazz was and as soon as I heard this my body reacted.
Speaker 4:I'm glad you're bringing up the Latin, because one of the questions that I have your song Chili. It's a great song.
Speaker 1:It has a very Latin feel to it A little bit of chili, a little bit of lime Salt on the rim and a little bit of thyme. You're gonna feel happy, you're gonna feel fine, You're gonna feel very, very fine. Sunday morning, the sound of bells. Dogs are barking the bacon smells.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I traveled. I've been to over 70 countries now. When I left England really it's because I wanted to come to the States and come out I didn't realize that I had my sights set on San Francisco. But you know, I wasn't thinking that. I went across South and Central America and there were the Latin grooves, me and my backpack talk about band in a body. I was, that's where I was picking up calabash off the trees, jamming with everyone and seeping in like a little sponge, all of these musical grooves. So the Latin really spoke to me. In England the music's very on the beat and I'm attracted to the offbeat. I like swing, I love to swing and I love the Latin. So I'm always headed towards Latin countries. The music's free, like the people, the rules are lax, the weather's hot, people's hips move. All of a sudden my hips were moving to music. It was good for me, it opened me up. So my song Chili, full of the Latin grooves and inspired by my winters in Mexico, because that's where I play every winter now, in Puerto Vallarta.
Speaker 4:You have many different styles, for example the song the Whale. By the way, you have lots of albums. I do have 10, do have, yes, you have a lot of albums and great songs, but the whale has kind of a little um jazzy feel.
Speaker 3:The whale is right.
Speaker 2:A complete different style yeah, well, that's been my detriment through the years, even though I people say you can't put me in a box, which is a great thing, but then the DJs never know which station to play me on. Should they play me on the jazz station, the world beat one, the folk one, the children's one, the humorous one? But you know, it's because I've traveled and I, like I said, I was a sponge and I love all. I love good music and that's it. So I might be listening to some Cape Verdean grooves. For instance, I love Cesare Evora, if you know her.
Speaker 4:I love her.
Speaker 2:And you know Portuguese and Brazilian mixed, and Cape Verde. I mean I'm like what are these grooves? I would sit in my hammock and just swing, like I'm sure the people there did too. It slows you down, you mellow. These grooves are phenomenal, and the instruments they play on. So then you know you listen to that enough, and then you go to write and suddenly you've written something with a vague sort of Cape Verdean feel.
Speaker 1:The future's looking grim. We're all in decline the humpback and the fin, but the worst fate is mine.
Speaker 4:What was the story behind the whale? How did you come to the idea of writing a song about a whale?
Speaker 2:Well, the whale is right. You see, we have the right whales here.
Speaker 4:Here you mean in Provincetown, in.
Speaker 2:Provincetown and they are endangered. And you know why they're endangered? Because the whalers killed them. They were the right whale to catchers killed them and they were the right whale to catch for as far as they were concerned. So we're very excited now when we see a right whale here and only a few hundred left, I believe, on this planet and they come through Provincetown. So when the right whales come through, they are documented very much and we rejoice and study them and I'm friends with, like you know, scientists and people from the coastal studies here, so we hear their reports. Oh, I was thinking about all that. And the whale is right. Nature knows far better than we. I like to twist the words and you know we need to listen to the animals and listen to the whale.
Speaker 4:So that's what that song is about and since we are on the environment thing, you have the song about the plastic soup, yes, which I actually heard you sing live in front of kids and I could imagine what brought you. It's probably the plastic in the pacific that we all know about pacific garbage patch but what I want to know? What is the reaction of the audience when you sing that?
Speaker 2:Oh well, I think everyone's on the same page. It's just dire when you look up at how big these islands are, these plastic islands that are floating in the middle of the oceans. I don't like to preach when I'm on stage, but if you can tell a story through someone's eyes, through an animal's eyes, I mean, you make it personal. I love to have children at the audience because you know you can make a huge impact. They're our hope for the future. And they get up there and they all scream out no, we have to stop using plastic. It's very hard to stop using plastic, but do you want to have some plastic soup?
Speaker 2:And the children scream out no because they love screaming out no, and it gets the point across.
Speaker 4:Last year I saw your show Speakeasy. Tell me about that show and how long did it take you to put it together, because that seemed to me like really hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a lot of work, the Speakeasy, but for me it's all about community. I love the 1920s. I love all those old songs where there were fabulous melodies. It could be maybe because my parents were older and I grew up listening to some of those old tunes. I love the messages in some of them. They're beautiful. I would be in a restaurant and the waiter would come and bring some food and he'd be singing as he arrived. I'm like you've got a gorgeous voice, would you like to be in the show? And then the lady in the bank is like humming a tune or the mailman, and it's my community oh those were all ordinary people.
Speaker 2:They were not musicians. We have celebrities, we have, I mean, all people are ordinary and fabulous. So if you open your eyes or your ears, you find them. We've been doing it for over 10 years. I've had probably over 150 different performers or if not 200. You know, I find someone and now everyone finds me.
Speaker 2:But you know, they come over to the house and we discuss which song. Do they know any songs from the 20s? Do you want to learn one? Do you want to? Do you want to be a lady or a man? Because they dress up. Do you want to be funny? Do you want to croon? And I love it because it's the gay 20s. That was the time when anything goes. So we have flappers, we have the gorgeous cigarette girl, we have debonair gents, we have trombones, clarinets, kazoos, a whole prohibition era jazz band and over the years I've, you know, had all these different spectacular performers and, of course, when they come and sit next to me at the piano, they tell me their life story and we become friends. Yeah, we all connect. They tell me that they were told they could never sing when they were little and thank you so much. I realize I can now.
Speaker 4:I know you have celebrities in the show too, but just to use your mailman or whatever. How did it come to you to do that?
Speaker 2:Well, we live in a little artistic community and it's the same like New York. Look, every waiter is really an actor. Everyone has other talents, you just have to find them. The Every waiter is really an actor. Everyone has other talents, you just have to find them. The venue was great. It sort of was like a speakeasy, and I always dreamed of doing something like that, and I probably got a few singers that I knew to come and help me and then someone's like oh, did you know? So-and-so, they've got a gorgeous voice. They'd love to be in this.
Speaker 2:Fantastic and it just grows. We just had Kate Pearson joined us. We've had Margaret Cho Leah Delaria and the mailman.
Speaker 4:Now I know you toured with Judy Collins and the Go-Go Girls Indigo Girls, Indigo Girls. Sorry, Do you have any?
Speaker 2:wild memories from any of it. What was the experience like? It's wild for me playing on a really big stage because I'm used to playing small venues where I can see people's eyes, especially when you're the opening act and everyone's waiting really for the next person. You know, and it's just you. You have to go up and be very big. I remember saying to Amy from the Indigo Girls how do you do it when you can't see their eyes Because it's all black up there? You just have the lights in your eyes and she said you feel them. That was really good advice.
Speaker 4:And do you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do feel them, but it's scary and it's fast. You know, I remember once I was performing and it was in this cast party in New York and Liza Minnelli was there and my heart was. I'd never sung the song so quickly in my life. Apparently I got through it so quickly and in quite a high pitched way. But I remember Liza coming up saying you were great, I was speechless, wow, it was marvelous, you know.
Speaker 4:I want to ask you about money. I can understand how you make money with the indigo girls and Judyins and all of that, but when you do like a show like speak easy, that we spoke about or or other little show, how do you make money?
Speaker 3:doing it.
Speaker 2:Well, you don't pick the job as a musician to make money. But what I have learned is how to live small. You can be very rich and have very little. You know, when I lived with the family in guatemala, they had very little but they gave me everything and I came back feeling very full. So then I came to Provincetown and I was lucky enough to find a very cheap rental an old, dilapidated apartment next to Spiritus Pizza. You could see through the floorboards and hear the upstairs neighbor. There were old oak beams, they say Tennessee Williams used to live there. It was 500 bucks a month and for 25 years I paid 500 bucks a month. That's what enabled me to do music all those years. What my first summer? I had 13 shows a week and I saved all my money. And then I went traveling the world. The best things in life are free, and if you just can have enough in fact I'm trying to write a song called Enough right now, because what is enough?
Speaker 4:I read that you sold some of your song or licensed some of your song to other musicians.
Speaker 2:No, I've had my songs, some of them used by commercials and films.
Speaker 4:That's a moneymaker.
Speaker 2:That, yes, talking about money, that was the best money I ever had made. It was a miracle. And it's funny because I wrote a song called Small is Tremendous, about the little things in life being much larger. Really, it's my philosophy in life, you know, and that's how Judy Collins found me.
Speaker 2:I was playing in a music festival in Canada and this lady with you know white hair kept walking back and forth while I was playing and Roxanne was giving me the eye and I didn't know who it was. And the next thing I knew she had summoned me to her dressing room and was offering me a record deal and that song, small is Tremendous, was on the record. I must say Wildflower Records. They put the music out because I'm always doing it myself and I don't necessarily get the songs out there, but that record got out there and it was everywhere. It was heard by an advertising company. They put in the word small in google and I came up. So small really was tremendous because they I came home from a bike ride and on my answer machine in those days it was an answer machine they were like it's grey's agency, we're very interested in licensing your song. Can we talk to your lawyer? And I was like, yes, can I get back to you?
Speaker 3:And then I was like how do I get a lawyer?
Speaker 2:So small was very big, small was very big, and then Pringles potato chips. Even put out a mini Pringle and they contacted me.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I had Pringles and I also had.
Speaker 2:Tj Maxx was a big label, small prices. Who knows? That's amazing, you don't. You write a song and it has a life of its own if you can get it out there which song made you the most money?
Speaker 2:I would say small is tremendous, and also a song I wrote a long time ago called sheep, and I was working on a sheep farm in New Zealand that, and I sat there with all the sheep and there's I did. I just thought there was like one kind of sheep. There's like many different kinds of sheep, with all different kinds of wool and different colors and different black sheep, a white sheep, a curly sheep, a long horn a black tongue.
Speaker 2:And anyway there was a poster in the barn and I wrote down all the different sheep and I wrote about these sheep and Putamaya Records were doing compilations in those barn and I wrote down all the different sheep and I wrote about these sheep and Putamaya Records were doing compilations in those days and they used that song for their folk playground compilation. It was played on aeroplanes. It was for 18 weeks. It was number one on the kids satellite radio. My mom heard it in England in a gardening center. I got. I remember I was in France and I had the Today Show asked me to be on it but I didn't know what the Today Show was and I turned it down because I had a gig in the Provincetown Library.
Speaker 2:Oh please, zoe.
Speaker 2:That's me but anyway, sheep did very well for me and even you know these kids. You know I got another call not too long ago from Netflix. I wrote eight songs for Storybots, which is a cartoon on Netflix, a very popular one. That made me quite a lot of money too, and that was because the guy Evan Spiridoulis, who made the cartoon his kids loved my sheep song and they played it in their house. And of course they've grown up now but I was on heavy rotation all my songs in their house apparently. So when he wanted a songwriter, you know he contacted me. You just never know.
Speaker 3:You never know Now.
Speaker 4:I have to ask and you don't have to answer if you don't want to. When you say it made you a lot of money, is it in the thousands? And you?
Speaker 2:don't have to answer if you don't want to, when you say it made you a lot of money. Is it in the thousands? Yeah, I think I got maybe 30,000, just that first commercial and then another 30,000, I think, for the next, but then of course, the taxman.
Speaker 3:Well of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:When I was writing for the Netflix thing, I realized I really enjoyed having a deadline and a mission. It's not something that I've done too much, but when someone says, zoe, write a song about this or do this, I come up with the goods. I love dreaming up things. I think you just, I'm just dreaming all the time about the next thing.
Speaker 3:So you always have a song in your head going on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always have some sort of. You know I'm working towards the next thing In my mind. You know, like on the bicycle you're like writing a song as you go, or if you're swimming there's something going on in your head and then you don't forget it until you get home.
Speaker 3:Nowadays, I do.
Speaker 2:In the old days I didn't.
Speaker 4:Now you said you traveled to many countries, over 70 countries.
Speaker 3:Which one surprised you the most musically? That's great question.
Speaker 2:One of my, favorite countries is Tahiti. I was, I played a cruise in Tahiti and they play ukulele there. They have a different style of ukulele, a Tahitian uke with the sound hole in the back, and I came home with one of those and it is a beautiful sounding instrument. I was in Indonesia too, and they have the gamelan and I don't know enough about that kind of music. But to me, latin music is what I love because it's much freer and when I was with the Indonesian, it's regimented. Everyone has their own part. You know one person will be going dong and another will go diggity-boom, diggity-boom, diggity-diggity. Another will go diggity, boom, diggity, boom, diggity, diggity, boom, diggity. You know it's. It is a layer, like an orchestra. It's beautiful but it's written. There's not a lot of room for freedom, for free expression.
Speaker 4:That's what I love about jazz and Latin music so if you could keep one instrument from all your collection, what instrument?
Speaker 3:would that be? Well, the piano is my number one Right, but from all the others.
Speaker 4:I saw you playing all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it would probably be the ukulele. The ukulele. Not that I'm that great on it, but I could get better on it if I just would keep one and it's so you can take it anywhere. You know you can take it on the beach, it's anywhere. You know it's, you can take it on the beach, it's, it's a wonderful and it doesn't hurt your fingers, like the guitar.
Speaker 4:Like the guitar. Which one song you are never tired of performing?
Speaker 2:these are great questions. Well, I do like playing chili because I don't have to say anything about it I love that song, by the way people just move their seats.
Speaker 2:I'm all about the story and all about the lyric, but I love to see the music just affect people. As soon as I start doing a Latin groove, people like sit up and something happens. I mean it's fascinating to watch people around the world. You know, if I do that, say if I'm playing in a restaurant or something, and there's anyone of Latin ethnicity around, they'll suddenly start, you know, salsaring to the music or joining in. If I do it in England, people sit cross-legged and smile at me but then they'll start trying to let go. I just did it in Nebraska.
Speaker 2:People had a real hard time clapping on the offbeat. They all clap on the beat, but it's really interesting. So yeah, chile. I always kind of enjoy my souvenirs song clapping on the offbeat. They all clap on the beat, but it's really interesting. So yeah, chilly. I always kind of enjoy my souvenirs song because that's about a dear friend of mine, elona. A mellow song. It's a bit French, a bit Scott Joplin-y. It evokes the past. I have quite a lot of songs about people who are not with me anymore and when I sing them there they are on my shoulder.
Speaker 4:Oh, fantastic.
Speaker 3:If your life had a theme song. What would that be? Welcome to the Circus.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Circus of Life.
Speaker 1:Grab it by the horns.
Speaker 2:The other one is Don't Blink or You'll Miss it. It's a crazy old world, but we have to grab every moment. You never know if we're going to go tomorrow.
Speaker 1:And we giggle, just like schoolgirls, to every lamb chop joke, because laughter is the medicine and music is the hope we have to grab every moment.
Speaker 2:You never know if we're going to go tomorrow, so be kind and make the most of every second.
Speaker 4:All right, and, on that note, thank you so much. I really enjoyed it and I was literally dreaming of interviewing you, because I love your performances so much. They're so poignant and intelligent and the music is fantastic, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:You are the best, marat, thank you.
Speaker 4:I'm so happy to be on this podcast. You know I'm glad. Thank you, that's a wrap for today. If you have a comment or question or would like us to cover a certain job, please let us know. Visit our website at howmuchcanimakeinfo. We would love to hear from you and, on your way out, don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with anyone who is curious about their next job. See you next time.
