31 - JD Lewis
The Explore84 Podcast
English - October 15, 2019 07:00 - 1 hour - 41.9 MBSociety & Culture Business personal growth entrepreneur wellness soul body mind healthy goals explore health topics self improvement Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
“You have to be the entertainment and relief for the guy who's already stuck on deerfoot, he knows it sucks, he drives it every day, 'make me laugh rodeo clown!'” - JD Lewis, Morning Host on CJAY92 is this week’s guest on Let’s Meet For A Beer. We talk about his history in radio, his advice for people struggling with mental health, and Calgary radio legend Gerry Forbes.
JD’s love for radio started early. Growing up in a traditional household in Rocky Mountain House he spent evenings listening to hockey games on the radio and staying up late after the post-game to hear the old 1940s and 1950s radio shows on 630CHED or QR77. From a young age he knew he wanted to work in radio despite his guidance counsellor’s best wishes, but admits that at the time he didn’t realize it would mean waking up at 3:15 am! His career in radio began in Drumheller but his time there would be shortlived, JD was dealt a major blow when he was fired from his first radio job.
Realizing he had lost sight of his priorities JD would move to Red Deer and take a shot at delivering pizza while he decided what to do next. He realized after a single day he wasn’t cut out for it and headed down to the local rock station, Zed 99, to beg for a job. His pleading would eventually pay off and net him a job at the station, working his way through a number of roles and eventually moving on to a Top 40 station in Edmonton. From there he would join the crew at CJAY and later getting to co-host the morning show with local radio icon Gerry Forbes, a man JD describes as “a lunatic in all the best ways”, and finally taking over the show after Gerry’s retirement last year.
Later JD opens up with us about his struggles with mental health, what he thinks people who also struggle can do to help cope, and what he does to work past it. We talk about how his journey with mental health has impacted him throughout his life and coming back from feeling like he was “beyond repair”, as well as how a frank conversation with his dad helped turn things around for him.