Iris in the Wellington Access Radio studio 

 

Cigarettes Will Kill You – it’s both a warning AND a new music show on Wellington Access Radio!

Hosted by Iris, each episode features a different genre or category of music. The show began as part of the local high school Gateway program at the end of 2024, but she enjoyed the experience so much that she now has her own permanent radio slot.

‘At first I was a bit scared hosting a radio show by myself,’ she says, ‘but I found my feet and it’s so much fun’.

Iris describes Cigarettes Will Kill You as a ‘classic’ music show.

‘It’s a fairly chilled out show that promotes good vibes and musical exploration. Occasionally I will have a guest on, but most of the time it’s just me. All of the music is stuff I enjoy listening to and I can spend ages scrolling through my playlists and creating a show each week.’

She also has a couple of regular segments on each show, including ‘Three Things Better Than a Smoke’, where she shares three things that she has done that week that rate higher than smoking a cigarette, while each show closes with a ‘Dad Joke’ taken directly from her own father.

‘I would love to think that my show is a nice break from all the chaos going on in the world,’ Iris says. ‘I also think it’s incredibly important to have more strong female voices on the air, whether we are discussing politics or the 80s Kiwi band The Politicians’.

Some of the genres the show has explored include hip hop, female punk and music from Aotearoa (with guest Micah from Thing Of The Week). Iris also based one show around music from her childhood – ‘I basically just found lots of songs that I remember hearing around the house when I was little and it was pure nostalgic bliss’.

As for the future of Cigarettes Will Kill You, Iris says there are endless options for her to explore.

‘An ongoing goal of mine is to expand my music taste, which the show is amazing for because I am always asking people for recs and trying to find new artists. That means there will always be so much more amazing content for me to put on the show.’

You can listen to Cigarettes Will Kill You every Monday at 4pm, when Iris broadcasts live from the Wellington Access Radio studio.