Alternative Hype: Owensboro creative finds paths in traditional and unconventional forms

May 24—Before becoming known as his character Erich Stranger, Owensboro resident Aaron Brown was always looking for ways to get himself out there.

"From a very young age, I wanted to be the center of attention and that passion has followed me my entire life," Brown, 32, said.

Born on a U.S. Air Force base in Germany, Brown and his family moved around and lived in places from North Carolina and Mississippi before settling in Kentucky.

Brown was able to find a calling in the world of performing at the age of 10, with his first being a church musical, which he described as a modern take on "Adam and Eve" and recalls one of his main lines being "What can be wrong with an apple? What can be wrong with just a bite?"

"I've always been involved in theatre in some way shape or form," Brown said. "Anytime there was an opportunity, I was involved with it."

With being homeschooled all the way through high school, he and his younger brother Kevin began to appear in a number of shows through the United Christian Home Schools' drama club, with Brown becoming the student director of the club in his third year where he led a production of "Pride and Prejudice" while also playing the role of Charles Bingley before graduating to the main directing position for "Arsenic and Old Lace" and leading the cast as Mortimer Brewster.

After finishing his high school studies, Brown moved on to pursue a broadcasting degree at Western Kentucky University where continued to dabble in theatre for a brief period before coming back to Owensboro and enrolled at Owensboro Community & Technical College for a couple courses.

While Brown continued to appear in a number of shows in varying capacities, he decided to take a break from the performing arts for about five to six years to focus on other passion projects such as blogging and writing an unfinished novel "You Don't Have to Be Miserable If You Don't Want to Be but I Think That You Secretly Want to Be."

The book's plot revolves around three of Brown's alter egos trying to finish the novel itself, before making the main focus his podcast, "The Ghost of Thor Radio Show," which premiered in 2021 as a branch off Brown's 2020 show "Paper Bag Philosophy Podcast."

Brown was inspired to start the show due to his brother Kevin, who has gone on to becoming a local performer and created his own company, Kevin Brown Media.

"When Kevin started doing theatre and everything, he started doing photography and he picked up the camera and just started rolling with it; and eventually, he made an entire career out of it," Brown said. "When I first started the show ..., I was going through depression and stuff and trying to get out of that (and) watching my brother throw himself into something, getting passionate about it and then continue to work on it and eventually became a career for him — it was a huge inspiration for me and I realized I had to get past myself .... So I just started doing a whole bunch of stuff and the podcast is what ended up sticking."

The show features Brown bringing on guests to talk about a variety of topics ranging from suicide awareness, trauma recovery, the importance of the Second Amendment, someone converting to Judaism and covering local events such as poetry nights at The Spot Coffee and Finery and OMG!con.

With his projects such as the podcast, Brown wanted to dive into more unconventional territory due to his observations of censorship and noticing content creators on YouTube being removed due to discussing controversial yet sometimes historical topics.

"The big thing about my show is that it's an everything show," Brown said. "The reason why the topics are so broad is because I want it to be a place where people can come on and have a voice, because there's a lot of censorship going on ... and there's a lot of these people who don't have a voice (or) don't necessarily know how to use their voice."

With the show, Brown said that he has no intentions of making money from media corporations but rather being in control of the content and having himself and his fans and followers help guide his success.

"For me, I wanted to establish from the very beginning that I am an alternative," Brown said.

However, Brown was looking forward to finding opportunities to be a part of the more traditional performing arts realm again and eventually was cast as the main male lead, Peter Shaw, in Theatre Workshop of Owensboro's (TWO) production of "Silent Sky," which wrapped up its run earlier this month.

While Brown has been in control of his path in terms of the content he has been creating, he was happy getting re-acclimated in the craft he enjoyed.

"I've wanted to get back into the theatre world and the community ... because it's a great place to make connections," Brown said. "It's a great place to meet people and it's fun. I like doing it."

And Brown has continued to stick with it and is currently in rehearsals for the Bluegrass Community Theatre's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" playing the role of Theseus, the duke of Athens.

But Brown has also made it one of his goals to put the spotlight on others to showcase their talents by creating the public Facebook group Erich's Circle of Artists, where Brown invites community members to share anything from their artwork, drawings, music videos, live performances and more.

He also uses the platform to promote events and happenings in the Owensboro area in order to get the community more involved in the arts and establish better connections amongst the arts sector in general.

"Owensboro is an extremely talented town and we have so many artists and musicians and everything that can do so well if given the opportunity," Brown said. "I love supporting people .... My friend called me Owensboro's hype man — I feel like that's a very accurate description of me because I feel like Owensboro has the possibility of becoming like a Nashville or bigger city that is capable of having a huge arts community."

Regardless of what projects he puts his heart into, Brown keeps himself motivated based on a fear to power him through.

"Before I started the (podcast), I had a lot of fear of failure," Brown said. "Now I use that fear and (have) converted it. So instead of the fear of failure, I have a fear of going back to where I was. For me, it's all about progressing forward ...."

And his idea about the importance of the arts still remains as true as ever.

"I think art is how people connect with each other; and I think that for me, I like putting something out there that's meaningful to people ...," Brown said.