Trevor Carey - Episode: 130

This could get Me Fire podcast? What up? I'm Jizo. That is John Magic and we are back super excited about today's episode. We have a special guest. He's a longtime radio on their personality, a one time record label rep for Sony Music, and currently the host of a popular, highly rated news talk show on our sister station, Power Talk ninety sixty seven. It's called The Trevor carry Show. Joining us on the pod today, Trevor Carrie. Yes, I'm older than you guys. I'm gonna this is gonna

be real quick. Because when he said the say could get me fire podcast, I could get me fired? Yeah. No, okay, So you know, since it sounds like you haven't heard that title of our podcast, how it came about was this was when Gizzo was doing the afternoon show. Oh well he still does. But when I came back in the building and I would just sit down with him and commercial breaks and I'm sure you know about commercial breaks. It's a good five minutes, six minutes long. It's

how I pay my rent. Yeah, exactly. Jess and I would just start talking about random topics and then we would say we wish we could turn on the mics and just say what we're saying right now. And then Joze's like, yeah, but that can get us fired. We looked at each other like, that's our podcast title, right. Some of the best radio happens in the hallways. And it's it's it's a thing that it's doesn't come

natural to people to be natural. It's acting at times, you're real you feel that way, your stories you're telling and all of that, but it really is not. I mean, right now, was uh are we acting kind of right right? Aren't we? The the it's rolling, it's on, yeah, yeah, a little bit. It's showmanship, entertainment, it's entertainment. We got five seconds these days to grab people's attention. So I think when they when the first words out of his mouth were this could get

me fired podcast. That would grab my ear right. I call it a flume first words out of mouth. And I don't know if you remember that training we got from the iHeart guys from back to East Coast. They were saying, hey man, you got to grab them these days, right, And I was like, I already got a word for that, flume first

words out of mouth. Wow. So your poon was good. Oh, I appreciate that there's a big podcast from big Time Personalities in LA that would message me and say, you guys have the best podcast name title name. Yeah, we're like really like you know, I'm just came with it on the fly, but I like it because we have the FCC. Right. Yeah. But I always think, like with Simbad, it was harder to be funnier and be not dirty. Yeah yeah in a way, right, it's a skill to that, and in news talk I gotta have that on

my show today. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, I'm gonna be as far as I'll go with it. I always my mom listens into the sea. Yeah, like I try, I do it like how you would talk in a bank line. I'm not going to say anything on a talk show Conservati Grader that I wouldn't say in a bank line. But speaker Mike Johnson, I'm gonna be like, Mike, why you being such a Johnson? That's funny, Yeah, it's like clean, Yeah, that's me pushing the line. Yeah. So wow, guys, this is exciting stuff that you

do. How we work together. I see the sign up here recording though, Yeah, yeah, don't entor do you know that I'm fifty eight years old. I started in radio at seventeen. This is the first time I've ever been interviewed. This is Oh really, how does it fel to be on this side? Right? He just answered the question. You know what I've learned by interviewing, and I know you've probably picked up on this is because when the person you ask a question who's talking? Suddenly your brain goes

into all right, what am I going to say next? Yeah? Yeah, and you almost don't listen to them, right, Yeah, that's exactly where I was going. I do that. I've gone back and listened to interviews I've done and the person on the other side said something and then my grandma shut herself and Blubb was on the wall, and then I come back. I wasn't paying attention. And that's funny. That is true. That

does happen. I said in the beginning on the top of this that I was excited about this episode because Trevor is in a different department in where we talk radio, because Jesse and I are on the music side of it, music driven. You're in a news talk so it's different worlds, but we're co workers. And the reason why I'm super excited is because I've got to hang out with Trevor at different events at live broadcast. You know, one of my positions here is sort of like an acting producer on live on live

on site broadcast. So I've gotten to being car rides with him. I've gotten to talk to him during commercial breaks and the stories he has about radio. We go to bath houses too, and I was like, Trevor would be a perfect guest. We've had past radio jocks and we love hearing the timeline of how they got into radio. So do you know how weird it is to see B ninety five on the walls right here and to see the

Marriott across the street when I pull out every night? When I was twenty five years old, just married, wife worked over there until she was eight months pregnant at the front and desk. My daughter born in Clovis, and I was just so I was afternoons at P ninety five. Yeah, see, I didn't know that. You didn't know that I was music director and then became programmed direct. Wow. And then somebody came in and bought it, bought the company and said during that summer, took me to lunch getting

all the information near my guy. The day they took over, talk about this could get you fired. Podcasts headed into a firing right here. I got a call the night before the new ownership took over. Granted I just had a baby who was an intensive care and Sacramento who was home and healthy now, but that kind of stage of life where every paycheck is my day and I get the call, I'll show it to work the next day. They let eight of us go all in one day. It wasn't clear channel

yet or was it already. No, this is back early nineties. It was a local guy that bought it from the receivership. It was in a bank receivership and he took it over. Oh wow, and yeah, so that boy radio. Have you guys been fired? I have, I have not. I have not. Good for you and Chizo, You've done a long span, man, And if I if I could think back, I would be don't move around as much. Lock yourself in and be and become wherever you lock yourself I've been pretty locked in here. Yeah, yes,

you have and raised in this city. And so when you were eleven, right, yeah, something like that. Exactly how were you when you shart? I ride out of high school. So I was eighteen. He was like an insern as John Magic's intern. See I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, you want to interview us. Actually, I am now back around. It's while that you mentioned the marryat because I have ties in that

too, when I first moved here about almost twenty five years ago. No, no, I'm sorry, that's my radio career, twenty years of living in Fresno. I used to I had to live at that Marriott when I when they moved first moved me here to Fresno to start the night show until I found a spot. I lived there for like two weeks. You want to hear my Marriott story, Go ahead. She was front desk. That's where the phone calls come in. Right. George Bush President in one nine.

First George Bush was in Fresno for a day. He just they just needed a place to set up their offices and for him to hang for a minute before a flight or something like that. He wasn't staying overnight because the whole week before the Secret Service was in clear it was new then, right, they were clearing it all out and checking the phone lines, and I was like, just put me through. I was doing afternoon till just just just to have them say no, the President's not available. I just wanted

that's a good sound by right. She wouldn't put would yeah? So all right, well we always like to start getting to know somebody. Would Are you originally from the valley? Are you really from here? No? No, Born Tennessee, Union City, Tennessee. Lived there until about seven eight, moved to Texas, lived there, moved back to Tennessee, and then at thirteen my dad. My dad was in radio. He was a news director and then he became a preacher and he went back to Seminary Memphis and

graduated from seminary, and then his first church was in California. We came out to the High Desert in northern California. So I've lived in California, like twenty eight of my fifty eight years, lived all over California, but left it so many times to go to different places. So it was weird man in nineteen seventy nine to move to California, because man, that as a suddenly in seventh grade in Memphis, I was the star because he's moving

to California. Seriously, you were like a rock? Is that how people looked at California, like it was a cool place to go. My brother and I we'd watched Chips, you know, same year. Do you know how he was asleep when I first spotted him out Riverside Way. I saw him on the freeway when we were driving, and I woke him up. La la la, Look it's it's chipped when you see you mean, when you staw a motorcycle real sea. I mean it was like driving into a

magical team day. They felt like there was celebrities everywhere you looked or something. And I think, if you're born in race here and I tell people, I say this on my show that people in the valley that have been born in razed right here. Oh I just no. Look, you are comparing yourself to postcards the Golden Gay Bridge mouths shoe. Yeah, you know all the beauty. Eighty percent of America would love here because on our weather, Yeah, it gets a little hot, but have you gone through humidity

and Union City, Tennessee. I was back this summer. It's a killer. That's a good point. I think since we're so close to the La and the Bay that we you know, people want to get out of here, and they talk so much bad about Fresno, but like you said, it's actually really good here. Yeah, and they don't realize that in Buffalo at the ritzy little vegetable fruit places they have that might be higher priced. On the chalkboards they write sam Jai Quin Valley really seriously. Yeah, it

means something and people need to realize that. I think. So you move here, like you said, seventy nine right, yeah, yeah, did you know did you understand your dad what your dad was doing? Did you understand he was a radio personality. He had me in production rooms when I was ten. I think that's why i'm five to five and three quarters because I used to balk those old cart machines to demagnetize them, to race them. Oh that's when I started interning. Yeah, that was the grunt job.

You don't know about that hunt. It sounds familiar. Every song, every commercial was on like an eight track kind of thing for a better term there. They'd be three minutes long, or the commercial would be thirty seconds. I still have one in my living room. I have a cart at the car. But yeah, you would. That's how you do racing. You're racing with a magnet. Yeah, okay, but and you remember when

they didn't do it right, you would hear all behind. But Trevor just saying that just triggered my memory of having to do this as an intern, because when you felt it, when it would it would vibrate your great and you would like feel that it's eracing, like I don't know it just well and neither office are real tall. My dad's five eleven. My brother is about to say something. It was that demagnetizing, but I listen. I love baseball. I would wear my little league uniform to school on game days.

I've got to interview Steve Garvey recently. I loved baseball. But when on Saturdays, when my dad was a general manager in Austin of KIXL, he would go in on Saturday mornings like to do extra work, and I would get to go with him, and that's when I would demagnetize. And then he would turn on the reel to reel and I got to turn the mic on and say things into it, and I knew how to stop it and rewind it. It was like a cassette player, you know the volume.

So that was when it really started. All right, then, what so you grow up? When was the first radio gig, like what's the story on? My dad saw me after he became a preacher, and I didn't have access to those production rooms anymore. That was kind of a So I had my Hatachi stereo and i'd had the turntable on and I would record

commercials onto cassette from the radio right KFI the mighty six ninety. I would record the commercial, so I had commercials on a cassette, So I would talk at as the record was ending, and I'd turn the volume down and then flip it. I'm still talking blah blah blah. I'd flip it over to cassette and then we'll be back with the latest from Olivy Newton John next,

and I'd hit the car. I was just practicing in mac you were playing radio yeah, And he said he saw me doing that, and so he took me down to twelve forty Klaway in Ridgecrest John and Beth Quigley, I remember their names, the older couple that owned it. And my dad said, he's did some stuff and he's doing it in his room. Where's Rich I'm sorry. Lancaster, Palmdale, North You go to Bakersfeld fifty eight when you're going to Vegas, you go north. It's China Lake Naval Weapon

Center up there. But they had that was their only radio station, twelve forty KL away. You could get KOs from LA and the rock station. Yes it was say it was a little mom pause station. So get he goes here. He went over to the teletype the news. He ripped something off. He goes here, go in this room. He had play record. He goes read it and close the door behind me. How old were you at this? Seventeen? So I'm in there and I'm reading it,

and I don't remember the interview after. But I ended up doing Saturday and Sunday nights on twelve four doing it. So everybody in high school's out having a great time every Saturday Sunday night and you're losing the Occasionally they would flip over and listen to me. But uh, yeah, so I did that Conna station. Was this They called it middle of the Road. I know the first record I played a Livy Noon John and John Travolta to the time

Wow. And then I go up to school Junior College in Chico, move up best room from high school, and I'm like, I got to get a radio job. I'm working at Swinson's ice Cream and Miller's out Post, two jobs that summer to get money going. And this girl at Swinson's ice Cream goes. My boyfriend's a program director at Chico State Radio station. I go, really she and she goes, and all the students go home,

and there's nobody look at that opportunity. So I go over there and I walk in and they got like baby dolls nailed to the wall, unk rock right on there. My dodger hat, my op's kind of like, hey man, and the dude let me go in and do a demo. I took that real reel. I go, hey, can I take this home and record it? And he goes, yeah, man, I guess whatever you know. So I immediately took it up to FM ninety seven KMVR Paradise, Chico, the top forty station up there, and I knock. I

left it for the guy. Oh, he'll get back with you, Andy Manuel, I remember his name, he'll get back to you. And he didn't get back to me. So I go back up there. Well, he didn't have time right now. Three or four times, but it was one of these stations where you could see the DJ it burned down in that Paradise fire. By the way, this building was an old Victorian ice cream store on the bottom and the radio station above, and you could see the

DJ on the ara there. That's actually kind of cool. Yeah up there at two am in the morning overnight though it may not be too cool. But I went up front the window, waved my arms and did the like the pinky the phone signal signal, like why aren't you calling? Why want? So I kept bugging him and so he calls me. He goes, do you want to do the Top forty countdown Saturday night? Yeah, all

right, you're you're in. I told everybody listen, I'm gonna do the Top forty count And I didn't know how to do a top party countdown, but I was gonna go do it. I get there and it's Casey Casem. He didn't. I'm just board opping it. So I told everybody to listen to me, spread the word around and I couldn't say a word, but hey, it was the start. Yeah, yeah, that's how I started on the boards. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, But what's

funny is hearing Trevor's story. It's it's the same story that we hear from you, from me, from Carmen. We just did c K is that we weren't gonna No one was gonna tell us no, you know what I'm saying. You're gonna answer the phone call, you're gonna do, You're gonna hear my air check. And we all share that same story, which is great, which is probably why we're still here. I guess yeah. And it's a love. And I think the reason you wanted to talk to me

was the record thing. And do you know when I got out of radio and went to records, I took artists to radio stations and it was so miserable because I still love radio. Was this after the Chicos things. This okay, I'm gonna close my eyes and I'm gonna give you ready, this is the GPS, this is just radio. I'm gonna have to close my eyes. We see Chico, Marysville, Santa Rosa, Colorado, strings Reno, Fresno, Kansas City, San Jose, Phoenix. You did all those

cities, all those cities. Wow. And then in Phoenix that's when the radio or the record thing opened up. I was twenty nine thirty and I thought, well, I want to go try something different, you know, and yeah, Relativity, Sony Sony, a bunch of different labels. Relativity was their street label at the time. Bone Thugs and Harmony and Let's see Common three six months via H Town, eight Ball, MJG, Fat Joe, the beat Nuts, you remember those names. Yeah, these were all

songs artists that I was playing during the beginning of my clubbing days. I want to reverse real quick, because you did say you were in fresent at that time. Is that when you were here at ninety five? Yeah? So what was the format at that time? The Killer b B ninety five men you got to live and learn. Let me see we uhre LC boys to men We yeah, forty well it was they called it rhythm crossover, okay, yeah, and so it was. Yeah, rap was played as

well, but more date parted then I think I did nights. I remember more rap was that during that night? Yeah? Yeah, that was a violent time though it was. The crime was way worse that time period than it is now. So it was the Peace on the Street. We actually had sweepers. It said Peace on the Street. We stole it from a station in San Francisco that was airing it. But yeah. Yeah, I was wondering. I wonder if that was during the time of when LA was

like no color lines, because they had those. Yeah. Yeah, it was after Rodney teen, Yeah, the early nineties. Yeah, yeah, all right, addressing the violence. So how long were you in radio during during that time before he became a rep? Got into it in nineteen eighty three and got out of it in nineteen ninety five. Okay, so I went twelve years. Yeah, on the first round. Now there's second Round's been a whole different journey doing news talk. But yeah, the guy that

hey, and it always goes to show be cool to people. Because when I was a music director at Hot ninety seven seven in San Jose, this guy his name was Kevin Carroll. He worked for a label and he got and I met him just a few times, didn't know him that well, but he got fired and they said, heybody wants to reach out, and they his number was on there, you know, pre internet days, his number was on there. So I just left him voicemail at his house. I said, hey, man, you were a nice guy. If I

hear anybody saying anything open, I'll let you know. And that was it. But it stuck in his head obviously, because he called me back and said, I got in LA opening. Are you interested in records? And I said, oh wait, I'd already been to an RCA interview where I thought I was hired so much my mom made an RCA cake a really right, But it ended up that's how weird the record company is that. But I got the job in LA being West Coast at a time when rap talk

about violent. Yeah, nineteen ninety five and then ninety six and ninety seven, Yeah, that was the shoot him up Tupop Biggie days. Yeah. Yeah. Were you over the radio thing at this point? I thought I was until I went out to radio stations and wanted to be behind, you know, sitting at the board. Yeah, so I you know, at the time, yeah, it paid better. It was a little bit more stable. I thought, you know, rais rising up the rain, you know, a lot of traveling, right, Uh yeah, yeah, that

was kind of the downside of it. So you were taking these artists to different radio stations and doing the radio runs in the hall and you want to hear my first story, and I know, you guys know this artist Kid Frost, Kid Frost. Yeah, so New York calls me, and I'm sitting in the office like three days because the national guy there had there was a death in his family, so he would have been showing me the roads

that he wasn't in the office. So there really wasn't much at the distribution center there with the label in La there wasn't a boss or a manager for the label at that first few days. And I get this call town car is going to pick you up, take you out to Riverside, zimmerdywards and you're gonna pick up kid Frost and take him down to a Jamin Z ninety in San Diego. So that was like leave it now kind of thing. Oh out there and then down that was a hall, right, but that's

how we got the artist to a radio station event. So oh, excuse me. Wasn't a town card was a limo because it pulls up in front of Frost's house and it's a you know, as you know, a lot of people think these artists are really really rich and what them aren't, right, especially when they start out. It was a normal middle class house and with the grass grown up in the front, and I go up and knock, hey man, how you doing? Very friendly? Nice? Give me

a minute, Give me a minute. The sun's there, and he had a football, and so we start throwing the football in the front yard and a little bit of high grass of the football. Here comes Frost all right, Hey see you there's I get in first because I'm going to slide all the way to the front and let him sit like Elvis. Right, what did I step in in that front yard thing? Oh? No, stuff that ship? Yeah, and I drug it across the carpet of the limo.

Right, your feet dragged when you're slight. Ye, So we get it. Hey, how you doing it? Man? You know Frost cross, It's gonna be a good night. And we start driving. Oh man, I oh dude, and ready for his line he could have been made. Will stop at kmart and get you some kids. Hey, that was his line. That's cool. Did you guys do it? I went into a gas station bathroom. I don't need to get into this. I cleaned the shoes off, paper, towels and soap and did the best. But

that was my star. Embarrassing and in front of artists. And I'll give you another one. Almost getting fired within probably the first year, yeah, or maybe six. We have to go back. We could guys a record label rep right now. Bone obviously an established artists by the time I got there because I played him in my in radio days in San Jose and Phoenix Bone you know they yeah, And I had do you guys ever know Pete Manrikez that name. He was my intern in San Jose that years later was

the music director at Power Wino six. So it was can you imagine your job being, Hey, it's your job to go hang out with one of your good friends and you have a credit card to pay for whatever, yeah, for the radio, and so it's like we're working, just going jet skime. We're sitting down on was it Burbank Avenue there, Power whintw six was in his car went I think it was a weekend. Yeah, it was a weekend. It was a Saturday, and I said, hey,

listen to this cassette I got. They went in and remixed the Crossroads because the first album came out Crossroad sounds different. They did that DJ Unique mix. I remixed on it, but it was set on a cassette. He popped it in his car and it's the Crossroads you know now sounding, and he went he went upstairs at Power Window six and carted carted that thing up and played it on the air all weekend. Wow, and those are the days of calling when the phone lines blew up? What is this? It's

not in the record stores, it's not on a video. What in the where it? But you know what this? Remember? Somehow almost got fired. There's another station in LA called ninety two three the Beat. So these are the stations I grew up. Yeah, they're they're competitors. And you know, as a record company, you want to you want to be republican. Yeah, you want to balance if you do something, if I want

to say, you do something with the beat. But here it seems like look what we shuffled to them first, and they're playing it, and you would do it on the weekend to when the offices are closed. Yeah. So by Sunday night, I'm thinking, hey, all right, this is good. Power's playing, you know, a new guy not realizing. And I get a call Sunday night about things I never heard of, like a cease and desist. An attorney's been sent out, and Tommy Thompson, the

VP of Urban, is calling for your job. Right, because that's a mess up. I messed up, right, I messed up so good that that song at the number one. They forgot about it, and I was promoted to New York. So there you go, oh wow a little later. Yeah, but yeah, I went through that. Okay, I'm done. I tried it for less than a year. It didn't work. I got fired. That's what I was thinking going into that Monday. Yeah. So every time I hear that song, I think I didn't get fired the

Crossroads. I did not get fired on that one. Uh, Okay, you want to talk about artists not making as much money. When I first got started, Bone Thugs was being nominated at the American Music Awards, and my boss was coming out when the bosses whom New York was coming out, and he's like, hey, we're gonna, uh, we're gonna get the music director and program director from the Beat to go with us. You know, we got to do good now, right and I I let me see,

we just got going. I remember I just had borrowed money for my dad to hook up PG and E service. That's that's where the money was at at that moment, right, married two kids. At this point, LA deposits all this kind of stuff. So it goes to show you're getting out the American Music Awards and a limo and you just had to ask your dad to borrow PG. Yeah. So the Beat guys ended up they couldn't go. They ended up they could and go this. So we had two

extra fifth row right American Musical Ward tickets with a n after party. So my boss and I'm like, well, they're just gonna put fillers in the seat, people dressed up. I go. Knowing I didn't have much money, I said, hey, let me go. Let me so I did the Yeah, oh, I profiled because I didn't want to pick a lunatic that would get me called when they run and tackle Mariah Carey live on the

New York Feed. But I was like, hey, I found this couple and they looked like I said, hey, face value, no more than face value. It was almost like three hundred each or something. He's like yeah, yeah, gosh, yeah that Quickly I went back to my boss split half said here you go, man, there you go. So they sat next to me the whole time. You think I'd remember their names, but that was you know, getting out of the lima limo with hardly any

money in your bank account. Sure, I wasn't the only one after the record label run? When was it where you decided to get back consider the radio game. I know the I know the exactly I go this story. You'll know why. I worked in New York and saw how much indies made independent. Yeah, yet the guys that Attorney General New York of Elliott Spitzer went after them. And now, right, it don't matter what company you

work at, right, there's always ad adndum at the bottom. We take training right online, training about Paola, where we're all trained on what you can and cannot do. Jizo can't have a buddy that has a fish restaurant and just off the cup, like, hey, what a great fish restaurant. Here address, and here's he's got to go through the sales department. So there was a lot of Plugola Paola in radio going way back in the days. Right, But these guys, the independence, I think it's around

two thousand and seven, they got popped in. It really kind of burst the bubble. But I saw the invoices we were paying these independent guys, and I thought, all it takes is relationships in radio to be an independent,

That's all that it is. And I said, I have those so make long story real long, moved back to California, started detections of music, my own company named after my first son, Dominic dom Detections of Music dom and I got a few stations, went with McCluskey and Chicago who funded it, and I was making more money than I ever made my life.

And I was working a day and a half a week. I mean, because I don't want to get into the whole world of how independence blocked the record companies from how they forced them to work with them, because that really was the whole setup out there. It was all above board, but they blew it up with Elliott Spitzer. But I was taking some promotional CDs off to the side of the answer Your Question to the side of the house to throw them away from my truck, and my son, who's now thirty in

the Air Force, was eight on his bike. Dad, damn, wait, don't's music away? What are you doing? And I said, it's not good music, Dominic like it was something I let them eight ball and mjby, I don't want my eight year old. Now I go, it's not good music Dominica go, And he goes, why did they send it to you? I had a moment of stun like hypocrisy because I was protect I shield them from you know, they got to listen to what I mean.

It was so fun to have people and that would send Hillary Duff advanced stuff to my daughter. You know, they were all into music and what were the boy bands? I can't eating we're all into that. I didn't want him in the eight ball and MJG kind of crap, That's what I was throwing away. But I shielded them from stuff that I knew I was promoting to other other kids. And it's kind of like I felt like I

said, go ride your bike, and it bothered me for months. And I told the wife at the time to a divorce that I felt like, I want to try news talk radio. And I was kind of quietly. You didn't go to college. Neither did Rush Limbaugh. More. I listened to Glenn Beck's and in my office, to my independent production music office down there. You know, working a day and a half gives you a lot of time to listen to news talk. And I listened more and more.

And I'd always listen to Rush, and I was always into politics. But I thought I can't talk for three yeah, and I Eventually, after talking to a pastor the church, I went to, can you imagine getting advice from a man that looks like and talks like Martin Luther King? That would make you listen? I mean, Pastor read it, read it? Andrew, he was dead on Martin Luther King. So he's like, Trevor, is what you're involved in? Because you know, there's a lot of dealings

that were going. Is it? Is it on the up and up? Is it? Is it good or evil? There's a lot of evil. Well even after some evil. I said yeah. He said, well, then you know what God wants you to do? And I didn't do it. I thought God wanted me to do. I kept doing it for a while, right, but then I just like, do I want to do this or as? Is this what I want to? You know, other people's talent being based I'm good or not? You know, hey, good

job or not good job? Based on how good somebody else sang or raped or something. It kind of felt a little empty and shallow, even though it was it paid good money to do it. But I just said I'm gonna try news talk and I did and it worked. You know, Jesse and I come from like we said the music side of it, where we would turn in air checks. That's how that's how I was trying to get an audition by turning in a sample of how we would sound on the radio.

How does it work for news talk? How did you? How did you look for a job? You know what? I did that industry to get started. While we were in the process of the divorce, we went back to Colorado. Both set your grandparents were back there. So I got a job at Alis one O five nine in Denver to have a production room, right, And so I would listen to KOA, one of our iHeart stations in Denver, news talk, and I would literally with a pen and

paper write down what they were saying. And then I went back and put it into my own kind of words and just made a demo and mailed it out. And there was a talk station in Denver back when American Idol was just starting they did called talk Idol, send in your three minutes and bill if we almost like one of like our want to be a DJ. He did those. Yeah. Yeah, So for talk radio there was something like that as a contest Talk Idol. Yeah, that's funny. And I was

coming back from a divorce family court thing in California. My dad picked me up the airport in Denver and goes, oh, you got a call. They want you to do the audition for the talk, and I'm like at that moment, I was like, no, I'm not doing it. And that was my first thing when it was real. I thought, you kind of shook. Oh yeah, I was like, I can't. I can talk for a little while and some music going, but no. I walked into that audition with a suitcase like I was going on an airplane. I

had that much prep. I couldn't talked for two weeks, and I was amazed how little of it I went through that first. But if I went back and listen to that now, it's horrible. Yeah, that's what I think about. Listening to that old air checks probably sounds so bad. I have mine. I have a suitcase of cassettes from eighty four on. Really, we were just talking about that. I wish I would have saved mine. I don't have any of my cassettes anymore. It's weird. I can

do a break. Here's somebody laugh in the background, and remember who it was, Oh wow, and that they were holding a dairy Queen Freezy. You know the memories come back. Listen to those old air checks. Did you win that idol concess? No? The station changed format a few months, and then I got an audition in Albuquerque, and then are you this has a way way way local tie in here? I was mailing it out everywhere, and I would even get people call back and go, are you

on koa? Because I used their imaging eight to fifty KOA? And then it meets I made it sound real. I said, no, it's just something I've made up in the in there. But it was a program director in Bakershield named Blake Taylor who's over with Cumulus at KMJ here our competitor to power TUK. So he calls me from Bakersfield he went, and he goes, hey, we got a night opening. You interested? Yeah, Wow, Yeah, And it ended up they didn't have the budget for it,

so it didn't happen. But he just by chance happened to be on the phone talking to a general manager in Colorado, north of Denver and Greeley. He goes, there's a guy in Denver there that's looking to do talk. So he put us together and I bartered I did chicken for a bag of grain. I said, you give me ten at night till one in the morning, and I get commercials, and I get eight commercials throughout the day, and he went deal. I went all right, as a page like

as your pay, my pay. It was barter. I didn't get paid. But see I had the first minute of each stop break that were mine to go sell. So I was a salesman and a talk so oh, okay, I get it. But hey, as we know, it's it's real hard to sell midnight, isn't there. Yeah, but that was yeah, yeah. That was during the housing crisis in Colorado had way over built. So I went out to this builder and I said, hey, man, I'll give you commercials at night on my show, and I'll give you

all eight during the day. Because he had empty places out there and it worked out. I couldn't believe. I was like, this only has to be God making this happen, as he said, because I needed a place to live, right, but I didn't have a If I left Alice in Denver, I wasn't going to have a paycheck. I was going to be bartering. So I had to immediately have a place to live. This builder gives me three subdivisions. He goes, here's key A, B C for the uh, the ones that they show the model hotel. Yeah, he

goes go pick one. Wow, that's cool, so bam. So then what happened was, Hey, I'm on at night in Colorado. Hello, Bakersfield, you want to put me on? Yeah? So I'm syndicated right like that, just like your first talk radio first talk radio gig. I'm on in two places. So uh, seven months into it, the baker Shilt station told me I'm not Handity enough and they dropped me because I was Rampaul, I was against the Republicans. I wasn't for Bush. I hated

the word. I just wasn't quote Hannity enough. So that was my current competitor. Program director across the street told me, I wasn't Hannity enough. Now I'm taking him on. Who do I come on after? Handed? Now here is the stranger story to this. All our bosses here, the area regional president for what what, Steve Darnell now spoke Anne down to southern

California. So he was back then working Yeah, riverside, he's all over and he's our boss here in this building and he was at that time working in Bakersfield, commuting from President to bakers driving working at a radio station. There's sales, and I had people in Denmer going, you're doing what you left Alice one oh five nine to go to Tenant night and you're not getting

a paycheck. Little did I know I was auditioning for my future boss because he would listen to my show in Bakersfield when he was driving here and then I ended up boom, I mean de Fresno and he's here. So little do you know when you're working for free, just hustling, that you're literally auditioning for your future boss when you were doing your you know, talk radio

when in the beginning stages of it. We always like a subject that Gesso and I always bring up is when we started, we used to emulate people we heard in our before we found our voices. Did who were you listening to? Was there someone you were trying to compare yourself to. I think in music radio that's easier to do, like I remember always trying to be Hollywood Hamilton with the sadus and true, and I think it is I guess

it. In talk would be more policy driven, like I'm true. Who do you listen to because I'll tell you right now, my critique of talk radio is they need to top forty it up some it's like because you got guys that have never been in radio. Guy, all right, cut seven go. You know on my show Bam, I just fire it and it's and it's there and my bumper music I run. You almost have that radio mentality that music radio with the talk radio content. And if you hear my

show, it sounds different than it sounds. I call it top forty talk because it's moving, it's kind of it's audio and I don't say. And here's what Gavin Newsom had to say at his press conference on Tuesday, roll that I'm going, can you believe what he said? And the next thing you hear is Gavin talking. That is true. Sometimes when I'm listening to the talk radio, you hear like a lot of dead airs. You can hear the papers shuffling. They made know a couple of seconds and then they

start talking. I'll even hear people eating. If I hear I would fire somebody if I was a boss and I heard somebody eating them, Yeah, that's somebody's ear. Yeah right, yeah, yeah, This is something I've witnessed in person. Because you know, like I said, when we do remote broadcast and there's a board off that Trevor has to communicate with, he always likes his show super tight. Yeah, the volume right, everything from hitting the sweepers out right. Yeah, I respect yeah, man, because

I'm the same way I like things sounding. Here's the thing. The listener doesn't quite know all the time why they liked something. It's a feeling it gives them and not having let me ask a question of you, guys, is it Do you like the freedom of doing a podcast long form like this, not having an intro that you got to talk over with. Yeah, it's definitely a switch up. It's a you know, we can talk longer on certain topics, we can say what we want, and we do like

it. It's kind of the biggest reason why we started it, honestly, for sure. The same. Yeah. Now, let me ask you you ever had any aspirations of as you age in this industry because a lot of people do that of doing talk to switch to talk radio. Yeah, I don't know. Things. It can get you fired. Go ahead say it doesn't hard, but you know, because you do what's three hours, and I think if we add it up all the time we talk in it's probably

like five minutes honestly, if time that we talk in a show. So just when I think of what you do and the amount of content that you have to talk about, it just seems like a lot. But then to your point, we're just doing it on a podcast essentially, So that's the difference. I guess For me, I'm sort of real with myself. I feel like I'm not a great talker, let's leave. Okay, especially watching

you, I've seen you. I prep though I'm not a great talker for sure, but I mean even I feel like I don't have a great vocal Like I don't have great vocabulary. It's my words are super simple. But you know, I like listening to Howard Stern and you know you, and yeah, I feel like I can't do it. Well that's that's being honest, all right, Yeah, yeah, out that way too. Remember when my dad told me, my reaction was, ah, I don't think I want to do this, man, I can't. I can't do it,

but I call it now. I had a buddy that did talk in Phoenix for a year and he was like every show. He's like, right when it got done, I was like, oh, another one's tomorrow. Ah, And I said, yes, that's what it's like for a year or two. But then you start to trust the process. My prep process is so key. If I don't have that, throw it away, I'd be phoning it in. Do you ever get in those situations where you're prepping in You're just I don't have enough content to get through an hour old? Well,

so we live in California. Yeah, there's always something to talk about. I wake up and content is just waiting for me. Right, Yeah, it would be hard maybe to do a talk show if hey, everything's pretty good, Yeah, nothing going on? You kind of needed I Hey, there were some people I know, including myself, depressed when Biden became president, and I said, all right, we're depressed, but hey it's good for business. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like it is,

it really is. I'm let's switch it up a little bit with some little fun questions that you know, I'm interested about throughout your long career. Any live interviews that stand out to you, like, you know obviously you Mets the Levens. Ready, ready, okay, record, here's one Southeast I donety seven seven, just a few days away from Christmas here in the studio. I can't believe it, man, I'm so wow. You're one

of my favorite Mary J. Blige welcome, man. Wow. And she's got her hood hoodie up and I can't really see her face as she's over by the mic right here. OK, something like that. She just said something I said, and I don't remember how the whole interview went, but I went, uh, you got any old Christmas memories? Is I'm trying to keep out you got any old Christmas memories of like one of your favorite

gifts you got in your little girl or something like that? Dolls head, A doll's head, She said, a dolls How do you respond after that? You respond by, did you say a doll's head? And she nods. It's on the radio, so she's nodding. It went probably a minute twenty two seconds or something. Well, thank you Mary J. Blige for coming in. Merry Christmas. The record guy was like this. They were leaving, like, hey, she's been weird all day, man, I'm

sorry always something so that one sticks out in my mind now. When we had to pull out of Afghanistan and I had a trustee of the school board, Major Terry Sladeck, Marine and his interpreter when he was over there serving John, his interpreter was running from the Talmont and his sister. They'd already killed his mom, and we had him on the phone live on the air, and I thought it was going to be a yes, mister Sladick, a major sletic, thank you, I'm going to remain strong and you hang

in there, John, We're here for you, buddy. I thought it was gonna be one of those. But it was a man crying terror. And I got to see why the trustee was also a major, because at that moment, live talking to down on the other side of the world, he went into being a commander like what you would do to a soldier, like, soldier, get a hold of yourself. So that was life changing. Now, I'll tell you he made it out, His sister made it out. John'son Sacramento, married and has a baby now. But that Mary

J. Blige and that there you go. Yeah, there's the two extremes. You know. You you talk about the different cities you've done radio in. How about one story of I'm assuming you've been fired? Oh yeah, yeah, because I you know, I've told my story in the podcast. How about is there a wild story of you getting fired from one of these stations? January seventeenth, nineteen ninety four. Is that what you're doing? Oh? My goodness, San Jose. Right before I was on doing ten

to three, a lot of music directors then did the midday shift. You remember those days? Really? Yeah, so you have your music call time anyhow. But I got the message right before I went on at ten, and it was in a business community park up there. So I walked out of the station and went got something from a little restaurant there, went sat on a park bench and just let it soak in. All right, I just got fired, And what happens? There's somebody filling in for me,

at least a Fox. I remember she went down to work with That's all famili with Ryan Seacrest. She was down in l a Ryan Seacrest and Lisa Fox. She was at that time though, in San Jose. So she came to fill in at ten, to fill in for the guy that just got fired. So who calls the hotline but my wife, right highest Trevor

there. You know that's a hard place to put her in, right, I don't even remember if she said, well he got fired or something, but yeah, that's that was the toughest because even the guy that fired me said, it's not right, it's not you know, as they always say, it's it's not you, it's odd. Yeah, the budget, it's all. Yeah. So yeah, that was a but that's what eventually let me go to the going doing some record stuff. So how long have you

been in Fresno Powers Hog? How long? Nine years now? And hey, the longest I'd ever lived anywhere my entire life was four Oh wow, so more than double, more than doubled. I just sometimes got to take a different street to work because I get tired of the same, the routine. But that sense of being rooted, I well, now I can understand it a little bit more. You know somebody that's been there their whole life,

that's really deep rooted. Yeah, for sure, definitely is you've seen the you know, the rise of radio, you know all these years. Something that I'm interested in your thoughts is where do you see it going with? You know, you've seen as us, we've seen so many people get let go. This building used to have hundreds of employees. Now you can count them with two hands. Where do you think the future of radio is going the way you just said? I think that there's a lot of mistakes

made. When you walk into a crowded party and you look around a room filled with people and you see somebody that you recognize or not, you're drawn there. You know them. There are people in Fresno that no Jozone, no Trevor. We live here, We drive on this streets, we talk about the same potholes, we experience the same kind of weather. We know what presno State's record is. We know what the issues and problems are, what's good, what's bad, So that I mean people are drawn to that.

So the more local, local, local that you can be, I think is the direction that it should go. Because if everything becomes national and generic. You think about it, when you sit down to watch TV anymore, they got thousands of choices, you feel overwhelmed, right, And I think a lot of people they don't recognize anything. I hear all these podcasts on my show that are being advertised. How does a podcast you know, you got your Joe Rogan's you got your This is going to get me fired?

You know I'm putting you up there? Yeah, right next to But I guess my question now is how does content stick out? Right? Because people always say, well radio I've had people say well radio is going away man with technology and on I go, well maybe it will, but whatever, there's going to need content. So I'm content whether and a lot of people my mom and dad listen on the app in Tennessee. I'm always thinking

how can I spread that online? You know, to get people listen to the app online, the iHeartRadio app or go to power Talk ninety six seven dot com and click listen life you almost how do you market that in the sea of tens of thousands of choices? Right? Yeah, I know they have our rankings. Did you get to see your iHeart ranking? No, I haven't seen it. With podcasts, no, No, I just know I looked at it and thought, all right, I got to catch c

K on there. But yeah, they have those check that out. Yeah yeah, all right, Well I mean that's all I got. Yeah, man, anything you want to add or let people know when they could listen to you to the show, Oh yeah, three to six Monday through Friday and all the podcasts I got five two and forty two hours up. Wow, And you can get all these podcasts PowerTalk ninety six to seven dot com.

But you know what I don't like about the art podcasting is online when you go down and you have to hit so many to get it, like a month or two back, and if you click on one, it takes you right back to the top again. Noticed. Yeah, so all right, can you guys send an email and get that fix. Yeah, we'll get that fixed. Hi, Trevor Kerrey. Until next time, John Magic Gizzo. This could give me for our podcasts.