June 8, 2025 • 22 mins
Brian Kelly MNZM has been named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to broadcasting. Raised in Whanganui, he began his career in 1970 with the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, selecting songs for national radio. He later moved into sports journalism and broadcasting, building a career that has spanned 55 years.
Kelly has been a prominent voice on Coast FM and has spent four decades as New Zealand’s voice of motorsport. Since 2021, he has hosted The Country Sport Breakfast on GOLD, a show produced by his son Mark. Over the past 4.5 years, he estimates he has conducted around 14,000 interviews for the programme.
In addition to his broadcasting work, Kelly also volunteers as a tutor and mentor at the New Zealand School of Broadcasting.
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Mark as Played
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk SEDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection, It's Real life with John Cowen
on News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Goday, Welcome to Real Life. My guest Tonight has been
working in radio for more than fifty five years and
one at least twenty six radio awards, and last weekend,
in the King's Birthday Honors, he was made a member
of a New Zealand Order of Merit. Welcome Brian Kelly.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
John, absolute pleasure to join you on a Sunday night.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, it's great to hear your your dulcet tones, those
tones that have been delighting people for so many decades
on our show. Now, over your long career, you've had
lots of different roles on different stations and networks. How
could people hear these days? What are you? You're still
working on radio? Whereabouts are you hanging.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Out these days?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
So I'm now host of what is known as the
Country Sport Breakfast on Gold Am. The old radio sport frequencies.
When they shut radio sport down zed me, they basically
launched a country sport breakfast show, and it's basically about
sixty to seventy percent sport mixed with country stories, talking
(01:36):
to people on farms and involved in the rural industry,
and coupled with that we throw in some really great
sort of classic rock tracks, some ACDC doors, rolling stones
across the course of the three hours that I do
it every morning.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Our studios are based in the nzed Me building in.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Toldonger, so that's been my home now for the last
forty five fifty years, although I did have a seven
year stint in Auckland and I work for Coast Right.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yes, I want to talk a bit about all the
different things you've done over that Korea. But this gig
that you've got now, I know that you're you're a
self confessed sports nut, so that aspect of it's fantastic,
and you love the music and everything. What about the
country side of things that because you're they're pitching the
station to the country audience from the whole length of
(02:24):
the country, isn't it. But you're a bit of a
city boy, aren't you.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, you're right, I mean when it was first put
to me, how would you like to be the host
of this new look show. I had to sort of
take second thoughts on it really, because yes, grew up.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
I guess you call Wanganui a city. It is a city.
It has been for a long time.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
But basically, although you know, from time to time i'd
visit farms and relations that owned farms and the whited
Appa and things like that.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
But yeah, basically a city boy.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So I guess it just involves a lot more research
and reading and so on. But I still find it
fascinating because you know, country people and the rural aspect
of our country is the backbone of our country, so
it's a pretty major part. And you mix it with sport,
and you kind of know that farmers love their sports,
(03:13):
so it's a really good combination.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I think the cows and the milking shed to be
leaning in and listening to, wouldn't they engines?
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Well, they would really, I mean I picture in my mind.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I mean, as a broadcaster, you taught to sort of
think about one person and you talk to that one
person who's in the dairy shed.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
It is very very cold, milking cows with the old radio.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Sitting on the shelf going, and we get a lot
of response from people that do exactly that.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting that idea of You know, if
a broadcaster tried to imagine the thousands of people that
are listening at any one time, they would just be
struck dumb. But we do have this idea that we
just tune in and we imagine one person sitting across
the table from us, so especial greeting tonight to that
one person I'm talking to.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Yes, we all.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I mean I've spoken to a lot of young budding
broadcasting students over the years and I've always said, you
know a picture in your mind, what's your target market?
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Who are you talking to?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
And it might be your mother or your sister or whatever,
and just talk to them on a one on one basis.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, I know that my mother in law always listens in,
so that's why I have to behave myself so much
on a here So an Evening Francis the music side
of things, I guess the country label put me put
me down the wrong track. You're saying, you're playing rock
and classic rock on there. So it's not all country music.
(04:34):
That's not the country part of it.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
No, it's not the country part of it. Is the
rural aspect, more than anything but we do. Yeah, no,
it is in Gold and Gold. Am is just good
classic sort of sixties, seventies and eighties rock and it's fabulous.
Has been some great music over the years, so it's
really good to play classic WHO and ac DC and whatever.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Now you also have the luxury of a producer. A
lot of people on broadcasting don't have the luxury of
a producer, but it's great to have someone on the
controls that know what they doing and everything like this.
But I'm just wondering about the dynamic that you have
with your producer, because not only are they in a
different city there beaming in from Auckland while you were
done in Todronga. But there's different there's another dynamic acting
(05:20):
there as well.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yes, my producer is my son, my youngest son, who
actually turns thirty tomorrow. We celebrated his thirtieth birthday in
our home here in Taronga last night with a very
large gathering of his mates and family and also saying
fairwelling our house too because we're moving. We've been in
this hourse thirty years, so it was kind of a
(05:42):
treble celebration really with the King's Birthday gong as well.
So it was a big party. But yes, I refer
to Mark now's my boss. Yes, and I bow to
him with his sporting knowledge, I absolutely bow to him.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
I think I must have brought him up the right.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Way because he's absolutely passionate about sport. He represented New
Zealand at basketball, he played for the Rangers from out
West in Auckland for a brief time, went to college
in Americas, so he loves his basketball and is now
coaching Auckland Grammar Premiers as well as a third form team.
So he's just passionate about sport. And so he's the
(06:18):
brains behind the show.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You could say, I'm sure he can take a lot
of credit for the show's success. But do you get
all the credit for that n ZM that you picked
up last week?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
You've done a lot of collecting of gongs and awards
and things, a Lifetime Achievement award and admitted to the
what was it the Hall of Sports Journalists or something along.
The list is just too long to name them. But
the MENSM that's pretty special, isn't it that you must have?
You'd be allowed to perr a little bit over.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
That and incredibly unexpected I mean I don't go to
work to get gongs. I mean I go to work.
I enjoy doing what I'm doing. I tell people I've
never worked a day in my life. But also I'm
doing something I love. When I was five years old,
I decided I wanted to be a radio announcer, and
I've just followed that dream. But I you know, I
basically I sort ofm abum and talk to people.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
And it's as simple as that.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
And to give away our secret, mate, don't give away
our secret.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
If people knew that.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
This is actually really easy and actually a lot of fun,
they might not want want to pay us.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
But anyhow, I've had a lot of practice out of too.
As you said, fifty five years. You know, I haven't
been on air for fifty five years. In fact, I
was told by a boss once i'd never be ready
to announce it.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
But yeah, I just it was a surprise.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
It was a total surprise when I received a notification
four or five weeks ago from a government house or
wherever it came from. Wow, you know, and you don't
know who who nominates you. You sometimes think I might
be that one or that one, But it's a real
honor that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Who oh not so not knowing who did? It means
that you have to be polite and nice to everyone
these days.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Well I do.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
And the response once the list came out last Monday
was phenomenal. I was hearing from people that I hadn't
heard of for years and years, that I've worked with
over the years, and either in motorsport or in radio
whatever it might be, even listeners and wow, there's that person.
They're all congratulating, all saying well deserved and things, and
it's very humbly.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Well that's that's great. Well, it is well deserved. And
I hope that you have a lot of fun. I
hope you you have. I hope you sign up to
go down to the Government House to get it from
the Governor General because it's that that's a big buzz.
They put on a good show for you, so you
go for it. Now, you've mentioned a couple of things.
(08:43):
One of them was that you grew up in Fonganui
and so I know that you have good relationship with
your kids. I mean, if Mark's prepared to work with
you and your your morning DJ roll meant that you
were able to spend time with them so you've got
a good relationship there. Did you grow up in a
fairly close family?
Speaker 4 (09:04):
No, not really.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Actually, both myself and my sister were adopted, and you know,
we just grew up. I don't know. I probably a
little bit of a dreamer really. I just I love
sport as a kid growing up, and lots of friends
and things like that, and you know, I would do
set up radio stations and have fun and games like that.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Year did you how did you do that?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You just pretend that you're on the radio. And I
used to haunt the radio station. And one when I
grew up was two x A, which is or was
Tuesday W and I was probably a pain in the
backside of the announcers there because I'd ring up all
the time for dedications. When I was a teenager, I
take part in quizzes that the late great Bill Lethwick
used to run on the show, and I'd go into
(09:49):
the radio station. So I was I always had a
hankering for I guess it fascinated me for radio, and
you know, yeah, maybe i'd do that.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
But I was also involved.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
With with ce cadets, and I was a sea cadet
from the age of twelve, and I decided that, oh gee,
I quite like the navy life. I went to a
couple of camps in Auckland as a secret at from
Wanngenui Hi Men's it is tammocky and I went out
on a frigate once on the hi Mensis Waikato and
got violently seasick.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
So that was the end of my dream to become
a sailor. I did want to join the Navy, I thought, no,
I get sick by.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Now you could have been Admiral Kelly. You know, I
think you've already picked a better route for your skills. Now,
if you if you were growing up at forty six
Gonvilleve and Longanui.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Goodness me, where'd you get that from?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And if you're looking out, if you're looking at your
front window, you're looking straight across the road at a church.
Was that ever part of your world?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
That was the Knox Presbyterian Church in straight across the road?
I mean that that church wasn't. But we were a
Catholic family. My mother was very religious. Actually, my grandfather
was involved with Saint Mary's and Wanganui.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
The Catholic church there. In fact, I think he.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Was honored by the pope actually in his lifetime, and
I became an altar boy, went to Catholic schools taught
by nuns and brothers and priests. Was an altar boy,
enjoyed that and very involved with the church. And I
mean I've kept a Christian faith. I'm probably a lapsed
Catholic now, but you know I still have that Christian faith.
Our children went to Aquinas College here and here in tolduar,
(11:27):
So you know the faith is still.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
There, Isn't it amazing how that sort of those streams
of faith and involvement in church they do flow through
our culture and are still there, but it's not very
visible in our world today, is it. It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, I mean we always try and we always go
to Mass on Christmas Eve as a family.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
The family worn around some.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
My wife and I went along as Christmas Eve, but
we were very disappointed actually and thought, well, I don't
know whether we'll go again. The sermon was the worst
sermon I've ever heard by the priest turned people off.
It was just it's supposed to be a family mess
and there was just an over complicated sermon.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
He wasn't selling it, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Well, look, send a note after new Pope and see
if he can tap that guy on the shoulder to
get him to wake his ideas up a little bit.
I think so, Hey, if you've just tuned in, you're
probably recognizing the voice of the man that I'm talking to.
It's BK as Brian Kelly, and he's recently been honored
with an m NSM after fifty five years on the radio,
(12:28):
and he's going to be spending another fifteen minutes on
the radio after this break. We'll be back with him
in just a minute. This is real life on news Talk,
said B.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news Talk,
zed B.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
The great things.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
On People.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
In Trouble, repleash, Welcome back to real life, Welcome back
to Brian Kelly. And Brian picked that song reflections of
Is it reflections on my life or reflections of life?
Speaker 4 (13:04):
I can't recall what reflections of my life?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Of my life? And so you've that and are you
doing a lot of reflecting these days?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
You know the hardest thing was when your producer Sam
asked me, you know, to select a couple of songs
for tonight's We Chat with you.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
That's like you know who's your favorite child?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Because I love music so much and my genre stretches
from I'm a mad Beatles fan right through to even
music today.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
It was so very, very hard when actually.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Came home and picked up the guitar who was just
playing away, and I thought, oh, yeah, I love that.
Reflections of my life and I think the message was
really cool. A Scottish group Marmalade released that in nineteen seventy,
that song and it kind of sums up what we're doing,
just reflecting my life. Not over yet, I might say,
fifty five years in radio. I think I've still got
maybe another fifty to go.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah, yes, I'm sure, But I was just thinking, you've
got so much knowledge of music after hosting music stations
all those years and things. It must say picking a
song for tonight it must be like their first job
that you had. We sat down at a desk and
you had twenty thousand LPs or something in the next
(14:14):
room and you had to pick.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Some Well that my first, yes, my first role in radio,
went out of Wangenui as an innocent teenager at the
age of what nineteen or something, and I went to
Wellington and they ended up as a program trainee in
what was then National Radio which is now R and Z,
and the record library for the R and Z announcers
(14:39):
was actually an Aurora house on the terrace, and I
was shown Tom a desk and the desk had a turntable,
a pair of headphones, and then the next room was
the head office music library and there were twenty thousand
LPs in there, and it was the greatest learning curve
ever because going there, I was a teenager growing up
in that era, the sixties and seventies. You know, there
were the Beatles, rolling stones, doors and so on, and
(15:02):
I had no idea who the other entertainers were, you know,
Andre Costa, Larnetzs and the Ray Conniff singers. So it
was a great, great learning curve. And first programming job
I had was to program the all night National program
from midnight on Friday night right through till six o'clock
on the on the Monday morning, just to selecting all
(15:23):
the music.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Which was was great.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
So I just sat on my desk, put headphones on
and selected tracks from these albums. So I told people
I died and gone to heaven.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
And they paid. You paid your big money too, Yes,
I think I saw your first paycheck. Do you put
that online? That's, by the way, how I knew your
address because that was your accertance letter. That was that
you put online with you got my personal far We're
going to be talking about your tax returns a little while,
but it's yeah, I think was it you paid massive
(15:56):
money for that job?
Speaker 4 (15:57):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Forty one dollars for a fort.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Forty one dollars and I stayed he's forty one dollars.
Now that came the red.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
I stayed in the orient Boys Hostel around an Oriental
Bay in Wellington. It was sort of looked like an
aircraft hangar at the far end of Oriental Bay, and
a lot of boys that joined the public service back
in the nineteen seventy were all there.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
And that was my first experience of.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
The big smoke. And I still and then I went
home to Long I know, every weekend it was playing
in hotels with my guitar and group and things like that,
so really I was mixing both.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Well. They must have been a lot of fun. Look,
the thing that I get from reading interviews with you
and hearing your talk is that you have had a
lot of fun, and especially when radio opens stores to
other interests and loves of your life, like your motorsport.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, and that was another one that just living the
dream really. Once I'd sort of had the journey through
programming and then went to master it in a couple
of years after being in Wellington learning the skills of
programming radio stations and doing the same and mastered and
I decided I wanted to be a radio announcement. After
about half a dozen attempts of trying to pass the audition,
was told that my voice was too.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Light and I didn't have the voice for it.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Back then they were looking for people that had the
lovely hole and old brown cole. So I thought, well,
I love sports, So I started going out covering sport,
local sport and Marsterton and then Rob Crabtree, the late
Rob Crabtree, came to marstert And to cover a rally
around of the New Zealand Rally Championship and he wanted
me to come with him, and I loved it so much.
(17:33):
We were in the Naomu forests south of Marsterton and
he said, look, there's a vacancy coming up in Wellington sports.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
How would you like it?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
And I took it and my first major international rally
was the nineteen seventy five heat Way Rally, won by
Mike Marshall, and that was just brilliant.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
A whole week on the road Auckland to.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Wellington, long days and nights, and I was smitten and
met and have done have met some wonderful, wonderful people
over the years of covering rallying, Formula one, you know,
supercars and so on, it's been wonderful.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I sometimes wonder if covering you know, you know, if
cars are racing around on a track in front of you,
it would be easy, not easy, but you I could
imagine how you can do a commentary, you know, keeping
it live and everything. But when you know, a car
whizzles off into the forest and you don't see it
again for a while, and another car whizz has passed you,
how do you string that together into a cohesive story
(18:27):
that's going to be interesting for people listening on radio.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
I've always considered you're rallying people, and back in the day,
you know, I got to know the late Colin Giltrap
very well through rallying and we'd be standing in the
middle of a forest south of Routau somewhere. It'd be
two in the morning and it'd be pitch black and
it'd be cold and be a group of people and
you see lights flashing in the night sky and you'd
hear the bang and pop of the car, the Arti
(18:51):
Quatrie coming towards you, and then whosh it goes past.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
You had no idea almost who it was.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I couldn't see anything, and you're like, wow, fantastic, But
you know, you then go back to rally headquarters and
you get all the times and you painted the picture
because that guy might have been, you know, one second
faster than the behind them.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
But we're really strange rallying people. Where you do that,
you stand on.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
A corner, get showered and gravel and dust and find
it fascinating.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
But there is a skill.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
I've done a lot of rally of co driving as
well over the years and it's fun.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yes, So what do they call it co driving?
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Navigating or yes, navigating? Co driving?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I believe you know a very cool shortcut back to
Rotorua through the Kangaroa forest.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Oh you got that story too.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
We got lost one year and myself and another fellow
announcer from rotorro called Mike Bed. We got lost in
that forest. Very easy to get lost in there, I
might add. And it's flat ground. You had no landmarks,
We didn't know where. We were both having to MC
events that night, and we were quite concerned about getting
back on time.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
We did make it. They didn't have to send out a.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Search party, but we did make it.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, there's thousands of kilometers of road in there, aren't there.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
There's oh yeah, massive amounts, and it's all very flat
and you've got just trees all around you. You can't see
anything bar pine trees.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Right, So you enjoy riding in the cars as well.
I think you had a crack at an endurance record
or something.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Uh yeah, that was a few years ago. We said
a new news twenty four our endurance record at Manfield.
They were launching a new brand of oil for Castrol,
and they teed up a bunch of media people along
with a whole bunch of really good racing drivers who
taught us how to drive these beautiful BMW's And we
had two hour driving stints through the twenty four hours
(20:37):
at Manfield. And I must have lucked out because I
think my sessions were all two in the morning or
something like that. But it was still great because you
just had there were three cars on the track and
I was in one of the slower BMWs and you'd
see the faster six series come by you with just
the lights.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
It was still good.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Fun, right, well, the it must have still been a
lot of fun doing things like that. You're talking about
three am and two am, but you're still getting up
at three at probably about four am, you handle that. Okay,
I suppose that's radio life, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Well, it is.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
But I've always been a morning person, right from the
days of growing up among and he as a kid,
I worked in a bakery before school, I did morning
paper runs. I was always looking for ways to earn money,
but generally it was in the morning. So I yeah,
I've just always been a morning person. And you know,
I've been doing breakfast radio now since nineteen eighty in
(21:33):
tital You're getting up between three thirty and four. Good
thing about those hours is you get home, say ten
thirty or whatever time it might be. I always religiously
have asleep. Yep, even on weekends, I still do the
same thing. And batteries are charged and with the current job.
I can go back in in the afternoon to do
more interviews as well.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Right, hey, it's been great talking. If you're Brian, congratulations
again on your MNZM on fifty five years of radio.
Looking forward to that next fifty years as well. And
I know we could have talked so much longer, but
we got to go. And we're listening to another song
you've picked, which.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Is did You Have a Troubled Water? Paul Simon teeing
up with the legendary Joe not I.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I'm afraid but it's okay. But it's a fantastic talking
a few This is real life on News Talk ZB.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
For more from News Talk zed B, listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk SEDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection, It's Real life with John Cowen
on News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Goday, Welcome to Real Life. My guest Tonight has been
working in radio for more than fifty five years and
one at least twenty six radio awards, and last weekend,
in the King's Birthday Honors, he was made a member
of a New Zealand Order of Merit. Welcome Brian Kelly.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
John, absolute pleasure to join you on a Sunday night.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, it's great to hear your your dulcet tones, those
tones that have been delighting people for so many decades
on our show. Now, over your long career, you've had
lots of different roles on different stations and networks. How
could people hear these days? What are you? You're still
working on radio? Whereabouts are you hanging.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Out these days?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
So I'm now host of what is known as the
Country Sport Breakfast on Gold Am. The old radio sport frequencies.
When they shut radio sport down zed me, they basically
launched a country sport breakfast show, and it's basically about
sixty to seventy percent sport mixed with country stories, talking
(01:36):
to people on farms and involved in the rural industry,
and coupled with that we throw in some really great
sort of classic rock tracks, some ACDC doors, rolling stones
across the course of the three hours that I do
it every morning.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Our studios are based in the nzed Me building in.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Toldonger, so that's been my home now for the last
forty five fifty years, although I did have a seven
year stint in Auckland and I work for Coast Right.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yes, I want to talk a bit about all the
different things you've done over that Korea. But this gig
that you've got now, I know that you're you're a
self confessed sports nut, so that aspect of it's fantastic,
and you love the music and everything. What about the
country side of things that because you're they're pitching the
station to the country audience from the whole length of
(02:24):
the country, isn't it. But you're a bit of a
city boy, aren't you.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, you're right, I mean when it was first put
to me, how would you like to be the host
of this new look show. I had to sort of
take second thoughts on it really, because yes, grew up.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
I guess you call Wanganui a city. It is a city.
It has been for a long time.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
But basically, although you know, from time to time i'd
visit farms and relations that owned farms and the whited
Appa and things like that.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
But yeah, basically a city boy.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So I guess it just involves a lot more research
and reading and so on. But I still find it
fascinating because you know, country people and the rural aspect
of our country is the backbone of our country, so
it's a pretty major part. And you mix it with sport,
and you kind of know that farmers love their sports,
(03:13):
so it's a really good combination.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I think the cows and the milking shed to be
leaning in and listening to, wouldn't they engines?
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Well, they would really, I mean I picture in my mind.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I mean, as a broadcaster, you taught to sort of
think about one person and you talk to that one
person who's in the dairy shed.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
It is very very cold, milking cows with the old radio.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Sitting on the shelf going, and we get a lot
of response from people that do exactly that.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting that idea of You know, if
a broadcaster tried to imagine the thousands of people that
are listening at any one time, they would just be
struck dumb. But we do have this idea that we
just tune in and we imagine one person sitting across
the table from us, so especial greeting tonight to that
one person I'm talking to.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Yes, we all.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I mean I've spoken to a lot of young budding
broadcasting students over the years and I've always said, you
know a picture in your mind, what's your target market?
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Who are you talking to?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
And it might be your mother or your sister or whatever,
and just talk to them on a one on one basis.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, I know that my mother in law always listens in,
so that's why I have to behave myself so much
on a here So an Evening Francis the music side
of things, I guess the country label put me put
me down the wrong track. You're saying, you're playing rock
and classic rock on there. So it's not all country music.
(04:34):
That's not the country part of it.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
No, it's not the country part of it. Is the
rural aspect, more than anything but we do. Yeah, no,
it is in Gold and Gold. Am is just good
classic sort of sixties, seventies and eighties rock and it's fabulous.
Has been some great music over the years, so it's
really good to play classic WHO and ac DC and whatever.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Now you also have the luxury of a producer. A
lot of people on broadcasting don't have the luxury of
a producer, but it's great to have someone on the
controls that know what they doing and everything like this.
But I'm just wondering about the dynamic that you have
with your producer, because not only are they in a
different city there beaming in from Auckland while you were
done in Todronga. But there's different there's another dynamic acting
(05:20):
there as well.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yes, my producer is my son, my youngest son, who
actually turns thirty tomorrow. We celebrated his thirtieth birthday in
our home here in Taronga last night with a very
large gathering of his mates and family and also saying
fairwelling our house too because we're moving. We've been in
this hourse thirty years, so it was kind of a
(05:42):
treble celebration really with the King's Birthday gong as well.
So it was a big party. But yes, I refer
to Mark now's my boss. Yes, and I bow to
him with his sporting knowledge, I absolutely bow to him.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
I think I must have brought him up the right.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Way because he's absolutely passionate about sport. He represented New
Zealand at basketball, he played for the Rangers from out
West in Auckland for a brief time, went to college
in Americas, so he loves his basketball and is now
coaching Auckland Grammar Premiers as well as a third form team.
So he's just passionate about sport. And so he's the
(06:18):
brains behind the show.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You could say, I'm sure he can take a lot
of credit for the show's success. But do you get
all the credit for that n ZM that you picked
up last week?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
You've done a lot of collecting of gongs and awards
and things, a Lifetime Achievement award and admitted to the
what was it the Hall of Sports Journalists or something along.
The list is just too long to name them. But
the MENSM that's pretty special, isn't it that you must have?
You'd be allowed to perr a little bit over.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
That and incredibly unexpected I mean I don't go to
work to get gongs. I mean I go to work.
I enjoy doing what I'm doing. I tell people I've
never worked a day in my life. But also I'm
doing something I love. When I was five years old,
I decided I wanted to be a radio announcer, and
I've just followed that dream. But I you know, I
basically I sort ofm abum and talk to people.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
And it's as simple as that.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
And to give away our secret, mate, don't give away
our secret.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
If people knew that.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
This is actually really easy and actually a lot of fun,
they might not want want to pay us.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
But anyhow, I've had a lot of practice out of too.
As you said, fifty five years. You know, I haven't
been on air for fifty five years. In fact, I
was told by a boss once i'd never be ready
to announce it.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
But yeah, I just it was a surprise.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
It was a total surprise when I received a notification
four or five weeks ago from a government house or
wherever it came from. Wow, you know, and you don't
know who who nominates you. You sometimes think I might
be that one or that one, But it's a real
honor that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Who oh not so not knowing who did? It means
that you have to be polite and nice to everyone
these days.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Well I do.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
And the response once the list came out last Monday
was phenomenal. I was hearing from people that I hadn't
heard of for years and years, that I've worked with
over the years, and either in motorsport or in radio
whatever it might be, even listeners and wow, there's that person.
They're all congratulating, all saying well deserved and things, and
it's very humbly.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Well that's that's great. Well, it is well deserved. And
I hope that you have a lot of fun. I
hope you you have. I hope you sign up to
go down to the Government House to get it from
the Governor General because it's that that's a big buzz.
They put on a good show for you, so you
go for it. Now, you've mentioned a couple of things.
(08:43):
One of them was that you grew up in Fonganui
and so I know that you have good relationship with
your kids. I mean, if Mark's prepared to work with
you and your your morning DJ roll meant that you
were able to spend time with them so you've got
a good relationship there. Did you grow up in a
fairly close family?
Speaker 4 (09:04):
No, not really.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Actually, both myself and my sister were adopted, and you know,
we just grew up. I don't know. I probably a
little bit of a dreamer really. I just I love
sport as a kid growing up, and lots of friends
and things like that, and you know, I would do
set up radio stations and have fun and games like that.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Year did you how did you do that?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You just pretend that you're on the radio. And I
used to haunt the radio station. And one when I
grew up was two x A, which is or was
Tuesday W and I was probably a pain in the
backside of the announcers there because I'd ring up all
the time for dedications. When I was a teenager, I
take part in quizzes that the late great Bill Lethwick
used to run on the show, and I'd go into
(09:49):
the radio station. So I was I always had a
hankering for I guess it fascinated me for radio, and
you know, yeah, maybe i'd do that.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
But I was also involved.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
With with ce cadets, and I was a sea cadet
from the age of twelve, and I decided that, oh gee,
I quite like the navy life. I went to a
couple of camps in Auckland as a secret at from
Wanngenui Hi Men's it is tammocky and I went out
on a frigate once on the hi Mensis Waikato and
got violently seasick.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
So that was the end of my dream to become
a sailor. I did want to join the Navy, I thought, no,
I get sick by.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Now you could have been Admiral Kelly. You know, I
think you've already picked a better route for your skills. Now,
if you if you were growing up at forty six
Gonvilleve and Longanui.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Goodness me, where'd you get that from?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And if you're looking out, if you're looking at your
front window, you're looking straight across the road at a church.
Was that ever part of your world?
Speaker 3 (10:48):
That was the Knox Presbyterian Church in straight across the road?
I mean that that church wasn't. But we were a
Catholic family. My mother was very religious. Actually, my grandfather
was involved with Saint Mary's and Wanganui.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
The Catholic church there. In fact, I think he.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Was honored by the pope actually in his lifetime, and
I became an altar boy, went to Catholic schools taught
by nuns and brothers and priests. Was an altar boy,
enjoyed that and very involved with the church. And I
mean I've kept a Christian faith. I'm probably a lapsed
Catholic now, but you know I still have that Christian faith.
Our children went to Aquinas College here and here in tolduar,
(11:27):
So you know the faith is still.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
There, Isn't it amazing how that sort of those streams
of faith and involvement in church they do flow through
our culture and are still there, but it's not very
visible in our world today, is it. It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Yeah, I mean we always try and we always go
to Mass on Christmas Eve as a family.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
The family worn around some.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
My wife and I went along as Christmas Eve, but
we were very disappointed actually and thought, well, I don't
know whether we'll go again. The sermon was the worst
sermon I've ever heard by the priest turned people off.
It was just it's supposed to be a family mess
and there was just an over complicated sermon.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
He wasn't selling it, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Well, look, send a note after new Pope and see
if he can tap that guy on the shoulder to
get him to wake his ideas up a little bit.
I think so, Hey, if you've just tuned in, you're
probably recognizing the voice of the man that I'm talking to.
It's BK as Brian Kelly, and he's recently been honored
with an m NSM after fifty five years on the radio,
(12:28):
and he's going to be spending another fifteen minutes on
the radio after this break. We'll be back with him
in just a minute. This is real life on news Talk,
said B.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news Talk,
zed B.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
The great things.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
On People.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
In Trouble, repleash, Welcome back to real life, Welcome back
to Brian Kelly. And Brian picked that song reflections of
Is it reflections on my life or reflections of life?
Speaker 4 (13:04):
I can't recall what reflections of my life?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Of my life? And so you've that and are you
doing a lot of reflecting these days?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
You know the hardest thing was when your producer Sam
asked me, you know, to select a couple of songs
for tonight's We Chat with you.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
That's like you know who's your favorite child?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Because I love music so much and my genre stretches
from I'm a mad Beatles fan right through to even
music today.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
It was so very, very hard when actually.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Came home and picked up the guitar who was just
playing away, and I thought, oh, yeah, I love that.
Reflections of my life and I think the message was
really cool. A Scottish group Marmalade released that in nineteen seventy,
that song and it kind of sums up what we're doing,
just reflecting my life. Not over yet, I might say,
fifty five years in radio. I think I've still got
maybe another fifty to go.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah, yes, I'm sure, But I was just thinking, you've
got so much knowledge of music after hosting music stations
all those years and things. It must say picking a
song for tonight it must be like their first job
that you had. We sat down at a desk and
you had twenty thousand LPs or something in the next
(14:14):
room and you had to pick.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Some Well that my first, yes, my first role in radio,
went out of Wangenui as an innocent teenager at the
age of what nineteen or something, and I went to
Wellington and they ended up as a program trainee in
what was then National Radio which is now R and Z,
and the record library for the R and Z announcers
(14:39):
was actually an Aurora house on the terrace, and I
was shown Tom a desk and the desk had a turntable,
a pair of headphones, and then the next room was
the head office music library and there were twenty thousand
LPs in there, and it was the greatest learning curve
ever because going there, I was a teenager growing up
in that era, the sixties and seventies. You know, there
were the Beatles, rolling stones, doors and so on, and
(15:02):
I had no idea who the other entertainers were, you know,
Andre Costa, Larnetzs and the Ray Conniff singers. So it
was a great, great learning curve. And first programming job
I had was to program the all night National program
from midnight on Friday night right through till six o'clock
on the on the Monday morning, just to selecting all
(15:23):
the music.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Which was was great.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
So I just sat on my desk, put headphones on
and selected tracks from these albums. So I told people
I died and gone to heaven.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
And they paid. You paid your big money too, Yes,
I think I saw your first paycheck. Do you put
that online? That's, by the way, how I knew your
address because that was your accertance letter. That was that
you put online with you got my personal far We're
going to be talking about your tax returns a little while,
but it's yeah, I think was it you paid massive
(15:56):
money for that job?
Speaker 4 (15:57):
What was it?
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Forty one dollars for a fort.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Forty one dollars and I stayed he's forty one dollars.
Now that came the red.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
I stayed in the orient Boys Hostel around an Oriental
Bay in Wellington. It was sort of looked like an
aircraft hangar at the far end of Oriental Bay, and
a lot of boys that joined the public service back
in the nineteen seventy were all there.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
And that was my first experience of.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
The big smoke. And I still and then I went
home to Long I know, every weekend it was playing
in hotels with my guitar and group and things like that,
so really I was mixing both.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Well. They must have been a lot of fun. Look,
the thing that I get from reading interviews with you
and hearing your talk is that you have had a
lot of fun, and especially when radio opens stores to
other interests and loves of your life, like your motorsport.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, and that was another one that just living the
dream really. Once I'd sort of had the journey through
programming and then went to master it in a couple
of years after being in Wellington learning the skills of
programming radio stations and doing the same and mastered and
I decided I wanted to be a radio announcement. After
about half a dozen attempts of trying to pass the audition,
was told that my voice was too.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Light and I didn't have the voice for it.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Back then they were looking for people that had the
lovely hole and old brown cole. So I thought, well,
I love sports, So I started going out covering sport,
local sport and Marsterton and then Rob Crabtree, the late
Rob Crabtree, came to marstert And to cover a rally
around of the New Zealand Rally Championship and he wanted
me to come with him, and I loved it so much.
(17:33):
We were in the Naomu forests south of Marsterton and
he said, look, there's a vacancy coming up in Wellington sports.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
How would you like it?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
And I took it and my first major international rally
was the nineteen seventy five heat Way Rally, won by
Mike Marshall, and that was just brilliant.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
A whole week on the road Auckland to.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Wellington, long days and nights, and I was smitten and
met and have done have met some wonderful, wonderful people
over the years of covering rallying, Formula one, you know,
supercars and so on, it's been wonderful.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I sometimes wonder if covering you know, you know, if
cars are racing around on a track in front of you,
it would be easy, not easy, but you I could
imagine how you can do a commentary, you know, keeping
it live and everything. But when you know, a car
whizzles off into the forest and you don't see it
again for a while, and another car whizz has passed you,
how do you string that together into a cohesive story
(18:27):
that's going to be interesting for people listening on radio.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
I've always considered you're rallying people, and back in the day,
you know, I got to know the late Colin Giltrap
very well through rallying and we'd be standing in the
middle of a forest south of Routau somewhere. It'd be
two in the morning and it'd be pitch black and
it'd be cold and be a group of people and
you see lights flashing in the night sky and you'd
hear the bang and pop of the car, the Arti
(18:51):
Quatrie coming towards you, and then whosh it goes past.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
You had no idea almost who it was.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I couldn't see anything, and you're like, wow, fantastic, But
you know, you then go back to rally headquarters and
you get all the times and you painted the picture
because that guy might have been, you know, one second
faster than the behind them.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
But we're really strange rallying people. Where you do that,
you stand on.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
A corner, get showered and gravel and dust and find
it fascinating.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
But there is a skill.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
I've done a lot of rally of co driving as
well over the years and it's fun.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yes, So what do they call it co driving?
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Navigating or yes, navigating? Co driving?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I believe you know a very cool shortcut back to
Rotorua through the Kangaroa forest.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Oh you got that story too.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
We got lost one year and myself and another fellow
announcer from rotorro called Mike Bed. We got lost in
that forest. Very easy to get lost in there, I
might add. And it's flat ground. You had no landmarks,
We didn't know where. We were both having to MC
events that night, and we were quite concerned about getting
back on time.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
We did make it. They didn't have to send out a.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Search party, but we did make it.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, there's thousands of kilometers of road in there, aren't there.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
There's oh yeah, massive amounts, and it's all very flat
and you've got just trees all around you. You can't see
anything bar pine trees.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Right, So you enjoy riding in the cars as well.
I think you had a crack at an endurance record
or something.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Uh yeah, that was a few years ago. We said
a new news twenty four our endurance record at Manfield.
They were launching a new brand of oil for Castrol,
and they teed up a bunch of media people along
with a whole bunch of really good racing drivers who
taught us how to drive these beautiful BMW's And we
had two hour driving stints through the twenty four hours
(20:37):
at Manfield. And I must have lucked out because I
think my sessions were all two in the morning or
something like that. But it was still great because you
just had there were three cars on the track and
I was in one of the slower BMWs and you'd
see the faster six series come by you with just
the lights.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
It was still good.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Fun, right, well, the it must have still been a
lot of fun doing things like that. You're talking about
three am and two am, but you're still getting up
at three at probably about four am, you handle that. Okay,
I suppose that's radio life, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Well, it is.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
But I've always been a morning person, right from the
days of growing up among and he as a kid,
I worked in a bakery before school, I did morning
paper runs. I was always looking for ways to earn money,
but generally it was in the morning. So I yeah,
I've just always been a morning person. And you know,
I've been doing breakfast radio now since nineteen eighty in
(21:33):
tital You're getting up between three thirty and four. Good
thing about those hours is you get home, say ten
thirty or whatever time it might be. I always religiously
have asleep. Yep, even on weekends, I still do the
same thing. And batteries are charged and with the current job.
I can go back in in the afternoon to do
more interviews as well.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Right, hey, it's been great talking. If you're Brian, congratulations
again on your MNZM on fifty five years of radio.
Looking forward to that next fifty years as well. And
I know we could have talked so much longer, but
we got to go. And we're listening to another song
you've picked, which.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Is did You Have a Troubled Water? Paul Simon teeing
up with the legendary Joe not I.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I'm afraid but it's okay. But it's a fantastic talking
a few This is real life on News Talk ZB.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
For more from News Talk zed B, listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
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