December 5, 2025 • 54 mins
Join Buzz Knight for a special live recording of “Takin’ A Walk - Music History on Foot” at Emmanuel College in Boston, featuring legendary WZLX morning show host Chuck Nowlin. With decades of experience in Boston rock radio, Chuck shares captivating stories from his career at one of New England’s most iconic classic rock stations.
In this in-depth conversation, Chuck Nowlin discusses his journey through the Boston radio landscape, the evolution of morning show broadcasting, and what it takes to connect with rock radio audiences day after day. From memorable on-air moments to behind-the-scenes insights about WZLX (100.7 FM), Chuck reveals the art of personality-driven radio and the enduring appeal of classic rock format programming.
Listeners will discover Chuck’s perspective on:
• The golden era of Boston FM radio and its legendary personalities
• Building authentic connections with morning drive audiences
• Classic rock’s staying power in today’s media landscape
• The craft of live radio broadcasting and spontaneous storytelling
• Navigating the changing radio industry while staying true to the music
Whether you’re a Boston radio enthusiast, classic rock fan, or aspiring broadcaster, this episode offers insider knowledge from one of WZLX’s most respected voices. Recorded live at Emmanuel College, this conversation captures the passion and expertise that has made Chuck Nowlin a staple of Boston mornings.
If this episode of Takin’ a Walk – Music History on Foot struck a chord with you, we invite you to keep the journey going by exploring the many other stories, conversations, and musical pathways waiting in our episode library. Every installment of the podcast opens a new door into the world of music—whether it’s a deep dive into a legendary artist’s creative process, a walk through the overlooked corners of music history, or a compelling conversation with the people who shape the soundtrack of our lives. There’s an entire universe of rhythm, narrative, nostalgia, discovery, and behind-the-scenes insight spread across our past episodes, each one crafted to make your next walk, drive, workout, or moment of downtime more meaningful, more memorable, and more connected to the music you love. So don’t stop here—take a few extra steps and check out the rest of the Takin’ a Walk – Music History on Foot catalog. The stories waiting for you are as timeless, surprising, and inspiring as the songs that have carried you through your life. Keep listening and discover your next favorite episode.
Support the show: https://takinawalk.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Well, I'm Buds Night and I'm the host of the
Taking a Walk Podcast, and I'm so excited to be
live in front of an audience for the first time
recording the Taking a Walk Podcast. We are at the
wonderful Emmanuel College and fantastic Boston, Massachusetts.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I couldn't be any happier. And I'm even happier that
the person I'm going to be interviewing on this.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Taking a Walk episode is a legendary disc jockey in Boston, Massachusetts.
I dare say call him iconic. He has been on
WZLX one hundred point seven, Boston's classic rock station for decades,
and recently he has moved into Morning Drive, the big
(00:48):
spot on the radio station.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Next, we're going to speak to Chuck Nolan on Taking
a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Taking a Walk, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Chuck Nolan to
the Taking.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
A Lot Podcast. Wow, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
That was fantastic, thunderous applause.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
First of all, what did you think? It was a
lot more thunderous than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, I thought it was fantastic. It's so great to
be with you, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
We have a lot of stories to tell I'm so
happy that I was able to mildly convince you to
come over here and do this episode.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
It didn't take much cajoling, by the way, No.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
No, I thought it was a bit much.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
That you had asked for the limousine service.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And have the rider making sure I have my special
beverages and everything ready.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Did you get everything that you needed?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I did?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Thank you everything to your satisfaction, mister Nolan, I'm ready
to go. Yes, I have to say, Chuck looks identical
to the moment that I first met him. He looks
that was a long time ago. You look absolutely the same.
I'm sure I do too.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Right, Buzz was this kind during contract negotiations too, He
was just.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Like this my favorite time of the year and year.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yes, absolutely, Yeah, Well, we have a lot to talk about.
I'm so happy for you now moving into morning Drive
on WZLX, so we're going to talk about that. We're
going to talk about your career, your storied career, which
has taken on a new chapter, which I think is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Coming out of the radio business.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I love being able to certainly talk to my dear
friends from radio on the podcast, talk to musicians in general,
but the radio stories are always near and dear to
my heart. So, Chuck, before we get into the festivities proceedings,
let me ask you the opening question. So, if you
(03:04):
could take a walk with someone living or dead, who
would you take a walk with?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Then where would you take that walk?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Oh? So this is the part where I should say,
like John Lennon, right, no, say would you walk down
Penny Lane? And I'd ask him when you wrote yellow
matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye, what did
that mean? Exactly? Yeah, But instead I'm going to say
my dad. I lost my dad when I was twenty
(03:32):
five years old. We did not have the best relationship.
I was the youngest of four. I think after the
third one maybe they had had enough of kids. But
there I was. And he was the kind of guy
who was really into security. He had a very safe job,
despite the fact that he went to Holy Cross College.
He was like a four letter athlete track and field, football, hockey.
(03:58):
He was offered a minor league and NH contract. Turned
it down because he had to go to Buffalo, because
that was taking a chance. He had a very secure
job with the United States Postal Service. So I was
going to Worcester State College, majoring in economics, looking forward
to an enriching career of macro and microeconomics. But it
(04:20):
just wasn't for me. And I used to go past
the radio station and it looked really cool. There's all
that equipment in there, they're blasting rock music. But I
was way too too introverted to actually go in there
and ask what they were doing. So I applied to
the Connecticut School of Broadcasting into Hartford, so I had
(04:40):
to drive. I would go to class in Worcester during
the daytime. At night, I had to drive to Hartford
for night classes, and I'm surprised they let me in
because the first thing you had to do was read
a commercial to see what you sounded like. I'm from Worcester,
I had a really heavy accent. So the commercial was
mother pockat Donuts, and that's exactly how I read it.
(05:02):
But then I realized if you had money for the tuition,
they would take you anyway. So I ended up going
towards that and leaving Worcester State College, and I got
my first job at an AM station in Worcester running
the religious tapes on Sunday morning. That was it, and
it took me a long time to really get going,
and he was really angry at me and never seemed
(05:24):
to really recover from it. So I'd like to take
a walk with him and say it all worked out.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Okay, Amen, Amen to that.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
That.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Is it fair to say, though, that asking that.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Question at different times could be producing different answers or
depending on certain moments, that's what some people say.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
They say, well, look.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Today I would say it's my father. Maybe certain points
I would reflect.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
On my mother, or maybe you would be a celebrity.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So I think I think the beauty of the question
is a there's no right or wrong answer, and B
it probably changes by the by the moment.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Sometimes I think you're right, and as you get a
little older, you start looking back on things like that
family means a lot more.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And I think he would be looking at this in
your conversation and thinking, yeah, it did turn out all right.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I had my doubts. But you know, did he ever
get to hear you on the radio?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
He did, being a whisper. When I eventually got up
through the ranks of radio, I worked at WAF which
was the rock station, was the really cool rock station
in town, and he used to take these walks and
one Dave was going past the school bus stop and
all the kids are waiting for the school bus, and
he asked him, Hey, do you guys ever listen? Hey, well, ye,
(06:49):
my son's on there, Chuck Nolan, And some of them went,
Chuck Nolan, that's your son. From that moment, I was
in a different light to him. Hey, I talked to
these people today. They knew who you were.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I wasn't making any money at the time.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
But do you think he listened?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
No? Absolutely, I'm playing Van Halen. He's not gonna listen
to that.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, I bet he'd stunk a listen.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Maybe he didn't say so, though he wouldn't tell me.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I was fortunate I got to have my parents listened
when I was on two different radio stations I ninety
five and Connecticut and WNWFM in New.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
York is where I grew up.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
It was Stanford, Connecticut, so each station was in an earshot,
and I remember there were a few moments, some of
the bits that we did on the morning show at
I ninety five, my mother would like, she would go, no,
I don't like that you had mud wrestling women on
on the station didn't.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Sound right or the audience loved it.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Though the audience loved but my mother not necessarily.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
I used to use my mother for a bit.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Actually, you put her on the air.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
She would do concert announcements and one of them was
when David Bowie came to town. And the beauty of
it was she said, David Bowie, let her go right.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's great, Josephine, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, yeah, So WAAF the first big break in your career?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yep?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
And what time of day.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Were you on? Eventually, when I became full time there,
I did afternoon drive, so I was taking people home
from two to seven pm. There's two drive times, morning
drive and afternoon drive. People driving in, people driving home,
so I would take them home.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And what was the lineup on AAF in those days?
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Bob and Zip in the morning, Bob Rivers, Bob Rivers.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Who passed away in the last three year, legendary disc jockey,
and it was Anna Lisa, she was great, she's in
Chicago now.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Then it was me, and then it was Ian O'Malley
who went on to marry the daughter of a billionaire.
And on Facebook he likes to share photos and videos
of him on their ship.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Really, Oh my god, oh my god?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Did all right? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yeah? So at AAF How long were you there?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I was there probably eight years.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
And then we went to Florida.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
After that, I did I wanted to break out and
see if I could make it on my own because
I grew up in Worcester. I enjoyed it, but I
wanted to move up into a bigger market, makes more money.
So this offer came along Miami. My god, Miami in January.
That must be amazing. So I went down there interviewed.
They offered me the job to work at ninety seven GTR,
(09:54):
the Rock and roll Animals, and I was on the afternoon.
Months later, they blew up the whole station, changed the
format into like an easy listening kind of a station.
They fired everybody, but they felt bad for me that
they brought me down from Boston for a six month job.
So they made me the morning man. But they wanted
(10:16):
to change my name so there's no affiliation with the
old station. So I said, I don't know what name
I want to use. They said, what's your middle name?
I thought, no, I became Chuck Michaels. It's so awful.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Chuck Michaels, Now, how did you sound smoother?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I did?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I turned it on.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
With the velvet voice. Then what was the deal?
Speaker 1 (10:41):
So Florida's Coast ninety seven point three FM, Miami, Fort
Lauderdale and the Palm Beaches. Here's p bo Bryson.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Now what was worse? Doing that? Or getting your teeth extracted?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That was painful. Although I made a friend of mine
who did mornings at the rock station in town, and
he had a boat, so we would get off the
air at ten o'clock. By ten thirty we were on
his boat and we would cruise up the Interra Coastal,
which was just all bars and clubs, and we would
stay out way too late.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Was that Paul Kastronova?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Paul castron that's correct, Yes, yep. So we're still in
the business, and he's still there on the area.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
And he's an iHeart brethren, that's right.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Right, Yeah, he's working a big in Miami, so a
small business, can't you tell?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Right? We know everybody knows someone who knows someone, right, So.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I did that for a while, and then I realized,
I really have to get out of here. This is
not good for me. I was living the Miami lifestyle.
So I thought, I have to get back to civilization.
So I started looking for a job back here, and
that's when the afternoon job opened up at WZLX and
I came back.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Now I cannot take the credit for hiring him. On
w ZOX. There was a was a John Sewn Shamby.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Who was also dear friend, still in contact with him
in Nashville, consultant for talent and artists, actually as an
art a country artist that he manages. But John Shamby
deserves the credit for bringing Chuck Noll into the w
z X. Before we get into ZLX, I do have
(12:22):
to ask you, what was the first moment you remember
growing up that you were deeply connected with music, that
you knew somehow music was going to be in your blood,
in your life, not necessarily radio, but when did you
first connect with music.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Being the youngest of four and it was three boys
and our tortured sister, my oldest brother Rick had a
great record collection and an incredible stereo system, giant speakers.
He put everything into that thing. We were in strict
orders never to tell. So as soon as he left,
of course, I'd go through his album and start playing
(13:03):
the music and Errolsmith and the doors and all this stuff.
And he started putting little slips of paper into the
albums to see if they fell out, to see if
anybody touched his sacred album. That they did, he would
just beat the crap out of it. So that's where
I really started to like music like that. But I
(13:23):
guess my first love of radio was we were all
three boys crammed into a tiny room. It was just
mattresses on every wall. And he used to like to
listen to a radio at night to fall asleep, and
there was a guy on the air called Larry Glake
on WBZ, and he would just tell UFO stories and
ghost stories all night. And I'm a little kid, scare
(13:46):
the crap out of me. But it was fascinating and
I could picture everything that he said in my mind,
and I really loved that kind of storytelling, and it
kind of got me interested in radio.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
So did you have a play B.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I guess so if this saidn't didn't work out, yeah,
So to make my father happy, I saved that.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
It comes up later. I'm going to ask you about
the plan. Be later I realized I was stepping around
my own line. Of questioning. All right, teaser, it was
a teaser. Coming up, Yeah, coming up. So let's get
to the ZLX years, the great years. So you settled in.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Immediately to afternoon Drive, and the radio station was already
a solid, well known brand.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
But I can only attest to getting there in ninety
two and observing the.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Station and when you get hired as a program director,
which I was, you're there to sort of assess who's there,
decide who's a keeper who's not. So I knew instantly
there was a keeper, and Chuck Nole, I'm not sure
I knew necessarily the other keepers will leave that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
That's interesting because when you do a radio show, you
have to record your show, and every now and then
you have to go into the program director's office and
do what's called an air check. And you sit there
and you listen to your show with the program director
while you're staring at the floor and you're cringing at
some of the stuff that you said and he's not
(15:27):
saying anything, and then he stops it, and then he
tells you what you did right, But then he tells
you what you did wrong and how you can improve.
You were good, though there wasn't much to look there.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
There's always things to critique, tighten this up, do this.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
But he he was always like spot on in terms
of what he knew he was going to say.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Prepared generally, no, very well prepared. Once again, I knew
I had.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Someone that I had tremendous confidence in to be able
to do the work with the audience and then ultimately,
you know, work with the advertisers. He had this tremendous
benchmark feature, Chuck's Bar and Grill, Chuck's Bar and Grill,
which took him out all through the Boston metropolitan area.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
How many of those did you venture?
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Oh my god. We used to do them almost every
Friday from five to seven pm for people to start
the weekend. It would be sponsored by Budweiser. So we
would go to bars and we were broadcast live, and
by five o'clock on a Friday, people are in a
pretty good move. Then they get a couple of beers
in them and then I have to be careful what
they're saying in the microphone. But it would get pretty raucous.
(16:48):
But it was a lot of fun getting out there
and meeting people. I mean, when you do a radio show,
you're in a room by yourself talking into a piece
of metal. You get out there and you meet people,
and you know, they talk about things they said, what
fans they are at the radio station, and the music
that we play. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Now there was a time though, that we needed to
have because of the exterior noises from audience members. We
needed to have a delay, right, Yes, we did, like
not right away, but I think we probably got burned
with somebody dropping yes, you know, some F bomb or
something right.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Or S bombs.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yes, So rules had to change and suddenly you have
to put the seven second delay on. But yeah, Chuck's
Bar and Grill a legendary part of Afternoon Drive on WZLX.
Let's play a fast game. This is where my teaser
came and we'll.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Call this the fast five. Ready, all right, okay.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Number one favorite desert island disc the one album that
I take with me to a desert island.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I would have to say Pink Floyd's Dark Side of
the Moon.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Number two. Most underrated classic rock band Black Crows. Christopher Robinson.
Great vocalists.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
He's played with all kinds of different bands. He confront
any band he just played with the Joe Perry Project.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Best concert you ever went to.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
The Boston Strong Concert right after the Boston Marathon bombing.
A month later at the Garden. They put on a
show to raise money and almost every huge Boston artist
was there. Aerosmith, j Giles, Boston, Jimmy Buffett showed up
for it. New kids on the block were there, and
(18:49):
it was just so electric. I was helping with some
of the MC duties, so I was backstage and just
everybody was so together, and it really you remember Boston
Strong and how it has the city came together so much.
That audience at the Garden sold out, was so loud
and so together on this and the band Boston and
(19:10):
Tom Schulz came out and he opened it up with
this really heavy guitar solo electric guitar version of the
National Anthem. Plays went crazy. It was a great show.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Chilling event because it represented something so important to the community,
and when you really reflect on it, it was the
unifying spirit of community and music at a time that boy,
this community really needed. I have chills thinking about it.
I remember the show as well. All right, number four
(19:45):
vinyl CD or streaming?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
What's your favorite?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
My favorite for sound mode.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Wow, does anybody have a turntable? Yeah, When my daughter
was sixteen years old, she asked for a turntable for
Christmas because I had taken up my old equipment from
the basement. My kids when they were little, had never
seen this before. It's magic. It was like a rotary phone.
I took it out, hooked it up, took out the album,
(20:17):
put it down, put the needle on it, and it
started playing music. And they were just staring at it,
like you know, they were from outer space. But I
think vinyl sounds so good. It's got such a richer sound,
especially the older albums because they were recorded analog on tape,
not digital, so you have a lot more fidelity to it.
So I love that. I don't have my turntable hooked
(20:38):
up right now, but I would go Vinyl then CD
than streaming for quality, for sound quality. And I don't
know about you guys, but my daughter listens to music
on her phone on the phone speaker. She'll walk around
listening to music on that, like you know, you can
put that, you can bluetooth that onto one of the
many speakers we have around. This is fine, It's not fine.
(21:02):
Gotta sound it would get a really good sound out
of it, not out of your phone.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, well it's a different generation.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Okay. Last question on the Fast five what was your
plan B.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
My plan B was since my dad was so upset
about my chosen career path, I took the Civil Service Exam.
That's the test you take to see if you can
work for the United States Postal Service. I stupidly scored
very high. They hired me right away. I was a
(21:37):
summer replacement letter carrier for the town of West Boyleston,
and I had a truck, and I had a uniform
and I had my mail and I was out there
over the course of three months. I got bitten twice.
Each time it was the same thing, delivering a package
and they're coming to the door again, I'm like, oh
(21:58):
wait wait, And it was always he doesn't bite, don't
you just eat? Just barks, and soon as the door opens,
they would just be on my leg, tearing it open.
So I really didn't like it, and I didn't want
to do it. I wanted to pursue this, although I
was really having trouble getting started, but I couldn't do it.
I just it wasn't inmate. So when I told my
dad I was quitting the post office. He didn't talk
(22:21):
to me for maybe a month. That was my plan, Bab,
was to go back to the post office.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I guess unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So you've made a tremendous career move.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
I must say I was happy when I heard this news.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
I was a little It bothered me.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
A little bit, I gotta say, because the dirty secret
is there was a period in my time running w
ZOX that I wanted this guy to move from afternoons
to mornings, and.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
He rebuffed me. I did quickly too. Wasn't even a conversation.
Wasn't even a negotiation.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
What changed in your life that made you want to
wake up at three in the morning?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Oh my god, it is brutal. How many got up
at three thirty this morning? Did you really?
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I ever get Starbucks? Oh? There you go? Then you know?
Do you take naps during the afternoon? All right, yeah,
see you gotta. I'm into the napping lifestyle though, but
it can't be more than forty five minutes or else
you screwed up. Yes. Yeah. So after my kids got older,
(23:47):
went to school, it was like, all right, I'll think
about it now, because I really didn't. I was always
a night guy. I was always up watching late night
TV and going out and having fun. So I wanted
to continue that. But it was always a show. It
sounded kind of fun. And after COVID, we have this
beautiful complex out in Medford. They spent millions on it. It
(24:08):
looks like the Google campus. There was nobody there anymore.
So I would drive alone from Hopkinton into Medford, do
my show alone, drive back home alone, month after month
after month, and I was like, wow, I'm not interacting
with anybody, but I'm talking into this microphone. So I
started thinking about maybe doing a morning show again. And
(24:30):
they had also been pursuing me for a while. And
I tried out in the afternoon with Daniel Murr who
used to be on WAF and we I work with
Greg Hill and I had never met her before. She's
from the North Shore. She grew up under the flight
path of Logan Airport. She has a strange obsession with
planes and we just hit it off right away. What
(24:54):
I liked about it was she insulted me on the
air immediately, and I thought that was great. And she's
super intelligent and funny and quick, and it just worked.
It's a chemistry thing. When you wanted me to do
the morning show with this other person, there was no
chemistry there. It just didn't feel right. This just felt right.
(25:17):
And we had to add a third person to this.
And he's actually my boss, Tyler, but he's from Rhode Island,
grew up in the shadow of some of the finest
three deckers in Rhode Island, and he sounds like it too.
He's funny, but he's a little on the more brusque side,
so it's a nice compliment to the three of us.
(25:39):
So we started talking about doing it, and then it
started to happen, and the first show we did together,
it just felt right. It's just this dance that you
do with three people talking on the radio, try not
to step on each other. How long should we go?
Get out of it? And it works. It's a lot
of fun. I'm having fun.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Well, it sounds like you're having fun.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
It's seven months so far, seven months, right, which I'm
sure has flown by.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
It has, except for the getting up at three point
thirty in the morning part.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
But it's fun engaging with an audience, you know, especially
early kind of thinking about the way people are commuting,
leading their lives and how you're carrying them through that
and giving them something to look forward to put a
smile on their face. It sounds fantastic. It sounds naturally
(26:35):
funny and engaging. It's not forced. My ears are sometimes critical,
as you know, and because that's what I had to do,
that's my job to do that for radio stations. I've
never heard it sound forced. It has a great flow
to it, a great energy. I look forward to listening
(26:56):
to it. So hats off to you and the whole
crew there.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Thank you for what's going on.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
It's fair to say when you program a radio station
for ten years and then you ultimately cross town and
compete against that radio station, you're kind of competing sort
of against yourself a little bit because.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
You built it's like child behind.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, so did I in my time competition want to
you know, beat the station's pants off, of course, But
did I always root for the Zlex crew and Chuck
and the.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Team, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That's that's that's the odd part about when you turn
around and do the role that I had. But ZLX
is a I say, in America, one of the top
classic rock stations without questions. So you're talking to the
man leading the charge there in the morning show on
(27:57):
one of America's best, and he's one of the best
in town.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
You've been in this town for twenty plus years, thirty plus,
thirty plus years.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
It's crazy for such It really is an insecure business.
People move around all the time. I've been in the
same place for three decades. That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
What's changed about Boston?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Hmm, Well, let's see, aside from the way things look,
the gardens changed names several times. I don't know it's changed,
but it hasn't. It's still such a big music city.
I mean, you've got a college town. You got people
want to see live music all the time. There's not
as many rock clubs as there used to be, but
(28:42):
music is still a driving force in this town.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
It's fair to say traffic was bad then and it
is still bad now, except now it's.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Bad all the time. You used to be just during
drive time, but now it's bad all the time. Everybody
has different schedules.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, so you've had the opportunity in your career to
interview some pretty interesting folks. There's a couple I'm going
to mention, but I want you to highlight some of
your favorites as well.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
First of all, I.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Can't help but think of the fact Chuck and I
were out he was covering the Grammys quite a few
years ago. We took a road trip to LA to
cover the Grammys. Had a spectacular time, had too much fun. Yes, actually,
and lo and behold, as he was doing his show,
(29:37):
suddenly John Stewart.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Becomes available to talk to.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Now, this is very early on in John Stewart's career.
What do you recall about that experience interviewing him? It
was pretty quick, right, It was sort of a breeze
through one of they they call it like radio row
when multiple people come through.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, when they put these things together, they have radios
from all over the country all lined up. I think
we're in the forum, yes that time. So they bring
in guests and they go from one radio station to another.
And John Stewart was hosting the Grammys, wasn't he? Or
he was a hosting. Wasn't think he was hosting?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
So he was.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
There for rehearsals, so he walked in and there was
this big you know, Oh it's John Stewart's John Stewart
and he's saying hi to everybody, and I remember, was
it you or me? We went over and approached him like, hey,
you know from Boston, want to go on the radio? Oh?
The radio? And he sat down and he was just
so spontaneous and really funny, just off the cuff. You
(30:39):
could see why he was so successful at what he does. Yeah,
but I thought he was great me too. I still
think he's great.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Actually that at that event, actually at the Grammys, that
was my first and only opportunity to see Madonna performed.
Do you recall Madonna being out there on stage two?
I think she did the opening, the opening act.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yep, yep, that's right.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Of course. We were up in the nosebleeds for sure. Yeah. No,
that was great.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
I've done that. I broadcast live from the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies when they had him
at the Waldorf Historia. I've had a chance to do
my show in so many cool places.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Who did you have at the Hall of Fame ceremony?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It was the year Paul McCartney went in and Peter Wolfe,
the lead singer of the Jay Giles Band, came to
New York with me and he was my broadcast partner.
So we were set up in the hallway.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
He knows everybody, so as we're sitting there and artists
are passing by on their way in, every single person
he just had to say hi, and they came over
and we talked to us.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
And I was sitting there in awe of Peter wolf like,
oh my god, nobody has said no to you. It's like, yeah,
I know a lot of people. I thought that was
the coolest thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
He has a great biography book out. It's great Stories,
by the way, the Peter wolf biography.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Yeah. Yeah, back to the.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
LA experience, what do you recall about our encounter with
this gentleman by the name of Ed McMahon. Now, just
for the audience, I don't know if you know who
Ed McMahon was, but there was this show called Johnny
Carson that used to be on and Ed McMahon was
Johnny Carson's sidekick.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Johnny Carson was the Jimmy Fallon show several hosts earlier.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny how it works. But so did
Ed McMahon come on as part of the radio row
or did we just see him? We saw him.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
We did, like I remember vividly tell the story. We
had our rental car, we're totally lost driving around Hollywood
and we're coming around a corner and he's standing by
the stoplight and Ed McMahon had us saying that he
used to say, and we set it to hey O,
and he sent it back.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
He set it back, but he set it back in
as dispirited away as possible. It was actually kind of sad.
He went, hey yeah, but he said it back. You
could tell he had heard that line before his whole life, right,
his whole life.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah. What a nice man, very nice man.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah. But other than his laugh, I'm not sure what.
He had a great laugh, but other than that, I'm
not sure what he did.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
He was just there to laugh at Johnny Carson's joke. Yeah,
and the rest was history. Frans.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, is there anybody you haven't interviewed that you wish
you could?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
You can spend time in interview, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
For our big bands like we play led Zeppelin. I've
interviewed Robert Plant and Jimmy Page for the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
So you just flashed on something.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Chuck used to do a very funny imitation I remember
of Jimmy Page.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Do you mind hitting this with that? With that British accent.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Jimmy Page was completely different from Robert Plant. Robert Plant
was the nicest guy. He's the lead singer. I mean
Robert Plant when he was nineteen years old leading led Zeppelin.
Oh my god, he peel the pain off the wall
with his voice. But he was so humble and nice,
and I expected the same from Jimmy Page. He was
not nice at all. It's a very tough interview. He
seemed insulted everything that I asked him, and I just
(34:31):
made some goofy question up about hey, if you could
zip down again an ey big muffin at McDonald's with somebody,
who would you do? And he just came back with.
Speaker 6 (34:42):
The hell are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (34:44):
And that was the end of that. So embarrassed. All right,
come back, Jimmy. The interview is I flashed on that.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
When I remember your imitation, I'm sorry to.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Put you out the spot. That's all right. For the Stones,
I've interviewed Keith Richards, who was again really nice, very
humble Guy's a legend. It's amazing that he's still alive.
He has no business being alive with the lifestyle that
he's late. I would want to interview Mick Jagger, but
I haven't, but I hear he's a very tough interview
because Mick Jagger is one of those guys that has
been knighted. He's Sir Mick, and everyone asked Keith Richards,
(35:17):
why haven't you been night He's like, I don't want that,
that's garbage. But Mick Jagger takes it very seriously, and
I hear he is rather aristocratic. But I'd like to
talk to him.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
That would be good.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
What about comedians?
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Since it's Boston is such a great comedy town, have
you had many comedians come through that you've you've spoken to?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Uh? I used to, not as many anymore.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
They notoriously don't like coming on the air and giving
their material away.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
And that's what makes it a tough interview, right because
you're feeding them their lines thinking they're going to say it,
but they're saving it for the stage. But Bill Burr
is really good. I've interviewed him. He's very funny, very quick.
Dennis Leary, same thing. These guys are so professional they
just go with it. Some of the smaller comics seem
to struggle a little bit on the air because they
need an audience. Right, they missed the laugh. If they
(36:11):
deliver the line, they don't get a reaction. It's hard
and they don't know how to handle that. So comics
can be a tough interview. Yeah, they clam up, They
clam up.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, So we're going to take some questions.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
But before we take some questions, I want to ask
you a final question. If you could give this.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Group here at Emmanuel College and then those in the
audience who maybe they're not necessarily radio majors, but maybe
they're interested in media somehow, and as they're carving their careers,
what piece of advice would you give to them as
(36:56):
they're pondering the world and soon to be twenty twenty six, if.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
You really have a passion for something, just go for it.
Give it a shot, because if you don't, you might
look back and regret the fact that you never tried.
And I really think you have to exercise the creative
part of you. And if that's through social media or
I hear there's radio equipment here that's not being used
at this school. You know, you could start a podcast
(37:28):
or you know, do your own radio show that you stream,
But get in there and give it a try, because
it actually has a lot of fun. I can't believe
I've done what I'm doing for so long. There's no
reason I should be doing this. It's just crazy because
I actually get a chance to make a living doing
something that was fun, which is so rare. And if
(37:50):
you can find that, you're good, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Chuck, Noah, thank you. So this is the question time.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Who's got a question?
Speaker 4 (38:11):
So Brett Show, do you.
Speaker 7 (38:12):
Ever answer the phone?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Like have people call in?
Speaker 7 (38:15):
All right? What was it the wildest?
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Like you get some people who call in really hammered,
really hammered, and they've been out all night. Now that
I'm doing the morning show, they're still out and they've
been out all night and they want to talk to you,
and they want to talk to you a lot. We
put a lot of people on the air live because
I really think that's important is to make the audience
(38:37):
a part of the show. So we're constantly putting the
number out there. You can go on the the app
and you can leave messages. With these thirty second messages,
we call them talkbacks, and we get a lot of
Some people are totally unprepared when we put them on
the air. Some people use very colorful language. There are
certain words you cannot say on the air, so we
(38:59):
have this. It's called the dump button. It's this big
red button. If you say something some people can relate
to this, you got to hit that button and it
gets rid of the last eight seconds whatever you said.
I find I used that a lot. I'm really surprised
how much I didn't in the afternoon. I would put
people on live in the afternoon, but I never had
(39:20):
to use that, except if I was out in a
bar or something. But I'm shocked in the morning how
often I have to use that. Maybe it's because people
are pissed off driving into work. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
I think that's it. Yes, big mistakes are embarrassing moments.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
That, oh god, so many. It's early in my career.
I'm there right now. I can picture it. I was
on the air. You have to make sure you turn
the microphone off when you're done, and I was doing
a show. It was a Saturday night show and I
just finished doing break I took a phone call and
(39:57):
it was a young lady. It was very friendly and
she wanted to talk to me for a long time.
It wasn't a lot going on, so I was talking
with her. Hold on a second, I gotta do another break.
And I do a break, get back to her, talk
to her. This happened like three or four times. The
last time I did not turn off the microphone. So
I go back to talking to her and it's all
going out over the air. And it was a small
(40:21):
station phone didn't ring a lot, but all of a sudden,
they're all ringing, like, Wow, this is great. I'm doing
really well. Hold on a second, I got to take
a call first. One. You know, we can hear everything
you say. And I looked down and I saw the
green light. Just, oh my god, the shot of adrenaline
that went through. I was trying to review everything that
(40:42):
I had said. I just turned the micro off and
I didn't say anything the rest of the night. I
just played music. It was so horrifying.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
What a great story.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Oh terrible?
Speaker 4 (40:55):
Yes, what would you say?
Speaker 8 (40:56):
Has like change in music industry since you guys have
like started.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I feel like the.
Speaker 7 (41:01):
Culture around musicians and bands like isn't the same as
like born at least it looks like it used to be,
so like, how has it changed and how has that
affected the radio?
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Yeah, well maybe you can help me with this too.
But back then you had a lot of help from
the record companies. They would promote you, they would take
you out on tour, they would set up your dates,
they took care of everything. We had all these record
reps that would regularly come by pushing, hey, you're gonna
play this, this is a new one from whatever band
or artist. I think now artists are mainly on their own.
(41:32):
They're self promoting, which has to be so tough. And
you don't make the money from record sales like you
used to back in the day. Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Eagles,
they made millions selling albums and CDs and stuff. And
now you're on Spotify and you get fractions of pennies
for a play. You can't make any money at that.
(41:53):
You really have to make your money from touring, and
I think somebody like Taylor Swift is a genius at that.
I mean, she could go out all year if she
wanted to and sell out every place she goes. But
that's really where she's going to make her money is
from performing, because it's just not there anymore in sales.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I think the rise of DIY independent artists who do
everything themselves to build their audience basically, and that includes
their social media and their merchandise, and you know, they
don't have big management and big publicists. There's so many
(42:32):
independent artists that are so proud with big audiences. I
was just talking to you guys earlier about the band
a Jar, who is a band that would you know,
many people certainly would go I've not heard of them
on the radio. Well, you're not going to hear them
(42:52):
on the radio. You're going to find them in different places.
And that's how they created their audience.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
So I think it's the.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Rise of independence is what we've certainly seen, which I
think is a good thing. We know somebody, our friend
Chris Paquin's son Will Pequin, has become an independent.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Artist on his own, who is touring Europe right now.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Oh wow, who has found his audience, who has his
strong social following And to your point on Spotify, yeah,
the figures. I think I heard the Foo Fighters for
a year of their Spotify royalties. I think it's it's
seven hundred thousand dollars or something like that, which for
(43:40):
a band like that that sells.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Out millions of plays.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Yeah, so that tells you a lot when there's a disparity.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
But also now artists can make music at home. You
get pro tools, and you get a decent you know,
a basement or something, you put eggshells all around it
and get the sound just right. You can make an
album at home, and so many artists like Noah Khan
out of Vermont, you know, making music at home and
then if it's really good, maybe a record company will
(44:07):
pay for the studio time. But back in the day
bands used to disappear into a studio for a year
to make an album. You can do that in a week.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah, they spent the record company's money. Yeah, foolishly, Yeah
on the wrong things. Yeah yeah sure, yes.
Speaker 8 (44:27):
Who talks about it a little bit in costs, But
how I think a lot of those can relate that.
Speaker 7 (44:31):
Making the radio, it's like a nostalgic thing of something
from you knowing your kids and having our parents play
it in the mornings and things like that. That's something
that really me don't think to play listen to on
our own time. Do you guys think about that when
you're reporting, like who you're targeting and what your audience
may be.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yep, radio stations have their target demographic that they go for.
We are mail a male rock station. Our main target
for advertising is twenty five to fifty four. Now, we'll
get younger listeners, will get older listeners, but that's the
pocket that you want. Where a stationlike Kiss is targeting
females younger eighteen to thirty four, although they do really
(45:10):
well twenty five to fifty four, so I guess that's
a target for them too. But yeah, they do so
much research about who's listening. We get ratings now every
week to find out how we're doing and how many
people are out there. They have these meters that they
will give you, these portable people meters that picks up
a tone that's sent through the radio that you can't
hear and register what station you're listening to and for
(45:33):
how long. And that's what our ratings are based on.
And it's a crazy system because there's.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Not enough of them out there, and there actually are.
They're actually daily ratings that you could look at as well.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
So it's so micro focused that you could actually even
go down to the day I will tell.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
You based on your question too. And I think it's
been a key to Zlex's success over.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Time, and I certainly think about it with my podcast
as well, that even though you know there's a certain
target audience, always go deliberately younger than your target because
a certain segment is going to get older and fall
(46:21):
off of what I call the demographic cliff. So you
need an influx always of newer listeners, newer audiences at
all times discovering you.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
I think classic rock benefits in a.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Big way because so much of the music from these
generations shows up in a TV show, shows up in
a movie, so suddenly a song becomes popular that was,
you know, maybe a library track on a radio station.
So yeah, I think creators certainly think about this a lot.
(47:00):
And Chuck would be thrilled if all of you would
try his morning show out.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
It would be beyond thrilled six Am six.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
Because it is important not only to be in touch
with your generation, but also for them to kind of,
you know, sample and be part of what we have
going on.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
And radio sees the writing on the wall that you know,
the younger audience is shrinking, so we really push our
free iHeartRadio app. You can stream every radio station in
the company and other companies as well. I think jumped
on it too, because I think eventually terrestrial radio will
go away. It's so expensive to have towers everywhere that
(47:45):
it will just become a streaming thing. As a matter
of fact, I think Tesla is dropping FM radio for
their twenty twenty six models because they want to encourage streaming.
You'll be able to use apps and get them in
your car, so we push that all the time. You know,
you can stream us on the free right iHeartRadio app.
(48:05):
It's going to take a long time before terrestrial radio
goes away, but it is going that way.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
But that's a really good question. Okay, sure, I'm just curious.
Speaker 7 (48:15):
The benefits of working in commercial radio versus public radio.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Financially, it pays better. Although WGBH has a great setup.
I love that sign and you're coming down the pike too,
But they just went through all these financial cuts federally
and they laid off a lot of people, so you
notice they're doing a lot more fundraising as well. Public
radio is great. I got them is my preset in
(48:43):
my car. But it's a struggle now more than ever
to really depend on people donating to keep it going.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
And I think to add on to that, you're fortunate
here to have a strong public radio community that, even
through the challenges that they're going through, is going to
survive it. It will be hurt somehow by the cuts,
but it will survive it because you know, when you
think of these stations that are in this community, they're
(49:17):
really embedded in the in the community.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
You know.
Speaker 8 (49:21):
I have a question on behalf of my son. He's
at school and could make it today, but when he
heard I was going to see a podcaster today, he
wants a podcast for Christmas. And I'm just curious, what
would you recommend to somebody who is thinking of starting
a podcast. Is there some sort of secret sauce outicle
about it to make it work?
Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yes, Resilience, passion, consistency, because when I say that, those,
particularly the consistency.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Part, they have something they call pod fade.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
This is the people who who do ten podcasts and
then decide I can't do anymore, I can't keep up
with it, I don't have any audience. They get frustrated
and they give it up and a large percentage have
pod fades.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
So I would say.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Those three things would be the priorities. And of course
find a niche as well. You can't necessarily be brought
into the market. You need a particular.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
Niche and have fun with it. Feel free, have freedom.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
That's something when we started in radio, Chuck and I,
there was more freedom that the individuals were allowed. Then
his companies got tighter and more researched, and there was
more at stake. Unfortunately, they took those freedoms away and
probably took it away too far.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
So he should enjoy the freedom as well.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah, I agree, you have.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
One more yep.
Speaker 7 (51:02):
I hope that you guys are still listening to the
radio for yourself or if you have more transition than too,
like streaming.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
And if you are still listening.
Speaker 7 (51:10):
To the radio, what are your like go.
Speaker 8 (51:11):
To radio stations that you guys?
Speaker 1 (51:13):
Good question. All right, let's see on my radio I have.
I really like w ERS the Emerson station, Ken West.
Every buddy ken West is programmed dark. He does a
great job with that, and I always like listening to
the college announcers. I'm kind of judging how they're doing.
I mean, you're going to screw up and all. But
I like to hear the passion in it, like you
(51:37):
really are performing and you got to put something into it.
I really like how they do that. So I have
E R S, I have Kiss one Away, WBZ ten
thirty for news. What's the one out of avioral the river?
I have that one. I have the sports Hub, I
have VII the sports stuff. Those are the big ones
(52:03):
I have. What about you?
Speaker 3 (52:06):
I don't drive as much.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
Uh, sports hub BZ AM ZLX probably.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Would be mine.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
I have EI EI too, but.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
But you know, less commuting. Do it one more quick one?
Speaker 7 (52:20):
Oh yeah, I if I remember correctly, you were saying
that you were pretty introverted, and like, I feel like
your job now is like worst nightmare for an introvert.
Speaker 8 (52:31):
So how did you know about making that chong?
Speaker 1 (52:34):
It's a great question. It's it's so weird. When I'm
on the radio, I'm a different person. I remember one
of the interviews I did with Ozzy Osbourne when I
could understand what he was saying because he was he
had such a thick accent and mumbly.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
And all that.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
But I was asking about what it's like to go
out on stage still to this day, selling out concerts
and all that, and he said, without all the swears
that I had to keep hitting the button on it.
He says, I'm absolutely terrified, and that surprised me. So
why are you terrified, he says, because I want to
do a good job, and that just showed me that
he cares. I think when I'm in the studio it's
(53:13):
a different feeling. It's like you're kind of in control.
It's a comfortable place, but you really want to do
a good job. So there is a terrifying aspect to that,
Like me coming out here in my personal life and
doing this is absolutely terrifying. But I said, yes, he's
never going to speak to me again and never gonna
speak to him again. But I can get up at
the garden in front of sixteen thousand people and introduce
(53:33):
a band, and it's great. I can do that, But
it's a different feeling. I don't know, it's kind of
a switch that you do. I remember one time I
met Howard Stern. I thought he was just going to
be this bombastic a hole. He didn't make eye contact.
He was so shy it completely blew me away. He
was such an introvert and I've heard him say he
is He's a different personality in real life than he
(53:55):
is on the radio. Thank you so much, everybody, Thank
you Chucking us very much.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
We have a party gift for you on the way out,
courtesy of the Taking a Walk Podcast. Obviously, feel free
to check that out anytime as well.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
Self promotion well.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
Thank you to all of you.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Thank you to Professor Flynn, to Emmanuel College, and to
Chuck Nolan.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Thank you guys, Thank you.
Speaker 5 (54:29):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Well, I'm Buds Night and I'm the host of the
Taking a Walk Podcast, and I'm so excited to be
live in front of an audience for the first time
recording the Taking a Walk Podcast. We are at the
wonderful Emmanuel College and fantastic Boston, Massachusetts.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I couldn't be any happier. And I'm even happier that
the person I'm going to be interviewing on this.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Taking a Walk episode is a legendary disc jockey in Boston, Massachusetts.
I dare say call him iconic. He has been on
WZLX one hundred point seven, Boston's classic rock station for decades,
and recently he has moved into Morning Drive, the big
(00:48):
spot on the radio station.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Next, we're going to speak to Chuck Nolan on Taking
a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Taking a Walk, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Chuck Nolan to
the Taking.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
A Lot Podcast. Wow, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
That was fantastic, thunderous applause.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
First of all, what did you think? It was a
lot more thunderous than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, I thought it was fantastic. It's so great to
be with you, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
We have a lot of stories to tell I'm so
happy that I was able to mildly convince you to
come over here and do this episode.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
It didn't take much cajoling, by the way, No.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
No, I thought it was a bit much.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
That you had asked for the limousine service.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And have the rider making sure I have my special
beverages and everything ready.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Did you get everything that you needed?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I did?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Thank you everything to your satisfaction, mister Nolan, I'm ready
to go. Yes, I have to say, Chuck looks identical
to the moment that I first met him. He looks
that was a long time ago. You look absolutely the same.
I'm sure I do too.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Right, Buzz was this kind during contract negotiations too, He
was just.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Like this my favorite time of the year and year.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yes, absolutely, Yeah, Well, we have a lot to talk about.
I'm so happy for you now moving into morning Drive
on WZLX, so we're going to talk about that. We're
going to talk about your career, your storied career, which
has taken on a new chapter, which I think is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Coming out of the radio business.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I love being able to certainly talk to my dear
friends from radio on the podcast, talk to musicians in general,
but the radio stories are always near and dear to
my heart. So, Chuck, before we get into the festivities proceedings,
let me ask you the opening question. So, if you
(03:04):
could take a walk with someone living or dead, who
would you take a walk with?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Then where would you take that walk?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Oh? So this is the part where I should say,
like John Lennon, right, no, say would you walk down
Penny Lane? And I'd ask him when you wrote yellow
matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye, what did
that mean? Exactly? Yeah, But instead I'm going to say
my dad. I lost my dad when I was twenty
(03:32):
five years old. We did not have the best relationship.
I was the youngest of four. I think after the
third one maybe they had had enough of kids. But
there I was. And he was the kind of guy
who was really into security. He had a very safe job,
despite the fact that he went to Holy Cross College.
He was like a four letter athlete track and field, football, hockey.
(03:58):
He was offered a minor league and NH contract. Turned
it down because he had to go to Buffalo, because
that was taking a chance. He had a very secure
job with the United States Postal Service. So I was
going to Worcester State College, majoring in economics, looking forward
to an enriching career of macro and microeconomics. But it
(04:20):
just wasn't for me. And I used to go past
the radio station and it looked really cool. There's all
that equipment in there, they're blasting rock music. But I
was way too too introverted to actually go in there
and ask what they were doing. So I applied to
the Connecticut School of Broadcasting into Hartford, so I had
(04:40):
to drive. I would go to class in Worcester during
the daytime. At night, I had to drive to Hartford
for night classes, and I'm surprised they let me in
because the first thing you had to do was read
a commercial to see what you sounded like. I'm from Worcester,
I had a really heavy accent. So the commercial was
mother pockat Donuts, and that's exactly how I read it.
(05:02):
But then I realized if you had money for the tuition,
they would take you anyway. So I ended up going
towards that and leaving Worcester State College, and I got
my first job at an AM station in Worcester running
the religious tapes on Sunday morning. That was it, and
it took me a long time to really get going,
and he was really angry at me and never seemed
(05:24):
to really recover from it. So I'd like to take
a walk with him and say it all worked out.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Okay, Amen, Amen to that.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
That.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Is it fair to say, though, that asking that.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Question at different times could be producing different answers or
depending on certain moments, that's what some people say.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
They say, well, look.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Today I would say it's my father. Maybe certain points
I would reflect.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
On my mother, or maybe you would be a celebrity.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So I think I think the beauty of the question
is a there's no right or wrong answer, and B
it probably changes by the by the moment.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Sometimes I think you're right, and as you get a
little older, you start looking back on things like that
family means a lot more.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And I think he would be looking at this in
your conversation and thinking, yeah, it did turn out all right.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
I had my doubts. But you know, did he ever
get to hear you on the radio?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
He did, being a whisper. When I eventually got up
through the ranks of radio, I worked at WAF which
was the rock station, was the really cool rock station
in town, and he used to take these walks and
one Dave was going past the school bus stop and
all the kids are waiting for the school bus, and
he asked him, Hey, do you guys ever listen? Hey, well, ye,
(06:49):
my son's on there, Chuck Nolan, And some of them went,
Chuck Nolan, that's your son. From that moment, I was
in a different light to him. Hey, I talked to
these people today. They knew who you were.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I wasn't making any money at the time.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
But do you think he listened?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
No? Absolutely, I'm playing Van Halen. He's not gonna listen
to that.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, I bet he'd stunk a listen.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Maybe he didn't say so, though he wouldn't tell me.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I was fortunate I got to have my parents listened
when I was on two different radio stations I ninety
five and Connecticut and WNWFM in New.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
York is where I grew up.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
It was Stanford, Connecticut, so each station was in an earshot,
and I remember there were a few moments, some of
the bits that we did on the morning show at
I ninety five, my mother would like, she would go, no,
I don't like that you had mud wrestling women on
on the station didn't.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Sound right or the audience loved it.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Though the audience loved but my mother not necessarily.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
I used to use my mother for a bit.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Actually, you put her on the air.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
She would do concert announcements and one of them was
when David Bowie came to town. And the beauty of
it was she said, David Bowie, let her go right.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's great, Josephine, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, yeah, So WAAF the first big break in your career?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yep?
Speaker 3 (08:29):
And what time of day.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Were you on? Eventually, when I became full time there,
I did afternoon drive, so I was taking people home
from two to seven pm. There's two drive times, morning
drive and afternoon drive. People driving in, people driving home,
so I would take them home.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And what was the lineup on AAF in those days?
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Bob and Zip in the morning, Bob Rivers, Bob Rivers.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Who passed away in the last three year, legendary disc jockey,
and it was Anna Lisa, she was great, she's in
Chicago now.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Then it was me, and then it was Ian O'Malley
who went on to marry the daughter of a billionaire.
And on Facebook he likes to share photos and videos
of him on their ship.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Really, Oh my god, oh my god?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Did all right? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Yeah? So at AAF How long were you there?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I was there probably eight years.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
And then we went to Florida.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
After that, I did I wanted to break out and
see if I could make it on my own because
I grew up in Worcester. I enjoyed it, but I
wanted to move up into a bigger market, makes more money.
So this offer came along Miami. My god, Miami in January.
That must be amazing. So I went down there interviewed.
They offered me the job to work at ninety seven GTR,
(09:54):
the Rock and roll Animals, and I was on the afternoon.
Months later, they blew up the whole station, changed the
format into like an easy listening kind of a station.
They fired everybody, but they felt bad for me that
they brought me down from Boston for a six month job.
So they made me the morning man. But they wanted
(10:16):
to change my name so there's no affiliation with the
old station. So I said, I don't know what name
I want to use. They said, what's your middle name?
I thought, no, I became Chuck Michaels. It's so awful.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Chuck Michaels, Now, how did you sound smoother?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I did?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I turned it on.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
With the velvet voice. Then what was the deal?
Speaker 1 (10:41):
So Florida's Coast ninety seven point three FM, Miami, Fort
Lauderdale and the Palm Beaches. Here's p bo Bryson.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Now what was worse? Doing that? Or getting your teeth extracted?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That was painful. Although I made a friend of mine
who did mornings at the rock station in town, and
he had a boat, so we would get off the
air at ten o'clock. By ten thirty we were on
his boat and we would cruise up the Interra Coastal,
which was just all bars and clubs, and we would
stay out way too late.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Was that Paul Kastronova?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Paul castron that's correct, Yes, yep. So we're still in
the business, and he's still there on the area.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
And he's an iHeart brethren, that's right.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Right, Yeah, he's working a big in Miami, so a
small business, can't you tell?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Right? We know everybody knows someone who knows someone, right, So.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I did that for a while, and then I realized,
I really have to get out of here. This is
not good for me. I was living the Miami lifestyle.
So I thought, I have to get back to civilization.
So I started looking for a job back here, and
that's when the afternoon job opened up at WZLX and
I came back.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Now I cannot take the credit for hiring him. On
w ZOX. There was a was a John Sewn Shamby.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Who was also dear friend, still in contact with him
in Nashville, consultant for talent and artists, actually as an
art a country artist that he manages. But John Shamby
deserves the credit for bringing Chuck Noll into the w
z X. Before we get into ZLX, I do have
(12:22):
to ask you, what was the first moment you remember
growing up that you were deeply connected with music, that
you knew somehow music was going to be in your blood,
in your life, not necessarily radio, but when did you
first connect with music.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Being the youngest of four and it was three boys
and our tortured sister, my oldest brother Rick had a
great record collection and an incredible stereo system, giant speakers.
He put everything into that thing. We were in strict
orders never to tell. So as soon as he left,
of course, I'd go through his album and start playing
(13:03):
the music and Errolsmith and the doors and all this stuff.
And he started putting little slips of paper into the
albums to see if they fell out, to see if
anybody touched his sacred album. That they did, he would
just beat the crap out of it. So that's where
I really started to like music like that. But I
(13:23):
guess my first love of radio was we were all
three boys crammed into a tiny room. It was just
mattresses on every wall. And he used to like to
listen to a radio at night to fall asleep, and
there was a guy on the air called Larry Glake
on WBZ, and he would just tell UFO stories and
ghost stories all night. And I'm a little kid, scare
(13:46):
the crap out of me. But it was fascinating and
I could picture everything that he said in my mind,
and I really loved that kind of storytelling, and it
kind of got me interested in radio.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
So did you have a play B.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I guess so if this saidn't didn't work out, yeah,
So to make my father happy, I saved that.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
It comes up later. I'm going to ask you about
the plan. Be later I realized I was stepping around
my own line. Of questioning. All right, teaser, it was
a teaser. Coming up, Yeah, coming up. So let's get
to the ZLX years, the great years. So you settled in.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Immediately to afternoon Drive, and the radio station was already
a solid, well known brand.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
But I can only attest to getting there in ninety
two and observing the.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Station and when you get hired as a program director,
which I was, you're there to sort of assess who's there,
decide who's a keeper who's not. So I knew instantly
there was a keeper, and Chuck Nole, I'm not sure
I knew necessarily the other keepers will leave that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
That's interesting because when you do a radio show, you
have to record your show, and every now and then
you have to go into the program director's office and
do what's called an air check. And you sit there
and you listen to your show with the program director
while you're staring at the floor and you're cringing at
some of the stuff that you said and he's not
(15:27):
saying anything, and then he stops it, and then he
tells you what you did right, But then he tells
you what you did wrong and how you can improve.
You were good, though there wasn't much to look there.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
There's always things to critique, tighten this up, do this.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
But he he was always like spot on in terms
of what he knew he was going to say.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Prepared generally, no, very well prepared. Once again, I knew
I had.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Someone that I had tremendous confidence in to be able
to do the work with the audience and then ultimately,
you know, work with the advertisers. He had this tremendous
benchmark feature, Chuck's Bar and Grill, Chuck's Bar and Grill,
which took him out all through the Boston metropolitan area.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
How many of those did you venture?
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Oh my god. We used to do them almost every
Friday from five to seven pm for people to start
the weekend. It would be sponsored by Budweiser. So we
would go to bars and we were broadcast live, and
by five o'clock on a Friday, people are in a
pretty good move. Then they get a couple of beers
in them and then I have to be careful what
they're saying in the microphone. But it would get pretty raucous.
(16:48):
But it was a lot of fun getting out there
and meeting people. I mean, when you do a radio show,
you're in a room by yourself talking into a piece
of metal. You get out there and you meet people,
and you know, they talk about things they said, what
fans they are at the radio station, and the music
that we play. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Now there was a time though, that we needed to
have because of the exterior noises from audience members. We
needed to have a delay, right, Yes, we did, like
not right away, but I think we probably got burned
with somebody dropping yes, you know, some F bomb or
something right.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Or S bombs.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yes, So rules had to change and suddenly you have
to put the seven second delay on. But yeah, Chuck's
Bar and Grill a legendary part of Afternoon Drive on WZLX.
Let's play a fast game. This is where my teaser
came and we'll.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Call this the fast five. Ready, all right, okay.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Number one favorite desert island disc the one album that
I take with me to a desert island.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I would have to say Pink Floyd's Dark Side of
the Moon.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Number two. Most underrated classic rock band Black Crows. Christopher Robinson.
Great vocalists.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
He's played with all kinds of different bands. He confront
any band he just played with the Joe Perry Project.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Best concert you ever went to.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
The Boston Strong Concert right after the Boston Marathon bombing.
A month later at the Garden. They put on a
show to raise money and almost every huge Boston artist
was there. Aerosmith, j Giles, Boston, Jimmy Buffett showed up
for it. New kids on the block were there, and
(18:49):
it was just so electric. I was helping with some
of the MC duties, so I was backstage and just
everybody was so together, and it really you remember Boston
Strong and how it has the city came together so much.
That audience at the Garden sold out, was so loud
and so together on this and the band Boston and
(19:10):
Tom Schulz came out and he opened it up with
this really heavy guitar solo electric guitar version of the
National Anthem. Plays went crazy. It was a great show.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Chilling event because it represented something so important to the community,
and when you really reflect on it, it was the
unifying spirit of community and music at a time that boy,
this community really needed. I have chills thinking about it.
I remember the show as well. All right, number four
(19:45):
vinyl CD or streaming?
Speaker 3 (19:49):
What's your favorite?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
My favorite for sound mode.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Wow, does anybody have a turntable? Yeah, When my daughter
was sixteen years old, she asked for a turntable for
Christmas because I had taken up my old equipment from
the basement. My kids when they were little, had never
seen this before. It's magic. It was like a rotary phone.
I took it out, hooked it up, took out the album,
(20:17):
put it down, put the needle on it, and it
started playing music. And they were just staring at it,
like you know, they were from outer space. But I
think vinyl sounds so good. It's got such a richer sound,
especially the older albums because they were recorded analog on tape,
not digital, so you have a lot more fidelity to it.
So I love that. I don't have my turntable hooked
(20:38):
up right now, but I would go Vinyl then CD
than streaming for quality, for sound quality. And I don't
know about you guys, but my daughter listens to music
on her phone on the phone speaker. She'll walk around
listening to music on that, like you know, you can
put that, you can bluetooth that onto one of the
many speakers we have around. This is fine, It's not fine.
(21:02):
Gotta sound it would get a really good sound out
of it, not out of your phone.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, well it's a different generation.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Okay. Last question on the Fast five what was your
plan B.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
My plan B was since my dad was so upset
about my chosen career path, I took the Civil Service Exam.
That's the test you take to see if you can
work for the United States Postal Service. I stupidly scored
very high. They hired me right away. I was a
(21:37):
summer replacement letter carrier for the town of West Boyleston,
and I had a truck, and I had a uniform
and I had my mail and I was out there
over the course of three months. I got bitten twice.
Each time it was the same thing, delivering a package
and they're coming to the door again, I'm like, oh
(21:58):
wait wait, And it was always he doesn't bite, don't
you just eat? Just barks, and soon as the door opens,
they would just be on my leg, tearing it open.
So I really didn't like it, and I didn't want
to do it. I wanted to pursue this, although I
was really having trouble getting started, but I couldn't do it.
I just it wasn't inmate. So when I told my
dad I was quitting the post office. He didn't talk
(22:21):
to me for maybe a month. That was my plan, Bab,
was to go back to the post office.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I guess unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So you've made a tremendous career move.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
I must say I was happy when I heard this news.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
I was a little It bothered me.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
A little bit, I gotta say, because the dirty secret
is there was a period in my time running w
ZOX that I wanted this guy to move from afternoons
to mornings, and.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
He rebuffed me. I did quickly too. Wasn't even a conversation.
Wasn't even a negotiation.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
What changed in your life that made you want to
wake up at three in the morning?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Oh my god, it is brutal. How many got up
at three thirty this morning? Did you really?
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I ever get Starbucks? Oh? There you go? Then you know?
Do you take naps during the afternoon? All right, yeah,
see you gotta. I'm into the napping lifestyle though, but
it can't be more than forty five minutes or else
you screwed up. Yes. Yeah. So after my kids got older,
(23:47):
went to school, it was like, all right, I'll think
about it now, because I really didn't. I was always
a night guy. I was always up watching late night
TV and going out and having fun. So I wanted
to continue that. But it was always a show. It
sounded kind of fun. And after COVID, we have this
beautiful complex out in Medford. They spent millions on it. It
(24:08):
looks like the Google campus. There was nobody there anymore.
So I would drive alone from Hopkinton into Medford, do
my show alone, drive back home alone, month after month
after month, and I was like, wow, I'm not interacting
with anybody, but I'm talking into this microphone. So I
started thinking about maybe doing a morning show again. And
(24:30):
they had also been pursuing me for a while. And
I tried out in the afternoon with Daniel Murr who
used to be on WAF and we I work with
Greg Hill and I had never met her before. She's
from the North Shore. She grew up under the flight
path of Logan Airport. She has a strange obsession with
planes and we just hit it off right away. What
(24:54):
I liked about it was she insulted me on the
air immediately, and I thought that was great. And she's
super intelligent and funny and quick, and it just worked.
It's a chemistry thing. When you wanted me to do
the morning show with this other person, there was no
chemistry there. It just didn't feel right. This just felt right.
(25:17):
And we had to add a third person to this.
And he's actually my boss, Tyler, but he's from Rhode Island,
grew up in the shadow of some of the finest
three deckers in Rhode Island, and he sounds like it too.
He's funny, but he's a little on the more brusque side,
so it's a nice compliment to the three of us.
(25:39):
So we started talking about doing it, and then it
started to happen, and the first show we did together,
it just felt right. It's just this dance that you
do with three people talking on the radio, try not
to step on each other. How long should we go?
Get out of it? And it works. It's a lot
of fun. I'm having fun.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Well, it sounds like you're having fun.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
It's seven months so far, seven months, right, which I'm
sure has flown by.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
It has, except for the getting up at three point
thirty in the morning part.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
But it's fun engaging with an audience, you know, especially
early kind of thinking about the way people are commuting,
leading their lives and how you're carrying them through that
and giving them something to look forward to put a
smile on their face. It sounds fantastic. It sounds naturally
(26:35):
funny and engaging. It's not forced. My ears are sometimes critical,
as you know, and because that's what I had to do,
that's my job to do that for radio stations. I've
never heard it sound forced. It has a great flow
to it, a great energy. I look forward to listening
(26:56):
to it. So hats off to you and the whole
crew there.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Thank you for what's going on.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
It's fair to say when you program a radio station
for ten years and then you ultimately cross town and
compete against that radio station, you're kind of competing sort
of against yourself a little bit because.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
You built it's like child behind.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, so did I in my time competition want to
you know, beat the station's pants off, of course, But
did I always root for the Zlex crew and Chuck
and the.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Team, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That's that's that's the odd part about when you turn
around and do the role that I had. But ZLX
is a I say, in America, one of the top
classic rock stations without questions. So you're talking to the
man leading the charge there in the morning show on
(27:57):
one of America's best, and he's one of the best
in town.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
You've been in this town for twenty plus years, thirty plus,
thirty plus years.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
It's crazy for such It really is an insecure business.
People move around all the time. I've been in the
same place for three decades. That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
What's changed about Boston?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Hmm, Well, let's see, aside from the way things look,
the gardens changed names several times. I don't know it's changed,
but it hasn't. It's still such a big music city.
I mean, you've got a college town. You got people
want to see live music all the time. There's not
as many rock clubs as there used to be, but
(28:42):
music is still a driving force in this town.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
It's fair to say traffic was bad then and it
is still bad now, except now it's.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Bad all the time. You used to be just during
drive time, but now it's bad all the time. Everybody
has different schedules.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, so you've had the opportunity in your career to
interview some pretty interesting folks. There's a couple I'm going
to mention, but I want you to highlight some of
your favorites as well.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
First of all, I.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Can't help but think of the fact Chuck and I
were out he was covering the Grammys quite a few
years ago. We took a road trip to LA to
cover the Grammys. Had a spectacular time, had too much fun. Yes, actually,
and lo and behold, as he was doing his show,
(29:37):
suddenly John Stewart.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Becomes available to talk to.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Now, this is very early on in John Stewart's career.
What do you recall about that experience interviewing him? It
was pretty quick, right, It was sort of a breeze
through one of they they call it like radio row
when multiple people come through.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, when they put these things together, they have radios
from all over the country all lined up. I think
we're in the forum, yes that time. So they bring
in guests and they go from one radio station to another.
And John Stewart was hosting the Grammys, wasn't he? Or
he was a hosting. Wasn't think he was hosting?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
So he was.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
There for rehearsals, so he walked in and there was
this big you know, Oh it's John Stewart's John Stewart
and he's saying hi to everybody, and I remember, was
it you or me? We went over and approached him like, hey,
you know from Boston, want to go on the radio? Oh?
The radio? And he sat down and he was just
so spontaneous and really funny, just off the cuff. You
(30:39):
could see why he was so successful at what he does. Yeah,
but I thought he was great me too. I still
think he's great.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Actually that at that event, actually at the Grammys, that
was my first and only opportunity to see Madonna performed.
Do you recall Madonna being out there on stage two?
I think she did the opening, the opening act.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yep, yep, that's right.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Of course. We were up in the nosebleeds for sure. Yeah. No,
that was great.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
I've done that. I broadcast live from the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies when they had him
at the Waldorf Historia. I've had a chance to do
my show in so many cool places.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Who did you have at the Hall of Fame ceremony?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It was the year Paul McCartney went in and Peter Wolfe,
the lead singer of the Jay Giles Band, came to
New York with me and he was my broadcast partner.
So we were set up in the hallway.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
He knows everybody, so as we're sitting there and artists
are passing by on their way in, every single person
he just had to say hi, and they came over
and we talked to us.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
And I was sitting there in awe of Peter wolf like,
oh my god, nobody has said no to you. It's like, yeah,
I know a lot of people. I thought that was
the coolest thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
He has a great biography book out. It's great Stories,
by the way, the Peter wolf biography.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Yeah. Yeah, back to the.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
LA experience, what do you recall about our encounter with
this gentleman by the name of Ed McMahon. Now, just
for the audience, I don't know if you know who
Ed McMahon was, but there was this show called Johnny
Carson that used to be on and Ed McMahon was
Johnny Carson's sidekick.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Johnny Carson was the Jimmy Fallon show several hosts earlier.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny how it works. But so did
Ed McMahon come on as part of the radio row
or did we just see him? We saw him.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
We did, like I remember vividly tell the story. We
had our rental car, we're totally lost driving around Hollywood
and we're coming around a corner and he's standing by
the stoplight and Ed McMahon had us saying that he
used to say, and we set it to hey O,
and he sent it back.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
He set it back, but he set it back in
as dispirited away as possible. It was actually kind of sad.
He went, hey yeah, but he said it back. You
could tell he had heard that line before his whole life, right,
his whole life.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah. What a nice man, very nice man.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah. But other than his laugh, I'm not sure what.
He had a great laugh, but other than that, I'm
not sure what he did.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
He was just there to laugh at Johnny Carson's joke. Yeah,
and the rest was history. Frans.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, is there anybody you haven't interviewed that you wish
you could?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
You can spend time in interview, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
For our big bands like we play led Zeppelin. I've
interviewed Robert Plant and Jimmy Page for the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
So you just flashed on something.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Chuck used to do a very funny imitation I remember
of Jimmy Page.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Do you mind hitting this with that? With that British accent.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Jimmy Page was completely different from Robert Plant. Robert Plant
was the nicest guy. He's the lead singer. I mean
Robert Plant when he was nineteen years old leading led Zeppelin.
Oh my god, he peel the pain off the wall
with his voice. But he was so humble and nice,
and I expected the same from Jimmy Page. He was
not nice at all. It's a very tough interview. He
seemed insulted everything that I asked him, and I just
(34:31):
made some goofy question up about hey, if you could
zip down again an ey big muffin at McDonald's with somebody,
who would you do? And he just came back with.
Speaker 6 (34:42):
The hell are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (34:44):
And that was the end of that. So embarrassed. All right,
come back, Jimmy. The interview is I flashed on that.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
When I remember your imitation, I'm sorry to.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Put you out the spot. That's all right. For the Stones,
I've interviewed Keith Richards, who was again really nice, very
humble Guy's a legend. It's amazing that he's still alive.
He has no business being alive with the lifestyle that
he's late. I would want to interview Mick Jagger, but
I haven't, but I hear he's a very tough interview
because Mick Jagger is one of those guys that has
been knighted. He's Sir Mick, and everyone asked Keith Richards,
(35:17):
why haven't you been night He's like, I don't want that,
that's garbage. But Mick Jagger takes it very seriously, and
I hear he is rather aristocratic. But I'd like to
talk to him.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
That would be good.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
What about comedians?
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Since it's Boston is such a great comedy town, have
you had many comedians come through that you've you've spoken to?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Uh? I used to, not as many anymore.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
They don't.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
They notoriously don't like coming on the air and giving
their material away.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
And that's what makes it a tough interview, right because
you're feeding them their lines thinking they're going to say it,
but they're saving it for the stage. But Bill Burr
is really good. I've interviewed him. He's very funny, very quick.
Dennis Leary, same thing. These guys are so professional they
just go with it. Some of the smaller comics seem
to struggle a little bit on the air because they
need an audience. Right, they missed the laugh. If they
(36:11):
deliver the line, they don't get a reaction. It's hard
and they don't know how to handle that. So comics
can be a tough interview. Yeah, they clam up, They
clam up.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, So we're going to take some questions.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
But before we take some questions, I want to ask
you a final question. If you could give this.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Group here at Emmanuel College and then those in the
audience who maybe they're not necessarily radio majors, but maybe
they're interested in media somehow, and as they're carving their careers,
what piece of advice would you give to them as
(36:56):
they're pondering the world and soon to be twenty twenty six, if.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
You really have a passion for something, just go for it.
Give it a shot, because if you don't, you might
look back and regret the fact that you never tried.
And I really think you have to exercise the creative
part of you. And if that's through social media or
I hear there's radio equipment here that's not being used
at this school. You know, you could start a podcast
(37:28):
or you know, do your own radio show that you stream,
But get in there and give it a try, because
it actually has a lot of fun. I can't believe
I've done what I'm doing for so long. There's no
reason I should be doing this. It's just crazy because
I actually get a chance to make a living doing
something that was fun, which is so rare. And if
(37:50):
you can find that, you're good, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Chuck, Noah, thank you. So this is the question time.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Who's got a question?
Speaker 4 (38:11):
So Brett Show, do you.
Speaker 7 (38:12):
Ever answer the phone?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Like have people call in?
Speaker 7 (38:15):
All right? What was it the wildest?
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Like you get some people who call in really hammered,
really hammered, and they've been out all night. Now that
I'm doing the morning show, they're still out and they've
been out all night and they want to talk to you,
and they want to talk to you a lot. We
put a lot of people on the air live because
I really think that's important is to make the audience
(38:37):
a part of the show. So we're constantly putting the
number out there. You can go on the the app
and you can leave messages. With these thirty second messages,
we call them talkbacks, and we get a lot of
Some people are totally unprepared when we put them on
the air. Some people use very colorful language. There are
certain words you cannot say on the air, so we
(38:59):
have this. It's called the dump button. It's this big
red button. If you say something some people can relate
to this, you got to hit that button and it
gets rid of the last eight seconds whatever you said.
I find I used that a lot. I'm really surprised
how much I didn't in the afternoon. I would put
people on live in the afternoon, but I never had
(39:20):
to use that, except if I was out in a
bar or something. But I'm shocked in the morning how
often I have to use that. Maybe it's because people
are pissed off driving into work. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
I think that's it. Yes, big mistakes are embarrassing moments.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
That, oh god, so many. It's early in my career.
I'm there right now. I can picture it. I was
on the air. You have to make sure you turn
the microphone off when you're done, and I was doing
a show. It was a Saturday night show and I
just finished doing break I took a phone call and
(39:57):
it was a young lady. It was very friendly and
she wanted to talk to me for a long time.
It wasn't a lot going on, so I was talking
with her. Hold on a second, I gotta do another break.
And I do a break, get back to her, talk
to her. This happened like three or four times. The
last time I did not turn off the microphone. So
I go back to talking to her and it's all
going out over the air. And it was a small
(40:21):
station phone didn't ring a lot, but all of a sudden,
they're all ringing, like, Wow, this is great. I'm doing
really well. Hold on a second, I got to take
a call first. One. You know, we can hear everything
you say. And I looked down and I saw the
green light. Just, oh my god, the shot of adrenaline
that went through. I was trying to review everything that
(40:42):
I had said. I just turned the micro off and
I didn't say anything the rest of the night. I
just played music. It was so horrifying.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
What a great story.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Oh terrible?
Speaker 4 (40:55):
Yes, what would you say?
Speaker 8 (40:56):
Has like change in music industry since you guys have
like started.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I feel like the.
Speaker 7 (41:01):
Culture around musicians and bands like isn't the same as
like born at least it looks like it used to be,
so like, how has it changed and how has that
affected the radio?
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Yeah, well maybe you can help me with this too.
But back then you had a lot of help from
the record companies. They would promote you, they would take
you out on tour, they would set up your dates,
they took care of everything. We had all these record
reps that would regularly come by pushing, hey, you're gonna
play this, this is a new one from whatever band
or artist. I think now artists are mainly on their own.
(41:32):
They're self promoting, which has to be so tough. And
you don't make the money from record sales like you
used to back in the day. Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Eagles,
they made millions selling albums and CDs and stuff. And
now you're on Spotify and you get fractions of pennies
for a play. You can't make any money at that.
(41:53):
You really have to make your money from touring, and
I think somebody like Taylor Swift is a genius at that.
I mean, she could go out all year if she
wanted to and sell out every place she goes. But
that's really where she's going to make her money is
from performing, because it's just not there anymore in sales.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I think the rise of DIY independent artists who do
everything themselves to build their audience basically, and that includes
their social media and their merchandise, and you know, they
don't have big management and big publicists. There's so many
(42:32):
independent artists that are so proud with big audiences. I
was just talking to you guys earlier about the band
a Jar, who is a band that would you know,
many people certainly would go I've not heard of them
on the radio. Well, you're not going to hear them
(42:52):
on the radio. You're going to find them in different places.
And that's how they created their audience.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
So I think it's the.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Rise of independence is what we've certainly seen, which I
think is a good thing. We know somebody, our friend
Chris Paquin's son Will Pequin, has become an independent.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Artist on his own, who is touring Europe right now.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Oh wow, who has found his audience, who has his
strong social following And to your point on Spotify, yeah,
the figures. I think I heard the Foo Fighters for
a year of their Spotify royalties. I think it's it's
seven hundred thousand dollars or something like that, which for
(43:40):
a band like that that sells.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Out millions of plays.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Yeah, so that tells you a lot when there's a disparity.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
But also now artists can make music at home. You
get pro tools, and you get a decent you know,
a basement or something, you put eggshells all around it
and get the sound just right. You can make an
album at home, and so many artists like Noah Khan
out of Vermont, you know, making music at home and
then if it's really good, maybe a record company will
(44:07):
pay for the studio time. But back in the day
bands used to disappear into a studio for a year
to make an album. You can do that in a week.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah, they spent the record company's money. Yeah, foolishly, Yeah
on the wrong things. Yeah yeah sure, yes.
Speaker 8 (44:27):
Who talks about it a little bit in costs, But
how I think a lot of those can relate that.
Speaker 7 (44:31):
Making the radio, it's like a nostalgic thing of something
from you knowing your kids and having our parents play
it in the mornings and things like that. That's something
that really me don't think to play listen to on
our own time. Do you guys think about that when
you're reporting, like who you're targeting and what your audience
may be.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yep, radio stations have their target demographic that they go for.
We are mail a male rock station. Our main target
for advertising is twenty five to fifty four. Now, we'll
get younger listeners, will get older listeners, but that's the
pocket that you want. Where a stationlike Kiss is targeting
females younger eighteen to thirty four, although they do really
(45:10):
well twenty five to fifty four, so I guess that's
a target for them too. But yeah, they do so
much research about who's listening. We get ratings now every
week to find out how we're doing and how many
people are out there. They have these meters that they
will give you, these portable people meters that picks up
a tone that's sent through the radio that you can't
hear and register what station you're listening to and for
(45:33):
how long. And that's what our ratings are based on.
And it's a crazy system because there's.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Not enough of them out there, and there actually are.
They're actually daily ratings that you could look at as well.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
So it's so micro focused that you could actually even
go down to the day I will tell.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
You based on your question too. And I think it's
been a key to Zlex's success over.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Time, and I certainly think about it with my podcast
as well, that even though you know there's a certain
target audience, always go deliberately younger than your target because
a certain segment is going to get older and fall
(46:21):
off of what I call the demographic cliff. So you
need an influx always of newer listeners, newer audiences at
all times discovering you.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
I think classic rock benefits in a.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Big way because so much of the music from these
generations shows up in a TV show, shows up in
a movie, so suddenly a song becomes popular that was,
you know, maybe a library track on a radio station.
So yeah, I think creators certainly think about this a lot.
(47:00):
And Chuck would be thrilled if all of you would
try his morning show out.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
It would be beyond thrilled six Am six.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
Because it is important not only to be in touch
with your generation, but also for them to kind of,
you know, sample and be part of what we have
going on.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
And radio sees the writing on the wall that you know,
the younger audience is shrinking, so we really push our
free iHeartRadio app. You can stream every radio station in
the company and other companies as well. I think jumped
on it too, because I think eventually terrestrial radio will
go away. It's so expensive to have towers everywhere that
(47:45):
it will just become a streaming thing. As a matter
of fact, I think Tesla is dropping FM radio for
their twenty twenty six models because they want to encourage streaming.
You'll be able to use apps and get them in
your car, so we push that all the time. You know,
you can stream us on the free right iHeartRadio app.
(48:05):
It's going to take a long time before terrestrial radio
goes away, but it is going that way.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
But that's a really good question. Okay, sure, I'm just curious.
Speaker 7 (48:15):
The benefits of working in commercial radio versus public radio.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Financially, it pays better. Although WGBH has a great setup.
I love that sign and you're coming down the pike too,
But they just went through all these financial cuts federally
and they laid off a lot of people, so you
notice they're doing a lot more fundraising as well. Public
radio is great. I got them is my preset in
(48:43):
my car. But it's a struggle now more than ever
to really depend on people donating to keep it going.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
And I think to add on to that, you're fortunate
here to have a strong public radio community that, even
through the challenges that they're going through, is going to
survive it. It will be hurt somehow by the cuts,
but it will survive it because you know, when you
think of these stations that are in this community, they're
(49:17):
really embedded in the in the community.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
You know.
Speaker 8 (49:21):
I have a question on behalf of my son. He's
at school and could make it today, but when he
heard I was going to see a podcaster today, he
wants a podcast for Christmas. And I'm just curious, what
would you recommend to somebody who is thinking of starting
a podcast. Is there some sort of secret sauce outicle
about it to make it work?
Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yes, Resilience, passion, consistency, because when I say that, those,
particularly the consistency.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Part, they have something they call pod fade.
Speaker 2 (49:59):
This is the people who who do ten podcasts and
then decide I can't do anymore, I can't keep up
with it, I don't have any audience. They get frustrated
and they give it up and a large percentage have
pod fades.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
So I would say.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Those three things would be the priorities. And of course
find a niche as well. You can't necessarily be brought
into the market. You need a particular.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
Niche and have fun with it. Feel free, have freedom.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
That's something when we started in radio, Chuck and I,
there was more freedom that the individuals were allowed. Then
his companies got tighter and more researched, and there was
more at stake. Unfortunately, they took those freedoms away and
probably took it away too far.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
So he should enjoy the freedom as well.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah, I agree, you have.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
One more yep.
Speaker 7 (51:02):
I hope that you guys are still listening to the
radio for yourself or if you have more transition than too,
like streaming.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
And if you are still listening.
Speaker 7 (51:10):
To the radio, what are your like go.
Speaker 8 (51:11):
To radio stations that you guys?
Speaker 1 (51:13):
Good question. All right, let's see on my radio I have.
I really like w ERS the Emerson station, Ken West.
Every buddy ken West is programmed dark. He does a
great job with that, and I always like listening to
the college announcers. I'm kind of judging how they're doing.
I mean, you're going to screw up and all. But
I like to hear the passion in it, like you
(51:37):
really are performing and you got to put something into it.
I really like how they do that. So I have
E R S, I have Kiss one Away, WBZ ten
thirty for news. What's the one out of avioral the river?
I have that one. I have the sports Hub, I
have VII the sports stuff. Those are the big ones
(52:03):
I have. What about you?
Speaker 3 (52:06):
I don't drive as much.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
Uh, sports hub BZ AM ZLX probably.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Would be mine.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
I have EI EI too, but.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
But you know, less commuting. Do it one more quick one?
Speaker 7 (52:20):
Oh yeah, I if I remember correctly, you were saying
that you were pretty introverted, and like, I feel like
your job now is like worst nightmare for an introvert.
Speaker 8 (52:31):
So how did you know about making that chong?
Speaker 1 (52:34):
It's a great question. It's it's so weird. When I'm
on the radio, I'm a different person. I remember one
of the interviews I did with Ozzy Osbourne when I
could understand what he was saying because he was he
had such a thick accent and mumbly.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
And all that.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
But I was asking about what it's like to go
out on stage still to this day, selling out concerts
and all that, and he said, without all the swears
that I had to keep hitting the button on it.
He says, I'm absolutely terrified, and that surprised me. So
why are you terrified, he says, because I want to
do a good job, and that just showed me that
he cares. I think when I'm in the studio it's
(53:13):
a different feeling. It's like you're kind of in control.
It's a comfortable place, but you really want to do
a good job. So there is a terrifying aspect to that,
Like me coming out here in my personal life and
doing this is absolutely terrifying. But I said, yes, he's
never going to speak to me again and never gonna
speak to him again. But I can get up at
the garden in front of sixteen thousand people and introduce
(53:33):
a band, and it's great. I can do that, But
it's a different feeling. I don't know, it's kind of
a switch that you do. I remember one time I
met Howard Stern. I thought he was just going to
be this bombastic a hole. He didn't make eye contact.
He was so shy it completely blew me away. He
was such an introvert and I've heard him say he
is He's a different personality in real life than he
(53:55):
is on the radio. Thank you so much, everybody, Thank
you Chucking us very much.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
We have a party gift for you on the way out,
courtesy of the Taking a Walk Podcast. Obviously, feel free
to check that out anytime as well.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
Self promotion well.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
Thank you to all of you.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Thank you to Professor Flynn, to Emmanuel College, and to
Chuck Nolan.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Thank you guys, Thank you.
Speaker 5 (54:29):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
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