In The Weeds: The Worst Part of Interviewing Artist and How We Pick Segments

On this episode, "In The Weeds" go behind the scenes with Bobby as he answers questions like what he hates most about interviews, Deciding topics for the show, what a Producer ACTUALLY does, doing zoom interviews, saying things he regrets & much more! Plus a talk with Big Bob from a morning show in Pittsburg. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
We're gonna start with some YouTube comments from the last episode.
The first one says, how do you decide what topics
to talk about on which shows? This is from Nora
Dune seventy twelve. The first thing is, I keep tabs
in my phone. I have seven different tabs from Bobbycast

(00:33):
BBS twenty five, whistles lots to say, like, I keep
all the notes app right here and then I just
lay them in as it goes, And how do I
decide what to actually talk about? I think I mentioned
this before. It's just basically what interests me, because if
I'm not interested, it definitely ain't gonna be funny or
entertaining or compelling if I'm not interested. So that's it.

(00:54):
By the way, thanks for watching In the Weeds. This
is the show we talk about really inside things. We
cannot believe the success of the show, so thank you
guys for watching it, because nobody should care about the
stuff we're talking about here. This is just super inside stuff.
So another one was from b Ball Jones b Ball
Jones twenty one. What does it mean to be a producer?

(01:17):
You said, kickoff, Kevin is a producer, Scuba is a producer?
What is a producer. I'm very curious. So if you're
a segment producer, you're actually making sure that I have
all the resources to do the segment. So if kickoff
Kevin is producing a podcast because he's an entire podcast

(01:37):
producer of our show called Lots to Say, my NFL
show with Matt Castle, he will make sure that the
guest has been talked to before we go on to
know where to be. He'll make sure we have the link.
Anything that we send him he prints off. He'll also go, hey,
these things just happen in the news, Like he literally
is making sure that everything that we need to move
forward happens. Basically, a producer make sure the talent can

(02:02):
do the things that the talent can do. Now that's overall. Now,
there's also segment producers. For example, like Abby produces a
lot of the tell me something good means. She goes
and she finds the story, she gets them do, she
maages them with whomever would be good at it. So
a producer, for the most part, is the person to
make sure that the talent has the resources to pull
it off. Information guests, et cetera. Scuba Steve's executive producer,

(02:24):
so he's running the show. I'm running the show. It's
my show. But like right below me and the guy
that's managing all the stuff with sales, even with the show,
even vacation like scuba, Steve's doing all that. So it's
all the outside work to make all the inside work
that's on matter. So there are segment producers, the show producers,

(02:46):
and then there's like an executive producer that is managing
all the people as well. I know I was starting
to feel guilty because that was way too in the weeds.
But that's exactly why we're here. Okay, let's roll through
some other stuff here. Yeah, I ever say something you regret, Yes,
many many times I would say the thing that I've

(03:07):
said last was And it's not that the words I
said were wrong. I think the tone I said it
in came off wrong. Where we were doing it, maybe
the podcast after the show, and we were playing a
voice muff from a listener and she said, hey, I
like it when the show talks about birds. I don't

(03:29):
like when we talk about aliens. And I said, hey,
I see that name behind me right there. That's all
we talk about aliens because it was my name on
the show. I was totally kidding. I mean, I guess
I wasn't kidding, but I would never have said it
like that in real life. Obviously, everybody knows it is
my show, so I'm picking what we're talking about. But
I was very much using that tone being sarcastic, and
a lot of people got mad at me for that one.

(03:51):
But yeah, I also say a lot of stuff that's wrong.
I mean, I think if you're talking for multiple hours
a day and you're talking about things, just a law
of averages on how many things going to get wrong
or say wrong. You didn't even mean to say wrong,
it happens. So I say a lot of stuff wrong,
and if I'm really wrong, I come back and go, hey,
I'm wrong about that. For example, we were talking about
the Carolina Hurricanes who won the Stanley Cup, and I

(04:16):
don't know why I said South Carolina because I know
it's not South Carolina. I for sure know it's North Carolina.
But I had to come back and be like, hey, yep,
that was on me. I don't know why I said that,
but yeah, I'll admit it for the most part. Here's
another one. What's an annoying thing that someone does during
an interview if you have them in. Is there anything

(04:36):
that an artist does that if you see it, you'll
stop the interview. So that won't stop the interview. But
something that tends to annoy me if I'm interviewing someone
is when they always want to take every answer or
every other answer back to their project. There is kind
of an understanding when you come in on the show.

(04:57):
You're coming in obviously you have something to promote, but
I'm letting you come in because I think you're going
to give me some compelling content. So we have to
do that dance. You have to come in and give
me some fun stories, some fun things to talk about,
and in trade off at the beginning and at the end,
or maybe a little bit in the middle, we'll talk
about your project. But it's definitely a dance. There are

(05:18):
certain artists that come in and every answer is like yeah,
and it's speaking to that our project is out. If
that happens. There are times where I don't want to
have them back in at all because I don't see
an artist coming in as a gift to me. Maybe
three artists ever, and one of them's Garth do I go.
I'm just glad they're here. They're coming in for a reason.

(05:41):
It ain't to see me, they need to hang out.
It's because right now we have a pretty large platform,
and that platform is able to promote their project. Now
they have to give something for that, and we don't
take a whole lot of guests. You know, there's kind
of this weird thing in Nashville with radio shows. It

(06:01):
could be other kind of shows too, where they just
expect if a record label has an artist, that you
have to say yes. And we were one of the
first shows. But we ain't playing that game at all.
And not only that, we took out all couches from
our studios that let anybody in the studio that's not
the artist. That was met with a bit of controversy
at the time too, because record labels will want to
come sit in the studio or PR teams in the

(06:23):
studio when we had the artist. So one of the
first things that I did, because I got tired of
artists looking at their label and PR person during an interview,
was pull the ability for anybody to be in the
room except the artist. That a little awkward at first. Secondly,
we don't take many guests, and if I'm not super

(06:47):
interested in what they're doing with our project, can be music,
could be a TV show, I don't know, or if
they're not a massive name, like my audience isn't gonna care.
So we don't take many guests at all. And again
that has been met at times with well, you're not
a team player. I'm not on a team. I'm not

(07:10):
on a Nashville team. I'm on it. I gotta get
people to stream my podcast or listen to my show
or watch YouTube so I can keep my job. There's
no team. You don't give a crap. You're not on
the team either. You're just looking out for you. So
at times we're looked at in a way that's not
super positive because we don't take a lot of guests.

(07:32):
I have to be really interested in what they're doing
or they got to be a big enough name to
keep our listeners listening. But what do they do that
is annoying and it doesn't happen a lot now. It's
when they always want to talk about the project because
it's straight off. You have to come and give me
something good and in exchange, I will promote your project.

(07:54):
So that will be that answer. Do you look at
your audience this those that listen on the radio, those
that listen on the podcast, and those that watch on YouTube.
They're very different. Now you may watch or listen on
all three, but they are very different. On the radio,
the live radio show, it's so hard to get people

(08:16):
to stay because while people are listening live, life is happening.
Kids in the car there were like, whatever it is,
it's life. So I got a hit and go fast,
get to the point, hook, grab get in, do my business,
get out. It's very much like that. It is a
fire drill live on podcasts, you very much chose to

(08:39):
be there. With radio, there's a bit of passive listening
as well, where people will just have it on and
they won't be listening fully or they're flipping through at times,
and you're trying to get understand. But it's very passive
and I know that, and so I got to hook
you hard. If you're passive listening, if you're listening on podcasts,

(09:01):
I can actually be at times a little bit boring
because you came there for a reason and I don't
have to worry about grabbing you, hooking you and just
entertaining you so hard your eyeballs explode. You can just
kind of let stuff unfold. You can naturally organically talk
about stuff. So you'll notice if you listen to the
part two podcasts of our show, it is very much

(09:24):
just hanging out with friends. Part one is the radio show.
You gotta go as soon as that thing hits all right,
here's what we're doing. Let's go four four and a
half minutes, get out, go to the next thing. Da
Da Da Da da podcast. You can chill a little
bit because people chose you. But yes, the audiences are

(09:45):
are different. It's why we do, you know, two and
a half hours of content every single day digitally, because
we know the audience is so different. Do you like
guesting on other shows? Not really, mostly because if I
have something that I want to talk about, I have

(10:06):
a lot of avenues to talk about it. And sometimes
I feel like I'm just regurgitating stories when I go
on and guests on other peoples shows, other people's podcasts,
and if I'm not promoting anything specifically, I don't really
have a reason to be on anybody's show, so I'll
go in. I like to go and be a part
of somebody's show, like to sit in on a show

(10:27):
if they're doing it, and I could just be a
part of that vibe, that element. Yes, to actually be
the person being interviewed not really not my thing. I'll
do it, especially if it's a cool show that I
listen to, or sometimes the company will hit me up
and go, hey, we'd like you to do this podcast
so you can promote your podcast. But for the most part,

(10:51):
I don't do a lot of guest hits unless I
know the person or I'm really interested in the show.
If someone says, hey, we're doing a show, do you
want to sit in, I'll do that nine out of
ten times. Is because I can just say stuff. I
can just comment on stuff. That's really what I do anyway,
just comment on stuff, talk about stuff. So if I
can do that, that's fun for me. But for the
most part, no, And also I do so many shows,

(11:12):
like I don't have a lot of time to do
other people's shows. How do you feel when people say
you have changed? We get this a lot, and I'll
love it because I have. Some people will say you're
just not the same as you were back when you
were in Austin in two thousand and three. You're right,
you know who's also not the same from two thousand
and three you and if you are the same in

(11:34):
two thousand and three, oh my god, you need help.
It's time to go a little bit. So I've changed
dramatically in many ways as a person, I have changed significantly.
So obviously this show is going to change, But also
how I do this show has changed, because how the

(11:54):
show is done has needed to be changed. I was
freaking crazy the first ten years of my career. We
were eat Sundays out of each other's butts as a
losing a prank battle. We don't do that stuff anymore.
I just don't find that stuff is funny anymore either.
But when people say, hey, you've changed, yeah, I have

(12:15):
changed a lot, and I think I mentioned this on
another show. I also have a full staff of people
that if I screw up, there's a decent chance that
my screw up affects their lives too. So I'm gonna
mess up, But if I mess up dramatically, there is
a really good chance that it messes up the lives
of everyone that works on my staff as well, because

(12:36):
there's a chance they just go done. You're done, and
if you're done, everybody's done. Now would there be a
couple people that survived, probably and possibly, but I have
to think about that I'm messing with other people as well.
I didn't always have to think about that, especially when
I started out because it was just me and I

(12:57):
was running. I was trying to survive, and now I'm
trying to allow it to survive. So yeah, I've changed
a lot, no doubt. Let's see. Here's one. I don't
love it when you do remote interviews, and by remote,
I think they mean if someone's on zoom. I agree.

(13:21):
Zoom interviews are not my favorite thing either, mostly because
the timing isn't always right because there's a little latency
in the Internet, and so I don't do a lot
of them. Some of them I don't want to say
no to because I'd rather have it on zoom than
not have it at all. An example of that is,

(13:43):
and I don't when I'm recording this, it's not out yet.
You may be seeing this and it maybe it may
already be out. I don't like doing zoom interviews. But
John Stamos was, hey, I want to be on the podcast.
I'm not gonna say no to John Stamos, So he
zoomed it up and he had headphones. No headphones help

(14:04):
a lot too, because if someone's listening through their computer,
the sound has to come out. They have to let
it finish, then they talk, and it just kills the
vibe in the back and forth. He had headphones on,
so there was no that split second matters a ton
in conversation. That was a really good one. It's rare
that Zoom interviews end up being really good because specifically

(14:25):
of that, you gotta wait for them to finish talking.
If you talk over each other, then you both stop,
and then it's this awkward pause of when does the
next person talk? That sucks. What I love is when
if I'm doing a Zoom interview they have headphones or
ears and a microphone, then it's as close to reel
as it can possibly be. But you're right, it's not

(14:47):
the same. If we do ten interviews on the Bobbycast,
I need eight of them, eight and a half of
them to be in person because I don't feel like
I'm a great Zoom interviewer. I get a bit impatient too.
On Zoom we talk over each other a couple times
and out, let's just wrap this thing up, so I

(15:10):
like you agree, Zoom interviews aren't as good as in person,
but I have to weigh what I rather interview them
on Zoom than not at all. And there have been
a couple after I finished, I think it was not
at all, But a lot of them end up being
better than I even thought they were when it was over,

(15:31):
because I go into it with such a negative attitude, going, oh,
we got to an interview on Zoom. When I'm interviewed
on Zoom or zuff, I got a freaking microphone, and
I got years in because I know from the other
side of it how important that is. But I agree
with you completely. And we ask people to hey, on
this Zoom interview, will you make sure you have a microphone? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,

(15:51):
And then they show up and there's no microphone. It
drives me crazy. It drives me up the wall. Thank
you much. Something else I wanted to address. We were
playing a game on the Bobby Bone Show, not a
game that I put together or Mike, but Lunchbox said,
I want to play a game where I give you
two artists and you have to pick one of them

(16:12):
that gets to stay in your life forever and one
that has to go away forever. You never get to
hear them again, and he said, we're gonna do George
Straight versus Taylor Swift. And I've gotten some pushback on
this one, and I said, I'll take Taylor Swift and
Amy said, I'll take George Strait. I just don't want
to deal with Swifties, guys, that's the answer. I just

(16:38):
don't want to deal to Swifties that day. And sometimes
you make a business decision and in that day, in
that time, because I didn't know what he was going
to ask. When we play games, nobody knows what any
of the questions are if they're playing the game. Like
nothing on our show is scripted out. Nothing on our
show is known ahead of time. Heck, I would say
ninety five percent of the times that anything is even

(16:59):
talked about my show, the rest of the show does
not know what's coming. Occasionally I will say to the show, remember, hey,
we're going to talk about this, and I know that
happened like eleven days ago, but I've had a note here,
so when I go to it, just know that that's
what I'm talking about, and that'll be thirty seconds before
we go on the air. But I never want anybody
to be so prepared that they've got something thought out

(17:20):
that they want to say. Same with Games. And when
he said keep forever and one goes away George Straight
and Taylor Swift, my life flashed before my eyes and
I said, I don't want to deal to Swifties. I'm
keeping Taylor Swift now. I don't know if it'd be
different if you ask me that right now, Like whose
music have I listened to more over my lifetime? Probably
George Straight because he's been around longer from when I

(17:41):
was a kid. Who's had the bigger bangers in the
past fifteen twenty years. Obviously it's Taylor Swift. But a
lot of people say, man, that was quick to the
Taylor answer. I said, yeah, because I don't want to
deal the Swifties on this beautiful day. But that's why
here's one. If you're gone, how does the show get done?

(18:04):
I think what they're referring to because I looked at
the date was Eddie and I had to go down
to Florida to meet with some clients and we played
golf and I had to speak at a big client event.
We went to Palm Beach. I don't think I've ever
been to Palm Beach, before. I especially haven't been to
this part of Palm Beach before because it was really rich.
You just drove around and everything looked gold and there

(18:26):
were yachts, and so we go. We go to this
crazy club that I'd never been to. I'm not sure
the name of the club, but I did basically do
the zillo. You know, you drive by someone's house, you
won't know how much it's worth, so you just zillow it.
I just googled how much it would cost to be
a member of the club, and it was four hundred
thousand dollars entry fee. Was that kind of club. It

(18:47):
was wild. So we go play golf there. Two clients
are with us. Have God very lucky because sometimes those
type of events can be very stiff, and if you're
playing golf with somebody, it may not feel intimate, but
you're with them for four hours and you get somebody

(19:07):
that's stiff, it ruins around and it feels like it's
ten hours long. Got very fortunate that the two clients
we were with were really nice guys. We didn't even
talk business, and honestly, most business on a golf course
isn't talked about until halfway through the last hole unless
you've already been working on it, a little bit like

(19:27):
you're spending that first seventeen and a half holes just
getting to know each other, hanging out, becoming boys. And
so I googled the entry fee to that club. I
guess they close to half a million dollars. We played
golf all day. Got to go back to the room,
got to I gotta get dressed and put on some
nice clothes because I'm going to go up and talk

(19:48):
to all of these advertisers, including the ones that I
was with, but some that I hadn't even met. I'm
doing some jokes and talking about you know, why it's
great to advertise, and I mean everything I'm saying, but
mostly I'm talking about the relationship that the listening and
the viewing audience has with specific talent. And there was
a lot of talent out there. Eddie and I were

(20:09):
out there, Clay Travis, Clay and Buck from that show
was out there. Brady Quinn who's on Fox Sports play
Quarterback at Notre Dame was out there. Men from Steve
Harvey Show. It was that kind of thing, right, So
they have me up. I was the only talent that
was talking, and I spent a little time, tell a
couple jokes. It ends, but all of that was from

(20:29):
early that morning until that night on a Friday, and
so we were open about it. So in that type
of situation, we have recorded that show. We recorded that
one Thursday afternoon. But the reason that Fridays are so
easy is because if we have a guest, we never
do them live anyway. Ever, I stopped doing live interviews

(20:53):
with artists forever ago because I knew they didn't want
to be there that early because they don't naturally wake
up that early. So there's not an interview that we
do pre nine thirty, usually ten, sometimes ten thirty. So
we had had an interview already recorded. We did the
rest of the show Thursday afternoon, and the show that
the executive are like, hey, we could prerecord your show

(21:13):
and head out now. The other part of the question
was what do the other show members do while you're gone? Nothing?
They sleep in. Scuba Steep has to go in for
a little bit because's running the show. Ray goes in
to run the audio. But the people in the room, Amy, Lunchbox, Morgan,
nothing they sleep in. They don't have to go in
at all. So if for some reason we have to
pre record, like that Friday, they ain't going in. They

(21:36):
basically got a day off. That's pretty sweet. That's a
good question, though. Do you have any new hobbies or
anything you're obsessed with. I love sports cards, and I
really have to keep it at arms lengked because I
tend to like go really hard. I've also incorporated something

(22:04):
new into my life that's very much a one in,
one out policy, Like go back to the days when
you go to the club or the bar and it's packed.
Somebody had to come out before somebody went in, right.
And So I was going through a lot of my cards,
and I've got one of my tabs in my phone
is sports cards, and I have a bunch here that

(22:27):
I went through because having CHATGBT and having claude. And
what I'll do is I'll take a picture of them
and say, hey, what's the conservative value, and then I'll
compare them against each other and take the average of
the conservative value. And so I have like my top
fifteen cards that I have in my house. Somebody having
is safe as well. I got really really really really

(22:47):
into it, like unhealthily into it, which I've done with
a lot of things in my life, luckily never drugs.
That's why I'd be terrible at drinking or drugs, because
I would want to win it. I'd want to win
in drugs, win the drinking contests, so have it. But
I'm one in one out. Anytime I buy anything stupid,
like an expensive card, I make sure to take that

(23:10):
exact amount of money and make sure to do something
good with it. And sometimes let's say there's an expensive
card and I go, okay, that's just gonna use a
number that's five million dollars. I can do that, but
that means I gotta do five million dollars for good.
I'll crab ten million dollars. Ain't then, so because that

(23:31):
that has allowed me to not do as stupid as stuff.
But if I buy something stupid, I match it and
do something good because I have extreme guilt about buying
stupid stuff. But mostly it's with cards, with a bit
of memorabilia. I still dabble in the memorabilia world. I
got crazy and to pick a ball to the point

(23:52):
where I was always buying new rackets or paddles. But
wife calls them rackets. But I tore my ankle. I
went cold Turkey I'm not playing pickaball for the first
time until actually tomorrow will be the first time I'm
back on the court after my horrendous injury. People are
still talking about it. Oh not really, but the baby

(24:13):
has taken over our life right now, so there's really
no time for any crazy hobbies. But I have reorganized
all my cards. Cards are better than memorabilia because they
don't take up as much space like I got like
fourteen or fifteen really cool signed helmets takes up a

(24:33):
whole freakin' room. I got fourteen or fifteen cards. It's
like this right here. Now. There's a crazy bubble on
the cards, though, and you just kind of wait for
this thing to bust. But no, I have no crazy hobbies,
but I do have new ways to handle keeping me
from having new crazy hobbies, because if I spend money
on anything stupid, I got to match it and do
something good with it. And I like doing good with it,
but sometimes I don't want to spend all that money.

(24:55):
So there you go. Okay, what we're gonna do now
is we're gonna go over. I was talking to a
big bob from Pittsburgh, knowing from back in the day
he was on the Freak Show in Detroit and they
went to Philadelphia. We'll talk about all this, but this
is so in the weeds that I thought, let's just
talk to another guy who's got a massive show and

(25:15):
just see how he does this show. Again, this is
extremely in the weeds. You may not find this interesting
or you may be completely enthralled by hearing somebody that's
got a really a successful morning show talking about his journey.
So this is Big Bob from Kiss FM in Pittsburgh,
and I getting even deeper in the weeds. Here you go.

(25:36):
All right, that's gonna be it for this episode of
In the Weeds. Thank you everybody for watching. If you
got this far, God bless you. I got bored halfway
through and I'm the one doing it. We're so in
the weeds. Thank you for the continued support. I cannot
believe that you guys watched the show. I can't believe
the numbers it does on YouTube. We will see you
guys again soon. Until next time, stay in the weeds

(26:00):
and stay weedy. I don't think that's going to last
till the next episode. The Bobby Cast will be right back. Wow,
and we're back on the Bobby cast where I'm rolling?

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Now?

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Where are you?

Speaker 2 (26:13):
My friend owns a pavement company and also a media company,
so it's close to my house, like five minutes away,
So I'm just like, instead of driving back up to
the radio station forty five minutes, I'm like, can I
swing by and record here?

Speaker 1 (26:28):
So he has a dual pavement media company.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, he's got his hand in a lot of businesses.
His studio is actually nice toer than ours.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
I knew guys like that, though, but when they had
their hand in a lot of businesses, it usually was criminal.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
No, he's pretty good, dude. Okay. One of the best
I know.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Is your name? Is your real name? Bob?

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (26:51):
Is it? Uh? Is it Bobby or Robert or what?

Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, I'm a Bobby.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
I'm a Bobby too, like a real life Everyone thinks
that I'm a Robbert, but I'm real.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Life Bobby Boddy. We are a rare breed. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
And I used to think my name was young because
the name Bobby is not. I thought, like, adult is Bob,
and then Bobby was young and then I realized. My
wife laughed at me and she said the name was
most popular in like nineteen thirty six, so it's not
really a young name at.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
All or one of the few were one of the
fear you're why right, I mean obviously I am.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yes, yeah, yeah yeah. If I was Bobb, I I
would lie. I would change it. I would legally change it.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
I work with a Bobbi. It's a but oh yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah yeah, if it's a If I was a girl,
that's fine. My daughter's name is Billy but with an I,
but her grandpa, my wife's dad's name is Billy with
why Anyway, we haven't officially met ever, except just on
Instagram or whatever. But I you know, I was doing
this podcast and wanted to talk to other like hosts
that I thought were really good. And I've kind of

(27:57):
been following you guys' career for a while. So you
and Mikey and everybody that's listening, you can go listen
to the podcast Mike and Bob. It's called Mikey and
Bob right, yeah yeah, so, but it's the you guys
are the Freak Show Live, but the podcast is Mikey
and Bob, right, or it's not the Freak Show anymore.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
We are the Freak Show in very much the same
way that you are Bobby Bones like it was the
name handed over to us that we are to take,
and as the years went on, we're just like, why
aren't we just Mike and Bob? That's our real names?
Just like there's there's nothing fake or phony. It's very
early two thousands radio, you know. So one of those situations.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Are you guys still titled the Freak Show.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
In some things? But we go with Mike and Bob
usually with all our like inside imaging and whatever whatever else.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
What about you? But your Instagram is isn't it still
like FS Big Bob?

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah? I can't. I can't get the Big Bob from anybody.
I contacted the guy years ago to try to weasel
it away from him, and he was just a total jerk.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
So I tried to buy Bobby Balones on a guy
once and he one didn't use the account, and still
two wouldn't sell it to me. And if I don't
have it across all platforms, there's no need for me
to have it on one because it's so confusing to
have it one and not the other. So I didn't
know you have a weird relationship with Freak Show like
I do. Bobby balonce because I hate my name. It's

(29:25):
just who I am now.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
It was it was handed down to us. I mean,
we were on a show to start out with. We
started as interns and kind of worked our way onto
a night show with another guy named Tiktak, and he
was always Tik taking the Freak Show like a cast
of characters, and we were the cast of characters basically,
So we went and did nights with him, and as
we moved to mornings, it just made more sense to

(29:48):
carry it on. I guess is what we are known.
And then once we were in the market for a
year or two, maybe a little longer than that, we
just switched slowly to Mike and Bob. I mean, people
still calls the Freak Show, and like, I'm sure there's
still a piece or two imaging on someplace on a
radio station that says the Freak Show. But when we're
talking on the air, it's just Mike and Bob.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
I remember when you guys were doing nights with TikTok
way back in the day in Detroit, Right, all you got,
how did you guys get to be a part of
that show? You were in terns? Is the radio station?

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, we didn't. I went to one semester
of college, a community college, and didn't really know what
the hell was gonna do with my life. And there
was a broadcasting school locally, and me and Mike grew
up together, like to go back all the way. We
grew up together, played littleague baseball together, went to school together.
We've been friends since we were probably eight years old.
So it's a unique situation. On top of everything else,

(30:45):
did you guys go intern together? I interned first, and
then Mike took my spot in the promotions internship, and
then I moved on to a paid promotion spot.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
And so how did you guys end up getting on
that show?

Speaker 2 (31:01):
We were wandering around TikTok saw us. He was very
much a person that will walk around and pull people in,
like interesting people that he saw in the hallways, and
we just kind of stuck. It was very much of
the time too, where if you were a big guy,
you were the stunt guy, you know, like it was
that kind of radio. So I was sent out on

(31:22):
the streets to do wacky things, try to get myself
arrested basically every night. And it kind of transitioned from there. Yeah,
and then we went to we went from Detroit and
we got fired from Detroit. Oh interesting, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
Was there anything that led to that? Specifically?

Speaker 2 (31:42):
It was an ABC station and we were pushing every
limit that we could, basically at night to just be
the Aedgy Night Show and owned by Mickey Mouse. You know,
at that time, we were probably pushing a little too far.
I think there were There's one point where we took

(32:03):
movie passes. I mean it was all the listeners benefit,
but one of the Lord of the Rings movies was
coming out and we took a bunch of movie passes
from the promotions department without telling anybody, and that was
not a good morning. After we took everybody out to
a movie premiere or a night at the movies with us.
That kind of started it. And then there were I mean,
there were other things because the guy that we were

(32:25):
on the show with was really the lead, and he
was the one who was paid the most out of
all of us, so he had the most responsibility and
things kind of went sideways.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
How did that go when they told you you were fired?

Speaker 2 (32:37):
It's really an interesting story. They let me and Mike
work on our aircheck because we were just the kids, right,
So we were going up there at night mill the
night working on our aircheck, not during the daytime. And
we go to go in the station and we were
in a big, old historic building in Detroit. We scanned
our card and it dings red and it's just like,

(33:00):
there's no way, just like our all of our air
check stuff in there, and we're making fake air checks,
you know, like it's nothing even that we're on the
air really for. Or we're cutting up stuff that we
did on the night show, just cutting tik tak out
of it, making me and Mike. So it dings again,
dings again. We email our promotions director at the time.
He's just like, sorry, guys, you've been let go. That's

(33:21):
how we found out.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Wow, so you threw an email you cann't get back
up to your office. No, no, they didn't tell you
before you even got back to work.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
No, no, it was it was all shut off, man.
And then we uh, we played madd and on Mike's
back porch for like three months and sent out air checks.
At that time, you had to send out CDs. We
sent them out to every station in the country of
just me and Mike. Like the little bits that we
did have saved and nobody. Nobody responded like we reached

(33:52):
out one guy Kalamazoo, Michigan. There was a program director,
but he's just like, I can't take both of you guys.
I only got like fourteen grand for the job. And
our response was just we'll come, like, we'll work at
the grocery store during the day and do your night show.
And I think we've scared the hell out of women.
Never heard from him again, or he was just trying

(34:12):
to be nice.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
He didn't say yes to that.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
No you after that? Yeah, I mean when I say
literally everywhere, like we were Anchorage, Alaska, like we were
willing to get up and go and everything and just
nothing worked out. And I mean at the same time,
we were still friendly with the night guy that we
did the show with, Tic Tack, so we were hanging
out with him. It's really weird. There's this invisible string,

(34:38):
you know what I'm talking about, Like when people say
there's an invisible string between between you and us that
you probably have never heard before me.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, oh, I thought you find Taylor Swift. I thought
you're going into the whole invisible string.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
You like, an invisible string like that connects us like
in a weird way that no one will ever know.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
I'm anxious to hear this.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
When you uh, before he got the job in Austin,
that was gonna be our job. Like we were talking
to people. Can you did you lose me? Yeah? We
were talking to people, and like that was the do
you know Dom Theodore? I do? Yeah, Like Dom was

(35:17):
helping us out talking to people throughout the company and
trying to get us cause we were coming from ABC
and he's trying to get us over to the other company.
And that was the job that came up, and we
were we were sitting on it for like two days
and we're just like, well, it doesn't sound bad. Just
like we can go do nights in Austin, Like sounds great.
Like we don't know anything about Austin, Texas. But the
guy who were on the show with Tiktak, he was

(35:39):
from Dallas, so I guess that was okay. And then
Philly came calling like the next day, like the next morning,
something happened in Philly where the night show got fired
and Philly was offered and we were off and running.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
What happened in Philly to that show? Who was the show?

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Somebody was an executive someplace. Now, I believe you don't
want to say I can tell it. I can tell
I can send you a message and tell you what happened.
I think they I think they have a pretty prominent
role in a company that's a big company, not ours.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
The Austin thing was interesting because I got in a
lot of trouble in Little Rock because I was doing
nights in Little Rock. I was finishing college and we
had broken into a radio station and Little Rock and
taken over another station's airwaves, and I got a ton
of trouble. I'm talking bad stuff, and I thought I
was going to be fired. I wasn't. But it was

(36:35):
right after that stunt had made like the trades, that
I got a call from Jay Shannon and he said, hey, uh,
you should take this Austin job. I'm here. I'd never
been to Austin either. And the next day I was like,
I'm I'm gone. I moved down. Never been moved down
in a snowstorm. My favorite city I've ever lived in,

(36:55):
Nashville is great. I was talking to my wife about
this last night, said, do you think it's just because
it was that time of your life life that you
love Austin, you know, more than even Nashville. I said,
possibly that has a lot to do with it, because
it was just I was broke then, but right, you
just kind of care free when I was twenty two
years old, I mean, and I got to end up
getting the morning show when I was twenty three there

(37:16):
because the station was doing so poorly. That was a
great city to go from Little Rock to Austin. Had
to go from Detroit to Philly. Did that feel like
a massive upgrade to you guys?

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Upgrade?

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Now?

Speaker 2 (37:30):
I mean they were still they were both too. It's
so weird because they were both still top ten markets.
But upgrade, I wouldn't say. But there was definitely a
lot more opportunity in Philly, Like it was definitely the
time in radio where artists at least in the top
forty still came through radio and like you know, did
our concerts, and it was everything happening all at once,

(37:52):
and we were right in the middle of it basically,
and I was I was still doing the streets stuff
at that time. So who A lot of.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Times you and Mike here to Tiktac goes as well.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Tiktak came with us to Philadelphia too.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Were you guys all a little more equal now since
you all went together.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Uh, somewhat. But I wasn't still in the studio. I
was still serving out on the street basically, fully, so
we were all getting paid pretty decent at that point,
like not a lot. I think we moved for Uh.
I think it was thirty six thousand dollars. But that's
a three person night show.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Wait, they paid thirty six thousand for all three of
you or thirty.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Six I think me and Mike were thirty six thousand.
I'm not sure what TikTok was making, but like that
was a lot of money to invest in a night show,
even you know, even now. But how long? But I
was still I was still out on the street. I
was still out on the streets every night trying to
get arrested basically, like it was the very much the
Jackass years.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Oh yeah, And.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
I was just doing dumb things every night. There are
plenty of times where I ended up in handcuffs or
I don't actually have a police record, I don't believe.
So that's that's positive.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
How many times did you get put into a car
a cop car? Uh?

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Twice for what? Once? We did a We had a
thing we did called hump Day Wednesday where I would
just go out to random businesses and drop my pants
and yell, it's hump Day Wednesday. And I was wearing
boxer shorts obviously, but I would just hump things. So
there was a time at a mattress store where I

(39:21):
started humping a mattress and the police showed up and
got me, uh, and the and pounded the station vehicle.
That was That was a rough morning. I had to
go to court the next morning. Then I had to
go get the station vehicle out. It wasn't great. Been
through some radio times. Bones.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Do you look back at those because I do the
stuff that I did like that and go, what the
heck was I thinking?

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Uh? Yeah, some of some of it I in.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
A ridiculous way where I go, Man, I'm so fortunate
I did not get into more trouble than I did.
I looked back with real, uh real appreciation for the
people who did not arrest us.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
There are plenty of times where we could have fumbled
this whole thing, and it just could all have been
over and I would have been back in my small town.
We grew up in Michigan, working at the City Works
building cutting lawns, you know, like it really could have
went sideways so many times looking back, because at that time,
I don't know how much. I'm sure we brought worth

(40:26):
to the station, but it they could have disposed of
us and just moved on to the next one, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah, especially a night show, right, they were always first
of middays and then nights were always first to go
because it wasn't like advertising costs a whole lot to
be on at night, right, right, exactly, So how long
were you guys in Philly?

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Almost two years?

Speaker 1 (40:48):
How did that end?

Speaker 2 (40:50):
We got the offer to come do mornings here in Pittsburgh,
and we all three came. I was twenty two at
the time. Right now, I was twenty. I just turned
twenty three. Mike was twenty two, and Tiktak came with
us and decided within like the first month and a
half maybe that he just didn't want to wake up

(41:12):
and do mornings, and he was like, peace out, I'm done.
Like we came on. We came on to our station
had no morning show at that time. It was a
syndicated morning show out of the middle of nowhere. I
don't even I could. I think it was Seattle, a
syndicated morning show out of there that was runoff CD,
probably a day or two tape delayed, and it was

(41:33):
just awful, Like it was horrible, and the ratings were
less than one share in the morning show. And within
that first month and a half, we came on and
shocked the system and just built from there.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Is that the same station you're on now?

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yeah, yeah, and that's on Is that an iheartstation?

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, it's a kiss I mean most Kisses are, I assumed.
But and you guys have been on for how long
there now?

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Twenty three, since two, since twenty two now two thousand
and four.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Oh my god, you've been on there that long?

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Bro?

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah yeah, dude, my mind is blown. That is crazy.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
We've survived, We've survived every cut, We've survived every syndication
wave that's come across their company.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
You've been on for over twenty years at Kiss Pittsburgh.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah. That Hey. We've also had We've also had the
chance to move to different markets along the you know, years,
and it's just like we found our home, we found
our people. We make pretty good money here for Pittsburgh,
and we make you know, make the company enough money
to make it worth to keep us around.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Oh man, my mind is blown. Did you guys keep
in touch with Tiktak?

Speaker 2 (42:54):
I haven't talked to him in probably fifteen years.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Does he do video at all now or any media?

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Do you know? I'm still friends with I'm on Facebook,
so when I hop on there, like I'll see that
he's doing stuff. I think he's down in Mississippi or
in Missouri, somewhere down down that way.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
I've only been to Pittsburgh a couple of times. I've
toured through there and played a couple of theaters there,
so but it's always night one and so I never
get to spend any time there. And I did come
in the winter once and it's really cold, obviously.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yea.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
What is really cool about the city?

Speaker 2 (43:29):
What is really cool about the city? I mean, I
could give you, as I think a lot of people
discovered during the draft, the beauty of our city and
just people are really nice and welcoming to people that
are from out of town. We have this Mount Washington,
It banks up the one side of the city, and

(43:52):
you have a complete overlook that overlooks the city. But
I mean, if I had to say one thing, it's
the welcoming people that are in the city. There's nobody
that I don't think there's anybody that visits here that's
just like, man, Pittsburgh is full of a bunch of jerks,
you know.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Like I think my association with the city is probably
what a lot of people feel that haven't spent a
lot of time there. Like it's a very blue collar,
hard working city. So that's like the town I grew
up in and like the state I grew up in.
So everybody kind of looks out for each other. I
mean generally, that's what Pittsburgh feels like to me as

(44:26):
an outsider. Is that what it feels like there?

Speaker 2 (44:29):
No, not at all. I mean it's very much blue
collar still like it's still you know, very blue collar,
but like the steel mills are gone. Those spaces have
been developed for the most part into green spaces. There's
a lot of attach here. Everybody has a hub here
now because Carnegie Mellon Universities here and Pitts here and

(44:51):
they all have you know, big tech headquarters and robotics
and self driving cars have been developed here. There's plenty
of other things going on than what you would picture
Pittsburgh to be if you're just seeing it as the
you know, everybody sees Pittsburgh as the steel town, as
the Steelers. Now it's it's way more beautiful than that.

(45:11):
And there's I mean, there's plenty of neighborhoods to explore
in parks and everything.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.
This is the Bobby cast.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
I saw Instagram story of Paul Skeens that you had
posted at just out throwing the ball with kids. He's
for those of you who know he's a Pirates player,
but he's was an LSU guy, but is one of
the best pictures top three now in the majors. So
is that pretty normal for the athletes in Pittsburgh to
just be cool?

Speaker 2 (45:44):
I mean the athletes are really down to earth for
the most part, just because they're living in our community.
You know, like it's it's not like there's a I
mean there's there's nicer parts of town, but there it's
just laid back. Like when people come here to shoot movies,
I think they're blown away by how they can just
wander around town freely. Like I remember Tom Hanks was

(46:04):
here shooting the Mister Rodgers movie. Mister Rogers is Pittsburgh.
He's from Pittsburgh, but he was here shooting the Mister
Rogers movie. And I think he was blown away by
just being able to go out to a restaurant and
enjoy himself and you know, not have paparazzi or anybody
just in his face or bothering him. And I think
that's how a lot of the players can move throughout

(46:25):
the city and just enjoy themselves. That Paul Skeens thing
was pretty cool because that's the little league that my
kids played in growing up. So it was literally right
at the end of my block where he pulled up
and saw the lights in the parking lot and got out,
and he just started watching practice first, like it wasn't
anything that was sanctioned through the pirates or anything. He
was literally driving by and saw the lights up and

(46:47):
saw a bunch of kids, litle kids playing pulls over walks.
Out of course, they noticed it's Paul Skeins and start
going crazy. And then he just joins practice and he's
watching the kids play and playing touch with him and stuff.
He seems like a pretty down to earth dude, like
he's quiet, but he's very down to earth.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
How many kids do you have two do you? How
public are you with them?

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Pretty public? I mean I would say when I was younger,
I was way more public with them, and I didn't
really worry about it. My daughter's a going into a
sophomore year at West Virginia University, and my son's going
to be a senior in high school and probably around
maybe twelve, Dad talking about you on the radio all

(47:36):
the time wasn't the coolest thing, so you know, you
just you just kind of transition away from it. Yeah,
but it's still you know, you can still talk about it.
Like it wasn't like anything that I came up. And
it's just like I wouldn't want to embarrass her anyways,
you know, like she's some people I know in the
past I've heard other hosts talk about just like they've

(47:57):
talked about their kids all the way through, and it's
just like that was not going to be my choice.
You know, Like people still know who they are. They
still show up on my Instagram and everything else, and
they have their own pages now, but talking about like
personal things that are happening in their lives hands.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Off for me, at least, what about Mikey. Does he
have kids.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yeah, he's one daughter. She's going to their sophomore year
at pitt University of Pittsburgh.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
I'm always curious about people and their kids now because
we just had our first baby, and so our daughter
is now three and a half months old. And my
wife is a very private person like she if it
were up to her, she wouldn't exist to the public
at all. She doesn't much on social media. So, you know,
I've had to find a happy medium because for me,

(48:48):
I was by myself forever, and so it was all
out there because what did I care If it's just
about me. You weren't going to hurt me by knowing
everything about me. But when I met my wife and
she was very private, that was a bit of like
a foundation shock for me, and it was worth it.
But now, you know, she's you know, kind of decided,

(49:09):
and I'm with her, but she's like, I think we'll
just kind of chill on, you know, exposing her now,
and so that's kind of kind of what we've decided
to do. Listen, it could change at any point, and
you know, obviously we reserve the right to do that.
But people are so weird We had posted a picture
a few days ago and it was the back My
daughter has this big pink chair that she sits in

(49:30):
and she's looking out the window. And if I don't
show anything for my personal life, people beat me up
and going, why aren't you showing your personal life? I
talk about it a lot my own and then if
I do and we didn't, we don't show our baby's face,
they're like, why do you just show the back of
her head? You just tease it. So there's really no
way to satisfy everybody ever, And it's just weird that

(49:50):
people feel so territorial about seeing a baby's face. But
if I just had a baby out of my butt
and it was just my baby, I think I probably
would have been like, here's the babe, here's everything about it.
And I think that would have been probably not the
best decision.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
I feel like when our kids were young, like young, young,
like baby age, we talked about all the dumb things
of being a dad that we just didn't understand and
didn't know what to do. And you know, we just
I don't know if we played it up. We're really
that dumb, Like it wasn't like us playing it up.
So I think we did talk about them a lot.

(50:26):
One of the weirdest things I've ever done in my
life is I think it was like two thousand and eight,
so my daughter was maybe going on to two thousand
and seven, going into two thousand and eight. I live
streamed my life for an entire year. And back then
that wasn't like a normal thing. Like I walked around
with a backpack with a laptop in it and a
wireless card, and I had a pirate's hat and an
old school like giant webcam mounted on top of the

(50:48):
pirate's hat, and I would show I would show our
life twenty four hours a day unless it was something
really personal, and then I would just pop the sound
out and turn the camera away, you know. Like so
those younger years, there's there's. My daughter was on camera
a lot. But I think it's all your choice too.

(51:10):
The internet is such a weirder place now than it
was then.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
I agree, especially with AI and anything they can do
with any But you were the original. I show speed.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Without the speed.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Yes, how did that work out? You're streaming? What did
you like? What happened positively? From all of that.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Positive I'm not sure anything like looking back on it,
I'm not sure there's no big takeaway from it, Like
it was a great ordeal. I had some I mean
I made some good friends out of it, people that
would jump in the chat and we were still we're
in your five or six here. Then, No, it was
probably less than that year four. So like I think

(51:58):
it helped helped bond us to listeners a little more,
But like, I don't there's no like, oh, I learned
this perspective of life through live streaming for a year,
and I wasn't like now where you can make a
ton of money off it or anything. I was just
doing it for fun. Basically. We got a friend who
have you ever heard of? I Justine No, she's like

(52:22):
a tech reviewer YouTube. She's been on YouTube forever for
a million years. But she started doing it kind of
and then I'm just like, that looks fun. Maybe I
actould try to do that. So I went for it
and went for it for a year, and then I'm
just like, all right, this is the last day. See
everybody later, see you on the radio. You know, there's
no perspective. A couple of creepy people came along throughout

(52:44):
throughout that year, but for the most part, it was
just kind of a fun thing and there was a
chat room that people could talk in, and I think
a lot of people made lifetime lifetime friends. But it
wasn't like the Internet is now. So it's it's a
very different, you know world.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
You know my friend I Carly?

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Do I know I Carly? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (53:03):
My friend I Carly?

Speaker 2 (53:05):
I know I Carly. I do not know I Carly though, Oh.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Yeah, she does a show shows her life pretty cool.
You got who is that Miranda Costco?

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Is that who that was?

Speaker 1 (53:19):
I Carly?

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Yeah? Yeah, I think I think Nickelodeon Jack Justine's name
and like this and all that stuff for that show,
believe it or not.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Let's do I got a few like specific questions. I
don't know if you if they hit you up and
said if you have any questions, we'll go back and forth.
But so this is just like super inside stuff. So
my first question is going to be what I get
asked a lot. What time do you wake up? And
also how much of the show is live? What are
your hours?

Speaker 3 (53:45):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Four am right around there? I get up. I'm a
morning shower guy.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Oh no, no, I'm a mourning Oh my god. I
gotta do as much as I possibly can the minute
my eyes wake up. Uh no, no, I don't know.
I'm anxious. Guy.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
I got a shower. Her life doesn't move right, and
then I got to get a coffee before I hit
the station or things are really sidetracked. But yeah, we
then we go in and you know, it's only me
and Mike. We don't have any producers, any staff, no way,
it's been like that for the twenty something odd years
we've been on here.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Yeah, well, what about phone calls? Then who's doing that?

Speaker 2 (54:27):
If we're talking, they're ringing and then hopefully they ring through,
so nobody.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
You don't have anybody to make sure that weirdos aren't
getting on to screaming the F word.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
We're not taking the live phones.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Never got it, that's me. Listen. That makes a ton
of sense if you don't have a two like the
only time we do. But we have two delays because
we just get people to call and want to just
yell the F word. Oh we never Yeah, no, yeah,
that makes sense. Okay, So do you guys go live
right at five or.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Six or we go six about five point fifty and.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
You don't record any of your first part of your show.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
We'll kick off. There's some of it that's recorded, like
we'll record, but it's you know, it's live. It's live
in the moment, so it's not like we just try
to get ahead in case there's anything that we need
to get done for the day, So if there's commercials
or stuff we have to record for promos or whatever
else comes along. Or we also added all of our

(55:26):
best of bits, so any production that goes into the show,
and the imaging that goes into the show, anything that's
on our social medias. We do have a kid now
that is the producer for the Rock Show in our
building that helps edit some of our video clips because
it's a whole thing. But like, we had a producer

(55:48):
spot open for a media producer and it got pulled
in the last round of Yanks here, so.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
It never got filled. It existed for a second open,
but the job never got filled.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Yeah, it's happened twice to us now in the past
four years where we've opened a job taken resumes Like
this past time, I think we had over two hundred
resumes of people that wanted in, and up until that
point it's just been me and Mike and a guy,
a guy who's a listener of the show who works
for one of the local TV stations here. He would

(56:20):
help us edit videos, is named Steve. Awesome dude. We
were hoping that he would be lined up for that
job like that we could move him over and work
with us, and it just it got yanked with the.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
With the budget cuts, with the last round of cuts,
Hang tight, the Bobby Cast will be right back. Welcome
back to the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
Dang well.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Shout out to you guys for doing all that with
just you two.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
That is why it's our own stupidity though, because I
mean we started you know this twenty some years ago,
and we showed everybody that we can and do it
all ourselves. And we used to I mean back when
like the blog era of radio was a huge thing
and everybody was tracking how many blog hits you got

(57:11):
and you were compared to everybody across the country. We
tried to just run it down people's throats and try
to be number one every month. So we proved that
that that we could do that, and then like we
transitioned to podcasts and we could do that on our own,
and then social media came along real heavy and we
could we prove we can do that on our own.
So it's it's more of us just kind of digging

(57:34):
in and working twenty four hours a day as opposed
to working smarter and asking for help. And even when
we asked for help, it wasn't there because we already
proved that we could dig in and do it.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
I mean that's why we never got promotional money, because
I was able to prove we didn't need it. So
when I would ask for it, they would go, well,
why do we want to give any promotional money? You
don't need it. You've shown you don't need it. It's
a double edged sword because you want to be able
to do it yourself and prove that you have tremendous value.
But at the same time, if you ever ask for anything,
it gets met with no, you've done it yourself the

(58:08):
whole time. Why should we put this money here or whenever?
You've shown us that you can do it, So if
you need it, then go harder. Yeah, that's a weird
place to put yourself, But yeah, you guys doing it
two man, I mean that is significant at such a
high level.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
But yeah, I got a question for you if that's
all right?

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Yeah, I ask away.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
I guess you know every show has to come to
an end sometime. But you're such your name. Would your
name continue on the show? Do you think like if
you were to step if you were to step away,
does your name come with you or does the company
own that name? And then because there's been other situations
obviously where shows have continued under a certain name with
different characters, and have you ever read have you ever

(58:50):
thought of that before?

Speaker 1 (58:50):
This show would not have my if I'm not on it. One,
I wouldn't want it to have to keep my name
if it's a selfish thing, unless I'm getting residuals. I mean,
they want to run the show and keep my name
and pay me while I'm not there. Sure, but no,
in no way would the show have my name if
I'm not on it because I plan to be doing
other things and I own my name.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
So that's the same thing.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
And if not, you can do what Ultimate Warrior did
in wrestling because he didn't own the Ultimate Warrior and
what he wanted to do was be able to be
the Ultimate Warrior in WCW, and so he changed his
legal name to Ultimate Warrior because they can't keep you
from being ultimate warrior if that's your real name.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
So that's true. It's true.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
I've often thought about if I do end up like
running for uh, you know, for election or in politics
at all, changing my middle name to Bones legitimately, so
on the ballot we'll say Bobby bones Estol, which is
my real last name, because then people there won't have
to be that association of Wait, I got to remind
them my new name. If I put in my real
middle name, it's Bones, people will know who that is.

(59:50):
So yeah, no, if I'm out, the name's out. You know,
I'm done. We're done with this.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
I didn't know if another person from your cast would
just step into the your desk position, and if they did.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
It definitely wouldn't be with my name, you know, if
you know. I think if anybody was to do it
on my show. But again I don't even know. I
don't know what the company would do. But I did
get told by our CEO probably five or six years
or so ago, because we were talking about and at

(01:00:24):
the time I think it was hyper focused on getting markets.
Now I'm just hyper focused on growing digitally like hot
like that. That's the thing. Let me grow the podcast
as big as I freaking can you put us in places?
That's great, but I want to grow everything digitally. And
so he said, you know, we can't put you in
every city because if you die, that'd be too hard
to bounce back from. And I was like, yeah, it's

(01:00:46):
pretty smart.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Yeah, like that kind of makes sense. Yeah, do you
want to run for political office? Is that a thing?

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
I want to less and less as it happens. I
just know where I come from. There's not a lot
of people that represent those people that come from where
I came from and grew up how I grew up
without a lot of resources. You know, most people that
get into politics get into it because they're famili's in politics,
or they have some money already, they're able to run.
They're able to run for office because they can afford to.

(01:01:15):
So then you get a bunch of rich people or
a bunch of nepotism or but not people who actually
come from it, and like I come from it, and
so but I've been able to come from it and
do really well and understand both sides. I understand how
rich people are able to like loophole like crazy. So
it's all this weird stuff that I feel like I've
been able to learn. And you know, I've studied a

(01:01:37):
lot as far as just the basic fundamental like how
to make a law. I feel like I'm on you know,
blues clues. I've been. I had to do all that,
and I've spent a lot of years doing it. I
almost ran for governor a few years ago. We bought
a house in Arkansas at the time, in Central Arkansas,
and I lived there plenty, because you have to be
there seven years in a row to run for office

(01:01:58):
at any point in your life. And I lived there
the first twenty two years of my life. And I
am hardcore from Arkansas in every way. But so I
thought about running for governor because one of these big
headhunting firms had come to me and said, we want
you to run, and so I said, okay. And it
was basically just being on the phone asking for money
all the time more than actually having big ideas to

(01:02:19):
fix things right. So it turned me off a bit,
but I still think maybe one day. But we still
have a house in Arkansas. We live in Fattville now
as well. But yeah, I love my state. I'd love
to help, like I understand what it's like to have
food insecurity and not good education, and so those are
the things I want to help, but those aren't the
things to get the clicks. So that's it. That's that's

(01:02:41):
the elevator speech on do you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Do your show multiple plays? Like do you have a
studio in Arkansas? As well? Like do you travel in between?
So now, no, but I can go.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
I can go into any studio. But also it's the
technology is so good now I can flip open a
laptop right and put a mic and and zoom it
and it's really close if we have to do it
that way. But we'll travel with a kit sometimes and
sometimes we'll just travel with you know a few of
us with the podcast rig Or, Like I'm going to

(01:03:14):
la to fill in for Rich Eisen for a few
days for his sports show, and I'll just work from
his studio because anywhere where the connection works, right, So yeah, yeah, yeah,
uh okay, here's my second question for you. You had
other cities come and say, hey, do you guys want
to move shows and move cities, and you guys chose
not to. Is that something that you both did, One

(01:03:36):
of you want to do it and one didn't like.
How was how did that conversation go?

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
Uh No, we are pretty We're pretty in sync with everything, man, Like,
I gotta be honest with you if we're being completely
honest with me and Mike, Like, closest thing I have
to a brother. He has a brother, but he's the
closest thing. I'm an only child. He's the closest thing
I have new brother, Like I if he really wanted
to make that move, I would jump in with them
and we would just go balls out in that direction.

(01:04:04):
Like so, I mean, we talked it over. It was
never the right situation or the right time or we
felt like we had the right backing. And then Pittsburgh's
just been so good to us too, which is just
makes the decision so much easier.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Did you have a show growing up you listen to
that you look back and like that was your show
when you were a kid and young adult?

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
No, really, I'm not like a radio nerd dude, like
I went to Like I said, I went to a
broadcasting school, but like the broadcasting school taught radio and TV,
and in my head, I'm just like, man, it'd be
cool to be like a camera man at like ESPN,
or something, you know, like it was something along those lines.

(01:04:48):
Like it wasn't like, oh, I've been chasing this radio
dream my whole life, like when I I did like
I said, I did one semester community college on undecided.
We came from a very middle class us, Like my
dad worked doubles to keep us in that middle class,
you know, Like it was Detroit right outside in the suburb.

(01:05:09):
It wasn't like run down or anything, but we would
definitely weren't wealthy by any means. So I don't think
I could see past the fence to see that there
was this whole career or it was even possible for
me to ever do this. I think that's why when
I finally got into a radio station in Detroit, we

(01:05:29):
didn't leave. Like we were there from eight am with
promotions to through the night show to helping him record production,
to three in the morning to back there at eight
am to do promotions and work in concerts in between
and helping out, talking to everybody and seeing what everybody does.
Like I think we both got the opportunity to do this,

(01:05:53):
and we're just like this, holy holy bleep, this is
going to be something we can do and they'll pay
us eventually, like let's dive in and run with it.
But now, I mean, none of the markets that have
approached just over the years, and there have, like I said,
there have been something just nothing felt like the right

(01:06:14):
situation or enough to pull us away from Pittsburgh just
because it's been so good to us.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
We're gonna wrap this up pretty soon. Do you have
any other questions for me? I don't really know, you know,
I just wanted to talk with you because I like
to talk with folks that like I admire their work.
And I remember you guys doing the night show and
I followed. I act like I didn't know and I
was asking questions, but I knew a lot of the
stuff that you were talking about as far as where
you'd been. And you know, I remember you guys with
tik Tak back in the day because me being in

(01:06:43):
Arkansas at the time being a little rock and you
guys were on over there around the same time, and
I thought you guys were really freaking crazy like you
guys were. I was never crazy. I was always at times,
I was not risk averse, but I was never insane,
and I thought you guys were insane in a beautiful way.
So I've always kept up with you guys, and I

(01:07:06):
just can't believe I'm that old, because when you say
you've been there twenty years, a little bit of that
was going, Oh my god, that means I'm a hundred
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Yeah, we were. I mean we went to Philly. When
we were it was like Q one o two. When
we were there, it was like TRL was at its
peak and like Carson Daly would come hang out and
stuff like that, like those were still in those years.
So we only stayed there there a year and a half,
and like I said, two thousand and four, we've been
here ever since.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
Who did the morning show then?

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Was it Cheo Chio? Yeah, there's a funny story about Cheo.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
I'm ready.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
The Philadelphia Quoyer came in to do a twenty four
hours at the radio station, and like this is before
web was really a thing. I mean it was, but
it wasn't like it is now. So you're making the
Philadelphia Daily or whatever. It was Philadelphia Choyer, Philadelphia Weekly,
one of those. But you're making that and they're doing
a Day in the Life at Q one o two

(01:07:57):
and it was supposed to be like really heavy highlighting
the morning show, and the guy stayed around all day
writing his little notes of everything, and then he got
to us, and I forget what we did that day,
but we completely like blew the guy away, like we
were doing dumb stuff. We had people running in there
underwear doing like an under five hundred I think it was,

(01:08:19):
if I remember right. And they go to shoot the
cover of the Philadelphia Weekly magazine and it was supposed
to be Cheo in the Morning Show and his characters
on the cover in the main page, and they wanted
the three of us front and center like and then
there were three little boxes on the top that was
Cheo and his crew. So that went over pretty bad.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
I remember right how dramatic that was in the building, But.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
We we were just flying. It was hectic, like there
was no there was no worry about anything in the world.
And I think at that point, like me and Mike,
a lot of the times were too young and dumb
to know how reckless it really was and like how
close we were to the aedge of just it being

(01:09:07):
all gone. But at the same time, I feel like
we thought we could just bounce to a different market,
and you know, it was it was a completely different
way wait radio operated back then.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Yeah, I think me being naive helped a ton because
had I known, and like you said, how close I
actually was to the sun at times, I probably wouldn't
have flown so close to the sun. But me doing
that actually created a lot of the success and a
lot of the foundation.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Even we came here, do you got to hop off?
I don't keep you for Even we came here, like,
we were still trying to push the limit, right, So
we were doing the hump day Wednesday bit, and I
dropped my pants inside of a major retail box store,
and like, by three o'clock, that major retail box store
had our whole company on the line willing to pull

(01:09:59):
like all their nation advertising because of something stupid that
I did in a little, you know store in the
middle of Pennsylvania. So I think that was a reality
check for us. That was one of them. That was
one of them where they set us down. Geane Romano,
God bless him. He was very He gives a long,
long runway to take off like we were off and flying,

(01:10:21):
but he let us. He gives a long leash. And
then there was another time where I had a live
chainsaw our and our offices, trying to chainsaws through our
desk and I've never operated a chainsaw before, and it
was a big, full on, like lumberjack chainsaw that a
listener dropped off for us to use. And I'm hammering

(01:10:41):
at this desk and Gene comes running in from behind
and we're live on air and he's just screaming, shut
it off, shut it off. That was another bad day.
So those first couple of months of us trying to
figure out what the hell we're going to do in mornings,
and I don't think all that stuff converted our morning
radio show like I don't think it did. It wasn't.
We took our night show and tried to jam it

(01:11:02):
in the morning show, and some of it work, some
of it didn't. We definitely shocked the system, but then
you had to build the community around it where people
actually cared about you and cared about things that you're doing.
And I think that took years. You know, it wasn't
there was an instant overnight success here, But at the
same time, we were coming from nothing that zero less
than one share, so we looked like heroes to start
out with. But for us to build the community that

(01:11:25):
we have now, or just the people that you know
that are in our building that really back our show.
And we got some pretty good people that still work
with us that are still around through all this, that
have been around for years that we worked with. So
to go back to your point of leaving, I don't
you know, it would take a lot. It would take

(01:11:47):
a lot. There was a point now, God, no.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
I'm ready. I went to the point.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
I don't even remember what I was gonna say.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
Or did you second guess saying it? Because I do
that a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
I did second guess. Yeah, it was something about our
last contract negotiation.

Speaker 1 (01:12:05):
Expect it, you know what. I'll respect that for what
it is. Hey, I really appreciate the time. And you
guys continue to kill it up there, and man, I
can't believe that you got a two man operation of
your own doing like you trapped yourself into this by
showing just how capable you are. So yeah, continued success,

(01:12:27):
good luck, and hopefully one day I get I get
to meet you in person.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
Tell Mikeyslo I will anytime you want to come up
come see us.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
Thanks, Bob, see you later, man, I appreciate the time.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
Later, buddy, all right, byeybody.

Speaker 3 (01:12:38):
Thanks for listening to the Bobby Cast. Share this episode
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