Chachi loves Johnjay!

A couple months ago, Johnjay flew to LA to be on a podcast...and here is what happened!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Nick.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Welcome to the Afterwards podcasts a little different. Today, we're
gonna learn the history of mister John j.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Vanas.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
John Jay flew to LA a couple months ago and
did this podcast. It's called Chachi Loves Everybody and John
Jay goes through the whole history of him and Rich
and the show and Love Up and Love Pup. We
thought maybe you guys would like to hear it, so
here you go afterwards, John Jay, Chachi Loves Everybody, and

(00:29):
John Jay and Chachi and I'm Nick. Enjoy, have fun,
have a great day. Broadcasting live across the world right now.
This is the John Jay and Rich radio program.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
One day, my wife calls me. She's like, oh my god,
some lady just told me that she found a chihuahua
by the kids' school. Like, okay, send me a picture.
She send me a picture of HuaHua. I'm like, oh,
that's cute. I post it on Instagram. I go, hey,
we found this chihuahua. It's anybody interested in adopting a dog.
I don't know anything about adopting dogs or the rules.

(01:04):
And this couple messages me and they're like I had
actually a lot of people messaged me, and I was
scrolling through Instagram to find what I thought was the
best family, and I asked him to meet my wife
and I at the Bank parking lot, and we delivered
the dog right And when I was handing the dog
over to this family, the magic in their eyes and
the magic in the dog's eyes when they saw each other.
I was like, this is unbelievable. I go, this is
I told that story on there the next day, and

(01:26):
all of a sudden, they started getting messages like, oh
my god, I run this apartment complex and somebody left
the dog in the apartment complex. Oh my god, my
mom is too old. Can you take this dog? Oh
my god, I found this stray dog. Can you go?
And I was getting all these messages, so I was like, yeah,
So I was bringing all these dogs home right without
my wife's like what do you doing? I go, I
don't know. All these listeners messages me. Now, we had
like one point, we had thirty four dogs in our house.
Thirty four dogs. One dog we put in a lage room.

(01:48):
She had puppies. It was like, oh my god, she's pregnant.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Ben's Town President Dave Chancy.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Dennis loves radio and all of them is radio friends.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Hey honey, Hey everybody, because Shachi loves everybody. My next
guest has been passionate about being on air since childhood.
He trained with the legendary improv troupe of the ground
Wings in Los Angeles and worked at iconic radio stations
such as ninety one X in San Diego, KRQQ and

(02:17):
Tucson and w KRQ, where he won the Best in
Cincinnati award after just three months. Alongside his on air
partner Rich, their show is syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks
and Arizon over twenty stations across the country. His dedication
to the community is truly inspiring, as he devotes much
of his time to helping vulnerable children and foster care
through the Love Up Foundation, and has facilitated the adoption

(02:39):
of over five hundred dogs through his sister organization, the
Love Pup Foundation. Please welcome John J. Vans from The
John Jay and Rich Show. Welcome man. I I am
so honored. Let me back up here for just a second.
I got messaged via Instagram from you asking about a
Harvey Pinnock book that I referenced on the Trace Johnson episode.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
You didn't say which one.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
I didn't say which one. And I'm like, I can't
believe that John Jay has reached out to me via Instagram.
And I literally took that message on my phone and
ran it up and down the halls here at Pens
Down going, John Jay just hit me up and listens
to the podcast.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
I love your podcast. I love it. I'm a huge fan.
And the Tracy Johnson podcast was fascinating because you know,
I got it one time. I got a voicemail message
from Tracy Johnson. I was in Tucson on carra Que.
We've been on I don't know how long we've been on,
but a year or two, and I got that voicemail. Hey,
John j It's Tracy Johnson. I want to talk to
you about a John Jay and rich T shirt. How

(03:36):
do I get one of those? And I was like,
oh my god, that's code proffering us a job. Oh
my God. Called him back and it was he flew
us out to San Diego to talk about taking over
for Jeff and jer Actually.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
That's it was crazy.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
I don't know what year that was in the in
the history, because then I listened to Laura Kane podcast
in the Tommy Podcast and in there, I'm like, wait,
when was that? When I have it, I'm a huge
fan of I got his Morning Radio book.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
I'm a huge fan Tracy. I owe a great deal
of my career to Tracy. He gave me my first
break in radio and helped me again meet my current
business partners. He's been just an amazing, unbelievable talent coach
and a brilliant, brilliant programmer. Tell me a little bit
about growing up and dreaming about being on air as
a kid.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, as far as I can remember, I've always wanted
to be on the radio always since I was a kid.
I moved around a lot. My dad was in the
restaurant business, and then he later became a tour guide.
My dad is from the Netherlands and he speaks seven languages,
and my mother is from Mexico. I came out looking
like my dad. My mom is about as Mexican as
you can get. They met in Los Angeles when I
was about six or seven. My dad got me a

(04:42):
tape recorder, and you remember that episode of Brady Bunch
and Peter would tape everybody. I don't know if you
remember that, Yeah, one hundred percent. They started around, yeah,
and they screwed him a little bit. They screwed with
Peter because they knew he was taping Jan and Greg
and they were going to throw a surprise birthday party
for him, and he ran out and there was no surprise.
So my dad got me a tape recorder and I
would just play practical jokes on my sister NonStop. And

(05:04):
then I would interview my mom and I'd be like, Mom, Mom,
She's like, what do youn't he though, what are you doing?
I go, just put your makeup on and I'm just
gonna talk to you how you put your makeup on?
And she's like, do you want me to put the
makeup on? Just put the makeup on, Mom? And I
was just interviewer. And then and then I like, I
mean I went to the bathroom and I record me
going to the bathroom. I did all these things as
a kid, and I loved it. And then I would
listen to Casey Kasem and I would try to backing

(05:26):
ount songs and intro songs, and I taped songs off
the radio. You know what I mean, You're remember back
of the day for sure. And then and I get
so mad because I couldn't get all Huey Lewis. I'd
get the DJ talk in front of it, and so
that's that's what happen. I've always wanted to be on radio.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Where your parents supportive. Have you been on the radio.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
There was a time where I was living at the
radio station and I was an intern for ninety one X.
I worked for ten months and three days for free,
and at the end of that period, my mom and
dad were pretty irritated, like, what are you gonna do
with your life? How are you gonna make money? You're
doing this for how are you gonna make money? It's like,
I don't know, Mom, something some day, something happened.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
You were just that passionate about it.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
I loved it.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
I think it would be hard in this day and
age to find someone that would be putting those types
of hours and not get paid for it.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
You're right, and you can't tell them to do that now,
you can't.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
You can't, But I had I had that exact that
exact same passion was growing up and you said you
moved around quite a bit. Was there a particular show
you listened to or a personality that you really gravitated.
You mentioned Casey, but any others.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
Well, different times in my life. I remember when I
was so, I grew up in Tucson, and I grew
up in almal Seo, Mexico and Santana, Mexico, and then
I grew up in Phoenix. I moved to Phoenix when
I was from Tucson to Phoenix when I was like eleven,
and I would listen to Casey CP all the time,
which blows my mind that I do mornings there because
I remember I was collar fourteen and I want tickets

(06:51):
to go see sixteen Candles the movie player sixteen Candles. Yeah,
and now I do the morning show there, you know
what I mean. I mean it's nuts, that is surreal.
But I listened to the morning show there. I think
Jonathan Brandmeier might have been the morning guy there, but
I don't remember him, do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Growing up, I didn't realize. So you grew up in
Mexico and did you guys move around just kind of
based on tours where you said.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Your dad was a tour the restaurant business.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
My dad was sorry, the restaurant business.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
My dad was assistant manager at Taco Bell in Tucson,
then worked his way up and became the owner of
two Taco Bells and Tucson. He actually had the rights
to all of Taco bell in Arizona and he sold
those rights. There were only two in Arizona. My dad
owned both of them. If he would not have sold that,
I'd be flying here in a private jet to talk
to you today. But he sold those and got involved
in a restaurant called Sambo's. Failed miserably.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Oh man.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, so so then he got in the tour guide
business because he spoke seven languages, so he was from
all over the world, all around the United States.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Did you work at all in the Taco Bells.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
No, he got rid of him, but I was like ten, okay,
But I mean I would go in there and make
whatever I want. I remember that he was entrepreneurial then. Yah, yeah,
very he was amazing human being. He passed away about
seventeen years ago, but he was an amazing guy.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
Did he get to well, he got to see you
have a lot of success.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
When I first started on the radio, he came out.
He lived with me for three months, and then anytime
I had an event somewhere he would go. He was
He's amazing.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
So they were really very supportive, very supportive. Yeah, short
of when you worked for ten months for free.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
I get.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Tell me a little bit about your first gig. You
got an internship at KGTV San Diego. So are you
going to school at this time?

Speaker 3 (08:18):
So I was going to Santygo State and I got
dared there was a college radio station called k c R.
It was a cable radio station, or you can only
hear it within the vicinity of Santego State. I went
there and I auditioned and they let me. They give
me a Friday night shift and it was knobs. Remember
the nob Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So I get in
there and they have they have the playlist that I'm
supposed to play, and I didn't like it. So I

(08:40):
remember I threw on a little John Cougar and I
got hotlined and the PD was like, what are you doing?
That's not on the list. I go ahead, but I
really like that song, Like you can't do that, man,
I'm like, oh that. So then I remember I cracked
open the mic and I go I took I did
a whole thing where, you know, across the record, and
I'm like, I don't know what happened. Somebody came in
and put the John Cougar oak and then the guy

(09:01):
hotlines me again and goes, I heard that. That was fantastic.
I was g love that you did that. I'm like, okay, wow,
all right, So I worked out. I did two fridays
and then I got fired.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah did you have who taught you at this point?
Did you just kind of mimic what you had heard
on the air?

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah, I just did the way I thought we spoke.
I just did radio or whatever that was, how like
talking to you here. Then I go to I was
going to telecommunications major, and there was a job posting
for an internship at Channel ten at KGTV, and I thought,
maybe I want to get a TV now, you know,
being a white guy that speaks fluent Spanish. My dad
would always tell me, trust me, keep speaking Spanish, he goes,

(09:38):
and my uncles would be like, you can be on TV,
he can be a news anchor. You can speak English
to speak Spanish. I remember going, I don't want to
be on TV, right, But I understood what they what
they were saying, so I thought, let me get in
this TV world. So I get an internship there a
TV and I learned a lot but I was bored
out of my mind. In TV. I got to write
like the community service promos, you know. I remember hearing

(09:58):
like in fact, oh my god, what his name? Legendary?
He would go today on kg TV you'll come to this,
but he's a legendary voiceover guy. And I would hear
him do my writing, and I was so blown away
by that. But it was just the same. Nothing ever
exciting happened. And I remember I was on the phone
one time with my sister and Kimberly Hunt walked by.
She's still I think she's still in the news APTA,
and I was like, my mom, get right on. I
was so starstruck by these news anchors. But it was

(10:19):
so boring. So then I find out about an internship
at ninety one X, legendary radio station, the coolest logo
in radio, right, So I go and I meet with
a guy named Peter Napoli. He was a marketing director
promotion director, and then Dwight Arnold. Dwight Arnold was the
assistant promotion director, and they took me on as an
intern and I never left.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
I'm in Paris about a month ago, and I go
to a bathroom and write above the urinal was a
bunch of stickers from all over the place, and one
of them is a ninety one X sticker right above
a urinol in Paris, France.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
That's the coolest sticker to put on your car.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
So cool, the coolest at that station. I think ninety
one X. I mean when you think of alternative, those
those two brands, I think are amongst the biggest and
amongst the biggest in the country. So you get this
opportunity to go there, and you must have been beside yourself.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
Beside myself, and I learned so much. Like I would
go watch the morning. They had just stolen Berger and
Prescott from a KGB, right, so Dave Hilly Chainsaw weren't
around yet, right, so they had formed Dave Hilly Chainsaw.
After Burger and Prescott came to the nine one X,
and so I would watch, and they brought in Rusty
Nails was already kind of doing mornings there, so Russy
became like the sidekick. So I would just sit there

(11:33):
and watch them, and I would watch the producer, this woman,
I can't remember her name, but she was. I watched
him show prep and I watch how they did it, and
I watched Russy do the voices, and and my last
name is Van s. And I remember Prescott will go
Van as he gets so excited when they asked me
to do something for him, you know. And I was
driving the ninety one next van everywhere, I was putting
the stickers on people on the beach, all the tattoos,
and and then I would just then Steve West was

(11:55):
the midday guy, and I would watch Steve West run
the board, but he was always smoking cigarettes, and I'd
be like oh. And then the afternoon guy was a
guy named Oz, and Oz was just phenomenal. He taught
me how to run the board. He would I remember this,
I remember him, you can you run the board. I'm
gonna go outside for a little bit. I'm like okay.
So I was all excited to run the board. And
then the next song I remember this like yesterday. The
next song was Falco. Oh yeah, right, Drick Krmershaw. So

(12:17):
I grabbed the vinyl and I put it on a
Cueue up, you move the record back a quarter, go
into the and I don't I'm not talking. I just
run the board and I go into the wrong Falco song,
some Falco song, No one's ever heard of. And Kevin Stapleford,
who was the program director. I don't know if he
remembers me or not, but he came busting in and
he sees me behind the console by myself. Where's oz Like, oh,
he would get a drink or something like that, and
he goes, why are you playing this Falco song? So

(12:41):
I never touched the board again after that? Never touch
I was. So this day I go run the board
and I'm terrified.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
I was gonna ask you that question because I've seen
a lot of video and doing some prep for this,
and I see that Rich is running the board. So
that's kind of your guys.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah, when when Rich and I partnered up, it was
gonna be I was gonna do the on air business.
He was gonna do the tech business. He was gonna
do all the technology because he's a tech freak.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
You guys are good into each other.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, he's amazing.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
We'll get there in a little bit. But that is
that's really interesting. So you're at ninety one X. You're
driving around the van. I mean musically speaking too, this
is a great error to be at ninety one X.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
Oh, it's great. Remember, do you know Mike Colleran.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
So Mike Caller was a night guy and I think
he was the assistant PD. So Mike was also the
coolest guy. He would be like, hey, Vans, there's a
band coming in. Can you let him in? We got
pizza coming. I'm like sure. And it was like seven
eight o'clock a night. Like I said, it was there
all the time, so I'll never forget. This van pulls up,
this Volcal like a van pulls up, and these guys
get out of the van and they buzz the door
and I'm watching them open the door barely. I go,

(13:38):
can I help you? Yeah, we're here to see Mike
Callern I go, and you are? They go, We're in Nirvana.
My name's Kurty. Yeah. Out. I'm like, all right, hold on,
the pizza guy's coming. Pizza guy comes and then me
the pizza and Nirvana walk down the hallway and hang
out with Mike Calleran. They jam, they play, and I'm
all excited because there's Hollopenus on pizza. I know has
on pizza. I had no idea about Nirvana or anybody.

(13:58):
Jesus Jones. All these bands came in all the time,
and so Mike was the coolest. I still talked to
Mike to this day. He's an incredible human being. Smart,
smart guy.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
What did you get your picture?

Speaker 3 (14:09):
No? I don't. No, it's not like cameras around like
that time are now, you know what I mean? It
was a nighttime too. It's like, you know, six seven
o'clock at night.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Darren, who's on the other side here talking about running
the technical he's my rich if.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Did you ever because you were at canny C and
at the Eagle, did you ever get your picture with Nirvana?

Speaker 3 (14:27):
No? No, never did it?

Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah, And we were one of the first to play
him at canny C. We were pretty it's us in
k Rock and I think we were on him before
k Rock even, And so you just a lot of
times you didn't really even think about it because it's.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Like, well, who are that? I mean, I could tell
you about one hundred bands that came through, But I
remember Nirvana, you know what I mean? I don't know.
And Jesus Jones for the reason because I remember when
video cameras first came out, I had a video camera
and Jesus Jones a chilling on the sofa and I
was right, yeah, no, the guy.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
I still listen to that song. That's a great, great song.
So how do you go from ninety one X to
the mighty six ninety. That's a pretty big format change.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
At Noble Broadcasting, which was owned by John Lynch at
the time, in the building they had ninety one X
and the Mighty six ninety in the same building. And
so the marketing director at the mighty six ninety was
a guy named von Freeman, and Vaughn was like twenty
three years old. I was like eighteen years old, and
he saw me hustling all the time, hustling. And one
of the reasons he saw me hustling is because Dwight Arnold,

(15:26):
who was the promotion director, he gave me this tip.
He goes, whenever you're walking around the radio station, always
hold a piece of paper and a pen and walk fast,
so it always looks like you're doing something. So I
was always doing that, But I also was always doing something.
But I always had a pen in the piece of paper,
and anyone saw me, penns can any better? Hey can
you take up the track?

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Does you?

Speaker 3 (15:44):
I'll take up the track? They had a pen into
his favorite so Vaughn pulls me aside. He goes, hey,
we might have a position here for you. Would you
want to switch over to the sport that I know
nothing about sports nothing, right, So I'm nineteen twenty years old.
I know nothing about sports. Now I have three boys now,
so I've learned quite a lot about sports. But I
was not a sports fan at all. So I'm like sure.

(16:05):
So because of that being in the sports, while I
was at the Mike Tyson fights, I was at when
Michael Jordan won his first championship. I was there at
the Great Western Forum, but I didn't care. Now I
look back at my kids, like what you were there, Michael. Yeah,
I got a picture of Michael Jordan'.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Oh that's cool. Yeah, you don't have Kirk Cobain, but
Michael Jordan's because.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
There was there was a photographer there with Michael Jordan,
and I got to copy of the picture. So I
met all these people in sports, and then with Vaughn.
So Vaughn hires me and they're paying me in trade,
They're not paying me cash. To Carl Strauss, do you
remember Carl Strauss.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, of course I.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Got all the Carl Strauss I get at. But I
was living at the radio station, and I had a
job at the Czeck ashing place, so I would take
the bus to school the same mistake, take the bus
to the check ashing place, and then I'd take the
bus home and I would just or take the bus
to the radio station and sleep there, and that I
would bust in my ass. So v Vaughn, I'll never forget.
I was at a Mike Tyson fight in Vegas and
I was taking listeners there right and Vaughn calls me

(16:57):
and says, hey, I got great news. But what he goes,
We're gonna pay you now. We're gonna pay you cash.
We're gonna pay you like salary. And I was like,
oh my god, how mud pay me sixteen to five?
And I thought I was the richest guy in the world.
I couldn't wait to tell my parents. Sixteen. I remember
I was in Vegas and the whole and I leaned,
I put the phone down. I lead back, like, let's go,

(17:17):
let's go. No insurance, but sixteen to five and all
the Carl straps I could eat.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
I had no idea that you worked with Vaughn. Vaughn
is someone in my life, and I probably don't give
enough credit to But he really taught me showmanship. Oh yawn.
Put on these amazing event events here in La at
Kiss Wango Tango, which you know still exists to this day,
jingle Ball. I mean, Vaughn knew how to put on
just these amazing promotions.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
Oh he's a genius. Oh he comes back in the
story with Mike radio career. He was in my wedding.
He's one of my closest friends.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
I did not know that I learned so much from
him and then his wife, Amy, unbelievable sales manager.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah I got.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
I was very a privileged to be able to work with
them when they were here in La and a good guy.
They're in Miami now, right.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, that's good. I'm going to send him this podcast
when you drop it, because he'll be like, did you
talk about me? Did you talk about this?

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Was years back, I think when we were first doing
the Iron Imager contest at the All Access Radio summit
and Steve Reynolds, the morning show consultant, came over to
me and said it was complimenting us on the promotion
we did for Iron Imager, and we had this big
belt and the whole deal like a heavyweight fight and
he goes, you're a real you really understand showmanship. And
I think learned a lot of that showmanship from from Vaughn.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Vonn's amazing. I remember one point, I was already doing
mornings in Tucson and Phoenix. I think, no, we hadn't
got a Phoenix shed and he goes, we're moving Ryan
Seacrest over to kiss. He goes, I think you should
come over and take over for afternoons that's on Star.
And he goes, here's what I kind of the stuff
I want you to do. I want you to roll
up like a Cadillac with horns on it, like a
kid rock. You to walk into a bar and you're

(18:52):
going to light the bar on fire. He goes, And
I was like, oh, okay, So I came out to
the interview. Are you serious? Yeah? I came out there
to be for Star and I met with.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Paula Melly at the time.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
No, no, I did meet with Roy Roy, but it
was so I got it. I can't remember she was,
she was the programmed actor and I met with her.
But what what happened was I had just signed an
extension my contract in Tucson, and when Tucson found out
that was their interview and they had a meltdown. I
was like, wait a minute, you're the same company, I said,
I thought I thought you guys would be talking that
it was okay for me to go. So it didn't

(19:26):
work out.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
And then oh, I that's an awesome story. Though, Man,
did you get the light the bar on fire?

Speaker 3 (19:31):
No? No, I was afraid of that. But that's so
I got to tell you when I you know, I
was in Cincinnati too. Vaughn took me to Cincinnati. The
reason I was in Cincinnati I did not know that either.
And one of the events that happened with Vaughn is
we were doing a disco show with Casey in the
Sunshine Band named Vaughn hired streakers to run across the
stage naked and throw a flyers the New Morning Show

(19:54):
and it was all over the front pages of Haber.
That's a genius, right.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
I was supposed to interview Roy Lachlin or Radio days
back in March. I couldn't make it because, unfortunately, my
mom was very ill and we were going through a
bunch of prep for that and put together a deck
which I'll share with you, but so much of that
deck was events that that that Vaughn put together.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Roy's amazing too, but believed twice two or three times
and I met him. He'd like when I sit down
with him, he's like human coffee. Like he's really challenging
as much.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
We do.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
The station call I came. It was the station ninety
two three and before it was the Real So we
want you to do mornings George Opez, Georgia George opens.
You got like, whoa whoa hold on a minute, what
about afternoon? I mean it was.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Roy talking about the notepad. Would always walk around with
the notepad too, and would take feverishly be taking notes
and absolutely brilliant minds.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
So when I'm working with Vaughan, by the way, so
I'm at the mighty six ninety right, This how Vaughn
and I would start our day. He was like my
idol Bond, right, So he would let me wear his clothes,
his jackets because he always I didn't have any money, right,
so I'm wearing his clothes and I would come into work.
We'd close his office door and you'd watch Fletch, right,
or we'd watch Caddy, and then we would listen to
Tony Robins cassettes and then we would start our day.

(21:06):
That's how we start our.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Day, which is great prep though, and then Moti great and.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
So then he has this morning. He brings in this
morning guy named Chet forty. He's the guy that started
Monday night football. So Chet Forty's doing mornings there. Chet
was a famous director on TV. So Chet So Tony
Robbins was a sports fan. Tony Robins calls in the
Chet Show and ask him to direct his next infomercial.
So Chet goes, and I'm looking at he sees me
through the window like, oh my god, Tony Robinson. So

(21:30):
Chet goes, should I do it? Do it?

Speaker 1 (21:32):
So?

Speaker 3 (21:32):
I think Chet directed the next the DVDs for Tony
Robins twenty. Robins sends the DVDs to Chet. Chet comes
over to me and says, I got these other CDs.
I got these CDs. You want them? And I'm like yeah.
So I had listen to Tony Robbins every day and
every night, and he had this one CD that was music,
weird music about motivation at night, and I would listen
to it every night. Cut to five years ago. I'm

(21:55):
in San Diego and I'm at a place called Marketplace
grill and in La Play. That's one of my favorite places.
I was there with first day it open, freaking A
red Ferrari pulls up and Twenty Robins comes out of
the Ferrari and I'm like God, and my sister's like,
you go talk to him. I go, I'm not talking
to twenty go talk to him. So he gets in line.
I get line behind my go Toty Robins. He I go,

(22:16):
can I can? I you know CANi I know goes
constant and never ending improvement. Of course, I know I
invented Canna. And I'm like, why don't want to let
you know I'm a huge fan. He goes, why don't
you come to date with Destiny in Florida with me?
And he hands it. He gives me his assistant's number.
I call the assistant and I go to Florida and
I spend six days in Florida the second row at
a Tony Robbins Center. Freaking nuts man. That is so

(22:36):
freaking out, freaking nuts.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
I got to see him speak one send an in
five thousand conference was like, you know, did a keynote
and I walked out of their sead. He pumped up
and I still quote him, he says, we overestimate what
we can do in a year, and we underestimate in
what we can do in ten. And I think that's
such a phenomenal piece of advice because, as we're talking
about your story, how long it takes to become really
really great at something. And you've obviously be very very great,

(23:01):
absolutely great as something, but isn't something that's overnight. Takes
a lot of background, a lot of work. And I
think sometimes younger people, maybe in the world of influencers,
you think that you're going to get this instant success
and that doesn't happen. And when it does, I shouldn't
say it doesn't happen. It does happen occasionally, but a
lot of times that quick success you'll come cratering down
as quily as you went up, versus someone that's really

(23:22):
kind of studied and worked the craft as long as
someone like you has. So going from music and I've
never worked a sports format, so that to me. When
I worked here at clear Channel and now iHeart, they had,
you know, five to seventy, so I was in the
same building as a sports station. What was the difference
for you? Did you were there a lot of parallels

(23:42):
or a lot of differences.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Well, it was the same. I was just I was
more focused on the on the technical side of how
radio worked, and I'd watch the personalities and how you'd
have to talk, you know, the sports guys would talk NonStop,
and how important the producer was, and how important phone
calls were. Because you didn't have phone calls, you have
a caller in the line, you didn't have anything. You
remember Jim Rome, Yeah, of course I saw Jim Rome
was doing like sports updates every fifteen minutes on the weekend.

(24:05):
So I was driving Jim Rome around. We were going
everywhere together. I was just learning as much as I could,
picking Vaughn's brain. And then I would be like, Okay,
I'm getting here. All I'm living here at this radio station,
and I'm like the people that drive the nice cars,
the general manager, the sales manager, and the morning show
they're driving the Mercedes Benzes and they're driving the BMW's.
It's like, how do I get there? Well, I can't

(24:27):
do radio. I can't get on the radio. I'm already
twenty two twenty three. I figured I can't let me
get behind the scenes. Maybe I can do sales maybe
I can be a general manager sometime. So I kind
of went that way with it, you know what I mean.
I went in Scott in the sales.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
And when you first started your first sales gig, you went,
did Vaughan help tea that up for you or no?

Speaker 3 (24:46):
I became friends with the car so I moved in with.
I finally moved out of my parents' house and I
moved to South Mission Beach with a guy named Steve Nagelberg.
He was the local sales manager, A great guy. He
was ten years older than me, and he had his
roommate had moved out who was a client of the
radio station. Got named Dave as Roddy. Do you know
Dave as Roddy. He was the Bob Baker Auto Group
pandol that So Dave, Steve and I became very close.

(25:08):
Then I go to the jazz station where I meet
Brad Samuel, who didn't talk about me in your podcast,
but I'll talk about it. So Brad Samuel I had
become very close. I'm in his wedding, he's in my wedding.
We become very very close. I talked to him to
this day about Bruce Walton, who is Bill Walton's older brother,
the basketball legend Bill who just passed away, Bruce Walton,
and he plays a big part in the future my

(25:30):
future here. So Bruce Walton was just amazing. He was
like my Indiana Jones. That guy. I thought he was
the coolest dude ever. Drove a big, fat black Mercedes,
never wore a tie, you know, and he just everybody
loved him. And he was the kind of guy where
he'd be like, like if I was at a client
function and I was talking to my client and he
walked over, he'd be like, how you doing. I work
with John. I dropped My real name's John J. But

(25:52):
I when I got professional, I dropped the Jay. Try
to go by John. So I went by John for
a while, which is so complicated because my dad's name
was John, but my first name is John J. Real name, right.
So he'd be like, I work with John, and I'd
be like, oh my god, he's the owner of the
radio station, he says, I work with him. Meanwhile, my
wife's in radio sales in Phoenix now, working for a
country station. And I go to a function there and

(26:12):
this woman walks up to Blake's my wife's dad, and says,
how you doing. I'm Blake's boss, right, Like I thought
that was so powerful of Bruce.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
For sure, he.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
Knew that I'm telling, oh, my god, the owner of
radio station's coming. This is the owner of radio station.
He knew that I'm going to tell this guy who
this guy is is walking over, he doesn't have to
let them know that he's the boss.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
He was very was he like his brother in terms
of like the confidence and the swagger.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
Oh that guy had so much swagger. He was unbelievable.
So Bruce like changed my life, right, So he was
so supportive of me and helped me out all the time.
But I just wasn't happy doing radio sales. So this
is where my wife comes into place. So's she is
now my girlfriend. I'm telling her when I'm like, I'm
just not happy. She's like, what do you want to do?
What do you want to do with your life? I got, well, honestly,

(26:53):
she was be honest, what do you want to do?
And I said the two things I like to do.
She's let's write him down. I said, I would like
to either my own morning show or I'd like to
write or perform for Saturday Night Live. And she goes okay,
and I go, so, I don't think the morning show
things are going to work out. I said, I mean
you got to go to Paduca and do overnights. I'm
twenty five years old, right, I said, You've got to
go some small market work overnights. I go, I don't

(27:15):
think I can do that now that you and I
are getting married or engaged, you know what I mean.
So I was like, she goes, okay, Well let's look
at start inn A Live. How do you get to
stare in olive? I go, I don't know. So I
start researching it. And most of the people in Saturn
Life came from two places, Second City in Chicago or
the Groundlings in Los Angeles. So I'm like, she goes,
let's go for the groundings. Why don't you go to
the groundings. So I follow up The Groundings have to
go audition. I need to reing a headshot. I don't

(27:38):
know what that is. So I go to one of
those little photo booths in the movie theater and pack
a black one. Boom, boom, boom. The three pictures come out.
You know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
I know exactly what you're talking I go.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
To the big audition for a ground lengths and everyone
has these Manila folders, these huge Minila folders with their
headshot in it. I have a huge minula folder with
three little pictures in it. And when they asked me
to get my time, my turn to perform a sketch
for them, she got me toe your head And the
lady that wanted to see my headshot was the lady
from Austin Power. She was a look like she was
the lady Mindy. Your name was Mindy. She was the
one that asked me to audition. She goes, okay, your hedgehot.

(28:08):
When she pulled out that three pictures, she goes, oh,
oh honey, oh honey. She like hugs me, and I
think she really liked me. So I got accepted. So
I started taking classes.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
There, let's unpack that for just a second, because that
is a legendary comedy. True, And did you know this
is my understanding of at least it's difficult to get in.
They turned down four more people than they accept So
did you understand at that point that the stakes are
really high? And why you kind of were naive?

Speaker 3 (28:34):
Naive? I had no idea what I was doing, so
I would go every weekend. My sister lived in Los
Angeles still does, and so I lived in say Hey,
So I would drive, I would do my I would
do sales till Friday at whatever time. Then I'd drive
to LA and that'd spend the night my sister's house
on her couch, and I get up in the morning
and do improv all day.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
So you were literally burning the candle at both end.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, by it, I mean that's twenty five.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Yeah, sure, I died.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
I don't even remember being tired.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
And so you're on the air. You'd come up here.
What kind of things are they teaching you at the Groundlings?

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Great? It's such a great important class, I think for
radio performers. One of the things I learned the most
about the Groundings is when you improvise and you just go,
you go and go and go, and when you run out,
that's when the funny shit happens. When you run out
of stuff to say, because now what's next, you start
making things up and it's hilarious. I had such a
great time. But during the grounding stuff, here's what happened.

(29:21):
This is how I got on the radio. I'm not
even on the radio yet, so I'm doing groundings. Do
you remember the show This is a random show. It
was a TV show that came out. It was like
How to Marry a Millionaire or something. It was a
guy from San Diego, the.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Guy with the toilet in his front yard.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yeah, yea, so that guy. So after doing the groundings,
they were like, hey, you know there's an improv class
in San Diego on Wednesdays. Why don't you also do that?
So I was going to improv and that's where I
met that guy. He was in that improv class. So
he tells me. He goes, I think it's pretty funny
and I go, oh thanks. He goes, listen, I got
a gig at the San Diego Convention Center. Why don't
you open for me? Look? What do you mean open

(29:56):
for you? He goes, just do fifteen minutes to stand
I don't. I don't have stand up. I go, I
don't know how to do stand up. He goes, just
do it, and I'm like, okay, I'll do it. So
it's in a month, So I got to come up
with fifteen minutes of stand up in a month. Right.
Von Freeman is now in Cincinnati. Vaughn calls me and
says John Jay go to the Grammys in Los Angeles.

(30:17):
I got a backstage pass. I got a ticket for you.
Meet me in Los Angele for the Grammys on this weekend.
And I go, okay. I tell my manager at Kiffam.
He says, man, you're not hitting your numbers. You can't
you can't go. You just can't go. I go, I
just I'll be coming late one day. And he goes, no,
you can't go. So this manager, guy Mark Costa me
he rests in peace, would let me go. And I

(30:38):
was like, so I called up Vaughn. I said, Vonna,
I can't go. He goes, listen, I had an idea
for you to be more doing the morning show here
in Cincinnati, and I want you to meet the gm
That's why I want you to come out to the Grammys.
He said, but I can't go. He goes, all right,
we're gonna come to you. I was like, okay. So
I had just come back from my bachelor party in
New Orleans and Von drives down from San Diego with

(31:01):
a general manager, Jim Bryant from Q one O two
in Cincinnati and we go to the Pennant which is
in South Mission beach, and we get upstairs and I
have the shoe box with the pictures in my bachelor party,
and I'm showing him pictures and we're going over at
my bachelor party and Jim and Vaughn are laughing the asses.
I wasn't trying to get them left, so so anyway,
so got to So that's it, great meeting, you see

(31:24):
you later. So I get a phone call from Vaughn. Hey, John, Jay,
Jim would like to fly you out an audition to
do the morning show on Q one O two in Cincinnati.
What's the date? He tells me the date, and I go, oh,
I'm doing this stand up routine with this guy. I
can't go. And that's what I say that to Jim.
Jim hands the phone over a Vaughan. Vaughn goes, Hey,

(31:44):
when the general manager of a major market radio station
tells you he wants to fly you out to do
four days of radio, you fucking go okay, okay. So
I called this guy Rick, Hey, man, I can't do
the Stanafoya and he had a freaking meltdown on me.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Right.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
I'm like, I'm sorry, man, I'm gonna go do I
might get my own morning show. So they fly me
first class. I've ever been first class in my life.
They fly me first class. At Cincinnati. I do four
days on the radio. I've never been on the radio
in my life. And I remember I had to borrow
headphones from Vaughn, and Vaughn was like, how do you
not have headphones? Like, I'm not on the radio. I
don't have headphones. Use my headphones. So they put me
on with the morning show that's already on with this girl.

(32:20):
I think they let go of the guy, and they
might they didn't know if I was in what they're
gonna do with the girls, so they had me do
mornings with the girl. I'd never done anything like this
in my life, right, So I'll never forget this woman.
I don't think she was happy with me being there.
It's time to do the weather. She hands me a
piece of paper with the weather on it. She goes, hey, John,
now I'm back. I decided to go by John Jay again.
It's my real name, John Jay. Hey John, why don't
you do the weather? This is live on the air.

(32:41):
I'm like okay, and I go. Looks like it's a
nice beautiful day. It's seventy five degrees, it's nice to
be nice outside. That's not how you do the weather.
Give me that on the air, she takes the peace PEPs.
She's like, it's gonna be a beautiful day today. Day
if you're in your convertible, to take the top down,
lit the wind roll through your head and it used
to beautiful day and have a greed. And I looked
at him. I go, I go, I go. I don't
talk like that. I go, who says the weather like that?

(33:04):
So I did four days like that with her? And
then I left?

Speaker 1 (33:08):
And what are you guys saying to each other? Like
off the air?

Speaker 3 (33:11):
I just remember each just star. It was so uncomfortable.
So then I come back home and get married. We
go on our honeymoon.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
No feedback at this point, no feedback.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
And I'm like, am I getting a job And I
get a job and I want this job? Man. So
I remember my dad used to tell me write things down,
write things down, look at your goals, write your goals.
So I was writing it down. On the morning's quo
two mornings, I put in my wallets. When I opened
my wallet said Morning's quo two. So I come back
for my honeymoon. Nothing then I get a call from
Jim and Vaughan and You're like, hey, we'd like to
offer you the morning show on Kilino two in Cincinnati.

(33:46):
I was like, hell, y'all, I'm fantasticaus Well, listen, we
know you're in sales and we know you probably make
a lot of money. Like how much you make it? Now?
I was making forty two thousand. It was the most
ever made. They go, how much you make? I go
seventy five. He goes, We'll give you sixty five. I go,
I'll take it. And so I've been married a week

(34:09):
and I'm gone.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
This is this is such a crazy story on a
magnitude of levels. Does at this point is Bruce Walton's
still the GM?

Speaker 3 (34:17):
Bruce Walton GM.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
Does he know that this is going on?

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Yeah? Well, I come back. It's sad Exause when I
went to Cincinnati to go audition, I said that my
grandmother was sick in the hospital. I lied, which don't
ever do that, because my grandmother died when I got back.
Oh that was terrible, right, So Bruce, I come back.
I tell Bruce, I go, hey, I got to tell
you something. He goes, let's go for a walk. So
we walk around the parking lot at the radio station.
I tell him and he says, I'm really happy for him,
really excited for you. So he puts out an email

(34:41):
or a memo, right, and then it's great, everyone's cool.
I leave my wife, who was working at KF and
B at the time. She's selling the padres and she's
rocking it, right, she's working for Bob. Yeah, yeah, she's
rocking it. So we're now married and I have to leave,
and Bob Bollinger, the general manager at the time, tells her, Listen,
it's really hard to break in the mornings. I don't

(35:01):
want to be negative about John Jay, but I tell
you what, give him three months. Let him go for
three months to Cincinnati. Well, you know, you keep your list.
You got this bonus coming, and we'll even find a
place for him to come back, a list for him
when he comes back after three months, Like it's really
tough to do what he's gonna do. And Blake goes,
I'm gonna stay for three months? Is that okay? I'm like, yeah,
we just got married. I get it. I don't know
what I'm doing. So I take off and I go

(35:24):
to Cincinnati and my PD is Jimmy Steele from from Powers.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Jimmy who's also good friends with Vaughn. Yes, this is
all coming together, and Vaughn bring me over. There was
that Chicago note Hubbard.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
Yes, and Jimmy Steele just freaking the best coach I
could possibly have to do mornings. He goes, listen, I
don't care what time it is, I don't care what
the weather is outside, I don't care about the call letters.
Just have fun. That's that was his coaching to me.
So I went on the air with this. They partnered
me with their afternoon Guy, I guy named Brian Douglas,
who was incredible. This guy was so patient in teaching

(35:57):
me radio and teaching me how to do so. He
was the host. He opened up the brakes and closed
the brakes and I was a silly guy in the
middle right and immediately I remember I was there two
days and also we had Rod Stewart in the studio.
My first interview was Rod Stewart, and the Rod Stewart
interview like took off. Rod called in the next day
and he says, Hey, I just want to let you
know I've been doing this thirty years. And that was
the best interview I've ever had. I go, I don't

(36:19):
believe you. I go, if you're telling the truth, and
I want you to sing our names in a song tonight.
Because he was performing at the Billboard Awards. He goes, okay,
so we're watching the Billboard Awards and you can find
this on YouTube. He's singing if We Fall in Love tonight.
And you see him singing, and then he wrote our
names down on his hand and he goes, listen to
John Jay, and Brian get I'll play it for you.

(36:40):
So fresh and cool again? Yes, je John Oh. From
that moment on the show took off. The problem was

(37:02):
Brian and I were partners, but I kept winning everything,
do you know what I mean? I was like, John
Jay wins Best.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Of warst the Cincinnati within three months, right.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Not Brian and John Jay, just John Jay started a
little It got a little uncomfortable. I couldn't help it.
I wasn't doing anything. I just kept I was just
being me.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
You're being you and you're naturally funny. But at this point,
now you've had training from the groundlings, right, and you've
got I didn't realize when you've had Vaughan in your life,
so many these people. Jimmy Steele unbelievable programmer. Was that
an m station who owned the station ars maybe ars.
It's unbelievable the people that Jimmy talent wise were around.
Big Boy. Of course you look at Woody you which

(37:42):
I was unaware of it. It's incredible.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
I mean, it was great. He would call me in
sometimes sometimes I would take a jab at him on
the radio. He would call me in his office. He
was say, man, listeners don't give a shit about me,
don't talk about me. So then we're rocking. So then
Jimmy takes job in Dallas and he leaves me and
I mortified. Like, they bring in this guy named Bill Klaproth,

(38:06):
who I don't get along with at all. Our ratings
are through the roof. Then they bring Bill k Claproth
doesn't last. Then they bring in Mike Morino. My Brino
is great when I look back at stuff, but he
put me through hell. But he was like, he was like,
nobody knows you, although I'm winning all this stuff and
we number because your audience doesn't know who you are.
There was a dog running for mayor in this small
town outside of Cincinnati, and I was like I'm going

(38:27):
to run against a dog and I'm gonna win, Like
I'm gonna be mayor of this town. And he was like, no,
you're not. Nobody knows you. I was like, dude, this
is a promotion on a silver platter. I said, this
is We're gonna get all kinds of press. And he's like, no,
nobody knows. I mean that was just thinking, nobody knows you.
Nobody knows you. God, he just drove me nuts. So
then they had they called me in with the Joe
manager and Marino and they said we're gonna move Brian

(38:50):
afternoons in the morning. Now it's gonna be the John
J Morning Show. I was like, oh okay. So, by
the way, at this time when I started doing mornings there,
my dad lived in them. Heial Beach, San Diego, and
my dad would tape Jeff and Jer for me every
single day on Star B one hundred whatever they were
at the time. Every day he' tape Jeff and Jair,
and then a couple times he would tape Dave Shelley
and Chainsaw and he sent me those cassettes. So whatever

(39:12):
Jeff and Jer did on Monday, I pretty much did
on Friday. I copied every single thing they did, so
when it comes to coaching, it was me listening to
those tapes. I have hundreds of their tapes.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Still, what is that like going from having someone as
a co host with you to now you're by yourself?
Do you have a sidekick, do you have a producer?

Speaker 3 (39:31):
Anyone? That I was by myself. I had a girl
on the show with me. There was a guy that
ran the board for me, and then Marino hated my voice.
He said that I didn't know how to sound like
a DJ, so he brought the board up. Would come
in and open the brakes. Nah, he's terrible, Like he'd
be Q and O two Home with Lilith Fair ninety eight,
Home with Little Fair ninety eight, it's a John J

(39:52):
Morning show. And then I'd be like, all right, we're
gonna get into whatever. You know what I mean. But
it was a voice guy and Jim Kelly was his name.
Great guy.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
It was an interesting time in the business because I
listened to your show, and especially for the last few weeks,
I've really been listening. You guys are so authentic with
what you talk about. You really put yourselves out there
at least appears to me, I've talked about getting your
head tattooed, and.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
You were talking about it.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
You're very open, and I think at that time that
was very unusual. People did not live. This was like
the very very beginning of reality TV. I don't think
people were as forthright as they are today. And so
I get where Mike was coming from. And I think
Mike is a very when it comes to music and
it comes to the flow of a radio station, there's
no one better than him. I get though, why you

(40:36):
could be at odds from a personality standpoint.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
I love him now. At the time I was so
bothered I left because of him. I said to me,
tell me, you're not leaving because of me, and like,
I'm moving because of you. But I mean, I think
he's great.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
But I get why you would make some of the
decisions as a programmer that he did. I find this
really interesting. A couple questions and we'll move on. But
had Blake your wife's names Blake? Did she move out
at this point?

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Yes, after three months shene and she became a sales rep.
This is pretty interesting. At the country station there, which
was a different company, Wube or k Yeah, Wube the
country station. She worked at the country station there, and
the country station was number one until I got there, right,
so I just crushed his country station. So one day
we're at this event that her station's having and the

(41:24):
Dixie Chicks are performing out in this festival outside, and
I'm there supporting my wife and the PD of the
country station comes over to me. Tim Clawsan was his name, Griton,
really a great guy. He says, hey, when's your contract up?
We'd like to get you out of here. I know
what do you mean? He goes, we have an opening
in Houston. Would you ever consider doing country? This is
in the middle of a street fair right. I'm like, sure, yeah,

(41:46):
hit me up, let me know what's up. So it
turns out I had this two week opening in my
contract to negotiate, right, and they didn't renew me right away.
So they come to me. This is where Bruce Walton
comes involved to So they come to me with this offer,
which was bonkers. It was the most money I've ever
seen in my life. I couldn't. I never thought my
life I would make this much money. And I don't
know what to do, so I called Bruce. Bruce, I

(42:10):
don't know what to do. And he's like, what's going on, igo?
They made me this offer. He was, hold on, relax,
calm down. I've got it to all taken care of.
So he puts me with one of his best friends.
So he went to UCLA. He played football for UCLA
and then he went and played for the Dallas Cowboys.
Bill Walton went to UCLA, paid basketball for UCLA and
then went on to become a legend. Right, Bruce had
the circle of friends. Mark Harmon is one of them
from ncis Mark Harmon and a hand for the guys.

(42:34):
The guy dieted Barry Axelrod who just passed away. And
Barry was a huge sports agent. I mean he had
the biggest contracts in baseball. So he goes, I want
you to talk to Barry and have Barry go over
a contract. I'm like, okay. So Barry goes on my
contracts is change this and change this and you're good,
and I go how much ore you? He goes nothing. Nothing.
I was like, that's because I mean he's doing an
eighty million dollars day and my deal was cute for him.

(42:57):
So I sent him a bottle of dom and I
thank him everything right, So I take the deal in Houston.
So I'm in Houston, and I had learned a very
valuable lesson. There's never ever ever take a job for money,
you know what I mean, never take a job for money.
I learned a big I was the most miserable time
I ever had in my radio career was in Houston.
But I also learned so much.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Why was it miserable.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
It was hot, it was humid. My wife and I
got pregnant with twin girls. They passed away. It was
the management there after. You know, I had twenty nine
I had twenty nine minutes of commercials an hour.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
Are you serious?

Speaker 3 (43:31):
They still wanted me to play six songs like it
wasn't They said, we want you do your CHR show
in our country station. And it wasn't at all what
they pitched me, you know, I mean it was a
Houston At the time the country station was at was
the number one billion country station in the nation, so
it was a lot of pressure. And then they said
you start in a month and a half. So I wanted,
I'm gonna go out there now, So I went out
to Houston right away. And then the night guy got

(43:53):
busted because I wanted to learn about the city as
much as I could, right, So I had six weeks
to start, and when I got there on a front
that night, the night guy got busted doing cocaine, so
they fired night guy. They moved the morning guy around
and they were like, we need to start Monday. I
was like, wait a minute, I don't I don't know
anything about this town. Let me study this talent. Then
we need to start on Monday. So I started right
away and it was like I had replaced this morning Saul.

(44:13):
They'd been on the air for like five years. No
one knew why. Like there wasn't a buffer, you know
what I mean. It was just nightmare. But something good
did come out of it because I did have I
didn't meet a guy they put me. They give me
a talent coach and he was the toughest son of
a bitch talent coach ever. I hated this guy. His
name was Tommy Kramer. Do you know Tommy Kramer? Okay,

(44:34):
probably one of the best top two talent coaches out there.
He was amazing. This guy beat me down like nobody's was.
It was radio school for me. That was my overnights.
That Tommy Kramer He had the whole staff come into
the conference room and he would play my breaks in
front of everybody, and he'd be like, Okay, what is this.
That was eight minutes? He goes, this should be twenty sex.

(44:54):
So he'd be like, you know, if you do it
a minute half, you can do it in forty seconds.
You're doing forty seconds, you're doing twenty seconds. Like he
taught me so much, so much so that I hired
him back when rich and I teamed up, Like that's
how much I love the guy. I mean, I hated
him at the time, but I loved him later. Do
you know what I'm saying? Because I learned so much.
He was amazing.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
It says a lot about your attitude that everywhere you've
gone and you've had some tough situations, you've really made
the best of him and you've learned. It sounds like
you're to me, a very curious person. And the fact
that you're out there, you know, researching the way that
you were interning, not getting paid for ten and a
half months, living off of Carl Strauss trade, burning the

(45:30):
candle at both ends, coming up here to do the
ground wings while you're still trying to do the best
you can to to make sales at the station. It's
a heck of a work ethic. And your dad also
really gave you some phenomenal advice that writing everything down
is like a vision board.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
Yeah. I've done that my whole life. Yeah. My goals
in my pocket right now?

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Do you really?

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Would you share one?

Speaker 3 (45:49):
See? Probably could have my weight in there. Oh god,
this is hilarious.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
This is the coolest that you're going through your wallet
and you literally are carrying around.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
So it says new management, which I got. By the way,
we got Mark Medina. I have come to Mark Medina,
took over a new contract. I don't have that, I
said new contract. Plug. This is I haven't written this
new equipment in the studio advertising budget? We have that.
Rich and I put into a bunch of money every
month place our own advertising. Do you really yeah, new

(46:28):
executive producer, we got that. This is kind of old.
It's oh, healthy kids, date nights, joy, happiness, make more money.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Revert back though, sometimes making more money isn't always happiness,
like Houston in congrats, and I do want to get
into Mark Medina coming back. Who's what a phenomenal programmer?
He is and in getting too all your current success,
how long do you stick it out in Houston and
when do you decide, like, I'm out of here.

Speaker 3 (47:02):
I got there ninety eight and two thousand and one.
What happened was, so I had an airtight contract because
of Barry Chlorde, and the company sold right, and the
new company that came in apparently didn't want to pick
up my contract. So it got so ugly. Like so
the name of the morning show was the John J
Morning Show, right, and every morning I would take I

(47:24):
would go take Chrispy Kreme Donuts to different offices every morning.
I'd drive the van, you know, and I'd take did
you fax in? I pick an ups you know what
I mean? I got Tom and I did that with
Rusty Nails and Night one X as I was a
big fan Rustling, and I would drive around bring bagels
to people and before map quest or before maps Google Map,
so i'd get lost or rescu we'd have a meltdown,
so uh, and then we'd have to go to his
Honda sidec and it gets some weed. So so I'm

(47:47):
I'm doing this thing in Houston where i'mtopping buy offices
and stuff and then The New, The New, and I'd
drop off these John J Morning Show mugs. Now when
I came back, they were called the ninety three Q
Morning Show mugs. Right, I'm like, whoa, what's that about.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
It's a bit passive aggressive.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Then my wife, like I said, we had twin girls
on Valentine's Day and they didn't survive. One lived for
nine days, and so that day it was terrible. It
was terrible. So I'm in the hospital with my wife
and the general manager at the time says, we need
to see you tomorrow at eight am. I'm in the hospital.
If you don't not here at eight am, you're a
violation of contract. We're gonna let you go. And I'm

(48:22):
like no. I called Barry and Berry's like, they're trying
to have you, violate you so they don't have to
pay you. They're trying to get I remember the woman's
name was Chris McMurray. I don't know where she's anymore,
but she was a witch man.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
That is unbelieved. It was cold and they knew what
was going on with you.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Yeah, I was in the hospital. Yeah, it was. It
was all over the news in Houston, you know, the
huge city so like we were not. They were like
reporting live from the hospital. Meanwhile, they' at the wrong hospital.
They're like, we're outside the hospital for John Day from
nine week you gun you just having a baby, and
a baby had passed away. It was terrible footage to
show you. So so anyway, so I was like, I
went in there at am. I left my wife in
the hospital. I go in there at am. You know,
I was just holding my dead child. So I go

(48:58):
into the hospital. I go to the radio station to
meet with her, and they're like, yeah, well, we just
want to talk you. We want the show. We want
the show to end at eight twenty now instead of ten,
like you called me in for that. And I go, look,
I just want to let you know I'm not going
to quit. I go, and I'm not. I'm gonna do
whatever you say. So you're gonna have to buy me out.
I go, I'm not going to quit. I'm not gonna
buy on my contract, Violet, my contract. So about two
weeks later, I get a call from the PD. His

(49:20):
name is Dennis, I don't remember his last name. He
meets me at a bar and at the bar he
hands me an envelope worth the payoff, and I go,
did I just get fired? Heus No, no, no, no,
I don't want to be known as the guy that
fired John Jay. This is a buyout. I'm like, I
think I'm getting fired, but I wasn't because I was
getting paid not to work there anymore. Right, So that
it was wild?

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Man, what that must have just been horrendous A few
months of your life.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
It was crazy. So that's where I was telling you
some stuff off air when we were having a coffee.
I so this is a February maybe I don't know
what time when it is? Right?

Speaker 1 (49:51):
No?

Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yes, right after It's March because the babies are born
in February. So you know my babies are born in
February on Valentine's Day. So now March, I'm pretty much
let go. But the check that I I got was ridiculous, right,
I think they had to pay me two years worth,
so I had all all in check, all in one check.
So seeing that number was nuts. So then I start
getting the word goes out on all access. So I

(50:11):
started getting all these calls and emails from people from
all from Z one O four in DC, kiss in Seattle,
US ninety nine in Chicago, and they're all these different
companies that I'm like, Wow, this is amazing. I'm gonna
go somewhere, and I go, but I don't know if
I want to do country. I don't know. Jimmy Steele's
now Power one O six in La. He has KZLA,

(50:33):
a country station. They don't have a morning show. He says,
come out here and do mornings for me. Come out
here and try it. So I went out there and
I did mornings by myself. And I had just met
Rich at boot camp right Rich and I just partnered
before I got fired. I had met Rich and I
talked about because I needed somebody I was spending all
I would get to radio station at three am and
I'd be there till seven pm at night, right before

(50:53):
I got fired. And so I met with Rich at
boot camp, and I was looking to have a partner.
I was looking for somebody to pick up more stuff
because I can't do it all. We're trying to have
a family and my my baby, the babies were sick
and all stuff. So so I I go do k
z l A. I do three weeks to Kazla, and
Rich would listen online to the show and he would
critique the show afterwards, and it was funny because I
didn't understand how that worked. You know, it's two thousand

(51:15):
to earl later.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
This is the studio off Sunset right.

Speaker 3 (51:18):
Yeah, yeah, remember so I wrote a parody song CAZy
l A, Remember that song I love? And I did
mornings with a guy named Sean Parry. Yeah, him and me.
They partnered us up for a while, and then I
had my sister come in and answer phones. I had
a guy named Ken He he helped. He was like
my sidekick. He's now the head writer a sign I live.
It was my sister had a friend who went to
groundings after me. She came in to help answer phones.

(51:40):
She was on the air. I mean, we had this
fun thing, but it just didn't work. So I remember,
keep in mind, this is August. Now I got fired.
Babies born in February. I get fired in March. This
is August. And Rick Cummings was the guy that made
the decision. Great guy, Rick Commings, but I was in
such a dark place, so him and I bumped heads
a little bit. And I don't know what my on
air content was or if I didn't know what I

(52:01):
was doing, but it was it didn't work out, so
they didn't want me, and I was so bombed, right,
but so, and then I went back to Houston.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
Was your wife still in Houston? Did she come out
here with you during those few weeks?

Speaker 3 (52:11):
She that's a good question. I don't know if she
did not.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
She was sure still mourning.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
You both were terrible. Yeah, she was still in Houston.
That's right. So I now tell my wife, I go,
let's just get an RV, drive around the country with
our dogs and see what happens. She's like, you can
land somewhere. But it was like months of nothing. It
was scary, right, it was scary. The neighbors were calling
Blake and one time before we got on the RV,
they'd be like, your husband's outside playing with the remote

(52:36):
control cars all day because I had these remote joll
cars I thought were so cool.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Yeah, the Tamaya.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Yeah, it was so second.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
It was into those remote control Scott or our mutual
friends Scott Fisher. We sometimes will share Instagram posts of
people with like the frog and the hornet.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
Yeah, yeah, I was playing in the driveway. So we
get in this RV, we drive across country and then
I get uh, like I'm talking to the PD like,
I think, what's the name Mike Preston in Seattle. Yeah,
you know, he had this really deep voice and he
seemed really cool. But I don't know why nobody wanted me.
It was like it was like a terrible feeling. And
then I get a call from Scotty Fink. You know
Scotty Fink.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Of course Hollywood records.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
Scotty think Scotty Fink. I had met him when I
was in Cincinnati and we did a promotion where with
Amy Grant, and he just thought it was the greatest
promotion where we were dressed in drag all this stuff.
And Scotty calls me and says, I got a friend
of mine. I told him all about you. He's really
really interested in talking to you. He's the p D
and Tucson. He said, you're familiar with t Song. I

(53:27):
grew up there. I lived in Tucson before I went
to Phoenix. And he goes, uh, his name is Mark
Medina and he's gonna call you. So Mark calls me.
I'm in my RV trip Mark and our talk and
I'm like, I'll be in Tucson to see my family's there.
My whole family's there. My Mexican family's there. So I
meet him. I was trying to not. I was trying
to see if I grow beard out or not. So
I looked like crap, look like me probably. So I

(53:51):
meet Mark, and him and I just hit it off.
And he says to me as we're talking, he says, look,
I don't care about the call letters. I don't care
what time it is. I don't care about the weather outside.
I just want you to entertain and be funny, which
is exactly what Jimmy Steele said to me. And I
was like, bro, I'll give you a goosebump telling you this.
I go, that's fantastic. I go, I love it. So

(54:11):
now he didn't have any money, right, I didn't care.
I was like, I go, he goes, this is all
I have. He goes, do you have somebody want to
bring with you? And I said, I'm partnering up with
somebody was rich.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
So you knew at this point that you enrich. You
guys have met each other Morning Show boot Camp, and
you knew you wanted to do something together.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
We did a demo tape together, okay, right, Like we
interviewed Jervis from Survivor. Okay, we did a demo tape
Rich and I. He came. He had just got low,
got cut loose from Dallas. The Eagle at Dallas, I
think is where he was, and I was I still
wasn't fired from my job, but he had come down
to Houston and stayed with me and we taped. We
went to the radio station at midnight. We taped a

(54:48):
bunch of stuff and we had just great chemistry. So
he sent out the DVD the CD out to everyone.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
Well, pull, there were you at the Eagle at Dallas
when Rich was there.

Speaker 4 (54:55):
I don't know what was what year I was ninety eight,
ninety five to ninety eight, and then again two thousand
to two thousand and two, or he was there.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
I think in ninety seven ninety he was part of
that Who's This Morning Show with us Russ Martin. He
was with Russ Martin. I did didn't I did know Rich. Wow,
what a trip I got rid of Russ. I think
I brought in some guy. Yeah, and it was Rich
and it was rich In somebody else exactly Yeah, and
then and then they got rid of Rich.

Speaker 4 (55:20):
Well, what a trip? Okay, So I do know who
you're talking about. Yeah, I was at the Eagle during
that time. I was doing nights there.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
Oh, then he's definitely gonna remember you can remembers everybody.
But so there that that's small world.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
So Medina, and this is prior to Medina being a superstar,
but it already sounds like he's wise. He must have
been very young at that point, and to give a
morning show kind of that type of flexibility is honestly uncommon.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
And he was like, I don't care if you play songs.
He goes, you don't have to play songs. So we
go there and we start rich and I.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
And Riches like, I'm into I'm in songs.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
I'm in. I go, look, this is the this is
the money that gave me. I go, you want to
split it up a certain way? And he's like he
was just fine because I also had that big nest egg, right,
so I would kind of not that worried about the money.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Oh my gosh, man, So you could have said, hey,
I'm just going to do this on my own and
not bring someone in ten percent and taking all the money, right,
it says a lot about your character and your long
term vision and so and so you bring rich the
two of you now are do you rehearse at all?
Or do you guys just I know you did the demo.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
Yeah, I just come on, we just go. We don't
know what we're doing. We're so much fun. But also
I forgot tell you. When I was in Houston when
Mark offered me a job at the same time I
got the job offer back to go to Cincinnati, they
called me to come back, so I had the two
way calling. So I was like and I was like,
both of them on the other line. While I'm in
the garage the movie van is full Get and how
My wife is like, are we going to Cincinnati? We're
going to Tucson. I'm like, I finally like, we're going

(56:39):
to Tucson.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
So that's was that, Marina. At this point he was
trying to bring you back.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
It was Jim Bryant, the general manager. I don't remember.
The p was probably Marino, I think it was.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
And they wanted you to come back, and at that point,
we're going to let you do your thing.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
Yeah, I think something like that.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
What made you decide to say no to that and
do because.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Of Mark saying I don't care if you play music.
I don't care. And also my family, like literally my
whole my mex Against side of my family. They're in Tucson, No,
Gallas and Sonora. That's where my whole family is, I see.
And so it was just I just felt, let me
just try that.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
And your wife is from there, right, she's my wife
from Phoenix, from Phoenix.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
So Rich and I go and we just start, we
just start doing the show. And again it reminded me
of Cincinnati. Just took off, you know, I mean, it
just took off. It was great.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
That's insane. And how long is Mark there before he
goes to Phoenix.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
Before he pulled to Jimmy before he well, I don't
remember how long it was there. Oh wait, well we
started there in two thousand and one, and then I
know two thousand and six we started in Phoenix, so
he must have been a two or three years.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
Okay, So I mean that's really talking about it at Trifectas.
So it's you Rich and Mark Medina. How involved was
he with the show?

Speaker 3 (57:47):
Extremely we'd be on the phone for hours at night.
I remember that was one thing when he was coming back,
because now he's back with us in Phoenix. By the way,
it's like you have no idea. Wait till I tell
you how that story happened, because that was that blew
my mind, especially I wrote it down.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
That is yeah, it is crazy. When do you think
you wrote that down this.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
Piece of paper I just showed you a couple probably
two years old. Maybe that is crazy. Yeah, And I
would and I would look at it every day and
then I would write it down on it. I have
a journal and every morning I would write down my
journal every day, and I would write in the journal
new management, management. And then I remember talking to Kyle
on the show. It's like every day I write down
new managers. She goes, no, he started writing down better management,
better management. So I started writing now better management, bad management.

(58:26):
And then and then we got Mark.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Stuff works, man, It really does when you're talking about
putting it out there. Okay, so the three of you
guys are I mean, you're literally just making it up.
I don't want to say you're making up as it goes,
but I mean you were building something brand new from scratch.
Who had who was your predecessor there?

Speaker 3 (58:42):
There was a show before me, but they weren't there
very long. It was it was Mainey Lucas and Mainey,
one of the ones that eventually did the Wii for
a wee. Oh they left and did we for a
week all right, Right, but the show before us was Mojo,
he'd been there for years.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Oh okay, right, and the show before Kimmel, Oh, my
y and Carson Daily. That's unbelievable, I know it.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Pretty big footsteps.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
Yeah, that's it's some incredible talent has gone through there.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
And keep in mind this whole time, my dad is
still sending me jeff and Jerry cassettes. I'm still listening
to Jeffy Jerkerson. And there was also a point where
when I was in Houston. I'll never forget this too
at the backtrack, but I'm in Houston, and I kind
of got no. I was in Cincinnati, and Jimmy was
in Dallas and Kid Kratick, you know, legendary kid Cratic.
He started this thing called Bitfest, which was like boot camp,

(59:31):
but it was for his website, right bitboard, yep. And
so he put together like a mini boot camp in Dallas.
So I went and stayed with Jimmy and my wife
and I at the time, we hadn't had babies yet.
We were trying to have a kid, and we were
having sex all the time, right, and it wouldn't work.
I had through all the infertility stuff, so I'll never forget.
So I had some There was a little bit of
hype behind my name because I was a sales guy

(59:52):
that was in radio and winning all these awards and
do all this stuff. So I remember, we're at Dallas,
I'm staying a Jimmy's house. My wife and I try
have sex. Then I go to boot camp. I go
to Bitfest and Scott Shannon is there and Kid Crawtics there,
and I don't know. When I look back, I'm like,
I can't believe I was sitting next to Scott Shannon,
you know what I'm saying. So I'm at the Journal
and Scott Shannon walks in and stands at me next
to me at the jurinal and goes, hey, so you're

(01:00:13):
that kid on that sales guy that got his own
radio show, And I go yes. And now keep in mind,
my wife and I are trying to have a baby.
So I go to pee and I had a little
sperm on the tip of my penis, dried sperm, and
my pea shot out like a v and I was,
I peed all the way down his khaki pants.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
You are you are lying to me?

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Got true? I'm pushing it. I'm pushing it to try
to break, to break the dry sperm, and it's just going,
I'm sorry, I'm I'm sorry. My wife and I try
to have a baby, and then I sat in the back.
True story.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
You go to the sink and he's like trying to
clean his pants.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
What the fuck do you do? Tell them? My wife
and I try a baby and we had sex this morning,
this dress sperm, I took a shower. Everything later he
brought up terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
That is absolutely the most insane story I've ever had
on his podcast. Have you spoken to him since?

Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
No, nothing, never seen him since, hurt from him.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
I bet he'll never forget it though. And we're gonna
get into this in a few minutes. But you and
your wife did end up being very successful with babies,
and I want to hear all about you got three
boys in the whole deal. So you guys, it takes
off pretty much like a rocket ship takes.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Off pretty strong, and then we get you know, remember
Steve Smith. Let see Steve Smith. So I don't know
how you know he took over something out of part
of our station, and he comes over. He goes, I'm
gonna put you guys on a Santa barber It's hip
hop station. Like, wow, okay, great, we're gonna wan it.
You're gonna win your I don't understand technology. Remember rich
is the technology?

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Yeah, so okay, wan it. I think it was wyn
W A.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
M Ran the audience. So we're on in Santa Barbara.
Now I can't remember the station, but oh my god
that the general manager was J. D. Freeman I think
it was.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Yeah, this is a clear channel at the time.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
Yeah. Right, So they're putting us on in Santa Barbara
and apparently we're crushing in Santa Barbara. But the average
household income is two hundred thousand dollars a year at
the time, and hip hop is number one, and nobody's
buying hip hop, you know what I mean. They're like
the dealerships and they're like, I'm sure, ye yeah. So
I'll never forget. It was about six months I have ever
been on there in Santa Barbara. I'm stuck in traffic

(01:02:31):
in Tucson by the mall and there's construction going on
and I see way down the I'm gonna talk about
like one hundred cars. See this long haired Sammy Hagar
guy walking down, looking at him walking towards us, and
I'm like, Who's this is that Steve Smith? And then
Steve Smith comes walking. I have the window rolled down.
He walks over, Hey, hey, listen, uh second dight update.
I love it ar the roads is great. You guys

(01:02:51):
are doing great. I'm really enjoying your show. And he
keeps walking and I'm like, is he just critiquing everybody's
career in the cars and goes down the line like
like what are the chances? So so then that night
I get a call Cay can I meet you with
you guys tomorrow? So we meet with Steve the next
day at the radio station and he says, listen, I
got an idea, got a hip hop station at Santa Barbara.
I'm gonna put you guys on there. We've been on

(01:03:12):
for six months. Well you are yeah, I knew that
was a good idea. We were already on for six months.
So anyway, that went well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Where did Tim Richards So when did you work with him?
Was he the program director before Medina or after media
after Medina, after media. They brought him in from Detroit,
and I knew he had a history. Okay, so and
he's he brought he took Mojo to Detroit, then from Tucson.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
I think, so, yeah, yeah, he did, he did, he did, Okay,
got it?

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
So then where does Medina go? At that point?

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Medina goes to Phoenix to then go from Phoenix to
the d C, then DC to New York.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
I see, okay, so you guys are doing great crushing
in Tucson. What don't they start to syndicate you into
into Phoenix before you moved to Tucson. I'm sorry, before
you you were still living in Tucson.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
Before you moved, we were driving back and forth doing
the show from all over. We do show him to
Song to do the show in Phoenix. Back Medina had
gone to the Phoenix. Tim Richards came in. Tim was fantastic,
He was so supportive. He was another guy that was
right up there with Jimmy Steele.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
And he was your executive producer. I think one that came.

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
Later, but he was the PD in Tucson. Then we
went to Phoenix. We had brought in. Once we took
off in Phoenix, we brought in John Peak. You know
John Peak.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Sure, John Peaks the program director here and yott All.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
The John Piatt came in as our show director.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Oh my god, man, you've had some really great programmers.
Are fantastic, Jimmy Steele, John Peak, Medina, Tim.

Speaker 3 (01:04:41):
Totally blessed, very fortunate. So we got so we go
to Phoenix, We bring John Peak in, John Peak. Then
after a couple of years I think takes over in
Seattle or he goes to Seattle.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
Or to Paris for a while too.

Speaker 3 (01:04:51):
We got him after that, after that, after that, yeah, yeah,
so he then he he left. Now I was like, go, great,
we bring you in and get you back in the
game and then you leave. But he was. He was amazing.
We're still friends of this day. Then Tim decides he
wants to come up, and so we look at him like,
why don't you be our show director? Mark had gone
to d C and they needed a PD. Okay, so
they brought in Tim to be the PD of Kiss

(01:05:14):
and our show director. I got Chack, which was a
little bit of a conflict of interest because we were like,
wait a minute, if you're running John Ja and Rich,
John Jay Rich got to come first. Yeah, but you're
also doing the PD thing. And he was great. I
love that guy to death. We bumped heads, you know,
he had a rough time somewhere, but he was he
was fantastic. I love that guy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
And was Smoky Rivers there for a minute. Well he
was there too, Okay, God, I came in and I
met with R. Dum and I came through. This is
probably right around that time Tim was there. Mark was
still there, but I think he was maybe moving getting
ready to lead, and Smokey was there.

Speaker 3 (01:05:47):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
Maybe Mark was just in town visiting or something. I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
It makes sense because then I think after a while,
I think Tim then became the om.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Okay, maybe that's what it was.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
Yeah, I remember Smokey.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Yeah, I remember going in. But I remember going to
the facility in Phoenix and and seeing everybody. It was
really cool.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
Fun fact about Smoky his college roommate. Who his college
roommate is no Titter Swift dad, really, So when Taylor
come to town, he goes, John Jay, call this Nimber.
It's a Tator Swift Dad. He's gonna sit ye tonight.
Get what? Okay? Sure enough?

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
That's amazing. I know, I know talking about just is
that someone you've had on the air Taylor Swift.

Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
Before you a couple of times, a couple of times.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
Did you ever think early on that she would have
the international stardom that she called it?

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
We did a contest, you know, the legendary contest, who
do you know, you know, biggest celebrity calls? And I
think I got it from Tommy and Jeff and Jerry.
Biggest celebrity calls in wins a car or it calls
it calls in for you? And I remember I was like, Hey,
you know John Jay Rich, you're on there. Who's this Hi?
My name's Titter Swift. I got a message on MySpace
about calling your show. She was sixteen. We've had her
all like five times since then, but she's always first class.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Yeah, what a superstar. I know, absolutely incredible to see
her success and she seems very I've never met her before,
but at first time, she's fantastic, so genuine. Yes, I
like the message that she puts out there. It's positive message.
So when you guys go to Phoenix, are you saying
that on the air that you're now in Phoenix or
are you just being kind of agnostic?

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
About it. So what happened was, I'm with the Walmart
and I saw all these T shirts with the state
of Arizona on it. So I bought a bunch of them,
and then I put Arizona's Morning Show on the shirt.
And then I said to Rich, let's go up to
Phoenix and let's pitch them. And so we hand out
everyone in these T shirts at Arizona's Morning Show, Arizona's
Morning Show. Put us on in Tucson and Phoenix and
make as Arizona's Morning Show. And we did that. And

(01:07:37):
then what's funny is Rich and I remember the Battle
of the Sex's games. You play Battle the Sex. We
had lost Battle of the Texas. So we had to
go through a tanning spray tan machine ninety three times,
so we were both and when you go through a
tanning machine more than twice, it starts dripping. So we
lost this bet. We're covered as spray tan. And then

(01:07:58):
Tim says, I got a surprise. You get in the car,
all right, So we get in the car, we're covered
like we look terrible, and he goes, we're also we're
get driving north. Where we going We're going to kiss
in Phoenix. Wait, a minute for what I can't tell you.
So we get up there and they make this big
announcement that we're the new morning show, and we look
like there's something wrong. We look like we fell into
Willy Wanka Chocolate factory day and we're the new morning

(01:08:21):
show on Kiss in Phoenix and Caraque Tuson and we'll
figure out the details later. Mark Madeena is there. We
meet the whole sales staff and they're mortified at what
we look like. But that's how it started.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Who was on before you guys in Phoenix?

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
It was a show called kid Kidding Reuben and they
had made some bad remarks about Hurricane Katrina, okay, and
so they let him go, and then they came to us.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
And then does Phoenix. I'm sure you had some people
already familiar with you just being proximity to Soon to Phoenix.
It's kind of like Riverside to Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
So in the cariaque sometimes bleeds in the sir.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Yeah, So did it take off pretty quickly in Phoenix?

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
Yeah? It was because it's pretty different than the other show. Yeah,
And plus Mark was running it, and Mark had you know,
we had a tea campaign we were on we had
one of them. We still do. We have the TVs
in the studio. We go live with the TV station everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
Do you really Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
And so we were doing we had billboards, we did.
We were just everywhere. Man, we'd be at a concert
before the concerts start, we bring up people on stage.
We were everwhere.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
What kind of hits do you guys do for TV?
Like entertainment?

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
Yeah, Hey, what's going on in the world? You know,
I tell you how much I love Jeff and Jerry. Right,
So I gripplushed to them and I met with Jerry
one time and I asked him for advice how do
I win? And he said something in this And I
used this in Tucson, but I really used it in Phoenix.
He said, when you go to when you start, you
don't compete with those morning shows. You don't know who
they are, and I don't. You're competing with the biggest

(01:09:40):
players in that town. So for me, when we came
to Phoenix at the time two thousand and six, I
was competing with Steve Nash, I was competing with Kurt Warner,
I was competing with John McCain, Jordan Sparks, like, that's
who I looked at my competition as whether that's Ego
or Ergan or whatever. But that's how I looked at
I didn't know. I couldn't tell you at the time
who my radio competition was.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
That was really profound advice from Jerry because it makes
a tremendous amount of sense. We sometimes get so caught
up and beating the station across the street versus trying
to be really relevant. It doesn't matter whether you're on
the air today or social media or whatever it may be.
But the fact that you were out there really trying
to become a personality and ingrained into the community was
what the important.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
Part, right exactly, So like I was hanging out, it
was Larry Fitzgerald and me. We were doing stuff like,
you know, like Steve Nash at a pool party. I
didn't I couldn't tell you one competitor's name. I still can't. Really.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
You and Rich seemed very symbiotic, as you guys just
pretty much finish each others sentences to really much any
you know, conflict on what you guys are gonna do
on air, or we.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
Had this rule where if we both came out with
something and one of us objected, it was out, or
you know, we Hey, I'm gonna do this, that's a
good idea, or okay to you know what I mean,
that's kind of how we agreed.

Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
It's so impressive that you guys have been as successful
as you have been and have done such an amazing
job not only in now and Tucson, but eighteen other
markets on top of that, and have been a team show.
Because there's a lot of famous team shows that have
had you know, Mark and Brian for instance, or you know,
other shows that have had some issues over the years.
But it really seems like you guys genuinely like each other.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
I do. I love the kind of death. I mean,
we had some problem. We even told ourselves when we
first partnered up that if we were ever gonna have problems,
we'd go to a marriage counselor, and so we did.
We had about five years ago. We had we were
in kind of a rough place, and so I went
to a counselor. He went to a counselor and we
worked it out. And quite frankly, honestly, Chachi, in my
heart of hearts, my relationship with Rich has never been better.

(01:11:35):
Our show, to me has never sounded better. Than As today.
I love the guy to death. He's so damn funny.
He preps all the time. He's just fantastic radio. He
text me. He hates going on vacation. He texted me,
we're on vacation last week. He text me, I can't
stand it. I want to go do a show like
I get it. I know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
I know you and Rich still seem to have so
much passion. Well, at least do you do.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
I can't speak for Rich, but he's got more passion
in me. I would think, what.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
Keeps you MOTIVATD today? To have this just amazing work
ethic that you have and to want to come in
every morning and do a phenomenal show.

Speaker 3 (01:12:06):
You know, I love doing what I do like I
love it. Like I get up in the morning. I
get up sometimes most of the time. I see nine
times out of ten, I get it before my alarm
and I get up and I jump out of bed,
and I'm just pumped. I can't explain it. It's just
it's the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
Walk me through a typical day, a typical show day.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
Okay, you mean, like you want to know my morning
routine because it's pretty You're gonna think I'm out of
my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
I'd love to hear.

Speaker 3 (01:12:27):
So I have sleep apnea. So I sleep. I sleep
with a seapap machine, right, and I got it hooked
up to an oxygen tank. Mary Michael Jackson like really, yeah,
So I sleep and not because the doctor told me to,
just because I was able to get a hold of
an oxygen tank. Okay. So I sleep with a seatpathon.
I get and I wear a ski mask, a thin
like ninja mask over my face because these marks the

(01:12:49):
mask does. So I wear this ski mask. I have
a mouth guard. I put earplugs in, and then I
put the seatpap on. So I get up in the morning,
I take all that off, and then I go and
I jump on a trampoline and I have a closet
and I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
Hold on back up. I don't mean to to snicker
at that. When did you find out that you had sleep.

Speaker 3 (01:13:05):
App two thousand and five? I think, okay, I had
some little episode.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
And having that machine you feel rusty helps.

Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
Oh that's amazing. I love this.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Okay, And doesn't bother your wife.

Speaker 3 (01:13:16):
She sometimes if we go on the road and I
take a portable in me makes a little noise. I
see yeah, okay, yeah, but I jump I had this
trampoline that I saw Tony Robbins jump on. I mean
I've ever seen Did you watch his documentary I'm Not
Your I did.

Speaker 1 (01:13:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
He jumps into the turkey yeah yeah yeah, and then
he gets in the cold plunch. I got the trampoline,
so I jump on that for a little bit, and
then I go in my house. I have a gym,
so I do. I don't work out in the morning,
but I I feel like movement is medicine. I read
that somewhere. So before before I go into the show,
I do some bicycle curls. I do some chest press
I do some lunges, just maybe like one set of
each to keep just moves. My body just wakes me up.

(01:13:50):
It's like coffee.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
I am a little color commentary here, really impressed. You
are shredded man.

Speaker 4 (01:13:56):
You are.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
I mean you are the first thing when you came in.
Are our composer. I think I've made mentioned this past.
His father, Rick Drayson, was a professional bodybuilder, and it's
like the first thing you reminded me of is that, man,
you are really big. How often how much do you lift?

Speaker 3 (01:14:12):
Like wait wise, yeah, I work out every day. I
work out Monday through Friday.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
Every day.

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
Look at workouts and Wednesdays it's a hip day, hip mobility.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
But the rest of the time, Okay, so you're you're
like Mark Wahlberg, dedicated.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
I wish I had those abs. My dad died of
a heart attack in two thousand and seven, right, and
he was the healthiest dude. I knew that dude had
abs at sixty six years old, ran on the beach
with boulders, and so when he died, I had three
little boys. I was like, I got to get I
was one hundred. I lost one hundred and ten pounds
back in two thousand and seventy after my dad died.
I was like, I've been trying to stay as healthy
as I can now so that I'm around for my kids.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
I apologize, I interrupted, but just you working out, and
I wanted to give that color contrary the shape that
you're in. So okay, so you go, you go into
the gym that you haven't go.

Speaker 3 (01:14:54):
To my gym. I do that little routine that roll
out my back and then I got your There's this
guy named Gary Brekka. He's a biohacker, he's everywhere. Oh,
he's been pushing this hydrogenated water. I bought one of those,
so I have three glasses of hydrogenated water before then
I go in my hot tub. I stretch out my
hot tub. I call it a meditation pool at night
because it's four o'clock in the morning, it's pitch black.
And I meditate a little bit, and I kind of

(01:15:16):
thank God. I'm grateful for certain things in my life,
the backyard of my wife, my kids, the pool, my career,
my job, my co workers, things that I'm very grateful for.
And I say a little prayer for people in my
life that have passed, whether I'd been close with them
or not. A lot of people don't even know that
I know them, but just I pray for them a
little bit. Then I do three sets of thirty deep
breath in the hot tub. Then I jump in my

(01:15:37):
cold plunge for about three minutes. Then I get up,
I go upstairs. I put on my underwear or there's
a shower outside a shower. I do some push ups,
and then I brush my teeth. I get ready for work,
and then I go and then I drive into work.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
That is a really impressive routine. How long does that
take you from start to finish?

Speaker 3 (01:15:54):
It takes me a half hour, I think, I think
maybe more I get it takes me an hour from
when I wake up to when I'm in the studio. Okay,
and I live really close to the radio station.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
Okay. The spirituality aspect is really interesting to me as well.
Where is that something that you grew up with? Were
your parents?

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
Yes, my mom My mom alway said our prayers. I
mean I she would stand in the doorway with team
and my sister and say pray. We pray all the time.
And then when I get in the car and I
drive work, I have silence, and then I pray out loud,
and I out loud I say all the things I'm
grateful for in my life on the way I have
to say it by by the time I get to
certain red lights or somebody in my family dies, so
I you know, I mean I had this little OCD

(01:16:32):
with them, So I'm very grateful for certain things.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
So that's a gaming play in your head. If you
don't say it out loud.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
Right about town. If I haven't saying, if I already
saithing I'm grateful for someone's going to die. And then
when I was when I was going to Santaga State,
I had really bad grades and I got kicked out,
and so I had to get back in. I had
to go to community college. I went to Sanego City College.
I went to Mason College mostly Sandy c City College,
and they had a radio department there, so I took
a bunch of radio classes there. And there was a

(01:16:59):
tea you're by the name of Fred Lewis. He was
on like public stashss TV and he was a weatherman
in somewhere. But he's a legendary guy, I think in Santaeo,
I think. But he was my teacher and I remember
him doing this thing and it made so much else.
He would stretch out his face, Well, Horry, talk right,
you stretch out your face and then do the alphabet.
Do the alphabet, alphabet ABC, D, E, F, G, H, I,
j ambib your Z. Taste every word, Taste every word.

(01:17:24):
And then he would go and then I remember he go, hello,
I'm Fred Lewis. Hello, I'm Fred Lewis. So I do
all that on the car way. I do everything that
just makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
So it's like a singer warming up their voice or
an athlete look.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
At like a track like if you're in track, like,
you don't go to the you don't you get on
the field on the drag and just start running. You
gotta stretch out. So I stretch out my face muscles,
and then I do the alphabet and I say a
couple of things. I try to come up with front
like Larry went to Applebee's. Larry went to Applebee's. I
do all that out in my car.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
I absolutely love this. Thank you for sharing all this.
So you get completely prepped. You feel kind of now,
your mind is in the right place, your body's in
the right place, You're stretched out, and then you get
to the station.

Speaker 3 (01:18:00):
Nope. Then then when I pull into the parking lot,
I say out loud, I host the number one radio
show in America. I am the host of the number
one radio show in America. I say that over and
over and over again until I park and then I
walk in. I say hey to the security guard, and
then I walk. I take the four flights of steps up.
I never take the elevator, so I walk the stairs.

(01:18:21):
Then I get in and then I start prepping. I mean,
I've already prepped, but now I put it in place,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
Are you the first to be there?

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
Not really. Most of the time it's Richard usually. So
we have an audio producer and our executive producer. They're
usually they're at before me, and then rich and I
go back and forth. Mostly riches there, okay, because he's
got a long drive, right, so he's usually.

Speaker 1 (01:18:39):
I gotcha, all right, he's got a little bit longer commute.
And then at this point, your show rundown is already
done from the night the afternoon before.

Speaker 3 (01:18:45):
It's there's a there's a show rundown from the night before.
There's email exchanges with our producer about where we're putting
bits and stuff, and then everybody posts on a on
a I don't know, like a word document one of
those everything. Okay, yeah, yeah, they post stuff that happened
to them, and I sit there in the morning, we
have a meeting before the show starts, and I'd be like, Hey,
we're gonna come to you, Kyle, I'm gonna come to
you for this, Peyton, I'm gonna come to you for this.

(01:19:06):
Make sure you know your story beginning, middle and end,
you know, and is there audio for this? And then
we go over the whole show and then it changes
almost all the time. You know, things are happening in
phaterne calls, you know like that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
But you guys already have a pretty good outline. Yeah,
where you're going every single day?

Speaker 3 (01:19:19):
Right right?

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
That's very impressive, really, I think so, I think absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:19:24):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
I love the dedication and I love that you guys
have a full, full team and you're so completely passionate
about what you do. I think it comes out on
the air.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
Thanks. We've been doing this now for a while, and
I have to say we've had different variations of our show,
but the cast we have right now is the best
we've ever had. Like, I know people say that all
the time, but I'm me for real, Like, I think
this is the show. Like, why we're not on in
one hundred markets? I don't know what are the cities?
Are you on? So Phoenix, Tucson, flag Staff, the Rio,
Grand Valley, Portland, Port Collins, Colorado, Springs, Missoula, Mississippi, all

(01:19:57):
over Texas.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
Some good markets And are you taking call from those
markets as well?

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:20:01):
Yeah all the time. Yeah, we're always looking for calls
from here.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Everywhere when the show is over. So you guys have
gone through the show and you're done. What happens is
that you get off the air at ten.

Speaker 3 (01:20:10):
Shows over at ten, we usually tape a couple think
more calls or what's happened lately is what happens is
I get dms from people, so I interact with the
audience on my social media and then I will screenshot.
If they have a great story, I'll be like, oh,
that's great, what's your phone number? Screenshot it, send it
to our producer, and then the prduscer go, hey, I
booked that person for seven to fifteen, so we'll tape
that call. That call might run the next day, got

(01:20:32):
it right, that kind of stuff. So I get out
of there. I try to leave every day. This going
to sound weird, but no later than ten thirty eight
in the morning. I have to be out by ten
thirty eight because I have been standing eleven o'clock appointment
to work out.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
So ten thirty eight comes around and you want to
get out because you've got a standing appoyment. You said
to work out, and you mentioned earlier that you've lost
one hundred and ten pounds.

Speaker 3 (01:20:53):
Yeah. I started after my dad died of a heart attack.
I got my heart check, and I was like, I
need to be healthy because you know in radio, you know,
you get up so early, you're tired, you make bad decisions,
you eat donuts, you eat pizza. It's just bad. So
I got in shape fast. I lost one hundred something pounds.
I started doing hot yoga, bigger yoga. Then I got
too skinny and I didn't have any muscle tones. And

(01:21:14):
now I've learned a lot about health. Now I'm very
much into my health and being around for as long
as I can. I don't think I've ever been healthier,
although I came in this morning to talk to you
face to face, and I've gained some weight since the
last two weeks because we had some home problems. Our
pipes broke, and I've been eating it out all the time,
and I gained a lot of weight, and my trainer
was on vacation. So yeah, so that's why I did
the ten You're in title.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
Plus it was four fourth of July weekend, big barbecues
and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
But I also told Mark Medina. I said, hey, by
the way, I have the standing appointment at eleven o'clock,
but I will I can be back here at one
anytime you need me for whatever. I don't want you
to think that, because I got to leave it ten
thirty eight. And He's been very cool, very flexible. And
I've been flexible too because now on Thursdays we have
a jock meeting, which we haven't had jock meetings in
ten years, so now we have a jock meeting. I know.
I'm so dude, I'm so happy to be working with

(01:21:59):
Mark Medina is unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:22:01):
I remember jock meetings. It was some of the most
fun I ever had. Ye having all this creative people
in one room. Ten thirty eight, you leave, Do you
have you go to a gym, work with a trainer?

Speaker 3 (01:22:09):
Yeah, my doctor. So I had this really cool relationship
with my doctor. My doctor has a gym in her office.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
Oh wow, she.

Speaker 3 (01:22:15):
Also has hyperbaric chambers as you got red light therapy.
So I go work out with my trainer, and my
doctor's there all the time. So she'll be like, hey,
I need to we need to get your blood tested.
So they just draw my blood right there and then
I go work out. It's just that that's an interesting
little concept. So I kind of I'm very very like
I don't think I've ever been healthier or feel better
than I do right now, which is what I'm saying.

(01:22:35):
Like I'm put a ten year deal in front of me,
I'll sign it, and you feel more energetic, so energy
clear in mind.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
Yeah, it's unbelievable what I think.

Speaker 3 (01:22:44):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
Working out? I cycle almost every morning, which it helps me.
It's my Oh and I don't meditate like you too,
and or like you do, and I'm really in awe
of that. I need to do do it because I
think my physically I feel pretty good, but my mental
status sometimes I don't sleep as good as i'd like,
and you know, my mind is racing a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:23:01):
Do you have the monitor your sleep at all? They
have the or ring?

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
I don't. I should, but I do not.

Speaker 3 (01:23:05):
I have all those do you? And I'm monitoring my
sleep all the time. I know exactly. I try to
get as much powerful deep sleep as I can.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
There's so much research out out there that how important
that is. Yeah, you get done, you work out, and
then you'll go home.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
I will go home. I get home around twelve thirty
or one o'clock, and I'll usually have lunch with my
wife or a summertime my kids are home, I'll go
with them. That one of my sons plays college basketball,
so I'll go with him to his training watch him.
He plays a lot of open runs with their college
basketball players, or or my other son is in the
weightlifting so maybe i'll watch him train. I can't train
with him because he's like next level weightlifting. My youngest
son's basketball player. We just have some really good family

(01:23:41):
time right now in the summertime because all my kids
are home, because two of them are to college. Yeah,
but I also like it's although i leave at ten
thirty eight, I'm constantly prepping. Sure, I'm prepping during the show.
I'm prepping now, I'm prepping when I'm home. I'm texting
with our producers all day, you know, or with Rich
like all day.

Speaker 1 (01:23:56):
And then you come up with an idea or someone
comes from the idea. They put it on the shared
and then guys can share notes.

Speaker 3 (01:24:02):
Or you see some breaking news or something that is
getting kind of like a one of those fun little
Instagram things are going crazy, like, oh they happen to
be form Arizona. Let's get him on the air tomorrow.
That's you know, we're always hustling always.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
That's fantastic, and it's it's obviously working out from there.
You guys will do dinner and what time do you
go to bed.

Speaker 3 (01:24:19):
I try to go to bed between eight and ten. Okay,
if I go to bed earlier, great. I haven't gone
to bed that late in a while, but whenever there's
something going on. You know, Drake was in town, so
we go to the Drake concert with my son and
I'll get him till one o'clock in the morning. You
know there's nights like that. You got to make those sacrifices.
I got a compromise so I can try to be
a good dad.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
You catch it, well, it sounds like you're a phenomenal father.
I'll follow you now on Instagram, and I know that
you're incredibly close with your family.

Speaker 3 (01:24:44):
Very close. I'm trying to give them experiences.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
You know, will any of them follow in your footsteps
or want to follow your footsteps?

Speaker 3 (01:24:50):
Says my youngest son. Mit, he's quite a personality. He's
pretty outrageous, but I don't know, you know what I mean,
Like I kind of want answers from them, but he's
only seventeen.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
Yeah, sure, it's young. Would you be supportive of that?
Following in an interview.

Speaker 3 (01:25:02):
Yeah, during COVID, he did a podcast. You know, during COVID,
you remember everyone's doing their shows from home. We only
did our show one time out of not not in
the studio, and so they set up a studio in
my house for the for COVID. But my son, who
at the time was thirteen, he started doing a podcast
with his friend's cool and I was really cute and
funny and I wish he was still doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:24):
That's great.

Speaker 3 (01:25:25):
Yeah, so that was it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:26):
But do you ever have them on the air.

Speaker 3 (01:25:29):
Yeah, quite a bit. But now they have deep voices
and they're not so cute, but they got personalities. They're there.
I just love them so much. Man, They're just they're
just they're the best. It's like I feel like my
my three boys. They're they're so great and they're it's
all their mom and I feel like I see the
best parts of me in them. Do you know what
I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:25:47):
I want to get into now, just about your sense
of community. I just got done reading a book by
Tim Russer.

Speaker 3 (01:25:54):
Do you remember Tim Russer from CNBC?

Speaker 1 (01:25:56):
Yeah, yeah, I was, I think Meet the Press, and
then he died on expect it sounds like you're kind
of like your father a few years back of a
widow maker a heart attack that he was on set
and his son and his son's name is Escaping might
Now but wrote a really touching book about his father
and he had a saying that if you're not giving
your taking, and it sounds like you honestly live very

(01:26:18):
much by that and what you do for the community
through your Love Up Foundation and then the Love Pop Foundation.
You tell me a little bit about both of those
and how they came about.

Speaker 3 (01:26:29):
Well, thank you for that. My wife has a saying
she's been saying since the kids were little, if you
went away words, your community miss you. And so that
made us drive to make sure that we are active
in the community. So we try to make an impact
as much we chase the impact. You know, Rich and
I started John Jay Rich Cares for Kids. Back when
we first started, and we would do the Christmas wishes right,

(01:26:50):
but we are Christmasses. I felt we're a little bit different.
We tried to make it outrageous, not just and then
it was like, yeah, here we'll pay your electric bill.
And then it was we try to do different things.
And then one day when we were moving to Phoenix. I
was telling you how you know, I didn't care about
my competition. It was mostly about dealing with these superstars
in Arizona. Somehow we became my wife and I became
friends with Kurt Warner and his wife Branda, very close.

(01:27:12):
We go on vacations together and everything, and our kids
run the same little league football team. They're gonna call
a little whatever called Pop Warner. My son was a receiver.
His son was a quarterback like eleven years old, and
Kurt had to do something for the NFL. So he's
texting me. He's like, what's going on during the game,
and I go, oh, your son Elijah just threw a
bomb to camp. My son just scored a touchdown. We
just won the game, and he's so excited. He texted me.

(01:27:34):
He goes, love up exclamation point. He goes, oops, I
mean love it is what he said, and I go,
who love up? I go, that's pretty cool, dude. Maybe
you could take that love up and you can use
it for something like a motivational speech, or maybe it
can be something positive. And he just text backs lol,
like I'm serious. So that happened on a Saturday. I

(01:27:54):
couldn't stop thinking about it. And on Monday we went
on the air and I said, I gotta tell you
guys story. I tell that story and.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
I go, that's a great story. By the way, man,
that's goosebumps right now. Great story.

Speaker 3 (01:28:05):
I'm like, I think love up can be like paying
it forward, do something nice for someone, or maybe just
once a day, take time out to say thank you
to God or budo to whoever you pray for or
the universe. Just love up. He do something nice, hold
the door op for somebody. So I told the story
on the air and I said it should be like
a logo. I said, like hashtag love up. And somebody
shoots me a DM with the logo they made and

(01:28:25):
they go, I wanted to put this on a T shirt.
I said, okay, great, do it. So about a week
comes by, the guy shows This guy shows up with
a T shirt. It says hashtag love up on it
and he goes here and I got put it on
and I took a picture and I posted like, hey,
look at this guy made the love up shirt. And
about two weeks later he comes back and he brings
me a check for ten thousand dollars and I'm like, man,
I go, what's this for it? He goes, It's for

(01:28:46):
your Love Up Foundation. Go where'd you get it? He goes,
You posted it and we sold all these T shirts.
People wanted to buy these T shirts, like, are you
freaking kidding me?

Speaker 1 (01:28:54):
Amazing?

Speaker 3 (01:28:55):
So I started designing shirts and selling shirts and selling shirts,
and we started raising all this money. So then we
started doing things for like in the community. When you
heard about like a volleyball team and their equipment broke,
we bought new equipment. Or if there was a kid
that needed help with something, we did it. We paid
for them. If they was school, they needed basketball shoes,
we did it. We started paying We just had all
this money. We just kept doing it and kept paying
for the you know, a woman doesn't have air conditioning,

(01:29:16):
then we'd call the air conditioning people say can you
give us a free air conditioner or we'll pay for it.
And we started doing all these love up moments, you know,
and it just blew up. Then it turned into a
five oh one three C C three or whatever you
call it, and we turned it and it just and
then we got I was at church one day and
the priest or, the preacher was talking about the foster
care system in Colorado, how they there was not one
kid in foster care in Colorado anymore because the churches

(01:29:39):
got together to if you're an empty nester and make
room for these kids. So I was like, let's help.
There's sixteen thousand kids in foster care in Arizona. I
was like, let's see if we can help clear these
foster kids out. And I know we've got down to
thirteen thousand, but you know, Rich and I. Rich was
on board, and Rich and I just started doing as
many love. Now we got all involved with the governor.
We helped kids in foster care. When my wife created

(01:29:59):
all these programs now, like if you are in foster care,
we give you backpacks for school. If you're graduating, you
age out of the out of the foster care system.
You know, we're gonna help you get an internship or
a job somewhere. Like we do all these different programs.
And then one day my wife calls me. She's like,
oh my god, some lady just told me that she
found a chihuahua by the kids' school. Like okay, I

(01:30:21):
send me a picture. She send me a picture of HuaHua.
I'm like, oh, that's cute. I post it on Instagram.
I go, hey, we found this chihuahua. It is anybody
interested in adopting a dog. I don't know anything about
adopting dogs or the rules. And this couple messages me
and they're like I had actually a lot of people
messaged me, and I was scrolling through Instagram to find
what I thought was the best family, and I asked
them to meet my wife and I at the Bank
parking lot, and we delivered the dog right And when

(01:30:43):
I was handing the dog over to this family, the
magic in their eyes and the magic in the dog's
eyes when they saw each other. I was like, this
is unbelievable. I go, this is I told that story
on there the next day, and all of a sudden,
they start getting messages like, oh my god, I run
this apartment complex and somebody left the dog in the complex.
Oh my god, my mom is too old. Can you
take this dog? Oh my god, I found this stray dog.

(01:31:04):
Can you go? And I was getting all these messages,
so I was like, yeah, so I was bringing all
these dogs home right without my wife's like what are
you doing? I go, I don't know all these listeners
messages me. We had like, at one point we had
thirty four dogs in our house. Thirty four dogs. One
dog we put in a lage room. She had puppies.
It was like, oh my god, she's pregnant. So then
all and so then so many messages goes you know
what you had started to love up, now you got
to love pup. I was like, what a great idea,

(01:31:26):
and so from there that turned into something. So then
we had this guest house in our house. We turned
that into our shelter. For years, we were running the
shelter out of our house and then people started donating,
and about five years ago, I think five years ago,
we were able to get a brick and mortar building
and now we have legitimate kennels and it's quite an experience.
And then we started doing stuff where I was interviewing
celebrities with these dogs and getting all kinds of great

(01:31:48):
information from there. And then we started this huge event,
this huge festival called loff Puff Family Fest. We had
twelve thousand people show up the first time we ever did.
I mean, it's nuts. And now there's ways where the
stations get sponsored, people spend money in the world buying
they's bringing all these non traditional dollars at the radio
station like everybody wins.

Speaker 1 (01:32:05):
It's crazy, so so impressive. They were talking earlier about
Von Freeman and another person that worked it kiss It
back when I was there. His name was Damien Lewis,
and mentioned him earlier Von knows enwel but he always
had this thing say do what you say you're going
to do, and that's what you do.

Speaker 3 (01:32:21):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:32:22):
You literally live by what when you put your mind
to something, and it goes back to those notes in
your wallet, you really go when you execute those.

Speaker 3 (01:32:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:32:30):
It's so just wildly impressive to me. Man, you're not
only a remarkable talent, but I think more importantly, you're
just a phenomenal human being. Geez chowchy, Thanks man, really
are It's inspiring.

Speaker 3 (01:32:43):
Thanks man. I'm really excited to be on your podcast.
You know, I think I was telling you off air
that I did a whole bit on your podcast. You did.

Speaker 1 (01:32:49):
I am so honored by that.

Speaker 3 (01:32:52):
I was like, I've been driving around, I mean months
ago when I first started this in your podcast, pretending
I was being interviewed by you. Look I bad fact
to go there we go, right?

Speaker 1 (01:33:03):
You have absolutely made my absolutely made my day. And
I am so grateful for you flying out here to
do this. Anything that we can ever do to help
love up or love pop. Don't hesitate to ask appreciate it.
I think it's I'm a big dog person. You had
me at Chihuahua. I've got I've got a chuaha show
share a picture. My girlfriend and I named named Pepe,

(01:33:24):
but we call him Miho. Really quick. Going back to
Kurt Warner, I saw that movie and what a what
a great great also appears to be a really cool,
just person. I got to meet him. This is about
eighteen months ago or so. We do a lot of
work with Westwood one or our partner in syndication, and
we'd gotten tickets to the suite for the Rams game

(01:33:47):
and we go up to the suite and I go
out leave, leave my girlfriend there, sit down, and I
go out to get us some food. And she texted me.
She's like, I think Kurt Warner's here, and I'm like,
Kurt Warner's in the suite. And sure enough, Kurt Warner
was in the suite because he does the play by
play for Westwood One the NFL, and he was there
calling the game from the suite we were in, and

(01:34:09):
he was just the nicest. Got to take pictures with
him during halftime, and such a nice guy.

Speaker 3 (01:34:13):
He's first class, he really is. We were in Cobbo together.
He has a place there, so my wife and I
went with him and his wife, and I remember we
were playing catch in the beach and I'm like and
then I go, I go, look, remember I told you
and yah, I don't know much about sports. I go,
I want to do like, I want you to throw
the ball to me, like I'm a real receiver, okay,
and you're a real quarterback. He's like, i have a
real quarterback, all right, but I'm gonna do give me

(01:34:34):
a play. I want to do it, and you just
I mean, throw it. Don't be like, oh, I'm just
throwing two guy in the beach. Throw it to me.
It's all right. So I do like a twenty yard
sprint and I go right, and he beans his ball
right at me, and mother of god, it hurts so
bad and it hit me in the chest and pounds off.
Then another time, going dude again, I'll go left, and
it hit me in the nuts and I went down

(01:34:56):
out laying in the sand.

Speaker 1 (01:34:59):
And I told you you're a big guy too.

Speaker 3 (01:35:02):
I can't throw it a cake catch.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
I imagine if I tried to catch one of his football
as it knocked me over ten feet.

Speaker 3 (01:35:07):
I think he had a lot of fun trying to
hurt me.

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
Well, I've got one last question for you, man. The
mentors that you've had in your life are remarkable, and
you've certainly been fortunate to have people like Bruce Walton
and Mark Medina and so many people great people around you.
And I'm sure you've learned a lot, but you've also

(01:35:32):
taken advantage of that opportunity and you've worked your ass off,
and that work ethic is so impressive. You're also just
really involve you and your wife, with your kids, with
love up and love pop. What do you want to
be remembered for?

Speaker 3 (01:35:47):
Oh man, that's a great question. But first one First,
I don't know if I talked about. One of the
biggest my current mentors right now that I talk to
all the time is Dennis Clark.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
Dennis is phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (01:35:56):
You should get him on here.

Speaker 1 (01:35:58):
I have not no but I apps ever tell us
see Dennis speak. I'm always really impressed by Dennis.

Speaker 3 (01:36:03):
Dennis Clark has taught me empathy, compassion. He's just a
fantastic human being. I asked him to pick me up
the airport today and he said, no, no, he's in Portugal.

Speaker 1 (01:36:15):
But yeah, Dennis is on the road.

Speaker 3 (01:36:17):
All I know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:18):
When I run into Dennis, because he lives here in La,
I run into him, I'm we're in Europe, somewhere at
a conference or it's never here in La, it's always
somewhere abroad.

Speaker 3 (01:36:26):
I love him. I love him so.

Speaker 1 (01:36:27):
Much, so so good, Yeah, so good.

Speaker 3 (01:36:30):
I text him all the time for advice and bits
and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:36:33):
But well it's really quick. Since when Dennis works with you,
and I know he works for iHeart and he works
with a lot of the morning shows, what do you
guys have like a regular session with him or how
does that? How does that work?

Speaker 3 (01:36:43):
It's he finds in every once in a while, maybe
twice a year, maybe I don't know. But but I
talked to him all the time like Okay, hey, what
do you think about this? Or what how do just
turn out?

Speaker 1 (01:36:51):
Or so he's monitoring you, listening to breaks and so forth.

Speaker 3 (01:36:54):
Yeah, I'll text him like especially our weeklies. Check this out,
you know. But I don't text him if it's ever bad.
He's just so smart, that guy. I mean, think about it.
He was Rick desent producer. He was a secretive producer.
Like he's worked at the best of the best, you know,
So he's great. Okay, So how do I want to
be remembered by, boy? That is such a great question.
I think I think I want to be remembered us
as a good husband, a good dad, and hopefully a

(01:37:19):
great radio personality. You know, maybe a great husband, a
great dad, and a good radio personality. I do know
one of those three or all those three something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
You know, I think you're doing a remarkable job.

Speaker 3 (01:37:28):
Well, thanks of that man, Thank you, Joy.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
Thank you for what you do for the industry. It's
an industry as you know. I love and say just
absolutely grateful for your passion. And thank you for taking
the time to come out here and and be on
the podcast. It means more than you know. And finally,
thanks for everything you do for humanity. Thanks, it's amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:37:50):
You got to get bobman on, Rich Presler on you
need those guys, Tennis Clark ideas to people, I want
to give you interview deal.

Speaker 1 (01:37:56):
I will, I will, I will get. I did have
Tony Coles on from I heard that he is great.

Speaker 3 (01:37:59):
Yeah, he ran you know how they switched positions all that.
He was our guy for a long time. I love
that guy.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05):
He's a really bright guy.

Speaker 3 (01:38:06):
Yeah, he's fantastic. Uses a lot of big words. He
dropped the word efficacious time and I didn't know what
he was talking about. He's very smart. I know you're
wrapping up after talking.

Speaker 1 (01:38:16):
I'm sorry. Oh man, I could go, I could go
all day long, man, But thank you very much. Congrats
on all your success, and let's definitely do this again soon.

Speaker 3 (01:38:25):
Well, thank you, man, it's been blessed. Thank you guys.

Speaker 1 (01:38:27):
Thanks for listening to Chachi Loves Everybody. If you like
the show, we hope you leave us a five star
rating and tell your friends. Make sure to follow us
on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
This has been at Benstown McVeigh podcast production, hosted and
researched by Dave Chachi Dennis, executive producer, Darren Silva, producer
and editor Jake Urbanik, show coordinator, Estefaniapadia Marketing and Distribution,

(01:38:50):
Suzan Aksu, and Robbie Gessel