Interview w/ Dan Mazella

I'm kicking off a series of interviews in the next few weeks with friends of mine that are DJ's and to get a feel of what their job is all about. Today, I'm starting off with an interview with my friend Dan Mazella, who is currently a part time DJ at Curry College's WMLN and also works at Kiss 108 as a producer. Here is the transcript of that interview:

Q: Give your name and your job title here at WMLN?

Dan: I'm Dan Mazella and my current job title here at WMLN is on air DJ and for right now I'm the summer program director.

How did you get this position at the station?

The on air DJ job I've had since my freshman year so this goes back 5 years. I'm not a five year person but what happened was I got to continue my services at WMLN after I graduated which is very rare. When I was a freshman, I needed basically a general elective and one thing that drew me to Curry College was the radio station. When I saw it as a general elective I said, "I'll just take it," easy way to get some struts out and play music for everyone to hear. And that's when I got the on air gig, I signed up for something, and they needed somebody to do a morning or afternoon show and I said "Alright cool, I'll take it why not." And that's how I became an on air DJ. Five years later I'm still doing the same thing. And for the summer program director, what happened was right after I graduated, which is a year ago. I was station manager for 2 years and then they said "Hey, do you want to stay behind to be the consultant because we got a crew coming up, they're great but they have 1 year experience on everybody because we lost a lot of people," and they said "Do you want to be the general consultant?" and I said "Alright, why not." And then our program director didn't happen to return so my boss said to me, "Do you want to be program director?" and he knew that was a goal in my life, I want to program a radio station one day and he said "Well you managed one, I have no doubt you can program one." So that's how I got the summer program director.

When did you first become interested in working in radio?

That probably goes back to my childhood I guess, I'm not going to give you a lost childhood moment over here. (Laughter) But what happened was, I grew up on a farm and as most kids had summer vacation, summers for me I kind of dreaded because I would have to work on a farm, and this goes back to when I was 7 years old. But what got me through the day was listening to radio and being in the barn packing vegetables, we would listen to the radio. I'd be out in the field, we wouldn't have iPods because they weren't invented yet, it was too Star Trek. So I couldn't listen to my favorite songs, back then you had to rely on radio and Walkmans were big back then and they had FM tuners on it, so I could listen to FM radio while I was working so it passed the time and everything because OK, if I start work at 9AM, I know I'll catch the last hour of Loren and Wally on 105.7. But, I know on this station, on another station, I'll get this DJ and that is another 4 hours and then once that's done, I'll be this guy's show so Ill look forward to the next DJ on a different station to help me pass the time. I had no idea back then that was foreshadowing me to take over my career as a radio professional. That's when I knew then when I got to college when I did all that stuff in the past, I looked forward to radio, maybe this is something telling me I need to do radio. You know they kind of say "Do what the world is telling you to do", well I think that's what it is, the world was telling me to do radio because I was so involved in it in the past. So, I got involved in it and that's where I am today.

Describe your first time working in radio, What was it like?

When I first had to crack the mic, I went over in my head about 30 times what I was going to say "Do I be like this DJ?" "Do I try to sound like this guy?" or "What's my own voice?" Of course I go "I've never done on air before, I don't have my own voice" so finally I just said, "you know what I'm gonna try this song," this will be my first song, it was a morning show 6-8AM, I said "this has to be my very first song" and it was New Found Glory's "Better Off Dead" and I said, "I gotta do something on my own," so I went on air and I said, "Hey, this is New Found Glory's 'Better Off Dead' and if you don't like me, well I guess I'm better off dead!" And then my boss at the time, he was there that early, he came down the hallway and just looked at me and said, "Is this your first time on the air? You have potential!" and then walked away. So I was like, "OK, this wasn't totally bad my boss liked it which kind of matters." And that was my first time I ever went on air and it just progressed after that.

When did you first begin to develop an on-air personality?

My personal on-air personalities developed uniquely, to put it that way. I used to look up to alot of DJ's such as Adam-12 when he was on WBCN, Big Jim on WFNX, Paul Driscoll on WFNX. As far as my own personality goes, I would listen to some people at WMLN, Jadd Naamani, Kevin Begley, those guys are doing their own thing right now and they're in the field as well. But I started modeling stuff after them and then there was one DJ who co-hosted a show on WFNX that was on from 10PM-Midnight It was called Loveline with Dr. Drew and I developed my intros and outros from this host, his name was Stryker. I developed that from him and I would bring it in, tell the other DJ's who I've been listening to, developed it from there, but another person who had a huge impact on my personality was Alex Durka because I was before him once or twice, and we did a thing called crossover, what a crossover is you introduce the next person who is on after you, you kind of get involved with your show to be a easier transition so people know what's coming on and thinking "Oh these shows are really different, they're pretty much the same thing." So, we would just do crossovers and we started our crossovers 10 minutes early, then 15 minutes, then a half-hour early. And that's kind of where my personality developed and that's how him and I kind of began our careers together, working on many, many shows together. That's where the personalities developed, listening to radio hosts that I looked up to and some people who were not that much older than me, who had the talent that I really felt I could really learn from.

Describe your first on-air radio show @ Curry and the basic format of the show?

That has to be back when I was a freshman. My first show was a morning drive show and the format at the time was adult album alternative which is kind of like soft rock and acoustic rock. I would sit there and we have a ton of stuff in the studio here, but I got used to using my own CD's, I wanted to know that I could do any format if I'm asked to be on-air, I know the CD's that are out there that are mine, I could just do a show with. And there were some CD's that I put aside in the back room and kind of hid from everybody and was like, "This is mine, I'm gonna use this, no one else can use this." The basic format was morning drive and I'm trying to think how I'm different from the other big shot shock jocks out there, how am I different from them and said, "Well I'm in college radio, I'm in my own category, I'm not a format station, this is a multi-format station." So, I took some songs that I liked and I kind of asked around to people and say "Hey, when you're waking up in the morning, and you've got to go to class, got to go to work and you're driving or walking and you just happen to have the station on in one way shape or form, whether you're at your computer or you're listening on the way in or you walk into a building and the station is on, What do you want to hear? Would you hear this song? Would you like this song? Oh yeah, I like this song Eh, that might not be too great." I would ask people who worked at the station what they would like to hear and that's kind of how I developed my own format within a format. Cause it was create your own show pretty much and that's how I developed the format for my show and that was my first show, a morning drive show and I'm kind of glad I had to wake up that early because I had to be ready to deliver the audience what they wanted.

Now, you also work over at Kiss 108 in addition to your job at WMLN, could you describe your position there and what you do?

I'm a board op over there, board-op producer. Those two jobs go hand in hand, so it's kind of difficult to say what my actual title is. Pretty much I'm mostly on Saturday nights from 10PM-2AM and what that is, I show up around 9PM and I load Club Kiss, you hear it every single week, just sometimes there's a different person running the board. But I'm on there from time to time and we have a show, we either have to download it or it's already downloaded for us and what we do is we take it out of the download and we throw it into the program, it's called NextGen so we know to play it. And it's an automated system so you don't have to press alot of buttons, so you listen to Kesha, Rihanna, the new Ludacris song, and then Club Kiss starts and 1 segment is 12 minutes, the other is 24 minutes and it's club music and my job is to monitor and make sure it flows and because I'm also talking to another producer and a host who is actually at a club, and that's for many reasons is to draw people to a club that the host is at and it's to get people in the mood to go out, people want to hear club music and they're like "It's 10:00, that's early for a Saturday night, I want to go out and have fun." So they listen to Club Kiss and get in the mood for it and I'm glad I'm a part of it because I'm in the studio running it, making sure and I'm always telling the host down at the club "Hey you have 10 minutes until your next live break Ok, well what are we talking about? It's open, you talk about whatever you want for 30 seconds" or "Hey you're on in 5 minutes and plug Billy Costa's Top 30 Countdown" and they've done it so many times that they know what they're talking about. And pretty much that's it what I do at Kiss and everything, I'm just the person in the studio making sure it all plays and telling the hosts down at the club "Hey, can you grab this person cause they've got a break in 2 minutes" and that's pretty much what I do in a nutshell.

What are your favorite and least favorite aspects with working in radio?

My favorite aspect of working in radio is knowing that I'm doing something for the community because there are some jobs that are out there like Office Space for example, and you have to do this report, I've seen that movie thousands of times so I can't even tell you what those damn reports that he had to fill out, but those don't matter to you, I'm not going to lose sleep or have my day ruined because a report didn't get filled out. But if you work in that field obviously it's a big deal. But for myself and working in radio, everybody's listening and especially when you work at Kiss 108, the #1 station in Boston or WMLN is a college station that is professionally run but it's free form, we kind of get to play whatever format we want and everything, there are some people telling us "OK format this time" "So you like that format" "You go on at this time." But what I love about it is that I can do a show, people will listen to it because they want to listen to radio. Some people say it's a dying market, I sorely agree with them, but I don't at the same time because people are going to listen to radio no matter what and I'm still going to stand strong behind a industry that I know will strive in the future. Another thing I don't like about it sometimes is the hours. I work some Saturdays and some Fridays and it takes alot out of your social life, especially if it's a beautiful Friday evening or Saturday afternoon. I'm in the building where the windows don't open and I can't get a breath of fresh air unless I physically walk out of the building, we're on the 3rd floor so you gotta think "Do I really want to walk down 3 sets of stairs?" and then you look outside and you just see it's so nice out, and you know you just can't enjoy it. But that's just because I'm doing weekend work right now, that could change in the future, I'm kind of happy where I'm at right now but at the same time, I just want to choose the music that I want to play. At WMLN I can, at commercial radio such as Kiss, I can't choose the music which is kind of unfortunate cause you're like "OK, this song is next" "OK, this song is next" "Oh, this song should really be played." But I have to go through somebody in order to get that done, so that's one of the things I don't really like about it, but I know at the same time you're serving an audience, and the audience expects something so I don't want to be the person that a mob comes after knowing cause I screwed something up. (Laughter)

Do you have any funny outtakes or have any embarrassing moments happen to you while on air?

I do, I do, one is I got somebody who I really wanted, it was on campus, it was a person who always played guitar around campus and I was like "I got to have you on my show, I worked it out with my bosses, please, please, please come on my show." The person's name I can't tell you for the life of me, but I know what he did and the reason I wanted him on my show. So he came in, and he sat down and I had a ringtone for my mother and it was the Cinderella song cause everytime she called me, she wanted me to do something, so I had the Cinderella theme song go off. I didn't put my phone on vibrate or turn it off, i left it on. I filled the interview live on the radio, and my phone goes off and it starts the Cinderella theme and the guy just looks at me, I look at him, and it's not like I can get up and leave or say "Hey, we're in the middle of a song right now, we're right in the middle of an interview." I couldn't get out of it and I said "This is exactly what's happening, I have no excuse for my actions." (Laughter) The second incident was a person I talked about earlier, Alex Durka. I've been on-air with him many, many times, we're like the unofficial co-hosts of each other. I explained earlier a crossover, or sometimes where he would like come on the air with me randomly, he would just say something really awkward to me on air, and I wouldn't have an answer. It's one of those moments where like "Did he just say that?" or "How do I respond to him?" or I'm laughing really hard and I can't respond to this. Those are the things, you get interrupted during something you have no way out of it which has happened to me in the interview, or bringing someone who has a great personality on-air say something you weren't ready for and it's kind of like "Oh, it's really funny but I don't know how to respond to it." So that's an embarrassing thing that has happened to me many, many times.

Did you host any other on-air radio programs while @ Curry?

I've hosted many, many programs. Just to run them down real quick by memory serves me right, I've hosted some morning shows. My freshman year for a semester I hosted some morning shows, then I also hosted these Friday shows both semesters my freshman year because on a Friday, alot of people are going home and everything, but there's people who lived on campus and everything who stayed here and of course it was great for me and everything, I got used to that time frame, so it wasn't that bad to host and everything, I got two semesters which was fine. When my sophomore year came, the people in charge of the time said to me, "Hey, you've done Fridays enough, we obviously trust you, we like what you're doing with your stuff, we want to move you to afternoons a little bit, do you want early afternoons or late afternoons, or you can tend to where you are." So I said to them, "Throw me on early, you know I want to do some early afternoons, I want to get a feel for it to see how I like it." So I got the 1-4PM and it was before Alex Durka and that's how him and I became friends, cause he was on after me and we did alot of crossovers and all that stuff, so we got to know each other that way, but I started doing the 1-4's and it was fun and everything for awhile, but I felt it was too early in the afternoon, I liked the later afternoon show. So when my junior year came, I decided I'll take the 4-7PM and that's when I developed the current show that I'm in. It was the summer before and I was in class one day and I really wanted to come up with a good show and I also wanted a catchy title, something people are going to remember and I'm sitting there and I created the show, The Alternative Modulation and I was like "Alternative Modulation, that's actually a really good name." Little did I know that I was actually doing a play on terms in there. I was on the FM dial but Alternative Modulation is AM so as I called it "The New AM on FM, The Alternative Modulation". I was in the middle of the class and I stood up and go "Genius!" Everybody looked at me like I had 9 heads but that's fine, I'm used to that. (Laughter) I was on air one day, I was just hosting a regular formatted show, alternative rock format show and this was right before the summer. I was sitting there going "If I don't do this now, I'm never going to get the confidence to plug this show or do this show." So halfway during a 4-7, I cracked the mic and I said, "The New AM on FM, The Alternative Modulation" and people were calling in going "Oh, that's a cool title" or like a direct comment like "What the heck are you doing?" "This is the name of the show." "What are you doing?" At that point, I'm like "I either do it now or I don't do it at all." That was my make or break and there were some people who were off campus who I knew who listened to the show, there were some people that were on campus that listened to the show, called in and were like, "Wow, that's actually really clever, that's not a bad title." By the way, I'm working to patent that, so no one can steal that from me! (Laughter)

But there are 2 other shows that I want to talk about, cause they are equally important to the AM on FM. There was a show called He Said, She Said. There was a girl who worked here, her name was Emily Carr, she was music director then she became program director. Her and I hit it right off the bat, we became friends, we had a personality off the air that we thought that can really work on the air. So when she asked me do you want to host a show with me I said, "Oh yeah sure." In my head "It's going to last a week, It's gonna last 2 weeks, a month, I said 'I'm gonna want out'" and said "We have a good off air personality, Will it work on air? I don't know she says it will. We'll try it, see what happens." So we picked Thursdays 7-9PM cause we know that's a perfect time for us because it wasn't early when people were in classes and on a Thursday night, what are people doing on a college campus? I started on a 7 o'clock so we thought, "This is a perfect time." So we did it, we started it and I had a blast doing it, it turned out to be one semester, then we renewed it for a second semester, then a summer came, we continued it into the summer, then we did 2 semesters following into our senior year so we literally did over a year straight of Thursdays 7-9 of the He Said, She Said and it worked out great. Em and I were both producers of it so "I get research, you get research," "Let's choose it this week," No this will work next week," "These we'll have to put in now." It was a 2 hour block so what we did was we would throw in little things like a personal experience from Em, and I would talk about comic books, and that didn't work too much on that show, it did for a little while and then we were kind of losing touch with it, but it worked on another show. Em and I really took that show to heart and we could say that's our show and people have said that in the past, but people know us for this show and the time spot, so we really liked it and we had a great lead in and a great lead out, the person after us was great, so we thought we were in the perfect time and it was on Thursday night, so we knew what people were doing and they knew what they were doing when they were listening to us.

But the comic book stuff worked on another show that I was asked to produce, it was called Hey, Are You Talkin' To Me? The first host was Paul Varga, him and I were friends, I was actually living with him in an apartment on campus and he asked me "Hey, do you want to be my producer?" and I said, "Alright, why not." In my head thinking "It's going to last a week, i'm going to get sick of it," cause I knew what Paul was like on the air, it was a talk show, I've never produced a talk show before, never ran the boards for it, maybe it'll work. And we started doing it, it started at 8AM and we get here at 7, he would bring me a sheet, "Hey, do you want to do this?" "No, I don't want to do that." "Let's take that out." "This will work" or "Hey, let's do this."  What it is that Paul would do the talking and I would choose the music for it, so I was kind of like the show's music director and I would throw into "OK, we're going to take a break" and I have Paul talk over some music, so him and I played off each other very well. We decided to give myself a segment on the show, we call it the Geek Freak of the Week cause the show was weekly and Paul has said to me "A lot of movies are coming out and they're comic book movies," and I'm an avid fan of comic books, I have done alot of research on the genre and everything. So I was like, "Why not, let's do this." So we created Geek Freak of the Week where during the show at 9:00 I would go on the air and talk about comic books for 5 minutes and I would have music behind it, We'd have a great intro for it, Paul and I would bounce off each other and that was great, I loved it and actually said to me, "I want to submit our show for an AP award" and I said "OK, Let's do it."  We sat down and I said, "Paul, It's your show, you're the host, you choose what you want to do for it." He chose some segments, he ran it by me, we sat down and collaborated and said, "Hey, that might work." So we put it in with the rest of the AP submissions, we sent it in and we actually won the AP award, it was for Best College Talk Show which is a very hard category to be recognized in, so we were thrilled, I gave Paul all the credit because he was the host, I was just the guy pushing all the buttons for you and he said to me, "This is just as much your victory as it is mine." he said the same thing at the radio meetings "This is your victory as well," because WMLN won the award, my show was the one that won, but I submitted under WMLN's name so it was really everyone's award, but I felt great being personally connected to it and also people were listening to it, we were online streaming and that was the first time in my life that I felt, especially with my comic book obsession and super hero nerdiness, meant something to some people because then I thought this show is really out there, it's political, it's pop culture, it's also something for the nerds and geeks out there which is right up my alley, and we had fun with it and then when we had to retire the show and our positions within the show cause we were graduating, we were a little upset by it, but we knew it was time to go and I was involved with a variety of shows, I wasn't set to one genre that alot of DJ's are. I forced myself to be involved in other genres so I could get the experience and say that I had a hand on it, so one day when I went for a job interview, I could say "This is what I did" and "I'm very flexible" and it's worked out great so far, so I'm very proud of everything that I've done within all the genres that I've done.

Now, with all the recent changes in radio, where do you see radio going in the next 5-10 years? Changes? Technological advances?

Unfortunately, I see a dark future for radio, an actual dark doesn't mean bad normally. I see radio in a transitional stage right now kind of back when AM became FM, people were listening to FM more than AM and radio had to reinvent itself. Everything was on AM, everything was going to FM, how do we survive? And that's where music came out, cause television wasn't invented, no people had to listen to radio anymore, they could just watch their favorite dramas or comedies. So, that's when radio said, "We're going to go music" and that was great and now, it's what do you do now? With the invention of the iPod, with the invention of automation, syndication, voice tracking, Can radio survive in the 21st century in the digital age? Parts of me say yes, parts of me say hell no. I feel you will always need somebody to watch what's going on over the air, you're always going to need somebody, they are not going to be paid well though, and alot I see in the future in radio is syndication. Ryan Seacrest has On-Air with Ryan Seacrest, he's on Kiss 108 from 10-2, but the same show is being broadcast on another station somewhere else from 1-4. That's what it is, someone can just create a show, don't have to mention what the weather is like outside, as long as they make it generic. That's where I see radio going is syndication, they aren't really going to have much of a host anymore, unless it's local and that's where I think the hope for radio is, local. You're not going to think inside of 10 years and still gonna have these big stations. I think local radio such as WFNX, there's another station called WXRP, The River which is up by me, this is a Haverhill station. Lower watt stations that are going to be broadcast to a certain area, and that's how I think radio is going to survive, so people are going to have local radio cause people want to know what's going on in their community. Maybe not the bigger stations but I feel they are all going to be all syndication, and of course I work for one of the big stations, so I hope that doesn't happen but then again, you're going to need somebody there. They're not going to get paid well, and that's where I think radio is going towards, syndication and more small local radio stations.

If you could have the opportunity to work at any radio station in the country, where would you work and why?

That's really, really hard for me to answer. I can tell you when I was younger, early in my career, I dreamed of working at WFNX. Then I slowly started to lose it after that cause I started changing directions with what I wanted to do in radio, and then I got really into producing and I said "I don't want to produce, I don't think I want to be on-air, I'll do bits on the air, but not something big." I've been asked this question before many, many times "Where do you want to work?" I would love to stay in Boston, New England, love to. But the station I would love to maybe one day work for would have been WBCN, just because they were The Rock of Boston and that was my thing. But another station I would love to work for if the opportunity arose and if they change their format would be Radio 929. But they're doing really well right now as an automated station, the ratings just came in, they're in the Top 5, that's very rare. And they have no DJ's, they have two people a guy and a girl, and I was actually there when they switched it from WBOS 92.9 to Radio 929, I saw them switch out the signs, and it would hurt me that day to see that happen, but I always said one day I want to work for Radio 929, of course now they're automated, It's like, you can't work for them anymore, unless I was the music director. If I were to work for Radio 929, I would love to be the music director of it just knowing that that's my music, it's the music that I know, I know I could really make a really good playlist, they're true to the fans and they have fans submit playlists and I like that, I like knowing the listeners have a say in what they want to do. As far as United States wise, I haven't found a station yet that I would love to work for. I've been looking through, I go by states, I'm currently in Tennessee right now, I'll stream a station for about 2 or 3 days so I get used to the formats and that's really what it is. I haven't found what station that I really want to work for. But going back to Radio 929, I would love to work for them and I would really love to work as a music director. Maybe that will happen someday, I don't know, it could,  I don't know, maybe they'll go back to DJ's and if that's the case then if they get a morning show, I would love to produce that morning show. I would love in some way to be involved in the music aspect or the producing aspect of Radio 929 someday.

What are the differences between working at a college radio station like WMLN and a major radio station like Kiss 108?

Huge, significant differences. There are so many categories I can go through, I'll go through two and that's people being on air. At Kiss 108, we're not just Kiss 108, we're on the same floor as Jam'n 94.5 and Rush Radio 1200AM plus the HD stations they all have. I'm working with alot of different people, different personalities which are good and bad, but it's like that in any environment, it isn't just radio, whether you're in business, finance, construction, you name it, personalities are different. Some people who I work with at Kiss, there are people who are professionals, everything has to be 100% perfect, which is understandable, you want to be perfect on the air, there are often people who are more laid back that I work with, they go "Oh, we missed that break? That's fine we'll do it next time, it's not a big deal." Let's say I'm producing a show for the 1200AM show which I have been doing alot of lately, there was one thing where I didn't make something sound as tight as I could have, and tight as in flowing from one thing to another and I got a call from somebody saying "Hey, make that tighter next time" and another person said, "Hey, you did your best. So you messed up? It's radio, It's in people's one ear, out of the other, and you know what, it's fine dude." And that's what I like about being at a commercial station, they all know that there are some laid back people but then again it's knowing what you have to deliver is something that has to be 100%, you cannot half ass it at a commercial station, it has to be all great, you can't have dead air like what might happen at a college station from time to time, you can't go off the air, you have to make sure things fire at certain times because that's where the money is, we all want to be paid and those are the people who are paying us. So, that is what is at a commercial station. And at a college station, it's a little bit more different, it's much more laid back, we get to choose the music that we want to play on air, we have a music director, program director, and we have the luxury of bringing in our own music, All of the shows are my own CD's, very rarely will I use a CD here at the radio station, I have done before and I probably will, but I rarely do it. And that's what's great about college radio. And also it's public, I get paid from Curry College and the tuition money that gets brought in, once it's divided up into all the other departments, radio gets a certain budget of that, and I get paid out of that budget, but I don't have to worry about firing a certain song or firing a certain PSA at a certain time because I don't have to worry about it, no one's paying me to hear it, so I'm fine with it. Some of the personalities here are much more laid back as well, I can work with different people and jump off ideas better, and be like "You know what, let's try it and see what happens."

If you weren't working in radio, what do you think you would be doing careerwise?

Oh this is unfortunate. (Laughter) There are two possibilities, I mentioned earlier that I work on a farm, that's what I would be doing right now. Granted, it's a family business. I still work there right now, but it's not full time, it's pretty much Memorial Day cause it's our busiest time until 4th of July cause we're trying to get everything put together. I'd probably be doing that, I probably would have gone to school. Originally in my life, I thought I'm never gonna do anything else, the only thing I know how to do is farming. I wasn't great at it but I said I need the direction on how to farm, this is a family business, something I'm destined to do because you know what they say "You're supposed to do what the world is telling you to do." I was working on the farm, but I was listening to the radio. So that was the world telling me you should work in radio, but when I was working on the farm, I said "This is what I have to do, I was born into this, my grandfather was born into this, he had to do it," I was the only boy out of all the grandkids, I had to do this, I had to follow in the footsteps of my uncle and grandfather and I thought about it  for the longest time and I said "I don't have to do farming, no one's telling me I have to do it," so my mom was a teacher and I really was great at history. Kids would want to sit next to me in history class so they could copy off of me for tests. I was the kind of kid that just was very quiet in school believe it or not, and would just sit there, I talked to some people when people came up to me and said "Hey, can I sit next to you just so I can get a couple of answers off of you?" And I was like "Alright, well this smart person who people view as smart, worship the ground I walk on were great. Alright, I'll sit next to you, Yeah, I can copy off of you, I don't frickin care." So I thought that I would be a good history teacher one day. Then I thought, "I don't want to be a frickin teacher, That's horrible, I'm going to get underpaid and I'm just going to hate my life." So I decided "Hey, radio is where I want to be" and if it was working in another field, I probably wouldn't have gone down that road and I'd be a completely different person.

What is the most important lesson you've learned in your radio experience?

Don't let your ego ever, ever get in your way. There are people who have egos, I have learned to work with that. It's not easy, It'll never get easy, and the most important thing that I've learned about working with their egos is just you know they have an ego, that's fine but you can't do your job without me, so what does that say about you, what does that say about me? That's the big one I've learned about and there's two other small things: Bring your own headphones to your shift cause you get a sense of this is my show, this is my equipment, these headphones are mine. It's kind of like being an Air Force pilot, they have their helmets, and their sign like in Top Gun: Maverick, Ice Man, My headphones are like that, they have my name on it. One time I've put a sticker on it so it would look like it's mine and I've signed it different ways and I know those are my headphones and I've bought other people headphones cause they're like "Oh, I can't afford these headphones" or I buy them and I'll spruce them up for them and I'll give it to them and see if they like it. The final thing that I've learned is just have fun. You may screw up from time to time, but no one is perfect, people may think they're perfect and they're not. Have fun with it, know that what you're doing is not what everyone else is doing. Just knowing that I can provide everyone else with a service that I'm good at is great.

Thanks once again to my friend Dan Mazella for carving some time out of his busy schedule to do this interview! Look for some more interviews to follow over the course of the next few weeks!