Interview w/ Travis Libman

Hey everyone!

Here is the second installment in a series of interviews that I'll be conducting over the summer with friends of mine that are involved in radio. Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend Travis Libman during his overnight shift at WZLX over the weekend. Here is the transcript from that interview:

Can you please give your name and what your current position is at WZLX?

Travis: Name Travis Libman, I just go by Travis on air here at WZLX, I didn't come up with any of the goofy radio names, that wasn't my shtick. My position here is on-air, it's also known as programming at the radio station, so anything that is heard on the airwaves and between songs, that's my job.

How did you get this position at the station?

As you know Pete, interning is everything, interning is where I started as a sophomore at Curry College and I developed a relationship with one of the on air DJ's who was also the music director and after my internship was up, they had me board op which is just pushing buttons and making sure music plays correctly. Once that internship was over and that led into the job of board-oping, I handed the music director Carter a demo tape, I don't know what he heard of me because it was a horrible demo tape after I went back and listened to it 3 or 4 years later, but he saw something in me and I've been on-air since I was in my early to mid 20's and not alot of people can say that, you know especially in a large market like Boston, very few people get to sit in this chair and I'm very privileged to work at the station. One of my proudest moments was when I was offered my first on-air shift at WZLX, it was since December of 2005 since I've been on-air at WZLX.

When did you first become interested in working in radio?

Well, I originally wanted to be a stand up comedian when I was really, really young and I just had this desire to entertain people, that was what I was put on this earth to do was to entertain crowds, whether it was 2 people or if it was 15,000 people, I am here to entertain and make people laugh. And I just enjoy the satisfaction of getting people to laugh, it's quite a thrill and that led into me coming up with my own radio broadcasts in my room, I used to sit in my bedroom, I'd make mixtapes and then in between the mixtapes I'd dub over my voice and I would pretend to be a DJ and there were alot of DJ's back then that had alot of liberty to do whatever they wanted on air, I listened to alot of WAAF back in its heyday, you know John Osterland was a big radio DJ at the time, Rocco he was famous for saying whatever he wanted to, I listened to alot of WBCN, I listened to Nik Carter, I listened to Mark Peranto, I listened to Charles Laquidara, I listened to alot of the big name DJ's and it's weird because Boston was the mecca of radio for a long, long time and this was the place to get a job, if you worked at the same station as Charles Laquidara, you were in, that was the place to do it and it was great when I finally got accepted at WZLX because alot of thew WZLX guys were just refugees of WBCN, they took off after WBCN kinda had a little bit of a format change, not a major one but they pushed out some of the older music, worked in some new music, alot of the older DJ's left, and that's how most of them ended up working here.

Now, you started out at WMLN before working at WZLX, can you run down real quick what programs you hosted while working there?

Oh sure, well I started at WMLN my first semester of freshman year at Curry College and I knew I wanted to get involved with the radio station because it was the coolest thing to do, that was what I went to college for was communication, I wanted to go for radio. One of the reasons I chose Curry was because of the radio station, it was one of the very few that was student run and allowing you to make it part of your major which is very rare, not alot of schools do that. Emerson they say is student run, not really, I mean that's influenced heavily by the staff and former alumni pumping money into the station, this is full completely student run which is great because it's 24 hours, it's a legitimate station, it's something that I feel is ingrained into the community too and it's a great station for what purpose it serves.

The first show I got there was an overnight show, so I got that, pumped, awesome to work there. So then I moved into various other shifts after that semester, I worked a couple of evenings, a couple of overnights, fill in stuff. During my sophomore year, I joined a team show with 3 or 4 other people and unfortunately when you have one creative idea meeting with another creative idea, it doesn't always work out so I eventually gave up on that and moved back into my own solo show. I took a brief semester off my junior year to focus on my courses, it was getting to be a heavy courseload but once I returned on-air it was when I really got creative with some of the shows. One of them was an evening show called Thirsty Thursday and that was a night show at WMLN, that was a great show, had alot of fun, alot of in studio guests, that was more of a musically heavy show, then we moved into the afternoon drive which was Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, that was an awesome show because I had all the guests coming in, wild games, we had The Dating Game in there at one point, I got the station suspended from the cafeteria because of that show and during my senior year I wrapped it up with two semesters doing Fridays 10-1 and it was probably one of my better shows because I got to play whatever music I wanted and interview whoever I wanted, I had free and complete total reign at that point to do what I had wanted without the guide of program director butting in or Professor Alan Frank butting in, telling me what to do, he kind of let me take over the show and that was one of the tapes I used to get on WZLX was during that show, it was just a great time to do that, it was The Wake and Bake Cafe, it was a really good time, it was alot of fun, the last show we had was alot of fun, alot of surprise guests and it was something that I'll never forget was working at WMLN, it was a great experience.

What radio personalities have most influenced your hosting style?

Oh well, numerous. Let's just start just even right here at WZLX, I think Carter Allan is one who the way he is just a walking encyclopedia and he just feels like one of the guys. Chuck Nolan who works here at WZLX, it's amazing how a guy can tell a story and get you to listen without changing the channel, Chuck does that so effectively. A guy who used to work in the Boston market Paul Marshall, he helped me alot in my career and pushed me in various forms and the way he approached his on air style is different than mine, but the way he set up his breaks was very similar to mine. DJ Adam 12 who is now at WFNX, he is one of the greatest people I have ever known in radio and he has helped me incredibly, I can't even tell you how many times he has sat down to listen to my airchecks just to give me pointers, he is an awesome dude. These are just four that I know personally that have helped shape me on air and besides those, the one person that really got me in was John Osterland at WAAF who works down at WRNO in New Orleans, the way he was just so off the wall and the way he approached his breaks, it was so cool because you could just be different. Alot of the early WBCN DJ's before they made the big format switch, Nik Carter was great to listen to because he was just so out there, Mark Hamilton, and of course Charles Laquidara who is just a radio god, the way he brought different characters and he made it a way that radio was something that you had to listen to, not that because it was on, it was a point at listening and Charles knew how to do that better than anyone I've ever seen. Him and maybe Matt Siegel are the two that do that the best and no surprise, Matt Siegel worked down with Charles, who do you think he learned it from?

What is your favorite thing about working in radio?

My favorite thing about working in radio is just the response, the audience response. I was told one time that people get into radio because they are searching for something from afar and I believe in that because you sit here in front of an empty microphone and you have to learn how to entertain 100,000 people without you ever knowing it, you got to make them listen and I think that's the best part about radio, that's my favorite thing about this job is that you can be entertaining and you can really make people want to listen to you and I kind of strive for attention and this is a great outlet for me to do that and I love that it's just one of the coolest jobs that you can do and how often can you say to people "Hey, I've worked on the radio!" It's just a cool thing to do.

Do you have any memorable experiences or have any on air slip ups happen to you while on air?

At WMLN, I've only let one swear go by, that was by accident, my mother happened to be listening, and another time the transmitter blew up when I was on air and that was bad, I thought I had done something bad, but it was just during a summer shift and the transmitter decided to crap out on us. The most memorable experience at WMLN show wise was when I was able to get the station kicked off the air in the cafeteria and I rallied back and got it back onto the cafeteria because I said "What's the point of having a local on campus radio station if we're not going to be supported by the local staff and the local facilities?" I think that was a very proud moment because that was me standing up for something that I believed in and I think everyone around me appreciated it too because even though I was kicked off, I think everyone appreciated it because it showed that the station could come together and fight towards something and people showed support, people showed alot of support towards it, that meant something and I think that was a very proud moment.

What technological advances have you noticed in radio from when you first started out to right about now?

Well, when I first started at WZLX, we were using carts, which looks alot like a 8-track and we were using CD's, we weren't using computers at that point, were were just using all analog devices and it was very interesting when you had to go to the bathroom, and you had a 3 minute Talking Heads song and you're like "Uh oh!" (Laughter) So, it was very interesting and it taught me how to approach this job rather than being thrown right into the digital age. I've seen very little technological advances that have helped the industry, I've seen alot that have hurt the industry, alot of automation has now hurt the industry because there's alot of voice tracking so you're losing alot of the on air personalities to just automation, it's just that I don't even  have to be here anymore, I'm just a warm body in the studio that talks for 2 minutes an hour. That's tough because you have to learn how to approach your audience different now and alot of technology is hurting radio and radio needs to figure out a way to become live, local, and dependable and right now they're in a really bad state and if they don't fix something soon, they're not going to fix it, it's going to end up hurting local radio in the long run.

 Where do you see radio headed in the next 5-10 years?

Great question, long term is a better outlook than short term. Short term  I still see alot of stations going to automation, I see alot of people losing their jobs, it's unfortunate because it's becoming homogeneous and there's very little difference between the station here as the station in Portland, OR as the station in Orlando, FL, there's very little identity. WZLX has been able to retain that identity because it was one of the first classic rock stations in the country and we're looked at as a leader. WBCN was like that, now that's gone, that was gone last August. That was a very big day in radio believe it or not because that was a station that was around for 40 years and that was a station that was looked at all across the country as a leader and people looked up to that station, now it's gone. We got KROQ that people look up to and why? You know, it's a bad station with jocks that talk for 45 seconds an hour about nothing and it's not a good short term outlook. Long term I see radio losing alot of its local jocks in the music sense, classic rock stations, rock stations, hip-hop stations, they're going to lose alot of the radio DJ's but alot of talk stations and sports stations are going to pick up local DJ's, I think it's going to become more of a talk oriented radio, the next wave is going to be talk radio, sports radio, news radio, that's all going to come back and we're going to lose alot of the music stations to Ipods and Internet radio, Internet radio is going to takeover, I can put money on it.

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

Well, I'm figuring that out now. (Laughter) I have pretty much abandoned the thought of a full time job in radio, I'm actually enrolled right now in nursing, so you think it's a big difference but you got to communicate, you've got to talk to people, you've got to learn how to get the most response out of your patients, and radio helped me for that alot. I mean something that I never think would've helped and radio helped alot with that and it's unfortunate because I don't think anyone saw this coming that the communication world would literally collapse on itself, but it did and now there's alot of people with huge bills that they have to pay and no jobs to pay it with. So I'm back in school paying out of pocket to try to change my career around a little bit for the future.

Now if you could have the opportunity to have a full time job at any radio station in the country where would you work and why?

Wow Ok, you know it's funny you ask me this question 3 years ago, my answer would be alot different than it is today. Different markets mean different things in radio you know just because you're in L.A. doesn't mean that it's the greatest market in the world. One of the best markets around is Pittsburgh, that's a great place to listen to radio, I'm telling you a couple of great stations out there that you can listen to great rock stations, great sports stations, it's an awesome city. Pittsburgh believe it or not even though it's a #25 market is one of the best markets to work in. Austin, TX would probably be one of my ideal places to work, I think Seattle has a cool scene. Boston's kind of lost its way a little bit, they're very confused right now into which direction they're going in terms of the market. Larger markets are nice because you get bigger paychecks, but you always don't get the best feedback either, you can make a decent living working in the Top 50 market, but you're not always going to be happy too.

If you could describe your radio voice in one word, what word would you choose?

Natural. I don't put on a show for radio, I really don't. Early in my career, I tried to be radio man, I can't do that anymore. Adam 12 taught me this and it's the best advice I've ever received, he said "When you're doing an on air break, put up a picture of your friends, you feel like you're talking to your friends." And that makes a world of difference and you know once in awhile I'll use different collections of stuff that I don't use in normal conversations, but everything that I say on air is pretty much the same as what I would do off air, you know if I was talking to you about The Steve Miller Band, it would probably be the same thing.

What advice would you to give to an up and coming radio disc jockey in the business?

Be prepared to not work. Some people are going to make it, other people are not. One thing that they don't teach you in school is how to market yourself correctly and I don't think that they push enough on internships, internships are everything in this business and so are connections, but what business aren't connections useful in, but it's a business that's very tough right now, it's going through an identity crisis, you have to find a way to stand out among everyone that's in radio right now, there's not alot of jobs and there's alot of people applying for them and alot of really good talent and just because you have Emerson on your resume doesn't mean you're getting a job, it's what you can do for this station, How many hats can you wear? Can you do production? Can you do promotions? Can you do on air work? Are you willing to work overnights 3 nights a week and come back the next day and do a station event? You have to expand what you can do, if you can't do that then you're not going to get a job and don't expect to make alot of money in the beginning. Some guys end up making alot of money in this job, but in the early goings you're not going to make alot of money and you understand that going in, but you don't really get it until you look at it.You might get a part time gig making $12.00 an hour with no health benefits, are you prepared to do that for 3 or 4 years before maybe getting a shot at a full time gig? And also think that just because you have a job, doesn't mean it's safe, there are people getting fired left and right and for no reason other than budgets, you know why do I need 4 on air jocks on the station when I could really get away with 3 or 2? Morning drive and an afternoon drive, the rest we'll just plug music all day, we'll just be a jukebox. Is that something people are prepared to get into? That's something that I think they need to teach in the college courses is the realities of the job market and I think sometimes schools like the Connecticut School of Broadcasting are selling broken dreams.

Thanks once again to my friend Travis Libman for taking some time to do this interview! Keep an eye out for more interviews to follow all summer long!