Straight From the Mouth

distinctly remember being in that room and feeling really small, but there was a limbo period and that is when the show started to take off and there was a book, the best we had ever had and I think that it probably raised some eyebrows but at the same time the deal didn't go through and we went through another book and that book was strong enough that any sane radio person had to look at and say you guys are about to take off. I think they could have said hey, we love you guys, we are going to take care of you, but they never said that until that really good book which I think was the winter of 94. When that came out we were number one rock in 18-34, 25-54 ,12+ and all of a sudden it was Hey guys, Let's talk.

Great numbers have a way of doing that. Just how big are they now?

Drew: I'd say we range from 12+: mid 7's to low 8's. 25-54, we stay around a 10 share. 18-34, a 13-14 share.

Last year you (Drew) were off the air for 6 months following back surgery, how are you now?

Drew: Pretty good. It feels a lot better than it did then. I had stenosis which usually hits people in their 60's and 70's. It is the narrowing of the spinal canal and it causes your vertebrate to bump up against your spinal cord which causes a lot of complications and pain.

What did the show adjust to your absence?

Mike: Our numbers held for that 6 month period. We didn't know what was going to happen. We brought in another person who was up in Saginaw and Trudy (Daniels) our news director started interacting with me more. At that point it was trying to keep the show as close as we could to its original form so we had the guy from Saginaw and stepped up Trudy's involvement on the air. At the time our Producer was Rob Shaffer and we increased his airtime and tried to hold it together as best as we could. It worked out well.

What's made your show successful?

Drew: Chemistry. If you don't' have it you won't last. Mike and I are not terribly alike but we laugh at the same things, so there is an appreciation

Mike: Coupled with the audience liking you.

Has the show evolved much as you've gotten older?

Mike: I think we are kids at heart, we haven't grown up to so mature that the things we used to do at the beginning of our career now seem immature. They still seem pretty funny. I do a character called Butt Mike, which is my butt.

Drew: Mike does fart on the air. He'll get up and you hear the mic rustling as he hurries it to his ass and then there is silence for about 2 seconds because, when people see him put the mic to his ass everyone shuts up because they want to hear the fart.

Mike: And the fart arrives on schedule usually without incident, I might add. Usually there are two bursts and it is always followed by my translation because Butt Mike is speaking in another language if you will and only I know that language.

Drew: Butt Mike will say something like Jackson is guilty. Or I know he did it.

Mike: That is probably the lowest common denominator the show has ever gone to, and still goes to regardless of us aging.

Other than Butt Mike, how many characters do you have on the show?

Mike: Mr. Stress and Bob Boner are characters that have existed since the very beginning even before Drew came along. Now Mr. Stress is doing traffic and occasionally Bob Boner comes in every once in a while.

Drew: I do Michael Jackson, that is something that flows. We never relied on being great voice people or great impersonators I think it is more the spirit. When Bobby Brown got arrested we "called Bobby Brown (character)" and of course he did nothing but curse, and all he could say was "Awh gees Mike, as if you had spent 10 years with Whitney Houston, you wouldn't take at least bitch, starts saying that he loves her and wants her back. That is an example of how we do things of the moment and how it fits in with topical news. We used to do certain bits at certain times in the 70's, 80's, and even the early 90's. We got away from that and became more free wheeling. We might in the middle of the news go "Oh my gosh, I can't believe that someone did such and such." The next thing you know our producer Mark is looking up the phone number and boom you might hear the phone ringing and here we are in the middle of a news cast.

Mike: And we may not got back to the news.

Do you see yourself as primarily a rock morning show?

Drew: Yes, but if you hear me tell about the concerts I went to you are not going to hear me say that I went to three hip hop shows last week or I went to a country show. You would never hear me say that. I might get dragged to Grease by my girlfriend and I will get ragged relentlessly for going. But on the other hand what rocks about the show is that maybe we do or don't watch American Idol and we rag on it, but regardless, I think most of our audience knows who Clay Aiken is.

So in other words you don't have this constant debate about which TV shows fit your P1's best; thus, whether to talk about them or not?

Drew: We do talk about shows and what people watch and why they watch them. For example Ryan and Trista's wedding, I think that was something that a lot of people got stuck watching, there were some drops in that show that we talked about, not at great length but we did spend some time on it. But at the same time the Billboard Awards were on and Triumph the Insult comic dog. We played that entire stretch of that 8-minute roll.

Are you a student of the radio biz?

Drew: I don't think we go overboard in that respect, again. If I spend 6 hours reading industry magazines, that's probably 6 hours I wouldn't have put into the show or maybe 4 into the show and 2 into my private life. I don't pay a ton of attention to it. I am interested in certain trends and what is going on in the business. But I only have X number of hours in a week for radio or my life outside of my girlfriend and her kid, my sports habits, my gambling habits. There only so many hours and the majority are spent on the show.

What's a tip for doing a morning show that's guaranteed to work?

Drew: Read the newspaper. I know it sounds basic and simple. But read your local and national newspapers. If you are going to be up on anything that is going on usually most news events are continuing stories and the better educated you are and the more you know because you are informed, you sound better and are more comfortable discussing certain subjects on the air. Plus you have more material at your disposal.

Mike: And that applies to you local community. Being totally aware of what is going on.

Drew: Every time I go to the bookstore, I'll be there a couple of hours. For example, that Lawrence Taylor book came out. If you are a rock morning show and you didn't put that book up and highlight about 50 things in there to read on the air to your audience the next day, you blew about an hour of the easiest material.

Your show is famous -- or infamous -- for getting through to celebrities or other big names. What's your secret?

Drew: We tend to get celebrities in their hotel rooms by just mispronouncing their names.

Who have you pissed off most?

Drew: Robert Duvall got really upset. He told me to call his PR people. I told him if we called his PR people they would never set up an interview. I told him our only shot was to weasel our way in and said "Don't weasel in". So we have that bit of him saying don't weasel in. OJ got mad at us, not long before the murder, we could have been a catalyst. We have talked to OJ 5-6 times for about 5 or 6 seconds each time. We talked to Monica Lewinsky during the middle of that ordeal. One day we knew which hotels Monica and Paula Jones were on the same day even though they were in different states. We thought of calling them both at the same time and they both answered the phone and were talking to each other. It almost happened. It was within 20 seconds of happening. Jones hung up on us before Monica answered.

What is your thinking on the legislation in California about redefining the dirty words, what you can and can't say on the radio?

Drew: I'm not really worried about many of these.

Mike: I am surprised at some of the things that come out of people's mouths on television. They seem to be the biggest offenders.

Drew: It does seem like it would be easier if there were a list of what you could and could not say. The next time someone gets fined, there is about a 50 percent chance that most radio shows are going to think that wasn't all that bad.