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Straight From The Mouth
The Morning Mouth's February Interview with Lamont & Tonelli
(Reprinted by permission; Copyright © 2003 Talentmasters Inc.)

How many years at KSJO?

L: Thirteen and a half. Got there in '89.

So, you've moved to another job, in another city, but neither of you have to move from your homes. How cool is that?

L: Tonelli's commute is only like only 15 minutes now. The thing is, many people think of it as different cities (San Jose and San Francisco), but with the bay area, it's just that, the bay area. It's a conglomeration of 25 or 30 cities.

I wanna touch on the emotional side of leaving a place you've worked at successfully for many years. From what I gather, you were happy there. Things were good. Next thing you know, you're moving up the road to San Francisco. Was there some emotion attached to this transition?

L: You know what, for me it wasn't and I think the reason it wasn't even

though we were at the same station for 14 years, in the period of time we had 6 or 7 different owners. So it's not like the people we had worked with 13 or 14 years ago were still there. I think there were only 3 people that we had started with who were still at that station.

What about the relationship with your listeners? Can they still hear you in San Francisco?

L: Absolutely, it is the same broadcast area basically.

Being as popular as you were in San Jose, Was it strange suddenly getting calls from new listeners who would ask "Hey, who is this?"

L: No, we're used to that! That's generally my wife.

T: That's what Lamont gets when he's home and someone's calls for his wife. "Hey, who are you?"

L: That's what Tonelli gets when he crawls into bed!

T: Let me just say this honestly, while we're on the subject of marriage. I've been married a little more than eight years and it seems like only eight minutes..... under water! (lol)

KSJO was rock, The Bone is classic rock. Will there be any adjustment with your content?

L: I don't think so, I think they hired us for a reason. They liked our show.

You had to postpone this interview by a day because yesterday you were you were traveling around with sales people. When was the last time you had to get together with sales people and act like you really liked them?

L: We still don't pretend to like them.

But after 14 years at the same station you probably weren't called upon to do a lot of the client tours right?

L: Actually, we did. We got along well with our clients. We went to dinners with them, and we just got to know them on a personal level.

Did the whole show come along?

T: Absolutely.

L: Lamont, Tonelli, and our super producer Sully. It's just the three of us.

T: It's not like we had to move across the country and introduce ourselves a lot of the listeners already knew who we were. It was very important to be able to maintain the show and move up markets without alienating any listeners. We were able to take them with us.

Were there any doubts with the move?

L: Absolutely not, as a matter of fact, the moment we walked in the building we looked at each other and knew we made the right decision.

T: Thank you for talking about the emotion of the change. I think any time you make a big decision you are thinking, "Did I make the right decision" and Lamont touched on this when he said as soon as we walked into the building here and were greeted and got a chance to meet the staff, we were like wow, this was really the right move. Everybody is very professional on every level and we are actually working with a couple of former KSJO guys here. Our afternoon guy Tim Jeffery was doing afternoons when we were starting out at KSJO. He has been here for about three years and the night time guy here Billy Steel is also an ex KSJO guy.

So really, the move was more like crossing the street than moving to a new city?

L: Exactly. Let me also give kudos to Bob Eatman, our agent. Bob was a big part of this, too. And you know what was great about that, is how really generous it was of him to drop his rate to 2 and a half percent. (lol)

Does he know this yet?

L: No, he doesn't know this yet.

Was that in extremely fine print?

T: Exactly.

I have to ask, have either of you had a morning where you got in the car, got ready to leave and headed in the wrong direction?

L: No, as a matter of fact, Paul knows the city so well that he paces off the local bar, it is only 68 steps from the front door. He knows this city like the back of his hand.

(Recorded prior to the Super Bowl) Now that you're in San Francisco, can you still pull for Oakland (Raiders)?

T: I would pull for Oakland anyway, they are part of the bay area. Paul is a season ticker holder for the Niners. Sully and I used to go to Raiders games all the time.

Want to make a prediction?

T: I am thinking Tampa Bay. If you are giving me four points I will take Tampa Bay.

(Interview is now interrupted for an hour by unexpected meeting.) So what was the meeting about?

T: The usual stuff.

Are meetings with PD's a rarity for you?

L: We used to do a lot of meetings. They would always schedule them around ten o'clock, though. We are pretty accessible. I think there is one thing we have realized, it is not our station, we are there to work for people. I think that a lot of shows and a lot of guys in broadcasting don't get that they are working for someone. Those people are not working for you. And actually I have to credit Scott Shannon from one of your Boot Camps. He brought that up and a lot of guys were going "what happens if my boss wants me to do this" and he goes "F--k, either do it or go somewhere else." You don't own the radio station.

It is funny you mentioned that because during our break I ran to Arby's and got a turkey sandwich to go. On the way back, it's like 15 degrees here (Atlanta) with light snow on the ground, and I see some guy on a roof putting shingles up and I am thinking to myself, "And we complain about what we do."

L: Exactly. That is just amazing to me too. Sometimes I think, these guys, did they forget what it is like to have a real job?

Hey, Tonelli could have ended up at UPS. You almost went to work there, right?

L: The story behind that is I guess Paul (Tonelli) was trying out for the brown army and turned a corner in San Francisco --I guess they all have to do a driving test -- and he ran into a parked car.

T: I just clipped it on the corner.

L: Yeah. If you fail the test then you obviously can't work there. So he knew his career was over at UPS so he got into radio like that next day someone called him up. Actually, Tonelli started radio in Pocatallo, Idaho. He was going to pharmacy school and one day he just decided that he wanted to work at a radio station so I guess he was doing the all night shift at Pocatello and spent so much time there that he dropped out of pharmacy school which made his parents happy. Then he finished his education at the University of San Francisco.

Lamont, you came from Canada and ended up at KSJO. Tonelli was already there. How did you end up as a team?

T: I started doing traffic for KSJO in April of O87. So I did this for a little over two years. Then the GM at the time slipped us into the morning show. They just threw us together.

Given your success and stability, is it fair to say you have no complaints with the radio business.

L: No, absolutely not, I love my job, Paul and I both said that the best part of our day is the five hours while we are on the air.

I've often heard actors who've been part of TV series for a long time say they were calling it quits because they ran out of ideas, or lost their creativity. I would think this is even harder for morning guys. Have you ever reached a point where you felt brainlocked?

L: Don, we are always brainlocked. I think first off, there is great chemistry between all of us and I just enjoy the job so much and every single day is different.

What is the best show you've ever done?

L: One that we did that we will probably never do again, and I want to stress that, was the Super Bowel for Super Bowl. We had listeners who sat on buckets who could produce the heaviest stool within a ten minute period. Also one of the other worst things I have ever seen was that promotion when we asked, "What would you do for AC/DC backstage passes?" So a guy came in and put a tarantula in his mouth, another guy broke a beer bottle over his head, and then one listener came in and said he would accommodate a hard boiled egg where the sun doesn't shine. The funny thing is when he came in he dropped egg.

T: It was lightly cracked.

L: And when he did, it looked like egg salad. He tried to shove it in but it didn't work. The best part is he did it by Paul's microphone and there was egg salad all over Paul's workstation. There might be a video floating around on eBay.

If you do something that you think is just way over the wall, do you go up the hall and kinda discuss it?

L: I think most people would. I think like I said that you have a boss. If there is anything that we think is questionable we'd say "well.." We have always done that. We have always gone to our PD and said, "What do you think about this."

Are there any of the people in the business you would like to talk

L: Paul and I are too irresponsible to make a regular phone calls to people. We love guys like Dwyer and Michaels or Paul Castronovo. But we really don't talk to people on a regular basis. One thing I like is when we go down to Boot Camp and sit around at night and just talk informally with other shows. One guy I have a lot of respect for, who I have only talked to once or twice, was Dave Ryan. I think idea wise he is a pro and I like what he does. It doesn't even have to be on air people. Roger King in Denver. He is a real radio guy that you would want to talk to all the time just for ideas because the guy is very very talented. I would like to sit down with Rick Dees sometimes even though he does a show completely different than ours still you have to respect what he has done. To me there is no such thing as a show that is conducive to one format. A guy I have a lot of respect for that if I ever had to bounce an idea off of, Jack Silver. I think Jack Silver is a great guy. A guy like Rick Dees, though, you're almost afraid to approach. I would have liked to have spent more time speaking with Scott Shannon at Boot Camp. I just didn't know how to approach him.

Would you like San Francisco to be your last stop?

L: My boss is going to be reading this so I'd say yeah.

What's your favorite memory of starting out in radio?

L: I remember my first station. We were running bible tapes on the weekend. And they were multi-cultural. One was in swedish for the scandanavian listeners. Not understanding swedish, when threading the tape, I inadvertently put it in backwards and then ran it for half an hour. Amazingly, only one complaint!

Getting back to people I'd like hangin with, at one Boot Camps I had a chance to meet Tom Griswold of Bob & Tom. And I'll tell you what, his seminar on how to put together a Charity CD was unbelievable. Realistically, if I had not gone to his session, we would have never had a CD. I'll tell you what, it was very intimidating. I didn't know how to do a CD and he sat there and went through it step by step and that's how we learned to make a CD.

If you had 60 minutes to speak to group of morning shows about how to improve their shows, what would you tell them?

L: I'd ask them what do I say for the last 59 minutes? Seriously though, I'd say listen to who you like. I know everyone says to be yourself, but you can still listen to people that you really enjoy and try to incorporate some of those ideas into your show.

T: I'd say, don't worry about being perfect, don't worry about making a few mistakes just have fun.

We're taping this a week before the Super Bowl. I'd like to give both of you one last chance make a prediction. Who do you think will win?

L: Gotta be the Raiders.

T: Bucs, 24-21

Read previous Morning Mouth interviews.

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