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Straight From The Mouth
The Morning Mouth's June Interview with Frankie
(Reprinted by permission; Copyright © 2002 Talentmasters Inc.)

Tell us about your show?

Well, its not the Frankie Show. Its the Z Morning Zoo... 94 9 (K)ZHT Salt Lake City. Lets see; its Frankie and Danger Boy and we just hired a new girl on the show, so she's kinda like the new addition. She's actually a news chick from one of the news stations here; our ABC affiliate. So she does reporting and news for them and then she comes and hangs with us on the show in the morning.

Are you having trouble remembering her name (laughs)?

Her name is Angie... I'm sorry!

Let's go back to your start.

Okay. I'm from Detroit. I went to a broadcasting school right out of high was paid, and that led to a paid position. But I started there in Detroit.

Lets see; my first paid gig... well, I got an intership at Wheels, which is an old rock station there. Then my first paid gig was in Ann Arbor and that was basically running the board, then doing my little legal ID at the top of the hour. Then a little, small station in Adrian, Michigan. I did overnights there for about a year and a half. I drove like 68 miles each way from Detroit. Then I bolted and went down to southwest Florida. I got a job at WXKB, which is B103.9. At the time, I was calling myself Tony, but they already had a Tony on the air, and they asked me to take a different name. So, I took the name Frank Corrigan. Next, I was in Fort Myers for about two and a half years... um, I got a job at The Ape, WAPE and that was on the morning show. Thats when Jeff McCartney (PD) said "Lets hippin' it up and make it Frankie C. I was there for about three and a half years, working on the morning show. I was the sidekick/producer. Then from there I went to WRQX/Washington, DC, and worked with Jack Diamond. I was Dave up there. They made me change my name from Frankie to Dave because they said Dave showed up better in the research. Frankie was too ethnic. Washington, DC, of all cities. I was there for about a year, working with Jack. Following that, I did a short stint at WNKS/Charlotte. I was only there about three months. It wasn't a good situation for me, and I just quit. I was out of work for a couple of months, and fortunately, KZHT needed a morning show. I needed a gig, and it went from there.

How long have you been there now?

This October, it will be 5 years.

So, things must be going good?

Ratings are good. We're extremely solid. It's a real competitive market. The city that they compare this to, as far as the number of sticks, is Detroit. I mean we've got close to fifty something sticks in this market. So, its extremely hard to cut through because you've got everything here, and then some. But we've done well.

You've mentioned having a few months between gigs. During these times did you ever check out other morning shows? Were there any that had an special

impact on your own show?

Absolutely! That would be Dave Ryan, who is my mentor (Dave Ryan Show at KDWB/Minneapolis). I met him four years ago, at Morning Show Boot Camp. Prior to that, I had never met him before. A mutual friend of ours kind of introduced us. It was a big deal, you know. I looked up to Dave, you know what I mean? But I never knew him, and my friend introduced me face to face with him and at the very end of Boot Camp. When I was getting ready to leave, I just kind of walked up to him like some stupid sap or something, and asked, "Will you be my mentor?"

You asked Dave Ryan if he would be your mentor?

Yeah... and I remember... I'll never forget the look on his face. I think he was shocked. I don't know if he was embarrassed or what but I was extremely embarrassed to walk up to him ask him that. But I kind of wanted somebody like Dave, who is extremely respected in the business. He is extremely successful, and great at what he does. He knows exactly what he's doing; what he striving for, and I just needed somebody like that. Not someone who just has a radio show, but is a business guy and is extremely smart. You know, he has given me so much advice about what we do, day in and day out.

What's the best advice he ever gave you?

The best advice was to let some of the management stuff kind of roll off your back.

As in, don't sweat the small stuff?

Exactly. Kind of pick and choose your battles. Because sometimes I call him up frustrated... like I get pulled into the GM's office for a bit that we did... I'm like "You told us to rock the boat, make some noise." Then they come back and they slap our wrists for doing a stunt, or a bit or whatever. Dave taught me to pick and choose my battles.

Give me some examples of things that you do on the air that define your show?

I'll give you two perfect examples; this is as far as we can go when we do

an awesome promotion. We did a thing right before "Spider-Man," and we figured this would be talked about, and I knew it would get national coverage. CNN Headline news picked it up and ran it for two days. We figured we would get somebody, because we had heard that some other stations were going to have one of their stunt guys with ropes and stuff, try to climb a building in a Spiderman suit... I think it was out in DC somewhere and my PD came to me said "what if we have our Dangerboy do that?" But I thought, what if we had one of those guys that really climb buildings with nothing more than their hands and their feet. So it took a couple of weeks to track one down because its a very small niche of people that do this. Fortunately, we found a guy right here in Salt Lake City. He had never done it until the morning of our show but he spent years of his life here climbing the canyons throughout Salt Lake City. So we had this guy climb a 9-story building Thursday morning from the sidewalk all the way to the roof with nothing more than his hands and his feet in a Spiderman costume. We had couple of TV stations down there. One of the stations had a chopper in the air.

Whose blessing did you have to get?

We got the greenlight from the mayor, Rocky Anderson. And the guy climbing had to sign some sort of disclaimer the size of a phone book. But he finally signed on, we got it all cleared and the cops just stood by and watched. We morning for us. He did it in the 7am hour and in the 8am hour and we wired the guy up with a wireless marti so while he's climbing this building we're on the air with him the whole time. Even one of the papers in town that hates us, covered that story.

And the second?

Yeah, we did this last week. I'm still getting e-mails on this and we're going to start doing it once a week and I took it from a local story. We had a 21-year-old guy from Utah who was in these chat rooms on the computer and he was busted for hooking up with a 13-year-old girl. So we kind of got into it... it's like every week, doesn't matter what city you live in, those are the local stories. These freaks. These pedophiles. So I brought in my laptop and I said we're going to call this "Scared Straight" and what I'm going to do create a 13-year-old little girls profile and I'm going to go into a chat room and prove how quick these freaks out there, these guys, will prey on your kid. It's a great angle to take for the moms and the parents listening. I actually turned up the laptop so you could actually hear the physical instant messages within seconds that I'm in this chat room. I didn't even say hello in the chat room, they just checked my profile. Next thing you know, I've got guys asking what I'm doing in there so I tell them I'm skipping school and I slowly start to bait these guys and the whole bit was, "well lets talk on the phone." That's what I would say to these guys and the one guy gives me his number. He is a 34 year old dude, working in New York City, he ends up giving me his number. We started this at about 7AM and kept everybody listening for about two hours...until about 9AM when we decided to call this guy after he gave us his number. We had a girl on the show start it off where she's the 13 year old girl and all of the sudden I chime in and the guy gets scared and hangs up. I think I called him a piece of Shit and bleeped it out. But we're still getting calls. We tried to call him the next day and his work number now just rings and rings and rings. It was cool radio and you could here right as the IM would come to me, you could hear it on the air and I'm kind of relaying to the listeners what this guy is asking me. What I'm typing back to him. So, now we're going to do it every Thurday and we'll just call it "Scared Straight." Legally, you know... we never say we're a radio station. We don't say we're ZHQ Radio calling going "What the hell are you doing?" We just basically chime in. Like I'll chime in and say "Steve!" And then all of the sudden the guy just hung up. He got freaked out and hung up. But my point is, when we talk to the guy saying we're ZHQ Radio from Salt Lake City, you're on an on the air type of thing, so that way he can't come back and try to sue us for not getting permission to run his voice on the air. Thats a great thing and people are still talking about it. That was last week so now we're going have this task force from our local police station, they're going to come in and they actually have a staff of police officers that sit at computers and they try to set up redezvous with these freaks... they're signing in as a 12-year-old little boy or a 13-year-old little girl and then they nail them.

Is there anything you know now that you wish you had known when you started in SLC?

Probably, a good balance. I learned this from Dave. He told me "You know what, you need to go and have your time because then its going to be part of the show." It's going to incorporate your personal life into the show. It took me long time to figure that out. We bust our ass on our show but I always tell Dangerboy and Angie. (After the show she goes over to the TV station)... but I always say "Dude, if we have tomorrows show planned and you got something going on today, feel free." And if I feel like sticking around, working on some stuff, I'm going to but I'm not going to make you stay until 2pm, which some days we do, and we're fine with that. But then some days we'll brush out at 10:30 in the morning. Its important to have balance.

You sound like someone who genuinely wants to improve and learn as much as you possibly can. What is it that you've yet to find out, but really want to know?

I want to find out how they stay inspired and fresh. I've had conversation after conversation about the burn out factor and sometimes I'm just... I'm done! You know what I mean? I feel like at the end of the week, I'm at Friday and I think "God, now we gotta do it again next week." You feel like you're drained. So if I could get some kind of solid answer. Something that can really be mapped out and utilize throughout my career that would be great. I don't know if anybody has the real answer. I know I don't.

Is localization important to your show?

I would say we're pretty local. For instance, I was talking about the Amazing Ken, this kid fresh out of college. We have him doing stunts for us. Recently, we sent him down to a local high school where the mascot was a devil. It was all over the news. Remember, this was a high school in a very mormon community. Anyway, there was a group of people that were opposed to the devil because they thought (and its been the mascot for years so I don't know why all of the sudden these people didn't have anything better to do) it was a bad influence on their kids. So, long story short, the devils staying because people voted to keep it there so the next morning we sent the Amazing Ken out dressed as the devil with an air horn. Note to anyone doing a morning show, if you have stunt guy, incorporate an air horn in there. Those things are gold! So, we had him out, dressed as the devil and he goes out with a big industrial roll of toilet paper and he finds the seminary. He goes down with the air horn, (he's dressed as the devil) and gets to the high school right in front of the seminary building, finds a tree and starts T.P.ing this tree, laughing like the devil and he's tooting his air horn.... This is a good example of something that we took local, but then everybody was talking about it. It wasn't anything spectacular, but it turned out to be a hilarious bit. It's something I learned from Jack (Diamond)... he always said to me was "Even if it doesn't look like something there on paper, you might be able to take it and, twist it around, make it your own. It's so true.

Do you like being critiqued?

I get very nervous with them. I'm always afraid that... I can take constructive criticism, but I have to see it as valid or constructive. I get real defensive. I like positive reinforcement. I have had some critiques where you go and sit down and you're feeling really good about your show and you come out feeling like a piece of shit. You come out thinking there wasn't one good thing they said about our show.

How would you suggest they be constructive?

If it's something they don't like that we're doing, maybe a certain bit or whatever, I always like specifics, valid reasoning. Often they'll just throw something down that's filled with cliches -- "Raise it to the next level, Tweek this, tweek that," etc. I'm all about improving but without specifics it's a waste. Lose the cliches and be specific... It's kind of like growing up when you ask your Dad "why?" and your dad says "because." You know what I mean?

What about being hotlined?

I don't think that you should ever, ever do it when someone's on the air.

Arguably, there are situations where a PD has no other choice but to ring the control room. Is there a good way to this?

Don't ever call screaming. If you don't want us to hate you and there is something that we're doing on the air that needs to be addressed right then. Don't call screaming because it just puts us on the defensive... and now you just fucked up the rest of the show.

Where and when along the way did you get married?

I got married when I was in DC. I met her in Jacksonville when I worked at The Big Ape.

How has she dealt with your rising popularity?

I mean, when she first met you, you weren't nearly as well known. When I was at The Big Ape, people knew who I was. When she met me she never listened to us, which was cool because it wasn't like I hooked up with a groupy. She didn't know. She knew the station. She didn't know who we were as a morning show so that was kind of cool. But it was almost like "Private Parts" where all of the sudden, Howard Stern starts to talk about his wife on the air and she got pissed about it. So I pretty much set her straight and was like "Look, this is who I am. This is definitely the type of radio I do. When I leave here and do my own show or host a show or get a chance to direct a show, this is the type of radio that I'm going to do." So, she kind of knew from early on that her business was going to be on the air. But she has never had a problem with popularity like when we go places, with chicks or people coming up to us, or if I'm in a grocery store and she and I are shopping and someone comes up... that's just like icing on the cake. She enjoys the fact that I'm doing pretty well. We're doing well on the show and she can see the benefits of it.

Can you pinpoint the moment in your career when you thought you were actually going to make it?

Yeah... in Jacksonville. Jeff McCartney (not my current PD of the same name) who hired me was good friends with WPLJ's Scott Shannon. I was doing a show and Scott Shannon was golfing with Jeff and apparently told Jeff "You gotta have more of the kid on there." So, heres like a legend in the business; Scott Shannon saying that there needs to be more of me on the show and at that point they're getting ready to restructure the show and kind of turn it into the Z Morning Zoo at The Big Ape and give me a more prominent role. You've got to remember, when I first started there I was doing over nights and just kind of a producer/sidekick.

If Scott Shannon were to call you and say "Hey, I heard you brought my name up I just wanted to say hey." What would you think of that?

I would completely freak out! I mean, c'mon, we're talking about a legend. I'm just that way! Believe me, I was more scared than you can realize when you asked me to do this interview. Its like "Oh my God!" First off, Dave (Ryan) recommended me to you. So I e-mailed Dave and I said "Dude, thanks....." But I gotta tell ya, I'm a pretty confident guy. I can go up in front of crowds. I carry myself pretty well. But people in the business? My peers?, I get real insecure. I think we're all that way and I think that's what drives us to be really good. I mean, look, Mancow has been on the freakin' cover of The Mouth. For him to read this and go "What a fuckin' schmuck..."

I'm flattered this interview meant so much to you. Of course, I didn't intend to scare you. Some people have turned us down.

I got to be honest with you... I've withheld this from my wife for like three days; the fact that you e-mailed me back and said this whole cover thing and you wanted to interview me... then all of the sudden.... I mean, people in the industry... people know the magazine. So, I held this from Meredith, my wife, for like two or three days..

I'm turning red. Please, don't stop. Actually, I just realized, we've never had a show from Salt Lake City on the cover. Some years ago, I set one up, but they called and said they were really, really busy so we'd have to do it some other time. Your interest is very gratifying.

You've got to be kidding.

When are you happiest?

On Friday, when I can enjoy my weekend. I know that we've put in a good week of shows and now all I have to do is either a club gig or something on a Friday night, then I can enjoy my Saturday or Sunday with my wife and my dogs and the city. I love the city where I live. a bad gig.

Back when we first talked, I mentioned that I had just spoken to Jack Diamond. I told him "I guess we're going to interview Frankie in next month's issue." And he told me to be sure to hi to you. Now, when I passed this along to you, your response was, "Yeah and ask him, when am I'm getting my damned wedding present?' So, whats the story here?

The story with that is, when I was on the show with him, my wife and I got married in Florida. We went down to Pensacola where she's from, but I was still up in DC. So, we kind of went off to get married and then shortly after that I left the station. Jack kept promising me a freakin' wedding gift! And every time I talked to him... on the air or on the phone I kept saying, "Hey! Now its five years deep. We just celebrated our 5-year anniversary in February..."

I'm sure Jack will read this so the question is, what would you like as a present?

Ohhh! What would I like? Well, you gotta look at this kind of thing as a present that's built up interest (laughs), maybe a cheesy crystal vase that would sit on our mantle. I don't know, maybe like a Bose stereo system or something. Which obviously is just for me. Its not for my wife, so...

I'll pass it on to Jack.

Jack Responds: It's funny; I DID buy him a crystal vase from Tiffany! It's siting on MY mantle as we speak. I never saw him after his wedding and the damn thing is heavy and fragile, so I kept it! Tell him I'll work on the Bose system for him :)

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