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

For the record, this conversation is beginning about 45 minutes late. My understanding is that you were delayed because you were getting yelled at. True?

Mojo: We planned a promotion on the air without getting permission beforehand from the promotions department.

Spike: We used one of the rare things in radio called brainstorming and we actually were on the air coming up with the idea for an event with the listeners. The problem was we got a little ahead of ourselves because we didn't talk to promotions or sales.

Sara, you're being awfully quiet?

Sara: I'm tied up in a chair, actually. They just took the tape off my mouth.

Mojo: We were told that we have to pay for the prizes ourselves for

bringing it up on the air without having the sales department or the promotions department actually sell it. So, we're wondering if everyone who subscribes to The Morning Mouth can send $1 to actually pay for this promotion. (ed: email mojo at Q95mojo@aol.com)

Just wondering, if one of your guest was 45 minutes late for an interview, how would you handle that?

Mojo: It's funny you ask, because we have one in the lobby that's 2 hours late. He's gonna wait a while.

How did the rest of the show join you?

Mojo: Nobody came with me from Tucson (KRQQ), so we focused on hiring people that were local. It was honestly the greatest thing I have ever done.

Spike, Sara and Eric are all from Detroit?

Mojo: Well, Sara and Spike were on the Alternative station. They had huge 18-34 numbers, and we were able to get them to leave. Eric worked with Dick Purtan who's a legend in the market. Eric does a lot of the voice impersonations on the show, and was able to bring a lot of what Dick Purtan had to offer. Chad was working for our direct competitor as morning show producer and was doing nights.

Spike: It is the biggest lesson for me, because I had always hosted my own show. I didn't know if I wanted to step into the role of second banana. It's the best decision I've ever made. I really found that perfect marriage, the perfect show.

Who did you follow at Q95?

Mojo: The show before us was Steve Cochran. Before that was Danny Bonaduce, and before that was Dick Purtan.

Was sitting where Dick Purtan once sat pretty heavy?

Sara: I freaked out because I'm from here. In middle school and high school, that's who I listened to. The first day that I sat down in the same studio, and got to sit in his chair and sit behind his microphone, it was a really big moment.

Mojo: One of the coolest things that Dick did is he listened to our first show that we did. Every show that had followed him had pretty gone on the air and not really mentioned what the station was all about and we kinda came on the air and I think the first 20 minutes on the show was talking about the legend of Dick Purtan and what this radio station was, and how we were just happy to be a part of it. He heard that and during a speaking engagement, made it a point to thank us. Probably listeners appreciate hearing it as well. Detroit is a very non-transient city in the sense that you'll find more people born and raised there than you will in many other cities.

You went from Tucson to Detroit. Just curious, during what month were you interviewed?

Mojo: I was interviewed in December. I took the job in December.

Eric: So, we knew he wanted the job.

Compare Tucson to Detroit. Obviously, the weather's different, but what about items that impact the show, i.e. getting guests, money, etc.? How difficult is it getting the big names?

Chad: Can you write f*cking?

Mojo: All the locals call us. Kidd Rock, Eminem, Aretha Franklin, Bob Seger, the President of the big 3. Those guys are easy to get. Pamela Anderson... they hang out here. We have to fight for [big names]. Detroit is not a vacation destination. In Tucson, we had an easier time getting guests because they would come stay at the resort there. The coolest thing is -- and this may surprise you -- but Detroit has the largest television viewing audience in the country. We are able to capitalize off of the TV network because they need their shows to do well in this market. I think the beauty of working in a city like Detroit is the fact that there are more stars than people realize that live here. And many of them listen to us. A couple of weeks ago we were on the air with a girl that wrote a tell-all book about

Eminem, called "Clean Out My Closet." The girl wrote a whole bunch of stories about him and his ex-wife, and his ex-wife called us up. He called us up within 15 minutes right afterwards, to dispute it. That was something that didn't happen in Tucson. The fact that the president of General Motors and the Ford family lives here. You can go on the air and talk about your Explorer. and then get a phone call from the secretary of the president of Ford, saying "Hey, I want to take care of this for you." That's pretty awesome.

How did you become Channel 95.5?

Mojo: It was more getting rid of 'Q' it had a stigma attached to it because it was 'Q' for years and it had a more adult-leading format. Since we were going to aim for more of the 18-34 audience and the more active audience, we want to make sure that we made a bold enough change that people would notice something had changed.

Spike: Our PD Dom (Theodore) saw that we shared a lot of listeners with other stations and they tune into us, but might not enjoy the music as much on our show. He gave us the freedom to open up and do a little more talk and not be so afraid to miss a song. into his office and said "I want to talk to you about this morning show." I thought "Oh, crap..." and he said "I was listening to your show and I was really compelled, but then all of the sudden you played a record. I got bored with it. I had to punch around. So, start dropping some more music." It's the first time in my career that I had a PD that told me to drop music.

Let's talk about the show. What did you do on the air this morning other than something that got you in trouble?

Sara: Hunting is very big in Michigan, so we wanted to do something for the ladies, the hunting widows. So, we're having a big hunting widows party. We're taking them over to Canada and we're going to have makeovers and junk food.

Mojo: It's the Deer-hunters' Widows Ball. It's something that wouldn't work in other markets, but it's being able to identify with your listeners and realize that there's fights and divorces over the fact that these guys will take their entire 2-week vacation every year to go in a log cabin with a bunch of other guys while they leave their woman home with the kids. It happens to so many listeners.

What are other examples of your show?

Sara: The women in radio issue that came up with Playboy.

Mojo: We had a tryout for her. The lady that does the pictures was going to do special photographs of Sara. One of the things we did is we said that Sara is going to be naked and went back into Sara's parents artifacts and found a picture of Sara naked at the age of like 2 in a bathtub. We put it up on the web site. We had the most hits that Clear Channel has ever had in one day, on that day, on our web site. One of the things we did with Eric that was cool was a local thing. We had him bring in his yearbook because we wanted to talk about the people that he went to school with, see where they were. We started calling the girls that wrote him in the yearbook, that said "keep in touch over the summer." We called them up years later, and a lot of them didn't know what he was doing. One girl was mortified that we were talking about her on the air.

Chad: Eric does celebrity impersonations. He does dead-on impersonations of just about everybody. We had Eric call up Peter Jenning's office as Ted Koppel. Literally, they pick up right away. Dick Cheney was staying in a hotel. We called him up and I got him on as talking as Al Gore, saying "Congratulations. It's gonna be a tough job, so I hope you're up to it." He got really mad, but we talked to him for a little bit.

Sara, what's it like working in a studio with 4 guys every day?

Sara: That's something that took a little getting used to. I had no brothers growing up, so I had to get broken in. Now I'm used to it. If they look at a hot girl, I just chime in. I don't try to lose any of my femininity and they appreciate that I'm a girl. I'm a single lady. They make fun of me that I'm going to be a spinster forever because I have two cats.

Do you ever have to draw the line?

Sara: Yes, definitely. The hardest part is because I'm from here, my parents will call in if the line is crossed.

Mojo: Yeah, that's our second program Director. Sara's dad has called in on numerous occasions to make sure that his daughter was not abused.

At next year's MSBC...

Mojo: Wait Don, is this the part of the interview where you hit us up for a deposit for next year's Camp?

No, that's later... But as I was saying, we're planning a segment called "Meet a Mentor." Basically, where several of today's top personalities host tables where jocks can sit one-on-one for some intimate discussion. Who are some people you'd like to see at hosts these tables?

Mojo: Just last summer I took a vacation and sat in with Jeff and Jer (San Diego) on their show. I was so nervous walking up to their door, to walk into their show. They are my mentors they are the guys that I someday aspire to have half of the success they have. So, obviously Jeff and Jer, Kidd Kraddick, Jonathan Brandmeier, Dave Ryan, Eddie and Jobo. Those are all guys that have been mentors for me. Going back to that whole San Diego thing, Tommy and Jeff and Jer let me go in there and hang out with those guys. You know what, when I walked in and saw them doing their show, I said "Wow, we actually do a show very similar to theirs." and it gave me confidence to come back here and go on the air.

What's your thought on expanding into other markets?

Mojo: When I was in Arizona, I wanted to be on in Phoenix and Tucson. That was my goal, and I made my life miserable wanting that. You know what my goal is here? To do our show, work hard to obtain the greatest ratings we can, and spend time with my family. If they want to use the show we did today in Battle Creek or in Toledo, or wherever, and if they can justify that without taking away the local-ness of the show, then so be it.

What about your take on business today?

Mojo: I think the business is great. I also think that Clear Channel gets a bad rap. I think this company gives you every opportunity that any other company does and more. They've got to make money. They've got investors that they owe that to, and I think the business is going to come around, and it's going to go back to where it was.

Read previous Morning Mouth interviews.

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