Straight From the Mouth

L: We don't do any prep. So you don't work with any kind of checklist of what you want to talk about each morning?

L: We may have one thing that is planned for the next day, or a guest more than likely. For the most part, we just come in and then it’s stream of consciousness.

F: It's stream of unconsciousness.

L: We are lucky that we can do it this way. I've done other morning shows that were a lot more prepared and programmed. This is a lot more fun.

Kathy, as producer, how do you manage an unplanned show? You know, making sure they discuss the day's hot topics, what happened on TV the night before, Hollywood gossip, etc.?

F: She doesn't do any of that.

So what does a producer do on the Lewis and Floorwax show?

L: If there's a guest we are trying to get, she'll handle the booking.

F: She also looks out for us in a lot of ways, around town and stuff like that. She's a good personality herself. We do stuff with her.

L: Yeah Kathy is more of a personality on the show than she is a Producer.

L: What it is with Kathy is that we have a largely male audience, and Kathy was 23 when she started with us. Can we go into the whole technical virgin thing?

Kathy: Yeah.

L: Kathy was a virgin when she started on the show.

F: She was a technical virgin..

Was this part of the hiring criteria?

L: We did a screening and got a certification that she was a virgin. A lot of our talk on the show is related to her non-sex life and she’s advanced from being a virgin to a briefly entered technical virgin.

Define "briefly entered technical virgin?"

L: The one time Kathy had sex, it’s kinda like someone climbing into a really hot bathtub... Ouch... Ouch... OOOCH... Stop! I'm Out! She's really still a virgin, technically. So we are trying to hold onto the virgin status as long as possible.

F: People want to know when Kathy is finally going to do it. I think people tune in every morning just to hear the latest on her. We've tried to put her through some therapy like making her walk around naked in front of blind people. She has a phobia about people seeing her naked, we call it Bingo Card anxiety.

L: She's really afraid of people seeing her Bingo card.

F: She'll moon people. She’ll do all kinds of stuff, but she doesn't want anyone to see her Bingo Card.

L: So, we had her get naked in front of a blind guy once. And then another time we sent her to a health spa with a bunch of naked old women, and had her strike up conversations while she was naked with them on the air. That really worked for her.

Kathy, when you were first being interviewed, did you go through this indoctrination, as far as what to expect, what not to expect?

Kathy: Not at all. I came in and we got along really well. I don't really get offended by anything. I’m actually dirtier than they are.

F: She's a lot straighter than we are in a lot of ways too.

As a couple of married guys, Do you ever catch any flack at home for anything said on the air from your wives?

F: No, that's why we married them.

L: I have been married for fifteen years, and I can’t remember anytime my wife has brought up something on the show that she thought was offensive.

I understand you write and produce your own TV commercials How many do you do each year?

L: We do about four or five a year.

Do you have a favorite?

L: There's a commercial out, and in fact it has been ripped off by Bob & Tom, Bubba the Love Sponge, where we are in a bathroom at a urinal with one of the Denver Broncos. He's at the urinal between us, and we are trying not to look down at him. And we say, ‘can I just say that is huge. That is big, I can't believe it! It turns out it is his Super Bowl ring. That's a concept we came up with that won a number of awards that we hear now is being used by Bob & Tom and Bubba the Love Sponge, all around the country.

You project a kind-of anti-radio, go against the norm morning show, but obviously you care about how your show goes each day. Do you ever sit down with each other and evaluate your program?

F: Just for the first part, the "anti-radio," I think we are in tune to what radio is. It started out as a performance medium, and that's what it should be. I mean you got to do certain things. You got all that formatic stuff that people do, and that's cool. I think we are aware of what's going on and we take the risk, if it doesn't work you get whacked out. I still think it's the right way to do it.

L: I think we are our toughest critics. On the occasion that we do have a show that's substandard, nobody is more pissed off about it than we are. It kind of sticks in our craw, and we don't like it. We can't wait to get on the air and get back on top. I think that's one reason why management doesn't really say much to us about anything, because they know that we are very competitive. If we have a show that’s not up to our standards we are pretty pissed about it.

I understand you have your own band. When did this start?

L: We had been doing stand-up comedy shows together since 1990 when we started. We always had a band that would either open for us or would close show. A few years ago we started sitting in with the band. We'd play one song with them, then two, then three... Then we decided, hey, why don't we start our own band? So we recruited what we consider to be some of the top blues guys in the country. Two summers ago we started our own band and our first gig was at Red Rock (a local ampitheatre), opening for the Doobie Brothers.

F: It's really fun. We write our own music. Ricky plays the drums and we have a good time.

L: We've opened for Skynard, the Allman Brothers, BB King, ZZ Top. Last summer alone we probably played in front of over 100,000 people.

Are you paid for this?

L: We get paid and we also have two sponsors, Lakewood Ford and Redhook Beer.

How do you compare performing before a live audience, as opposed to radio?

F: It's a performance. We are performers. When we get into the music and we have a rehearsal and write a song. It starts coming out really hot and then we come out and play it. People are going pretty ape and you are like in McNichols Arena and there are 12,000 people there... It's that same feeling of elation. It's all good.

Being radio guys, do you get the urge to say something witty into the mic between songs?

L: We don't feel compelled to do it, but we do it. I think that gives us a bit of an advantage during a live performance. We have 20 years of live performance experience, so we can keep the crowd interested. We throw out some snappy ad lib patter, that makes it a little bit more interesting than a bunch of guys with their heads down playing music.

Have you recorded any of your music?

L: We did a live CD last summer, and we are going to do another one this summer.

If someone reading this would like to get a sample over the Internet, can they go to a web site and actually hear some of the music?

L: It use to be on our web site. If you want us to, we could probably load another song up there.

What would the web site be?

L: TheFox.com

Do you ever play your music on the Lewis and Floorwax show?

L: Quite a bit actually. morning. Specifically, that they're like marriages and have to be maintained as well. Have you guys ever had a point where something came up, you had a major blow out or you weren’t getting along?

L: That's an interesting question and several people have asked that over the years. Amazingly enough, we get a long great. The chemistry between us is so strong that we generally agree on just about everything. Whether it be political, how to handle a problem, what do you want to talk about this break. We think a lot a like.

F: Sometimes, we'll just start talking about stuff and we'll go with each other. That's one of my favorites. He will just start to talk about something and I will follow. Or you follow me. We trust each other. I got respect for Rick Lewis, you know. Anybody who can do all the smart things he can do on the radio and still be able to wing it. That's extremely rare. And it's rare for a guy like me to be even be able to show up every morning.

L: It's rare for a guy like you to have a job, actually.

F: It is unusual, that's true.

What's your favorite on-air story from the last ten years?

L: We had this character called the Beer Man. He passed away a couple of years ago. He had throat cancer. He was only 42 years old. This guy never had a job. He just kind of followed us around for several years. We kind of incorporated him into our show. We did some great stunts with him, that I think were some of the highlights of the past ten years. One of them, we did an airbag test where we rigged an airbag up to an old car. We had him crash the car at 10 mph increments to see when the airbag would go off. We had the airbag turned off, because we didn't want it to go off in the first crash. This guy ended up crashing this car at 52 mph.

F: Then we finally popped the airbag. He had a Budweiser tall boy in one hand and he never even spilled it. It knocked the wind out of him. He had on a helmet and lipstick.

There's going to be people reading this that may want to try this. What precautions would you recommend? How many Buds should be ready?

L: He drank a six pack of tall boys. I think that's probably a good place to start. Make sure they sign a waiver.

F: Waivers are good.

And don't let your GM come, right?

L: He did another bit where we got this 120-pound attack dog. We dressed him up in one of those protective suits. We put him on a football field. At the end of the field we had a pyramid of Budweiser and $1,000 cash. At the other end of the field was this attack dog. We put the Beer Man on the 50 yard line. We gave him 50-yard head start. We said, if you can touch this beer and money before the dog gets you, you get the whole thing.

F: The dog grilled him on about the 5-yard line. And yanked his arm down and whipped him into the beer. It didn't look good for him for a while, but he made it.

L: There were pork chops and sausage on his protective suit, just to give the dog some incentive. (Lewis and Floorwax now exit for a meeting.)

Kathy, as producer, do you sometimes wish they would prepare more?

K: They are so good on the fly, I would be a little afraid to see if they did prepare more.

Do you subscribe to any comedy services?

K: ...I use is the Morning Mouth.

What a great note to end on.