10 Questions with ... Steve Harmon & Scott Evans

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

Steve Harmon and Scott Evans first teamed in 1985, following successful careers at separate Charlotte, NC radio stations, neither of them Country. After meeting KPLX/Dallas PD Bobby Kraig (CRHOF 2008) at CRS in the late 80s, Harmon & Evans soon found themselves handling mornings in The Big D following Terry Dorsey (2006 CRHOF), who had jumped to crosstown Country KSCS. During their eight-years with KLPX, Harmon & Evans enjoyed ratings success and national industry recognition, winning CMA, Billboard, and Texas Country Music Association Awards for Personality Of The Year. After splitting briefly in 1996 - with Harmon taking mornings at the legendary KNIX/Phoenix and Evans creating a nationally syndicated evening show - the pair reunited at WXTU/Philadelphia in 1998, duplicating their Dallas success. With their 2018 induction, Harmon & Evans join former KPLX PDs Bobby Kraig and Dan Halyburton (2010) as Country Radio Hall Of Fame members, firmly cementing their legacy and that of KPLX. In advance of their June 20th induction, All Access sat down with Harmon & Evans to discuss what the honor means and to hear some great stories about their career.

1. Let's begin by asking what induction into the Country Radio Hall Of Fame means to both of you and what you think it says about your radio career.

Harmon: At first, I didn't know what to make of it; I wanna use the word flabbergasted. I was so shocked, because Dan Halyburton had been trying to get Scott and I on the phone at the same time and had been failing at his mission, but I didn't know that. My family came to visit, and we were eating breakfast and met Dan for breakfast. He stopped everything and started video-taping us, and he goes, "I just want you guys to know that Vinny, your son, Becky, your husband, has just been inducted into this year's Country Radio Hall Of Fame." Tears are flying, and for the first time that I can remember, I didn't even know what to say. Then, it sunk in. It took a while, but with these last three weeks, it's starting to become real. The closer we get, it'll feel more real. As far as with my career, it's all I've done. I started at 16, and this is it. We're hanging out in a room with all those bigwigs; it's pretty crazy to me.

Evans: Since Dan was trying to get ahold of us all weekend, he texted me and said, "Are you available for a call on Saturday at 12:30p?" And, I said, "Yeah, of course." Well, 12:30p came on Saturday, and no call. Then, I thought, "Well, I've been through this a million times; he's talking Central, and I'm Eastern. In an hour, we'll see what happens." But, still no call. I'm thinking, "This has to be about the Hall Of Fame. It has to be, because Dan wouldn't make an appointment to make a call if it wasn't really important." Then, about 12:30p on Sunday, I get a call, and he says, "Are you sitting down? Harmon & Evans are in the Country Radio Hall Of Fame." I was the only one home, but I started pumping my fists. He was still talking, and I was thinking, "I'm in the Hall Of Fame. I can't believe it. It finally happened." For me, I retired last June from radio, and I didn't wanna have to get another job doing whatever. I gave them a

month's notice, and I got to sign off. I had prepared a last break. Then, to be inducted in the Hall Of Fame is the perfect ending to a career. I couldn't be happier about it.

2. How did you two originally team up?

Evans: I was at WKKT (96.9)/Charlotte - that was the first station I had ever worked at. But, it went through about four owners and a couple of formats. It was sort of AC/80s, and I actually liked it. I was the temporary PD, and doing mornings. Then, as the time for the actual launch for the station grew closer, they showed us the new facility in Charlotte, because the studio was in Statesville, NC. The whole time, I was having fun doing mornings, and they really liked me in the halls, because I could do voices and goofed around with people. The GM was kind of noticing things; he said, "There's a guy across town named Steve Harmon, and we're thinking of putting you guys together." I really wasn't thinking of making it permanent, because I didn't like waking up at 3:30a at the time, but then, I thought, "What the heck? Let's see what happens." They had Harmon come over one night, and we looked around, and then went to a restaurant across the road, and we hit it off. Our PD, RT Simpson, had us reading liners every break, and we did that for about an hour and a half.

Harmon: Scotty's got the best memory in the world; I don't remember any of that.

Evans: I do remember a lot of crap, that's true.

3. What station or personality did you listen to most growing up, and how did either - or both - influence you in pursuing a radio career?

Harmon: Mine's pretty simple, because I grew up in Queens, New York. So, for me, it was WABC's George Michael. Then, when I got to college, George Michael ended up being my professor. His engineer was the real professor, but once a week, he would come up and do two hours with us and tell us the craziest radio stories you've ever heard. You could walk along the beach and hear a song on the radio from a thousand different portable radios from WABC and WNBC. I kind of fell into that; I thought I was gonna be a recording studio guy, but once I started hanging with the radio guys, they were more fun. Later on, I listened to Howard [Stern] and Jay Thomas. Those guys, to me, are the cream of the crop.

Evans: We had a great AM Top 40 station, WTAC/Flint, MI. It was a monster; I was three hours away in northern Michigan one time, and I could still hear 'TAC. There were two different guys: Bob Dell - he retired about two years ago at 78. He was doing mornings in New Orleans and doing well, but you can't do it forever, or maybe you can, if you're him. He was a movie star in Flint. He drove a Dune Buggy in the Summer, but he had a Cabin Cruiser on Saginaw Bay called the "C-Dooser." This guy had a few characters, and he was a really cool guy. He then moved on to WOWO in Fort Wayne. Then, he was replaced by Peter C. Cavanaugh, who was different. He wasn't like the movie star like Bob; he was more of a promoter. He would promote concerts and was at every show that went on in Flint. Every Summer, he did this thing called "Wild Wednesday," which was Rock festival, basically, with all Michigan bands. It was like the best day of Summer.

4. Tell us about your first radio job and your first-ever live break on the air. Certainly, you remember both, right?

Harmon: It's not exactly something I'd love to share; I was "Rodney The Poet" on Super Dave T Show. All I ever did for the first year was come in and read a poem on the air, then it had to end with, "And I love Super Dave T." I had to write one every morning, and it had to rhyme. I was 17, and that's how I got into the business. There was a Poet before me, and they fired him, so I was always nervous.

Evans: This is how I started in radio - which I would recommend - I ran automation weekends overnight, so there was no pressure whatsoever. All I really hard to do was change reels every hour and a half or so. The PD said, "You can do the news at the top of the hour and a little bit of weather if you want to. If not, don't bother." So, this was my chance on the radio, and I never missed one. I had a job selling furniture during the week, and there were some guys from work who were gonna be listening. One of them used to be in radio; his name was Bob Riley. They called me before and after I did my first break on the air, and Bob Riley said, "I have a tip for you: Don't forget to breathe." And, that's good advice. Also, at 6 o'clock when my shift was up, no one came to relieve me, for whatever reason. I had to keep the station going and turn the transmitter on, which fortunately, I knew how to do. I tried to call people, but it was my first day, and nobody knew who I was. They told me to call Mike Stevens, the PD, but his real name wasn't Mike Stevens. Finally, I got a hold of him, and he wasn't too happy when he came in.

5. Mentors - everybody has a few of them - who was it for you that helped you, challenged you, and made you believe you could actually make this a career?

Evans: I gotta give Bob McKay credit, because by the time we got to KPLX, we kinda knew what to do, but Bob McKay would keep me in a very wide lane. One time he'd say, "I gotta talk to you after the show," and I'd wonder what I'd done wrong, so I walked in his office, and he'd tell me that it's "Tan-ya" Tucker, not "Ton-ya" Tucker. He got me out of a lot of trouble over the years. Anytime I may have done something questionable, he'd run interference for me. So, I have to give him a lot of credit and a lot of thanks.

Harmon: For me, it almost depends on what year and where I was - like, Halyburton and Bobby Kraig and that crew - that was the turning point; it almost made everything before that look crazy. Then, I went to work for Kidd Kraddick in Dallas. I worked for him for 18 years, so he became my guy. Even now, it's just everybody: Paul Castronovo, Dennis Clark, Randy Lane, Lori Lewis ... It's like I am really tortured as to how to pick one person - I've sponged and learned from everybody.

Evans: We really need to thank Doug McGuire - Doug Harvell is his real name - too, who's the GM of a bunch of stations in San Francisco. He came along right after RT; he kind of told us the way we should be doing things that I didn't know about.

Harmon: Wait, Scott, that's the guy who fired us.

Evans: Well, he showed us the way at a very early stage.

6. At what point in your time as a team did you both realize, "Hey, this is working; this is going well. Let's stay here a while?"

Harmon: My recollection, which is never as good as Evans', I'm gonna say between '81 and '91, and it was the second or third consultant that came in, and he said to you, "Why do you do that certain bit every morning at 7:10a?" And, you said, "Because, the last consultant told me to!" That's when we looked at each other and went, "Let's just do our thing and take a shot at this," and I think about '80 or '90, we couldn't keep listening to every consultant that came in the door that they'd pay $1,000 for.

Evans: I would agree with that. You gotta keep in mind what the ratings are; if it's not working, you've gotta make some changes. From the time we started at K97, we went straight up. We went from eight to sixth to third, and then when I got fired, we were second. Part of that was because we got some negative press, but we steadily climbed up. When I got fired, I gave away a car.

Harmon: Don't go into that! Don't you tell that story! That's MY story for that night. When you did it, you changed our lives for the better, and for the rest of my life, I'll thank you.

Evans: So, I gave away this car, and we were second in the market. While I was on probation, to see if it would blow over - and, it didn't - I got a letter from our corporate PD, congratulating me on the ratings. That was Tuesday, and on Friday, I got fired. I think I still have that letter.

7. There's industry-wide concern about the thin on-air talent pool and its lack of development. How will we get younger talent ready for prime time, and where will we find younger creative types, in a time where radio isn't seen as cool as it once was?

Evans: I think they kinda have to do what we did. Somebody else I have to really thank is Randy Kabrick, a consultant. And, here's why: very early in my career, I was working at a station in Monroe, North Carolina, but when he came to town to work at WROQ - because I had read about him in R&R every week - I said, "I gotta work for this guy." So, I got a job working part-time, and he and I had a drink one night, and he said, "The difference between you and the guys making $50,000 a year breaks down to this: you have about four opportunities an hour to be creative. Can you do that?" And, I thought, "I can do that." You have to give people the chance to be creative, and if you're a creative guy or girl, you gotta get on the air and be creative where you can, because there are always opportunities. You can do a great tease; that's great content, and it keeps people listening. You can do anything creatively, and if you aren't, there are plenty of part-timers waiting for your gig. You have to be creative. Almost every job on the radio is something you must be, and they want you to be, creative at. I can't think of one that isn't.

Harmon: I'm not sure if it's up to us to find them; there's a lot of people out there that are doing their thing, but there are two hard parts. The first one is that you've gotta be willing to be a gypsy. You've gotta wanna move to the job. KPLX wasn't gonna come to Charlotte, so we picked up and moved. They actually said to us, "If you get the job, you have two weeks to get here, and I mean, in two weeks, you're going on." Some of it is the willingness to move, and some of it is the willingness to say, "Okay, they're

not quite there yet, but in a year, they may be something." If you're looking for instant success, that's a little tough.

8. Having been in the format for so long, let's talk about where the format is going. What direction do you see it heading? Are the Pop, Hip-Hop, and Rock influences here to stay? Does the music and do the artists still relate to you and vice-versa?

Evans: I didn't care for Bro Country very much; it was kind of one song with slight variations, and everyone was copying Keith Urban, but nobody did it better than him. With simple rules of marketing and business for the record companies, how many of those same kind of stereotypical Bro Country artists would put out a second album, and how many would be there for a third album? It's very shaky. I wouldn't consider that to be a good business model. With tight pants, earrings, and the shirts with the crosses on it - there was a plethora of those guys, and they were all after Florida Georgia Line, which was great for Florida Georgia Line. In general, I wasn't very impressed with it, but now Country is doing well for itself. They've included a lot of other styles. I just bought the new Kacey Musgraves CD; it's a great album, and I don't know how Country it is. She's certainly a Country artist, but that's got Blues and Jazz and everything I like. It can work for them or against them; it just has to be good.

Harmon: I'm lucky, because a lot of our friends, and I think another guy that should be coming into the Hall Of Fame, Mac Daniels, has both [KPLX] The Wolf and KSCS, and they are night and day. You can put on The Wolf, and it's playing Alan Jackson or Clint Black, but then you switch over to KSCS, and it's the newest of the hot, new Country. It sounds different, but it sounds great. The issue I had - I'm part of a prep service called Sheet Happens Prep - one of our guys put together eight Country songs in 35 seconds to a minute, and you could not tell the difference between who was singing, and it was eight different people. That's when I got nervous. Now, we've got Aaron Watson, Ashley McBryde, Luke Combs, and there's some good stuff. It's all over the place. I must say, I'm not sure it's a Country station if you don't hear Ronnie Dunn's voice. That could be where I have a problem, but I think there's hope. I like the way it's heading now.

9. What has been you proudest moment in radio - could be an off-air, or, on-air moment?

Harmon: We've got a number of things. We found our wives through our job, because radio has given us the most amazing life ever. We found our true loves. We've got CMA and ACM Awards. Believe it or not, you're talking to people that won an American Women In Radio Award, and we're guys. I still work, and I'm not retiring or anything. I love waking up and doing something. I think between the awards, me and Scott have been friends that we can call any time in almost any city and have people pick up the phone. This coming June 20th is gonna be up there in the top one or two.

Evans: When we were at KPLX, we won the CMA Award, and there was another time where we didn't get a raise, but they gave us a new bonus structure, and we hit a bonus that we were both flabbergasted by. Both times, we reacted the same way; we stood up and started jumping up and down. It was the best feeling in the world, and one I haven't forgotten. On a serious side, I feel like I fulfilled my job on radio with 9/11, because we're in Philadelphia in a pretty tall building. New York and Washington D.C. had been hit, and we were thinking what everybody else was thinking: How many more [planes] are

there? But, because we had been in Dallas when Oklahoma City was bombed, I kinda knew what to do. I remember the minute our news guy came in - we were about to get off the air - and, he said that something blew up in Oklahoma City, so I'm thinking, "What can I say to be kind of funny," but I didn't. For whatever reason, I didn't. I would've probably been run out of town if I did. I treated it seriously. We got it to our news guy, and he handled it, and it turned into a huge story. Then, I'm in this building in Philly when this plane started hitting the skyscrapers. I knew not to summarize or make any guesses. The next day, we did all talk for four hours. Considering the circumstances, it was a great thing to do, and I feel like we did our job that day. A lot of people told me they were listening to me on 9/11 and that they appreciated how I handled it. I hope nobody has to go through that again, but I think we handled it well.

Harmon: I think it's wonderful how much money we've raised for St. Jude and how many dogs and cats we've had adopted with our "Adopt, Don't Shop" policy. There's so much. As far back as my life goes, Scott has been in it. We've been together through the deaths of family members and love. I wouldn't change a thing. Any one change, I wouldn't meet Scott, and if I don't meet Scott, I don't meet Becky, if I don't meet Becky, I don't meet my kids. So, I absolutely wouldn't change anything.

Evans: I think about connecting the dots in reverse, like Steve Jobs, and it was all meant to be in a lot of ways.