10 Questions with ... Don Brake

NAME:Don Brake TITLE:PD/Air Personality COMPANY:Citadel/Binghamton WEBSITE:www.981thehawk.com BORN:Morgantown, WV RAISED:Morgantown, WV

1) Did you always want to get into radio? More specifically, did you always want to be a PD?

Early on I wanted to do play-by-play baseball. I wanted to be the next Bob Costas. However, my love for music took over, and by junior high I was DJ-ing my school dances. I got my Journalism degree in Broadcast News from West Virginia University and spent time in college covering sports and writing music reviews for the Morgantown Dominion Post. Later I worked for the Associated Press covering WVU sports. Contacts that I made at the paper led to my first radio gig at WMQC in Morgantown. I was hired to do weekend air shifts and fill in news on AM drive. Due to some changes, I was quickly thrust into covering the morning show AND doing the news for a few weeks while a PD was being hired. Kevin Shane was brought in and became my first real mentor. He also gave me the regular overnight show. Remember live overnights? While I was working with Kevin I was bitten by the PD bug. That's what I wanted to strive for. Kevin started me down the programming path by making me his music director. I had a brief stop at WPDX in Clarksburg where I also handled music and it gave me my first taste of country radio. My next stop was at the old Top 40 version of WFGM - the Great 98 - in Fairmont, WV and again, I served as music director. I was later elevated to my first PD gig just before the station was sold and became the new home of Country WKKW. We were all sent packing. My first Country PD job was at WYII in Martinsburg, WV and I have been hooked on Country ever since. I served as PD at WAYZ in Hagerstown, MD, APD/MD at WCAT in Harrisburg and now PD again at The Hawk in Binghamton. It may not have been what I always wanted to do, but there are very few other things I could imagine myself doing now.

2) You have been programming for a good while now- has the job changed since you started?

Absolutely! I imagine it has changed for everyone. The current economic state of radio has put more work on everyone. Time management is essential to success. I still try to make sure all the little things still get done, but the focus is certainly on the most important items on my checklist every day. My first station had a live body in the studio 24/7. We also had a music clock on the wall with boxes of index cards on a desk for music selection. Some programs were even on Drake Chenult reels. So the technology has changed a lot as well. Being a PD was never a 40 hour a week gig, but now I am putting in more time at the office - and at home - than ever before.

3) You're passionate about music, and you listen to literally everything. How do you find the time with everything else on your plate?

Because music is my passion and I still believe the most important part of programming a great radio station, making sure we are playing the right music in the right rotations is my top priority. I finally bought an iPod this year and am constantly loading the newest stuff on there and using that as another tool to help me listen to the ever-growing amount of music being sent to me for consideration. Doing the music is one part of my job that never feels like work. I am truly a fan of the format and love listening to as much of the music as I can each week.

4) You're not from upstate NY and where you are, the Southern Tier, it's pretty much always snowing- this year was brutal wasn't it? Did you adapt pretty well, start skiing, etc.?

I don't ski. In fact, one of the few times I have been to a ski resort was back in West Virginia for a weekend radio promotion. I was given the opportunity to run the big machine that grooms the snow on the slopes. Thanks to some vague instructions provided to me by the guy who should have been doing that job, I nearly rolled it back down the mountain. It makes for a great story now. I've been here for 2 1/2 years now and still haven't entirely adjusted to living in the Southern Tier. We didn't get hit with a lot of big snow falls this year, but it seemed to snow a little almost every day so we had snow on the ground almost all winter. We still have flurries in the forecast a couple days a week now. Once you get used to the two seasons here - winter and under construction - it's not too bad.

5) Who are some of your programming mentors?

As I mentioned, my first real mentor was Kevin Shane. He has since left the business, but he taught me that common sense should always be a part of the decision making process and should be used in conjunction with research. I always go back to a music test I had at a classic rock station that listed Gary Glitter's "Rock-N-Roll, Pt. 2" as our best testing song. Research said that should be our most played song, common sense said - umm, no. Sometimes I think radio has the research blinders on too often. Research is great when used with a healthy dose of common sense. I've been lucky to work with some great folks in my career like Will Robinson, Shelly Easton, Joel Raab, Steve Davis, Brian Mo, Keith Hill and Bill Hennes. I've also developed great working relationships with folks like Jay McCarthy, Jess Wright, Lacy Neff, Joe Kelly, Al Brock and others. I've learned a lot from all of them.

6) What kinds of things have you really grown to like about where you live? I think we all know the food is good.

OK, this is where you obviously want me to discuss Spiedies. I do like Spiedies and usually go for a buffalo chicken spiedie myself. Don't know what a Spiedie is? Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiedie. Carolwood's Chris Palmer, a Binghamton native, would be upset with me if I didn't mention the fantastic pizza you can get at Cortese. Katie Armiger and Jamice Jennings will attest to the quality of the Machine Gun Death Triple Suicide Hot Wings you can enjoy here as well. Despite all the great food here, I still miss my West Virginia pepperoni rolls. What I enjoy most about Binghamton is the fact that we have AA baseball with the Binghamton Mets, AHL hockey with the Binghamton Senators and a growing college D-1 basketball program at Binghamton University. The Bearcats made the NCAA tournament for the first time ever this year.

7) Radio has been changing by the day it seems- and it's been a tough year with lots of cutbacks. How do you keep morale up on your programming staff?

It's not easy and I'll admit that I have had my bad days as well. I try to make my people feel that there is a reason they are still here working while others are not, and that is because they are very good at what they do. I'm also as open and honest with them as I can be. I have a veteran staff including John Davison who previously served as PD and has been with the Hawk for our entire 25 years. That helps. They have all been through some kind of hardship in this business before. I spend more time just having one-on-one chats with people who look like they may be having a bad day then having staff meetings to address problems. My door is always open and I have no problem giving my people some of my time to vent. All I ask them to do is accept whatever situation is presented to them and continue to give me their best effort. Above all I still won't ask them to do anything that I am not willing to do myself and that includes being the board op for weekend remotes to staying late and running the board for B-Met baseball games during the week.

8) What new artists are you high on and why?

I think the sky is the limit for Lady Antebellum. Their debut album is filled with great material and Hillary, Charles and Dave seem to work very well together and put on great shows. I'm extremely happy the format has embraced Darius Rucker. "Learn To Live" is a great album! There is no denying Rodney Atkins right now, he is on a roll and "It's America" is already testing among our best songs. Randy Houser is another act I'm excited about. Maybe not as excited as the kid rockin' out in the "Boots On" internet video, but pretty close. There are several solid cuts on his debut CD. To me, the act that made the biggest splash at CRS was Jamey Johnson. You can't tell me there isn't room in this format for some good ol' Outlaw Country. The one song that really stuck with me from CRS is Emily West's "That Kind Of Happy." I couldn't wait to get it on the air. I think this is the song that will break her and let us see all the potential we have been hearing about since last year. Although he's not really new, I have to wonder what else Jimmy Wayne has to do to become a big star in this format? I also want to give a nod to fellow West Virginia native and WVU grad Julia Burton. She may not be on a "big label," but she has real appeal. Her debut single "What A Woman Wants" is doing very well for us. And, personally, I am really digging a lot of the "Texas Country" music right now. I'm wearing out my Eli Young Band "Jet Black and Jealous" CD along with stuff from folks like Reckless Kelly, Cross Canadian Ragweed, etc.

9) What reasons would someone listen to the Hawk for, instead of say, their iPod?

We really are focused on two things - being local and informative on the format. I've worked in a lot of formats, but I think country fans more than any others embrace more artists and want to know more about each of them. You won't find Brad Paisley fans that don't like Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney or Toby Keith. So we try to give a lot of artist and entertainment information. In this age of iPods, SatRad and Al Gore's internet it is vital to connect with the local community. The majority of my staff is from this area or has been in the community for a number of years, so that really helps. I'm the outsider of the group and it's the one area I work on most as far as what I do on the air. I also try to massage our music all the time so the station doesn't get stale. Sure, the core gold songs play the most, but the fringe gold music is constantly changing to keep the "oh wow" factor constantly in play. The new research we saw at CRS strongly suggests this is a big area of concern for country radio. I also try to respond to every single listener e-mail I get, good or bad. Most listeners send me a follow up that says something like "I never expected someone to actually read my e-mail." Even the folks who send the harshest e-mails often change their tune once the have gotten a reply from someone. They simply want to know their concern has been heard.

10) Other than your own, what stations are among your favorites?

My favorite country station continues to be WXTU in Philadelphia. Every time I listen it sounds fresh. When I'm in Nashville I'm normally tuned to WKDF. I always enjoy listening to Becca. WFRE in Frederick has always been a solid radio station and continues to sound sharp. Although it is not country, when I am back home in Morgantown I always listen to WVAQ. If you want to hear small market radio done right, check out WVAQ.

1) Name three albums (any format) that have impacted you and why.

Picking just three is hard - however, selecting my favorite country album is easy - Gary Allan's "See If I Care" is one that I never get tired of. I truly enjoy every song on it and think his duet with Willie Nelson on "A Showman's Life" is simply incredible. It has great up tempo songs, ballads, and several songs with powerful messages. The writing is great, the music is great, the sequence of the songs is great and I think it is Gary Allan at his absolute best! One thing I tell everyone about myself is that I am a live music junkie and the best concert experience for me was seeing Pink Floyd at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh in 1988. That tour was captured brilliantly on the "Delicate Sounds Of Thunder" CD. Despite missing the visuals that go with the live Floyd experience, this album captured the real "feel" of the music from the live show. Despite people knowing I'm a big Joe Jackson fan and being tempted to list one of his albums here, my third album is Traveling Wilburys "Volume 1." George Harrison was always my favorite Beatle and teaming him with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne created the ultimate supergroup for me. The songs on this album sound just as good today as they did 20 years ago. Granted trying to get Dylan and Petty to harmonize with each other is a little dicey, but the overall project is simply brilliant. One of my favorite little known rock facts is that Jim Keltner provided the percussion for this album. On the song "Rattled," he used a metal rack from a refrigerator to get the desired effect they were looking for. The whole project came together after they recorded "Handle With Care" as a B-side for George Harrison. Tom Petty wasn't even part of the initial project, but George had left his guitar at Tom's house. When he went over to pick it up, he invited Tom to join in. That's the stuff legends are made of.

2) What three people, dead or alive would you want to have dinner with- why?

Bill Cosby - the man has entertained me my entire life and done so in such a casual and non-offensive way. He oozes success. I am a Cosbyologist! I have tickets to see him perform live for the first time coming up this month. Wonder if he wants to have dinner before the show? Anyone else would really be a distant second, but I've always found actor Tom Cavanaugh intriguing and think I would enjoy a conversation with him. I have always related well to his characters in "Ed," "Love Monkey," "Scrubs" and now "Trust Me." My third choice would be Jim Asker - as long as it's someplace nice and he's buying.

3) What did you do this winter to keep from going insane?

Well, I worked - a lot. I also watched my Steelers win the Super Bowl! I took a holiday trip to Charlotte to visit friends and family and watch WVU beat North Carolina in the Car Care Bowl. I then swung through Nashville for New Years! The rest of the time I spent loading music on my iPod and reading 10 Questions on AllAccess.com.