10 Questions with ... Jon Grayson

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

I started running the board overnight for piped-in Larry King and Jim Bohannon at WTKN in beautiful Pinellas Park, FL. but moved to WFLA-Tampa within a year. There I exec. produced for Lionel, Jay Marvin, Bob Lassiter and several others over an 8-year tenure. I also hosted my first weekend show there, from which I springboarded to weeknights at WWTN-FM in Nashville. After three years in Tennessee I moved to overnights and then evenings at KMOX-St. Louis, where I've been ever since. I was moved back to overnights with the debut of "Overnight America," carried on WCCO and KDKA in addition to KMOX in January of 2009.

1. Since last we talked, you've taken over the overnight shift not only at KMOX but at KDKA and WCCO as well, blanketing most of the eastern and central states. Has going syndicated changed your approach? If so, how? If not, have you made any accommodation to the addition of the Twin Cities and Pittsburgh audiences?

It's changed my approach only in that I tailor my topic selection to a slightly broader audience. If there's a St. Louis story that makes national news, then we'll talk about it. Same for stories out of the Twin Cities or Pittsburgh (the mine disaster is a good example, since there's a large KDKA audience in West Virginia). But the vast coverage of KMOX at night had always forced me away from a strictly local show because a focus on overly local-interest topics would cost me caller participation from the other 40 or so states that could listen. So the changes are very subtle. I always looked for topics with a certain quirk to them anyway, regardless where they originated geographically.

2. You're a prime example of the kind of talk I've often discussed as a gaping hole in the talk radio spectrum -- some pop culture, some news stuff, but generally the kind of things real people talk about rather than what the hardcore political junkies care about, with coverage of things that are less political than interesting, including a dose of science and interviews about major news events that aren't confrontational or partisan. There's clearly an audience out there for it. Do you think that there's enough of an audience for it to make a viable alternative to all-angry-politics, all-the-time? Is it an area where talk radio might find growth?

I certainly hope it's viable... otherwise, what the heck am I doing? And thank you for the compliment, by the way. The thing is, my show is me. I'm not angry, so I don't try to sell anger. I like science. I like sports. I like movies, music, old cars, good food and fine tequila, so these are some of the things that inevitably will come out in conversation. One of the first and most important things I learned from Jay Marvin is how to stand out by putting all of yourself into the show, and I think it works. I also have very little patience for manufactured outrage. It makes me turn the channel on TV and on the radio, so I refuse to do it. And to the meat of your question, walk into your local bar some Friday night. Is it full of phony outrage and heavy duty political analysis, or does it sound more like my show? Yes... there's absolutely enough of an audience. All we have to do is give them something to listen to.

3. I think we talked about this before, but there have been a lot of interviews in the intervening years, so... what's your favorite interview ever? Was there one (or more) where you just sat back while it was happening and thought, "I can't believe I'm talking to (name)"?

Eric Burdon, hands down. He's very warm, funny, and has some of the most amazing stories about his part in the history of Rock 'n' Roll. Paul Williams was also fun. Dan Aykroyd, David Carradine, and a backstage interview I did with John Linnell and John Flansburgh from They Might Be Giants also rank high.

4. You've done late-night and overnight shows for much of your talk radio career. Do you ever get used to the hours? How do you stay awake?

Lots of caffeine. I always was a night owl; even in college I never took a course before noon. The hard part is the weekends, since I try to make my schedule match that of my wife and kids. Getting back on a regular track Monday morning can be interesting.

5. You talk about movies a lot with your regular critic, but what's the best movie you've ever seen? The best in the last year? The worst ever?

Ever? Wow. I suppose I'll always have a soft spot for "An American Werewolf In London," since it was the first real horror movie I saw in the theater. I also really like "Evil Dead," "Slap Shot," "The Great Escape" and the original "Italian Job;" the one with Michael Caine. In the last year I really enjoyed "Inglorious Basterds." Worst ever? "Wheels Of Terror," a miserable cinematic suppository (thank you MST3K for that line) about a woman in a short school bus who chases a customized Dodge Charger driven by the devil. Tough to say exactly why it's so completely unredeeming...it just is.

6. Are you optimistic about the future, for yourself, for your family, for the country, for radio?

The short answer is yes to all of the above. My wife is one of the many thousands of people looking for work at the moment, but tough times are transient (as are good times). We have instant knowledge at our fingertips at all times, and my kids are growing up in a world where for them that's always been true. Kids today regardless of the negative press they receive are interested, smart, engaged and energetic. They're well aware of what they have and are ready to work hard to have more. That's a very good sign for the future of the country. And as for the radio industry I think we've already shown ourselves to be much more adaptive and adaptable to a changing world than have the newspapers. As long as there are talented managers and performers with a passion for the industry there will always be a market for what we do. Talk radio has been doing what Twitter does for five decades now, so I don't see the public losing interest. Quite the contrary. But again it's up to us to give them something worth listening to and participating in.

7. A few years ago, you got a chance to tour Iraq. How did the experience change your perspective on what's going on over there?

It opened my eyes in a thousand ways. I had no idea what life was like for the average citizen in Baghdad. I had no idea what they thought of our presence there or of their own role in rebuilding their country. I saw young Iraqi police trainees laughing and joking with US servicepeople. I saw thriving electronics shops and marketplaces functioning in Baghdad, and school kids being taught on the same street with unexploded ordnance dumped in a chicken-wire bin. I saw a hospital in the process of renovation just a few blocks away from a bank that was the site of a mass kidnapping and murder the day before. Saddam Hussein had neglected that country into a state of desperate disrepair, but the destabilization of the government that took place post-invasion brought on a huge raft of other problems that I believe will take decades to sort out.

8. What are you watching on TV these days? What's getting the most play on your iPod?

On TV, I like "Bones" quite a bit. Both "NCIS" shows are also very entertaining. And nothing makes me laugh like "The Big Bang Theory." On the iPod, it's a little bit of everything...The Refreshments, Toots and the Maytals, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, all kinds of classic rock. Pretty much what you'd expect a 40-year-old to listen to, I guess.

9. You started in the business at a young age. If it all went away tomorrow - if there was no radio anymore -- what do you think you'd like to do instead?

There's always PR. Isn't that where old radio hosts go to die? Seriously, I'd probably try catch on with James Randi's Educational Foundation. There's never any shortage of pseudoscience and paranormal hogwash to investigate and expose. I think that would be fun.

10. OK, time for "if I knew then what I know now." What do you know now that you wish you knew when you were just starting out?

I don't know if it's so much a thing that I've learned, but I wish that I had spent more time at a younger age honing my interview skills. I was always fairly good at building topics and generating calls, but until about the last 10 years I considered myself a miserable interviewer. It took me a long time to develop those muscles and it would have been much easier if I had forced myself to do more of it early in my career.