10 Questions with ... Hal Fish

1) What was your first job in radio? Early influences?

It's been so long since I've updated my resume that I literally can't find it and don't remember the call letters of the first station I worked at. I do remember though how hard my heart was pounding the first time I cracked the mic and how pissed the guy who came on after me was. You see, we actually played records that had to be located and queued up and all of our commercials were played from "carts." It was common courtesy to pull the first hour of music and commercials for the jock that followed you, but I sucked at my job so badly that it was all I could do to find my own songs and commercials and get them on the air. The next jock arrived to find me in a cold sweat surrounded by stacks of records and carts that I couldn't seem to find the time to put away. His welcoming words were, "Who the hell trained you?"

Ken Calvert is my all-time favorite jock. Ken was doing middays at WRIF around the time I got into radio and I wanted to be just like "the casual one." He didn't "sound" like a disc jockey to me. He sounded like a real person who just happened to love the same kind of music I did. One of my favorite things was listening to Ken "cross over" with other jocks on the station like Arthur P.

2) What led you to a career in radio? Was there a defining moment that made you realize "this is it?"

I wanted to be a rock star. I really wasn't particularly interested in being on the radio. In fact, I majored in Broadcast Journalism at Central Michigan Univ. and never set foot inside the college's radio station. I started playing in rock bands after college and made a serious effort at making a living from music. When the most serious of these bands broke up, I came off the road and started living in a house with two other musicians, one of whom knew the PD/morning show host at a radio station in Jackson, MI. I was complaining about low wages from the "wedding band" that I'd hooked up with for the summer when he suggested I give his PD friend a call. He was pretty sure they'd "train me" and I could pick up a little extra cash. I wouldn't have hired me. I remember sitting in the PD's office during the interview telling him, "My first priority is my music so, we'll to have schedule around that." Apparently, the station was desperate for help because they hired me and since my musical career wasn't exactly taking off, I wasn't too hard to "schedule around." My "Ah hah" moment came when they offered me middays. I'd already started to fall in love with radio but the midday gig made me realize I might actually have a knack for this thing. My priorities soon shifted from "my band" to "my radio station."

3) You've been programming WRKZ (99.7 The Blitz) since 1992 and it is considered one of the original Active Rock stations. What else makes this station so unique?

Blitz jocks are living, breathing, human beings that connect with people who live the rock lifestyle. I can't do it with voicetracks. Except now we do! In a story that I'm sure is familiar to most, we no longer budget for a full-time overnighter. Midnight to 6a is now voicetracked Tuesday-Friday. Weekend overnights are still "live." I still think it's important for the person on the other end of the phone, text response or post to be the actual person who is on the air. Listeners respond to that and it's one way we can be better than the conglomerates across the street. But even non-conglomerates like us face modern radio realities that affect staffing.

4) You are also the VP/Programming & Operations for all three Columbus stations (The Blitz, 103.9 Jack FM and an AM/FM translator combo "Easy" 95.1 FM and AM 920, WMNI). How do you balance all of these responsibilities?

My job is probably easy compared to some of the programmers I talk to and read about who are responsible for twice as many stations. In terms of the balance, clearly I devote the lion's share of my time to working with The Blitz. It's our biggest signal and largest revenue generator, so it demands a lot of my attention. We recently added an FM translator to our AM station and took the station from Adult Standards to Soft AC. While I do the day-to-day music scheduling for "Easy," there are no jocks and of course, JACK FM is imaging only so managing human resources is not an issue for those two stations.

5) Columbus is also the home of Rock OnThe Range, which has become arguably the biggest Rock festival in the country. I know that The Blitz has a huge presence there but how beneficial has it been for your station to have ROTR in your own backyard each year?

It's our biggest event of the year. We think of it as our show and plan for it as such. Right Arm Entertainment and now Danny Wimmer Presents, along with AEG, have done a fantastic job building ROTR but we like to think we've played a big part. It certainly helps that they basically hire our entire play list each year. We take an "all hands on deck" approach with our staff that weekend and have done a live broadcast every year.

6) What's your take on the Rock format and Active Rock music overall?

I recently programmed our 25th anniversary special with music from our first weekend back in 1992. It got me to thinking about how Hard Rock, Hair Bands and Grunge were really the basic ingredients. Of course, all three styles are guitar-driven and in that regard, the format has not changed much (even though Hair quickly faded with the emergence of Grunge). People are still interested in loud electric guitar-based music, in its various forms, as evidenced by the yearly pilgrimage to Rock On The Range. When listeners lose interest in distorted power chords, we're sunk. But when I witness listener reaction to Nothing More in concert or, see Highly Suspect sell out a local venue in about five minutes ... I don't think that's happening any time soon.

7) You are also a strong proponent of research especially since you founded Radio Traks back in 2000. In determining the songs to play on The Blitz, approximately how important by percentage is gut, research, sales, video play, and chart position when determining the status of a record?

I won't put percentages to it, but gut and research are the two most important factors. Sales and video play metrics are influenced by factors that don't always apply to the audience that drives your ratings so, just because Imagine Dragons is blowing up, doesn't mean it should be in heavy (though we have played Imagine Dragons). "Gut" is your experience telling you that a record that sounds like it does could be a hit on your radio station backed (or refuted) by the research over a period of time. Chart position is the most suspect of all the indicators, given the lack of local research that gets done on a regular basis and how much charts are affected by big groups. I do look at the charts every week though. I probably spend as much time at the bottom as at the top. It's a useful tool for finding songs I may have missed.

8) The Blitz first went on the air the Friday before the 4th of July back in 1992. Over this recent 4th of July weekend you celebrated the station launch with a special "Blitz 1992" weekend. Tell us about it.

The idea was to recreate the weekend, from launch that Friday before the 4th through Sunday night. The challenge was, we only had about 15 minutes of actual skimmer tape from that weekend (which, fortunately included the launch). Digging through boxes of old reel-to-reel tapes we did manage to find the original imaging package but quickly realized we didn't have a functional reel-to-reel. With the help of a semi-retired station engineer, we got one working well enough to make the transfer to digital (with one of us pressing a thumb against a "pinch roller" while the other "helped" the reel turn with his index finger)!

Digging through old rock charts from the months and weeks leading up to July 1992 was extremely helpful as it jarred my memory regarding the heavies and recurrents that would have been rotating that first weekend. Pearl Jam's "Even Flow," Chili Peppers "Under the Bridge" and Ozzy "Road To Nowhere" were among the heavies. We found some great "nuggets" too. Remember School of Fish, "3 Strange Days?" Or, Kings X, "Black Flag?"

It was a lot like launching the new format all over again, as I added songs to Audiovault, that had only been played on CD back in the day and created special clocks in Selector. I used the original imaging but for context I also used our current voice, Jeff Berlin to explain what listeners were hearing. Our current midday announcer, Nuber, who was probably six when The Blitz launched, ran around interviewing people who were here at the time including, Ronni Hunter, Mark The Shark and myself and created some really cool "Where Were You in '92" vignettes that ran throughout the weekend.

Then, on Friday, June 30th at 5p, we re-aired the original recording of The Blitz launch, including the fading notes of the last song to play on Magic 99.7, the Classic Rock station The Blitz replaced (Elton John "Candle in The Wind") then, the sound of a ticking clock and a computerized voice that said, "One minute till program launch!" The station launched with an imaging/music montage and then, straight into Night Ranger's "You Can Still Rock in America" (Chosen for its title since the song was never actually in rotation afterward). What followed was a steady diet of AC/DC, Ozzy, Van Halen and Motley Crue, spiced liberally with hits of the day from Pearl Jam, Metallica and Nirvana, to name a few and voila! It was 1992 all over again!

9) That weekend also kicked off The Blitz 25th Anniversary Summer. What are some of the things you're doing this summer to celebrate your 25 years rocking Columbus?

Well, of course everything is part of The Blitz 25th Anniversary Summer so, it's baked into just about everything that we promote. Couple of events that are a little more special than others include Local Stuff "Live" the 25th Anniversary Addition (I can't remember if our Local Stuff feature actually launched in '92 but whatever, work with me here) and Loper and Randi's Great Summer Smokeout! featuring, Halestorm, Sick Puppies and Adelita's Way on August 5th. Loper and Randi do Blitz mornings and Smokeout kind of puts a wrap on the celebration that kicked off with Rock on The Range back in May.

Blitz staff photo (circa 1994) features original Blitz jocks (from left to right), Suzy Waud, Tommy Hough (top), Mark "The Shark," Hal Fish, "Blazor," Steve "The Gatekeeper" Hammond and Ronni Hunter.

10) Finally, can you share a handful of the best Blitz moments of the last 25 years?

Discussing certain things would violate court mandates but...

I'll never forget walking into a local restaurant for lunch about a week after The Blitz launched and having our main competitor's GM sarcastically comment, "Nice Metallica!" while the minions at his table chuckled into their napkins. I suspect they weren't laughing a year or so later when the "Metallica station" was kicking their asses!

Our station owner, Matt Mnich purchased a Hummer back around 1994 that became The Blitz station vehicle. This was the original wide-body Arnold Schwarzenegger version that couldn't drive down certain OSU campus streets without taking a few side view mirrors with it! The purchase happened in the winter time and Matt took a few of us off-roading. We had a great time "blowing up" snow drifts, along with a few hidden fence posts (I'm sure we had permission from the property owner).

We under-payed fantastically for a couple of Blitz Bash headliners back in the '90s. I think we paid something like 8 grand for Creed. By the time the show came around, "My Own Prison" had blown up. Same story with Kid Rock, who had a minor hit with "I Am The Bullgod." By the time Blitz Bash happened that year, "Bawitdaba" had made him a star. We had 18,000 people in Polaris Amphitheater for the show and Kid Rock couldn't have been nicer or more gracious. Wish I could say the same for Scott Stapp.

Then there was the time I drank a tumbler-sized shot of Jack with Eddie Van Halen. Actually, he drank the tumbler-sized shot, I just stood there in wide-eyed amazement.

Each year at Blitz Bash and now at The Great Summer Smokeout, we bring a "birthday" cake out on stage to share with Blitz listeners and celebrate another anniversary. Some people actually eat the cake, for others, it's just face paint. But it's their cake. Always was, always will be. The behind the scenes stuff is fun but even after 25 years ... Still gotta remember to bake that cake!