10 Questions with ... Cutter

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

My first gig was actually doing weekend overnights at WAPL, so it all goes full circle. My radio influences were really two people. Lou Brutus, as I religiously listened to hardDrive every weekend. I specifically remember listening in my bedroom as a teenager and thinking that's what I want to do. Play the best music out there on the radio and have conversations about the music with those who wrote it. The other was Randy Hawke, (Randy, I'm not trying to kiss your ass here.) I felt the same way listening to Randy daily on WAPL as I did when listening to Lou, just a feeling of that's what I want to do. My biggest influence, though, was my copy of Metallica's Master of Puppets. I knew I had to play guitar after hearing that and I knew I had to do something in music. That and I would read every interview and every article in all the rock music magazines I could find. I was also just so interested in the story of how the music came to be.

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

First and foremost, I'm a musician and have been playing guitar since I was 10 years old. When deciding in high school on a career, I just kind of picked radio because I loved listening so much, but my teachers didn't take me seriously when I said I wanted to be a rock star, so radio it is. Let's be honest: It's very hard to make a living being a musician. So I thought at least with radio I can still be close to music and it would hopefully still allow me to play in a band. The moment I realized it was when my band was playing a gig opening up for The Donnas at the old Concert Café in Green Bay and I had the crowd eating out of my hands as the front man of the band. Between that and my love of the history of music, I knew radio was for me. P.S.: I'm the worst singer in the world, but it was punk rock!

3) How long have you been working for WZOR and what makes this station so special?

I started with Razor in 2002, quickly moved up to be the APD of the station and eventually took over mornings. During the economy bust of '08/'09, my position was eliminated and I found myself on the streets. After not being able to find a good enough gig, I went back to school. Keeping in mind that right after that happened, my (now ex-) wife and I had our first child. I came back to Razor in 2012 and being again such a huge fan of the music taking over music became a no-brainer. What's cool is being able to be the MD of not only Razor, but the station I grew up listening to in WAPL as well. What makes Razor so special is our unwillingness to conform. Rock has taken many different turns since the station launched over 17 years ago, but we just stick true to playing the best hard rock we can and trying to build new core artists. The other part of it is we are at every concert; we are out at bars; we are a part of the community and charities. On top of that, we just generally tend to hang out with our listeners and try to be a part of their lives as much as we can. We live and breathe rock music and the lifestyle that goes with it in northeast Wisconsin. Yes, that also means being a giant Green Bay Packer fan.

4) You are also the MD for WAPL. Give us your take on this very successful heritage Rock station.

WAPL is an anomaly in the current radio world. Musically we do what you'd expect a classic heritage rock station to do, but we dig deeper with specials, A-Z, charity events that are successful and a morning show that's been on the air on WAPL since the '80s. Our personalities are gigantic and are just as much a part of Wisconsin as beer, cheese and that football team that wears the colors green and gold. The station continually has very strong ratings and we have local and national clients that stick with us. We are allowed to do what we do by our parent company Woodward Communications and all these things together allows us to have this continued success.

5) When you listen to new music, approximately how important by percentage is gut, research, sales, video play, and chart position when determining the status of a record?

All of that kind of comes into play. It's very hard to put each of those on percentages as that could be different for each song. I check and pay attention to chart position and to sales and of course, video play/streaming and research, but at the end of the day a good song is still just a good song. If it's a good tune that is also selling and the research is huge, then it's a no-brainer. Certain bands are no-brainers as well and that's just being in tune with your audience and knowing what they like as a whole. When it comes to new bands I'm looking for, that feeling you get when you hear a song for the first time and you know you have to hear it again and again. If I get that feeling, then I know other people may as well and therefore I feel better about taking a chance on it than maybe I would otherwise.

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

It feels like we're making a little comeback, doesn't it? Classic rock is still one of the biggest formats on radio. You just can't beat Zeppelin, AC/DC, Guns 'N' Roses and such. It feels like Active has a couple of those artists now as well. Is there a bigger rock star than Dave Grohl right now? Lizzy Hale is becoming more and more familiar, and what can be said about Corey Taylor that hasn't already been said? Plus Active is still the format you go to for the world's biggest rock band, Metallica. On top of that, there's new music that's exciting and even a little dangerous again. There are some solid radio stations leading the way, but if more could just realize that it's about applying that music to your own market, it could get even bigger. There are festivals all over the country that have 20-30-40,000 people attend every time. As more of those pop up and do well, it seems like rock music as a whole becomes more popular. My daughter is eight years old and she'll listen to Halestorm, followed by Taylor Swift, then Disturbed, then Katy Perry to The Pretty Reckless. She'll go from Pop to Country to Rock and back and not think anything of it. I look at her and I see the future. We're not separate from the mainstream, we're here and we've always been here and no amount of people like Beyonce being nominated for Rock awards is going to change that. Also to wrap up this point, the people of Rock radio all seem to pulling for each other. It seems like we're all friends and we're all in this thing together. I, for one, believe that's important. Together we can conquer the world, apart the world conquers us.

7) Razor 94.7 has long had a reputation as a "tastemaker" station, especially when it comes to new rock and metal. How do you balance that so it doesn't adversely affect the station's cume and TS ... especially during the day?

Well that's the trick then, isn't it? I guess really it's just a matter of when we play new music, we make sure that there's good library songs around it. So really our library is extremely important as we want to make sure that when you tune in to hear your favorite Alice in Chains, Metallica or Slipknot tune, you hear it. At the same time, we want you to find your new favorite song as well. Taking the music and then incorporating strong promotions and high-end personalities, we hope that you're tuning in and staying for a bit.

8) What are your three favorite artists or songs of this year and why?

So far in 2017, I can't get enough of the new Nothing More song, "Go to War." It's so different and it hits you right in the gut with melody, not anger. Beartooth "Sick of Me" specifically for its meaning. Hell or Highwater's song, "I Want it All," because that is the kind of riff rock I love. Too bad more people didn't pick up on them. Honorable mentions for Bring Me the Horizon's single, "Blasphemy," my favorite song from my favorite record last year. Again, I wish that would have been worked a little harder by their label, could have been a huge hit in my mind. Also Linkin Park's "One More Light" ... I know it's a pop record, but those lyrics were powerful before the tragedy and they've taken on a whole new meaning now.

9) Besides your work with WAPL/WZOR, you also host and produce a weekly Rock countdown show called the Cutting Edge Countdown. Tell us about the show and what are some of the stations running it?

It's a top 25 rock countdown show that follows the Mediabase chart. Two to three guests every week, news, a #1 flashback and my personal spin on it all. I launched it on Razor first because I felt like rock was missing an "entertaining" countdown show and not just a re-hash of some stuff. Recently I have gotten some help from Kaytie, who is another DJ here on Razor, (sorry not sorry, Wes.) Otherwise I host and produce it all myself. Huge thanks to Danny Ryan at KZND and Viktor Wilt at K-Bear for being the first stations to pick up the show. Again this is 100% independent ... I know, how punk rock of me.

10) Finally, I'm sure you've been asked this before, but where and how did the name Cutter come about and what does it all mean?

I have made up three different stories to go along with this question as I tend to get asked this a lot. One involves my being a minor league baseball pitcher and before I threw out my shoulder my pitch of choice was the cutter. Another involves a prison incident but the truth is when I started in radio I needed a name. My real last name of Puyleart wasn't exactly the catchiest name around. I wanted something bad-ass sounding so we came up with Cutter and the name stuck.