| (A
Funny Thing Happened On) The Road To Rock Stardom
- Toby
Ryan
By Tammy Moore
Normally
I devote at least half of this page to profiling in great
detail the particulars of my subject’s lives…where
they’re from, their love affair with music, how they
got where they are today, etc. But this time I can only touch
on the fine points so that precious space can be devoted to
the ‘Rock 101’ Q &A section of this column.
This interview, that provides a jackpot of knowledge, is a
must-read for musicians aspiring to push their music to commercial
radio. The following excerpt from my conversation with 101X
DJ and Music Director, Toby Ryan, will shed a kaleidoscopic
light on the truth of how things really get done in big-league
radio. Straight from the funny horse’s mouth, he creates
a view from the other side and we see first hand the obstacles
radio personalities are up against and why decisions are made
like whether your unsigned band’s song gets a spin or
whether the coveted slot goes to The Offspring.
Toby Ryan’s
persona is the coolest blend of class-clown comedian chic
and hardcore realist. Though he has been elevated to semi-celebrity
status (he would NEVER cop to that) himself, reigning as one
of Austin’s most celebrated radio icons, he is still
more than capable of feeling that amazing sense of awe and
admiration that can be inspired upon meeting an artist whose
work he respects like Lenny Kravitz, for example. It still
wigs him out a little that one of the perks of his job is
entertaining bands like Limp Bizkit or Kid Rock when they
tour through town. But he can switch emotional gears in a
heartbeat if he hears an artist lamenting about the unfairness
of music industry practices. Without hesitation he is happy
to remind said whiner that first and foremost, this is a business,
and if you want to go to the national level…then learn
how to play on that field. Period.
The nine-year
radio veteran knew that he wanted to work in the airwaves
early on in life. He came to Austin after one year of college
with the sole intention of breaking into radio but just didn’t
know how he was going to do it. Fate stepped in when he landed
a job here at PETCO and 101X’ Rachel Marisay came through
his check-out line and told him he should check out the new
station she was working for. When he told her he was looking
for a way into radio, she told him to come by and they would
hook him up with an internship. After interning, Ryan was
finally hired on part-time to do one air shift a week. He
moved on to working every show on 101X including overnight,
mid-days and the morning show. But it is the afternoon drive
that suits the Sealy, TX native. It spoons nicely with his
lifestyle, which, admittedly, forces him to spend most nights
out amid the club scene. Between radio remotes, filming for
his Austin Music Network show, ‘101 Xtreme Tuesdays’
(where he tours the inside of various Capital City clubs and
playfully accosts unsuspecting patrons getting the low-down
on why they frequent their favorite haunts), and servicing
bands with his T&A, Inc. promotions company, Ryan is a
self-proclaimed insomniac and mornings just don’t work
for him.
Jonathan
McPhail and I met him at the newish twenty-somethings hang
out, The Firehouse. Located on Brazos, between 6th and 7th
the hip venue is yet another pie that the success-driven Ryan
has his fingers in. He owns 1/3 of the sleek conversation
bar. After settling in on our lustrous barstools, the congenial
host took a sip of his beer, lit up a cigarette, and fired
away.
 R&R:
How are playlists created?
TR: We base it heavily upon research. We have what’s
called ‘call-out research’ where we take our P1
Listeners, a P1 is a primary listener…those are people
who actually call into the radio station and win stuff from
the station. We have their phone numbers and we’ll call
them and say, “Hey, do you have fifteen minutes? We’re
taking a little music poll.” We’ll play them little
snippets of a song and have them rate it…they like the
song, they don’t like it, whether it’s familiar
or not, whether they are tired of hearing it and then there
is a system that rates the songs. That’s how we decide
how often we’re going to play a certain song and whether
we’re going to continue to play it. There’s different
categories like “A”, “B”, and “C.”
“A” is a heavy rotation, “B” is a
medium rotation and “C” is light rotation. So
we have a computer system called “RCS” and it
basically schedules the music for us. Then I go in and edit
it, like, I arrange the songs according to tempo in a fashion
where I think it would be something you could hear on the
air and not be turned off. We don’t want to play Disturbed
into something really mellow…you want to make sure it
flows really real. That’s kind of how we do it.
R&R: How much control do you have of your playlist? Do
you create your own playlist for your show or do you create
one with your Program Director and everyone has to follow
that?
TR: Yeah, it’s kind of a blanket deal. [Sometimes] we’ll
only play certain songs during certain times of the day but
other than that, this is how it’s run. Everyone’s
got to follow the playlist and what’s there has got
to be played. We have features where we can play requests
like “All Requests Flash Back Lunch” and “All
Requests 5 O’Clock Disc Ride.” We have the liberty
of playing certain songs but for the most part, it’s
all kind of set in stone.
R&R: As far as the songs you decide to research…do
your station owners come to you with songs and say, “Okay,
these are the songs we want you to work with,” or is
all based on labels giving you material and you weeding through
that and picking what you like out of all that?
TR: It’s a little bit of both. Our owners come in and
they’ll say, “Hey, you guys have a really broad
category of music. You have 350 different songs to use and
we want you to narrow it down so the station sounds a little
more familiar.” That’s so average Joe Listener
isn’t out cruising in their car and hears something
really unfamiliar which might make them change stations. In
that aspect, they have a little bit to do with it but Melody
(Lee, Program Director) and I pretty much have a lot of say
about what we play here in town. Melody has the final word
on everything that we play but we have a lot of input here
in Austin. I mean, the owners don’t live here and they
really don’t know the market like we know the market.
R&R: What is the reality of an unsigned band getting a
song into radio rotation?
TR: It’s very difficult.
R&R: What is the process of making that happen?
TR: First off, be proactive, be good, create your own buzz
because it’s hard to ignore a buzz about a local band.
Be good and, more importantly, if you’re going to submit
a song to be played on the air, it has to sound like a song
that can be played on the air and that means production quality
has to be impeccable. When you’re trying to run a commercial
radio station and you have bands like KoRn who spend two fuckin’
million dollars on an album, you can’t play a KoRn song
and then play a single by a local band that spent a hundred
dollars on recording. It’s going to sound horrible and
anyone that’s listening is going to change the station
and that’s what we’re trying to avoid so…be
good, spend money on production, that’s key and be proactive.
But, at the same time, don’t fuckin’ bug us! You
know I have bands that will call me every fuckin’ week,
three times a week…”Hey, Toby, we sent you that
disc out. Give me a call back. Give me your feedback.”
I get five local CDs a day. I don’t have time to listen
to every CD I get so get it to me and if I start to hear a
buzz about your band, I WILL listen to your CD. I WILL check
it out. We do have a local music category where we actually
play local bands and currently we’re playing dIRTy WoRMz…great
band…and Kissinger. We play Endochine and Fire Kills
and Active Radio. All those are phenomenal local bands.
R&R: And all of that has come about by these bands creating
a buzz?
TR: Yeah, I heard the buzz. I mean, go to an Endochine show
at 9PM over at Lucky Lounge. The place is fucking packed.
Their show is amazing. They sound great. Go to a dIRTy WoRMz
show, go to an Active Radio show…the shows are really
good and you’ll see a difference. But it’s (getting
local music played) difficult. It’s hard to get it on
because in the end, it’s commercial radio and all those
slots are worth something to a label. It’s worth money
to them.
R&R: The local bands have to remember that is who they
are competing against?
TR: Exactly. They have to look at it like…we have one
slot that we can play and Hoobastank wants an add and Godsmack
wants an add and A.F.I. wants an add and then there’s
this local band. Alright, well, if we do the Hoobastank, they’ll
set us up with some cool swag like CDs to give away and when
the band comes to town, we can do a ‘meet and greet’
with the band. Same with Godsmack, same with the other band.
Okay local band…what can you do? “Uh, we got some
T-shirts!” So we go with the ‘meet and greet’
because in the end we have to remember that we are selling
the radio station. We’re trying to be the best commercially.
All those slots are worth something.
R&R: How do major labels get their artists on radio? Does
it all depend on the incentives they can offer you?
 TR:
Well, we’re not going to play really bad music for any
kind of promotion.
R&R: You’re going to have to like the music, no
matter where it comes from?
TR: That’s not necessarily true either…there’s
a lot of politics involved.
R&R: Care to go into it?
TR: Like recently, we had a 101X show where we wanted Stained
to play. They were going to headline. So they say, “Okay,
the only way we’re going to play is if you also bring
this band that we’re helping out, Lo-Pro. We’re
like, “We don’t know who the hell Lo-Pro is.”
Keep in mind it turned out to be a really good band but if
we had said no (to playing their music), Stained wouldn’t
have played our show. “We want Stained to headline but
I guess now we’re going to have to add this fuckin’
Lo-Pro song and promote the show more by saying ‘Lo-pro
is this great band…come out and see them’ although
nobody really knows who the fuck they are.” That’s
an example of how labels kind of twist the knife a little
bit or “oh, you want a ‘meet and greet’
with deftones? Well, we have this new Maverick band and we’re
pushing the new single so a few spins a week will get you
that ‘meet and greet’!” So…you gotta
play the game.
R&R: Are radio stations or DJ’s given special perks
to entice them to play any given artist?
TR: Yeah, I mean, there’s no cash changing hands. Obviously
payola is illegal. It’s moderated and watched very closely.
It’s mostly about promotional things like that.
Because we want to do special things for our listeners and
we want to be a fun station to listen to. We want our listeners
to feel as much involved with the radio station as possible
and with the artist. If we have an artist in town, we want
our listeners to be able to have a chance to hang out with
them. It’s exciting when you meet someone that you love!
For our listeners, if shaking the hand of Sully from Godsmack
is going to make their day, we want to do that. We want to
give our listeners as much as possible.
R&R: Knowing all that you know now…what is the best
piece of advice you could give to aspiring artists in this
crazy pursuit of success in music?
TR: The best advice I could offer, and this is going to sound
cheesy but…be true to your art. Do what you believe.
Don’t try to be like someone else. Don’t try to
be the next A.F.I., don’t try to be the next Godsmack.
Be innovative, be creative but, at the same time, keep in
mind that the music industry is a multi-billion dollar a year
machine. And as soon as you say that you want to be in that
industry then you are part of that machine. Rage Against The
Machine bitched about the machine at the same time…THEY
WERE THE MACHINE. I don’t recall seeing Zack de la Rocha
giving up his millions of dollars and donating it to the ‘Free
Tibet Society’! At the end of the day, he really doesn’t
fuckin’ care. Remember this is a business and you have
to run it like a business. If you have differences within
the band, work it the fuck out. Most people go to work every
day and work with people they fuckin’ hate but you want
to get paid? Be professional!
You’ve got to be a shining star…you’ve got
to be a good person. If I go out and I meet different local
bands, it’s really easy for me to not play a song from
a local band whose members are assholes…really easy.
But it’s really hard for me not to play my friends’
band. Any local band that gets signed and they’re out
there hustling the radio world, I always tell the guys, “Man,
when you get out there and you’re meeting program directors
and music directors, shake their hands…be their friends.”
Because ultimately it’s going to come down to one day
they are going to be sitting in the music meeting and go,
“Alright, well, we’ve got this song and that song.
I’ve never met these guys, but these guys were here
last week, their show was really good, and they were really
fuckin’ nice guys.” You’ll be surprised
how much that really makes a difference.
Don’t be afraid to change things. (Imaginary artist
says) “Oh man, I feel like we sold out when wrote this
really hooky song.” (Toby’s response) That’s
fuckin’ commercial radio, my friend. You can get played
on college radio all fuckin’ day but who listens to
college radio? No one get mad at me because I said that. I’m
not knocking college radio…I’m just saying it’s
commercial for a reason…
R&R:
Because that’s what sells?
TR: That’s what sells!
Keep
reaching for the dream!
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