RR MAIN MENU


road to rock stardom

(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!

BACK TO MAIN MENU

Copyright © 2004 rank and revue All rights reserved.
designed by
groovee fortune