Interview With Rick Dees

MJ: Tell us about your job, what do you do?

RD: I haven't figured it out. I just have fun. Just get in and do a radio show for millions and millions of people everyday. It started back in about high school. Somebody sat behind me in history class and he did the announcements for our junior class play. And I copied his radio voice going "The Junior class presents….". And he said well if you think you can do it so well why don't you just go ahead and try it? Come on down to my radio station sometime. It was a country station in Greens borough North Carolina. And I went down and I tried out and low and behold they gave me the Sunday morning show. What I do is I play all the Sunday morning church religious tapes and then they let me do the pause in the station identification.

MJ: How many hours on Sunday?

RD: 6 hours every Sunday.

MJ: 6 hours?

RD: 6 hours. The Rick country kernel, Rick Dees. And I was a hick. I got a red neck hick with awful skin and really things haven't changed very much. It was fun and so I started back in the late 60's and went to the University of North Carolina and majored in radio, TV and motion pictures and it turned out to be a great way to make a living after awhile.

MJ: What does your family think about this?

RD: Well yeah know it is funny. I don't like to talk about my family a lot because they don't want anything to do with me either. It's funny, but I think that is a great question. Parents have to be supportive of their children and what they do and both my parents were very supportive. I remember first time on the air, I would give the time and my dad was listening. And so the clock was way up on the wall so here is the microphone. And so I would say "This is Rick Dees and the time is…" so it sounds like I was about 40 feet away every time I gave the time. He (dad) says "Son what happens to you when you give the time? Do you go into another room or something?" And I said "No what's wrong" because I do.. and the time now is… . So they are very supportive of what I do. My mum and my dad. It wasn't till about 3 or 4 years into broadcasting that the both of them made an attempt on my life because my show ended up being that bad. My show was so bad that both of my parents tired to kill me. The reason for my mum trying to kill me was I played, see she listened all the time, and after it got to a point where I played Madonna 1000 times she decided that she was going to kill me. With my dad, it was the Jackson 5 and it was Michael Jackson. No, they are great people.

MJ: Is your show heard in your hometown?
RD: You know, it is. And that is the greatest feeling that the Weekly Top 40, of course we have a local show in Los Angeles that has millions of listeners, but in North Carolina, my show the Weekly Top 40 runs on a station there. And it is my favorite affiliate because it's my hometown.

MJ: Explain it to me. You have a station here and then the it is shown in how many countries and how many states?
RD: Well, the show is in over 75 countries now worldwide, including Japan and it's a national countdown of the hits in America. And so we record it out of Hollywood and then we disseminate the show to all the different countries around the world. In some countries, they take English and then they retranslate what I am saying but the music is always the same. It is really the International language.

MJ: What makes a radio show interesting?
RD: Wow! I have been trying to figure that out for so long. If I could just make mine as interesting. What I try to do, and I will prove it to you, because I am not interesting enough, I will bring someone in with blonde hair. So I brought in a man with blonde hair and that didn't work. Then I brought in Ellen Kay and I said, Ellen what I want you to do, especially man in Japan loves it, man all over the world loves it, could you do this? I don't know if they are ready for it but we would like to show a woman with jeans that are ripped like this and on real tight like that. And we bought these for thousands and thousands of dollars and that is what makes a radio show successful. That's the secret. Is that the secret Ellen?
EK: And after all that investing of time and money, you still regret that decision every single day.
RD: No, she is great, fantastic. She is the greatest of all time.

MJ: What do you do on the show Ellen?
EK: I hang out with Rick and do the weather and the news…
RD: You see, people actually think we do the show like this, but this is how we really do the show.

Hi, I am Rick Dees

EK: And I am Ellen Kay
RD: I've got the hard hits
EK: And I've got the soft hits
RD: What do you know?
EK: Another day at the office.

MJ: And what does your wife think about this?
RD: What are you doing to me?

MJ: At least in L.A. for KIIS, who are your average listeners? When you're doing your show are you thinking of somebody out there?

RD: I think of different people throughout the show, for example, working people getting up really early in the morning. Some people get up as early as 4:30 to get to work by 8:30 in a city like Los Angeles, seriously, because there are 15 million people in the total area. So I think about different people--a working person getting up going to a construction site. I think about a lot of people in school listening to the show, young people. Our listeners are all different ages. We're on of those stations where we play different hits from different formats, and so we attract an audience of a lot of different ages, and that's been so special to me. And I do imagine different people, different friends listening and all. I don't really imagine a group of people. I imagine just one-on-one.

MJ: And how many listeners do you have on an average morning?
RD: Seven.

MJ: Seven?
RD: No, no. We say seven on the air, but actually every time we turn on this microphone, it's two million at a time, and that translates right now into money for the station.

MJ: And for you?
RD: Well, sure, sure. I'll be honest with you. I work as hard as I can to make 10 to 15 million dollars a year. Somebody's got to do it. I wish, I wish.

No More Breaking Songs

MJ: How has radio changed since you got started?
RD: It's funny, Mark, I was thinking about this. The people on radio used to be able to choose your own records. In fact, vinyl would come in, and these records would come into the radio stations to each person who has his or her show. And you listen to them and decide which ones you were going to play. And there was more of a feeling of breaking songs and breaking music. Now these CDs and other digital forms of music come in, and they go into a computer and then the program manager decides we're going to wait on that song, and we're going to hold off on that one, and we'll play that one, and after a while it's gotten to the point where it's so computerized I don't even know what the top fifty is because right now I'm playing only the top forty. I've only been trained in such a specialized field. All they let me do is count backwards from forty to one, say the time, say a few things to Ellen, and then we're about out of here. So what I like to do in my spare time is I love to listen to music, I love to try to figure out which songs might be a hit, which songs won't. I think that the world has become such a global superhighway, so to speak, that music has changed everywhere--Japan, Australia, England. Hits are coming out of there. For example, our biggest hit right now is Sukiyaki, which was the only number one hit on our show all in Japanese several years ago.

MJ: So in the old days you had more ability to pay what you want, to break new acts?
RD: Right. Back even as short a span as ten years ago, there was more of a feeling of "let's break this song, let's make this act a hit" and all. And now it's so computer-driven. All of the radio stations get together, and there's a certain group of the "good old boys", so to speak, and they decide we're going to pay this song over and over, and we're going to play that song over and over. People come up to me all the time and they say, "You know, you play the same ten songs over and over and over." That's not true. I play the same nine songs over and over and over.
There used to be more of a feeling of you can break songs, and now it's just not so. It's computer-driven industry.

Interesting Gifts

MJ: Do you have any interesting stories of gifts or vacations or few things that we given to you or were attempted to be given to you in order to play their song?
RD: Oh you know what, I can run down the list. A guy tried to give me a big screen TV one time just for playing a song and I have that in my home. Several times, people have tired if I would mix songs, give me cards and I've only accepted 2 or 3 of those. It's funny. I have been offered big screen TVs, I have been offered a car one time, and somebody was just going to pick up payments on a car for me. I have been offered trips around the world and what I don't understand is, I can't accept that but people from the US congress can accept gifts and lobbyists can take them around the world. I just don't get it. How is one right and the other is called payola? I don't know I think you ought to be able to buy off anybody.

Hanging Around

MJ: What advice would you give to aspiring young radio personalities?
RD: It's very simple. I think do what I did, which is hang around a radio station. Pick a radio station you love, and ask them if you can get into that radio station and just do anything. Watch them work, sweep, clean up, take tapes and put them away, and after a while you'll begin to develop a friendship with at least one or two of the people there. And they'll start teaching you now to edit tape, they'll teach you what happens to a CD, they'll teach you how they program their radio station, how to get on the microphone and turn it on, and just have fun and sound like this rather than, "Hey, I'm on the microphone now. Ha, ha, ha. I'm pretty stiff. When do I go off?" They'll teach you how to be natural and normal.

Influences

MJ: Growing up did you listen to any influential DJs--Casey Kasem--I don't know? What were your influences?
RD: Actually, it's funny. Casey Kasem really is a terrific talent. He started, believe it or not, back in 1740. In fact, the first song he played was called Plymouth Rock. No, no, no. I was influenced by, interestingly enough not by radio people so much, but I was influenced by Jackie Gleason, Jonathan Winters, Johnny Carson, and on radio I used to love a guy named Ted Brown who was in New York, and Dan Ingram who was at WABC in New York. And then when I got into radio I started listening in North Carolina to WLS out of Chicago because that was a radio station that had 50,000 watts. I mean in America 50,000 watts is, "We're on a clear channel, 50,000-watt radio station!" And so I listened to a guy named Chuck Buel and all of these people. There was a guy named Larry Lujacl who did the morning show and the afternoon show at WLS, and those are my idols. Then in California, Robert W. Morgan and Charlie Tuna, and in fact I interviewed Charlie's hair on my show about 2 weeks ago. I respect it, I respect his hair and what he has accomplished in this business. He is going to kill me if he sees this.

Disco Duck

MJ: You also had a career as a singer. You have a number one hit from 1978. Tell is about that.
RD: Oh, wow! Thank you very much. I was lucky enough back in the late '70s. I love to write music and try to perform it every once in a while. I had a song called Disco Duck, and it did great all over the world, sold four million copies. In fact I'm going to re-release Disco Duck for its twentieth anniversary coming up next year. I'm going to remix it and re-release it and hopefully discover a whole new generation of people who hate it as much as the first group hated it. And that's the Disco Duck, it's a medley of my hit. Then I had a couple of comedy albums. I was lucky enough to get nominated for a Grammy Award for a song, actually an album called Hurt Me Baby, Make Me Write Bad Checks. And now I've come out with a country comedy album by my alter ego, The Twisted Cowboy, and so that's coming out this year. And so that's fun. It's just one thing after another. We're even in development on a couple of projects. I'm writing a book next year called Whatever Happened to Me? multi-media.

MJ: What was Disco Duck about?
RD: Disco Duck was about a guy who loved to go to the discos and dance, but every time he would dance they thought he looked like a duck, and so he just started to develop this dance called the Disco Duck. And every time he did it, he'd start to talk like Donald Duck. And I thought it was just a stupid song that was lampooning and making fun of the disco craze, but BOOM!, it just caught on like that. And the beat is good, and it was done in Memphis, and we used all of the hot musicians from that era of the Memphis soul sound. And four million--can you believe that--who would be stupid enough to. . . . No, whoever got it, I love them.

MJ: When you made it, did you have any idea? Were you planning to release it?
RD: Oh, sure. I planned to release the song, and it's funny. When you're in the studio sometimes, I've never walked out of a studio with anybody who says, "That's a terrible song. It'll never do anything." Most people, when they record a song, give it their best shot, and everybody says that's a hit. It's fantastic. So we thought, "Well, that's a hit. That's fantastic!" I had no idea what it was like to take a song and try to make it go up the charts and get the independent promotion people, and get with a major record label. It was on Free Tone Records to start with, which I found out didn't really even exist. It was kind of a record company and everything. So we then took the master tape of Disco Duck to Robert Stigwood who was the manager and record company for the Bee Gees and several major artists, and he turned it over to a man named Al Corey who played it for his kids, and his kids decided whether it was going to be on their label or not, and both of his kids started jumping around saying, "That is something I'd like to hear again."
And so he bought the master of Disco Duck for $3,500. Can you imagine? What an investment--$3,500--and then gave me. . . I think as it all came down, I got a penny a record. So I got $3,500 and a penny a record, so four million copies at a penny a record, I got $40,000 plus the $3,500. And I had to pay my agent, so I made about $41,000. But it was a new car.

MJ: Did you make you help make the "Saturday Night Fever?"
RD: Yeah oh yeah, Saturday Night Fever, and that is a great story

TV Shows

MJ: Now, on to your TV show. Tell us about your work in TV over the years.
RD: Well, I started out by hosting Solid Gold, which was the show where you just watched the dancers and wondered who hosted it. There I was, so it was like, "Those are the Solid Gold dancers, number five last week, number four this week. Here are some more naked dancers. Cleavage? Nice thin legs, muscular rear end." So I did that for a year and a half, and then I did several. . . I did a feature film or two. I did a show called Double Platinum. I remember that was a pilot I did that worked out okay, then commercials, and finally I landed with my own show on ABC called Into the Night, and it was so much fun. It was on opposite Johnny Carson last year so it was quite competitive. And then the gulf war, you know that huge thing which Saddam Hussein started at about the same time, so I got relegated to being on at about 2:00 in the morning. So the show still did very well. I just didn't want to be on it 2:00 in the morning and then get up and do the radio show everyday, so I made a conscious decision just to go ahead and I stopped doing the show, and I'm going to go back and doing a show sometime, but right now I'm just looking at different projects.

Increasing Hispanic Population

MJ: I understand you have an increasing Hispanic population. Have you done anything consciously to bring in that audience?
RD: I have. The first thing I do to change my name from Rick Dees to Ricardo Diaz. … And so many people knows that I have a little Hispanic blood in me so I take that and say that my family was from Guanda Lohala (SIC) and I milk it all the way. So I am definitely part of the Hispanic population, that is what I say and that is the way I feel and with so many people here from different regions of South America and Central America and Mexico, it really works to my advantage and I also have found that there is a common bond, the Hispanic population by and large often likes a sense of rhythm, a beat.

MJ: You do have some stiff competition from the Hispanic stations. How are the ratings these days?
RD: It's hard to compete with people who are actually speaking Spanish. I mean, what are you going to do? I've done everything I can. I mean, I don't know what to do, but luckily I'm going to let that take care of itself because it is a great radio station. They play Rancheros Banda music (SIC). I'm just going to let that take care of itself. I think other Hispanic Mexican feeling stations are going to come on. In fact, one other one already has and they are diluting the ratings of that station and I think you can see those stations fight it out. Hopefully I can come around them. We are already the number 1 station as far as the number of listeners but let the fight begin.

Golf Insights

MJ: Now we couldn't have an interview without asking about golf.
RD: Oh thank you. I love golf in fact I love it so much, I paid a professional golfer named Marco Mira who has won so many tournaments all around the world. He has won many in Japan. I paid Marco Mira to let me caddie for him at Augusta National at the Masters. And the feeling! I put on this little outfit and they let me go back where the caddies assemble, let me have a pork chop sandwich. Then I went out there on that beautiful golf course and I walked the course and his bag weighs about 100 pounds so I got a double hernia. No, I did not but I felt like I was man I am telling yeah, when you go up and down those hills. The pinnacle of golf for me was being able to caddie for Marco Mira. I love to play gold. My handicap is about a seven. I've taken divots so deep with my golf club that seriously I can hear Japanese voices coming out from the other side. That's how bad I get sometimes. I just love it. It's a game, it's a discipline, it's a feeling, it's a chance to communicate with people, it's a chance to go out. If I were to play with you, I can tell you everything about how you would be in business, too. I could tell you how you would be as a friend and just be a person's mannerisms and the way they play golf, you can tell so much about them.

MJ: What can you tell? For instance, by doing what can you tell?
RD: I'll give you an example. If you hit the ball and then you say," Ah, I am going to throw down another one,", and we're playing a game, I know that in business I better watch out for you. If you hit the ball and it's a terrible shot and you just go walking down the fairway and don't let anybody else hit, then you're rude. And I can tell you'll be that way in business. If you hit the ball and you scream and yell and throw your golf club, I don't want to be married to you. I can tell you that. And you can tell a tremendous amount about a person just watching her or him play golf. I've been in business situations where I'd say, "You know what? To consummate the deal, let's go out on the golf course and I'll pay for eighteen holes." And it's fascinating. I do love the Japanese philosophy about golf, too, because it's an event. It's something that you do that takes most of the day, and everybody goes over and enjoys each person's shot. Each person's golf shot is a very important thing and a very important event, and I love to see people enjoy it that much. It's a wonderful experience. I haven't played any of the Japanese golf courses yet and I want to play some but I understand that it cost so much that I'd have to do that too long. Is it something like a thousand dollars around or something? Wow!

MJ: How often do you play?
RD: I only play golf once a day. I used to play almost everyday, now I play maybe once or twice a week and it just takes a long time. I am very involved with a lot to do with my career right now and developing several different shows. I love to be on the air as you can tell. I just love what I do and golf to me is something that is like a reward for the hard work that I do and I haven't finished the work yet.

L.A. Energy

MJ: What do you like about Los Angeles?
RD: Nothing. What I love about Los Angeles, so many people say that in Hollywood underneath all of this tinsel is more tinsel, but what I do love about it is there's an energy, there's a creativity, there's a way to be in Los Angeles that you can't be anywhere else in the world. And so many different things are okay to do as far as creativity in Los Angeles. It's also a great place where you can go around and see very famous people just in the supermarket. It's a place where cars from 1963 are still on the freeway because it hardly rains, there is very little salt unless you are down by the ocean, so they just don't wear out and it's fascinating to see cars that, in other places in the world are chips of paint now, are still running. It's a place where there are so many people and if I were single here right now, some of the most beautiful beautiful women in the world. If I were gay right now, some of the most beautiful men in the world. If I were medicated right now, I wouldn't have said what I just said. But with so many people, it is very competitive. And it gives you a feeling of, if I make it here I've made it.

Jokes on Celebrities

MJ: One of the staples of your show is that you like to make fun of people, musicians, actors, anybody. Have you ever heard back from any of those people who were upset with you?
RD: I remember one time I said that we had discovered on Dees Sleaze, which is a little part of our show, that Rod Stewart was on his 125 foot yacht with a bevy of little beauties and it had got a little bit out of hand and that he had one girl on a string bikini and he was riding her on his shoulders and she was turned the wrong way. And he was listening at that time, so number 1, I was told he has a boat. He called and said that Dees, I don't have a boat. Second, Rachel my wife was listening, Rachel Hunter, the very famous model, and you just about ruined our marriage plan. Number 3, I am going to kill you. And so I reported that about Rod Stewart. In fact, the source I had was impeccable, which I don't use anymore. The second person I said that Elton John walked of the stage in a huff in one of his concerts. He was listening. Elton John called and said no no no, that was not the case at all. My organ blew up and I walked off the stage after it blew up, I thought it was going to catch on fire and wreck my hand. Political people, interesting, they don't call because they want you to know that if you run for President or Vice-President. I got on the air and I was talking that Al Gore, the Vice President of the US is so boring that the secret service code name for his is Al Gore. And he was listening at that time but they can't ever call because they are open game for everybody. I'm very lucky though, very few people call. It's not a mean spirited show, it is just a show that has fun, it's a show that lets people know that there is a joke or two they can hear and good music.

MJ: Somebody wrote about you that you are irreverent but not offensive. How do you keep that line? Lock that line?
RD: It's a constant effort. Sometimes I mean, I will go over the line, sometimes I don't mean to but it just happens. It's the way this business is. I love to satirical and irreverent. I think that my guidelines are I don't talk about body functions. People will laugh nervously about … but body functions aren't very funny because we all know what they are. However what the bodies do when they get together is intriguing is interesting is sexy is something that I think about a lot and I know other people do and I put it on the air. But the body functions I don't. Stay away from drugs joke that are very easy to do and we just go over the material most of the time before we go on the air and say, will this hurt somebody so much that we shouldn't have said. And a lot of the times it will and then we don't.

Baking

MJ: And last but not least, the most important question. Tell us about... I've heard that you have a hobby of baking. Tell us about that.
RD: Oh wow! I love to bake. And my motto is if it doesn't have at least a pound of butter in it, don't even bother to bake it. Most of the things I bake are deserts. I love to bake pies, cakes. I invented this past week a pomegranate meringue pie. Don't laugh until you taste it. It tasted great. One of my favorite cakes in the world is out of Orlando, Florida, and it's not my recipe but I love to bake it. It's called the "red velvet cake." Wow! Then in the summer, I put together for my staff, some of the biggest people in the world, a Peach Cobbler from the Deep South. And you just take it rather than eat it, you just apply it directly to your side and it's that creeping around to your rear end. That is the way you feel after awhile. I love it.

Family Participation

MJ: Tell us about your family.
RD: I don't like them that much. It's funny, I met my wife Julie, in Hollywood at Disco Duck and she was doing a show called Whacko for the kids on Saturday morning. And I saw this girl doing all these voices, and I said, "You know, it would be kind of good to go out with her because if she ended up liking me I wouldn't have to pay to have all these voices on my show." I mean she could do anybody. I can call and she can be Barbara Streisand or Cher or Michael Jackson or whoever. So I started calling, and that's who she was, and she didn't charge me. We ended up dating and got married. A month after we were married, she said that we were going to have a child, and that's when I left. We had a little boy named Kevin. He's now fifteen, going on fifty. All he thinks about is women. Wonder where he got that?

MJ: What does he think about your job?
RD: He loves it. You know in fact, Kevin comes in and works here in the summer on the Weekly Top 40 Countdown on the show its KIIS in Los Angeles. This summer he is going to drive our Hummer, the Hum Bee, the Turban Assault Vehicle, is what we call it, and we have a sign on the back that says Driver carries less than 2 million dollars in cash. He loves it when he goes out and hands out CD's and albums. We've got these panties we hand out that the women call Dees Sleaze panties. We love to go out and hand out panties and you know I do offer free installation.

MJ: Well, what did you think of Rick Dees of Radio Station KIIS here in Los Angeles and also host of the worldwide Weekly Top 40? You know, every day millions of Americans and millions of people around world listen to Rick Dees. You know, I knew he was crazy from hearing him on the radio, but he's even crazier in real life. But also seems to be a nice guy.

Until next time, I'm Mark Joseph. We'll see you then.

Tour of the Studio

RD: Hi! Rick Dees here. And I thought what I'd do is give you a little tour of KIIS fm 102.7. I know you've probably been hearing it for a long time and you think well, what does it look like? Where do this people work? How do they do it? I will show you right now. I will give you a tour of 102.7 KIIS fm.

This is the program manager. He puts all of the music on the station. He puts the mix together that has made this music station the most listened to all over the world.

You know when you see advertisements for this radio station, 102.7 plug-in and all that. Let me show you the brain, which they come. Look, Karen Sullivan. Karen, what do you do for KISS. You are in-charged of marketing but there is more to that.

KS: I don't do windows.

RD: She doesn't do windows, but when you see anything about KIIS, you see plug-ins, you see millions of dollars everything, she is the one who does it. Now, I would like you to meet our co-host for the morning show, Ellen Kay. Ellen, say hi to some people who are very interested in you.

EK: Hello, nice to meet you…

RD: So what do you do Ellen?

EK: I work with you every morning, hang out with Rick. We have a lot of fun picking up phone calls in there, giving away money, lots of money, tickets to concerts. Keep LA abreast of what is happening.

RD: Yeah, but you see, anybody can do this. We want to show you in the trenches where we work and how it actually works and gets put together.

Karen is a genius by the way. How long have you been making KIIS number 1 Karen?

KS: I've been here 7 years

RD: Wow!

Come on down, I will show you the sales manager. This guy is the one who really puts the stuff together. This is our sales manager. The guy who puts it altogether as far as money, Charlie Riley.

CR: Who are we talking to Rick?

RD: Charlie, well they are 7 viewers now they listen to KIIS all the time and they want to know what goes on. I thought just briefly in 30 seconds what do you do?

CR: Well, there are a whole lot more than 7 listeners we hope. And we go out and we market those 7 people which is really about 2 million people to advertisers and consumer products here in Los Angeles. And that is the way we derive our living here.

RD: Well why would I choose radio over all the other Media? What is it about 102.7 KIIS fm if I have a product. If I am selling widgets, why do I want to have my widgets on your radio station?

CR: In Southern California, there is probably not a more effective way to reach the mobile population that we have. The people that listen to KIIS are very hyper consumptions, young families. These people have a far more than average disposition in buying tons of products. And if have a family and you are a 38-year old man and your wife is 35 years old, and you have a son that is 5 and a daughter that is 3, your purchases and your propensity to buy goods is going to be a lot higher than the average person out there.

RD: Thanks Charlie. By the way, how much money is spent in Southern California in radio advertising?

CR: About 460 million dollars each year.

RD: I love this guy.

Look, before you see him, is this a radio executive or what? Meet Mr. Roy Laughlin, we call him Mr. Hair. He is the managing general partner of 102.7 KIIS fm.

Hair: Well I got to tell you that there is no one that know this business better than this guy. What I have done perfectly I have to take pride in this, I have gotten right behind him and just followed him straight to the reaches of radio.

RD: You know what though, we just talked about almost half a billion dollars worth of advertising for radio in Los Angeles. How do we get a piece of that?

Hair: The way we get a piece of that is we go out and we talk to clients about what they need. And then we sit down with the client and find out his particular need and then we figure out how we can develop a creative way to fill that need. And most of the time it entails Rick Dees' input on how we can put a creative spin on something that will be otherwise boring to the consumer. So it is a way to fix up things.

RD: Sales people! Sales people! Can you believe them? Can you believe them? That is why I want to take you to show you where the real action is. I love them but they are sales people. Mr. Hair, I love him he signs my checks.

This is the control room where they do the broadcasting. I want to warn you in advance. This is the world largest living mammal. He is a great guy, super personality on the radio, a legend in his own shower, Mr. Bruce Vidal. Are you ready?

Bruce Vidal, let's give it up for Bruce Vidal and his producer Amy. She is a beautiful lady. Tell them a little bit about what you do. Can you actually turn the volume up and show him what we are doing?

BV: Alright, this is a control room. This song by Blondie, Heart of Glass, is the one that is going out over the air here at Southern California right now.

RD: Well, what happens next?

BV: Well, next we are going to talk a little bit about Rick's KISSmas' party that is coming up and tell people they get a chance to win some invitations.

RD: This is called the console, the board. You may have seen these in recording studios but this being run for us. This is the microphone. Show them everything. What does everything do?

BV: This is what they called cart machines we use to play the songs. This is the sound of a whip. Every time you hit this button, you hear the sound of the whip.

RD: Bruce, how long have you been doing this?

BV: About 24 years or so. Here at KIIS working with Rick for 12

RD: And then there was of course you started in Minnesota is that right?

BV: Yeah, I was in Minnesota, it was in the mid-west and I worked my way up here.

RD: And we have both now scratched and clawed our way to the middle. Isn't that great?

So this is the FM control room and of course we have got a computer set up over here. The calls come in and it tells you what line. You can see how many people call the radio station. Isn't that terrific?

Ellen, let's show them the Weekly Top 40 area. This is where we put together the International show, the weekly top 40. Let me show you the engineering supreme, Mr. Paul Levaskin.

PL: How are you doing? Please do meet you.

RD: How long does it take and what do you do?

PL: It takes a week to do the whole show. Counting pre production and production and all that. We will write the script first, then we track Rick's voice, we edit it and we mix all of it together and put it out.

RD: Are you doing that now? Are you putting the music and everything? Show me just a little something you do. Watch, this is the fastest pair of hands. Fastest hands in all of the world.

Come on back, I will show you our studio here. That's basically what goes on in a radio studio. We take the CD's that you buy at a store. We take the CDs and we transfer them to cartridges like this and we put them on a tape like this and then it makes it easier for the person on the air to go ahead and hit one button and everything is taken care off. goes on the air. Let me show you what I am talking about. For example, when you put that in your machine… and you are rocking. Easiest job in the world, and the main thing I want to say is that it is just a pleasure to have anybody listen, anybody watch what we do. If you ever want to come down and bond personally I would love to meet you. And Ellen, if you don't mind come on around here. This is the backbone of our morning show, early in the morning, Ellen Kay.

EK: Come and see us.

RD: See you soon and God Bless.