Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Roz Weston: Toronto Mike'd #120

Episode Date: April 27, 2015

Mike chats with Roz Weston about his internship at The Howard Stern Show, his gig at ET Canada, his Kiss 92.5 morning show with Mocha and much, much more.

Welcome to episode 120 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything, often with a distinctly Toronto flavour. I'm Mike from torontomic.com and joining me this week is ET Canada reporter and KISS 92.5 morning show host, Roz Weston. How are you? Hey, welcome Roz. Very good to be here. It's really great down here. I dig you? Hey, welcome Roz. Very good to be here. It's really great down here. I dig this. This didn't exist years ago, this kind of thing, the ability to do this.

And I'm fascinated by it. I love how easy it is. I love that you can just come down here and you got a show. I grew up like a dual cassette deck dubbing crap. Absolutely. I had high speed dubbing, baby. And yeah, I used to make my own, like do my own DJ stuff around like tunes. like a dual cassette deck dubbing crap. Absolutely. I had high-speed dubbing, baby. Yeah. And, yeah, I used to make my own, like,

do my own DJ stuff around, like, tunes I'd record from, like, CFTR 680. Yeah. This is, yeah, we didn't see this coming, did we? No, and, you know, what you have on a Mac, I used to play music a little bit when I was younger, and I never liked playing live. I did it just in extreme stage fright, but I always loved recording.

And now with GarageBand alone, you have the equivalent of back in the day what would have cost you $100,000. If you wanted to build the studio that is in GarageBand, you would have needed $100,000. You're right. The grand total of everything before you, excluding the Mac, is $1,600.

That's where you go. These are like kick-ass microphones. No, it is. And I applaud you for doing this because I think that everything can sort of coexist in the same world. That's awesome to hear, man. So you've actually listened to some episodes. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I listened to you had Danny Stover in.

Yeah, that's the last episode. No, two episodes ago. Two episodes ago. I heard that one just because I really only just found out about her because I have a weekend place out by Peterborough. And I love medium to small town Canadian rock stations. I just do. The dog stations. Especially on the weekends because they just play a ton of music.

And I didn't have satellite out there. I don't have anything else out there. I'm a CD player out there. And it's a station called The Wolf, I believe. That's it. Yeah, absolutely. And when guys call in, they make them howl like a wolf. Their listeners love us. I think April Wine is still on The Wolf's top 20. Yeah, I'm sure it is.

Hey, I'm playing a tune. Do you recognize this tune? Oh, yeah. You mentioned this tune. Yeah, so this is actually 120. So we're episode 120. Oh, amazing. And this is customs 120 from Fast. That's so funny. That's funny. I know. It's just worked out that way. I want to say I planned it, but that's a lie.

Okay. So just, and I know I gave you a heads up on this, but you first came to my attention, like, I'm going to say, what is this, 2015? I'm going to say 11 years ago. 11 years ago. 11 years ago. I think so. Because for a period in the mid-2000s, I was the webmaster for Custom's official website. Is that how it was? Yeah. That's amazing.

It is amazing because Custom only has one. He's got an album called Fast from 2002, which had one radio hit called Hey Mister. Hey Mister, yeah. And the other one was a hit too. I shouldn't say a hit. It wasn't a hit. It was,

this one was the song that I liked. Yeah, this might be the best cut on the album, this one. It's great. So the funny thing is,

one day Custom and I, we would talk all the time. Was this called Beat Me? Beat Me, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he wrote me and he goes, Mike,

do you know a reporter named Roz Weston? And I'm like, I actually knew who you were from the Toronto One stuff. And I'm like, yeah. And he goes, okay, just curious. He's like a big custom fan. And I was like, okay. So I had this mental note that 11 years ago you were a big custom fan.

Well, I'll tell you. When social media started and really the first interaction that any of us had with it was MySpace. And I remember the first time I was there because MySpace was very heavily music-based, and then sort of tried to change it into that again, and it just failed. But MySpace, it was a great place for bands, and it was the first time that I had realized in my life that you could just as a fan write somebody a message that you were a fan of and you didn't have to find out who their agency was

and send it to someplace in Los Angeles and then hope to get a reply. You could actually just sit there and write something and send it. And sometimes it would take three hours even, five minutes even, to get a message back. And I remember being, this is something special. And it wasn't necessarily MySpace, but we were going in the right direction where you then had that cutting out the middleman yeah it was and it was really cool it was really because i often wondered you know whether you know the artists themselves wanted

that you know and you know so now because i we get a ton of fan letters and we get a you know ton of tweets and everything else and you realize that you know on this end of it i do love that i if i didn't have the ability to write back to somebody or to to you know say hey thank you for this or look out for this i i would be missing a huge part of what it is to be in this business no absolutely i mean i it's my bread and butter i love it i freaking love it hey another quick another one more quick story one more quick story and then we'll get i want to talk to you about your career but uh my son's first ever hockey game was in the box seat and it was tickets from coca-cola okay okay so uh it was the first game ever when i took him to because

coke comped me a couple of boxes or whatever you were there was i i didn't even go up and say hi you know it's like i don't want to bug people like in public but you were like in the box we probably had a bunch of uh audience there that we gave away or whatever it was and uh i like that stuff i mean I don't particularly like going to hockey games. I much prefer to watch hockey games at home. But those nights, I usually don't watch a hockey game anyway. Those nights you're there with people who have won tickets and you're hanging out and just having a good time. And so that sort of atmosphere I love. You should have come and said hi. I'm always weird when somebody looks at you, somebody stares at you

or you catch somebody looking at you. and I never, I'm like, you start to feel like somebody in a, you don't want to make the first move, because I don't know if somebody's looking at me because they want to say hi, or I don't know if somebody's looking at me because they hate me. Right. So I'm certainly never going to make the first move

when, you know, in those situations. No, and I don't stare. If I'm going to stare, I'm going to say hi. It was a discreet, oh, there's Roz Weston. But we didn't, you know.

But oftentimes if somebody has a kid or, you know, it's rarely the, you know, rarely the 40-year-old guy will stare you down. If he does, I will never go near him. I will never go near him in a million years. That's a creepy guy, right? If he has a girlfriend or if he has a kid, I'll always, you know, I'll always say something. See, I had a kid that covered my ass. Yeah. And, you know, I want to get into the radio, but my wife actually listens to, I don't have a commute, so I don't hear a lot of morning radio.

But my wife hears Roz and Mocha in the mornings. And today I got a message from her because she knew you were coming over. And she's like, and I don't even want to, I don't even, this is how seriously I take this. I don't even want to name the show. But we're recording on a Friday at like lunchtime. Yeah. So Thursday night, a show aired, a popular drama. And there was a major plot point.

Something significant happened. Yeah, they killed McDreamy. Hey! A story like this... I give spoiler alerts all the time. Mainly for things... If a movie is doing too well, or getting too much critical acclaim,

and I don't like the movie, I will spoil the movie on the radio. I do that all the time. That's selfish, though. George Clooney dies at the end of Gravity. You know, I don't... I think it's the beginning of Gravity. I think... My thing was something like that. If something is big and monumental,

I think saying spoiler alert the following day after a huge television event like that would be the equivalent of saying spoiler alert given the election results the next day. No, no, no. Okay, let me just throw my two cents at you. You owe it to yourself to figure that out. Okay, in this day and age, let's face it.

Let's say there's a show that airs, let's say 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock, okay? Sure, or in this case, seven. Or in this case, seven and eight, okay? Okay, well, let's say Mad Men's coming up. So Mad Men airs at 10 p.m. on Sundays, and they have a finale coming. Let's pretend Don Draper commits suicide.

This is major. Let's say there's a lot of people out there who have to go to bed for work or whatnot, and they PVR this thing, or they DVR, or they watch it the next night. All those people, they tune in to their morning Roz and Mocha show for their drive to work, and they hear you say,

Don Draper jumped out a window and killed himself. To me, uncool, man. I think you have to wait some time. I'll tell you why. We have this conversation all the time at PDT Canada, whether to say something or not, and it always comes down to this. We do the news. We report

on the biggest stories in show business, and the audience are the people who want to have that dialogue. Same thing on the radio show. I don't do a show for the people that PVR'd Mad Men. I do a show for the people that watched Don Draper kill himself and want to talk about it. That's the people that we do the show for. Okay. It's an interesting debate, but you're...

If you're in the business, you have to report on the biggest stories. You can't pick and choose what the biggest stories are. If that's the biggest story in show business, that's what, though, than election results. That's what you do. It's different than sports scores. It's not different than an election. For some people, believe me, for some people, they care more about Grey's Anatomy than they do about an election.

I know, but think of all the people who care about Grey's Anatomy and we're going to watch it tonight and now know that, which I don't even want to repeat it because I'm hoping I trampled it. I'm trying not to talk over my guests as much, but that was an example where I did it intentionally.

We'll leave that. We have a different... They killed him. It was sad. It was a beautiful episode. You're lucky I don't care about that show. Exactly. I think it's worth talking about. That was a beautiful, well-written episode, and we've all been tortured by something like that before. We have a significant difference of opinion on spoilers.

Hey, I love Howard Stern. I listen to him all the time. You actually interned for Howard Stern. I did, yeah. Tell me how you got that. I was in Humber and it was the first year and I started getting, I don't want to say dismayed is the right word, but I was starting to question whether I actually wanted to do radio or not. Because I never wanted to be on air. That was my thing. I only ever wanted to write and produce. It didn't matter what it was doing. I really wanted to get into news. And at that time, it was right before Howard sort of became International Howard. It was before the movie. It was before the book. Before the private parts book.

Yeah. Hold on here. No, the book had just come out. The book had just come out, and it was before the movie. And I was in first year in humber and after it was a two-year program at that time and after second year you had to do your internship and i remember i was sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and i'm like god i don't even know what i want to do i don't want to do this and she's like well what do you want to do i'm like i'd love to go and you know live in new york and work on the howard stern show so she goes well let's write a letter so we i wrote a letter put it in the mail right sent it to Madison Avenue in New York City. And a couple of weeks later, I got a call.

And it blew my mind. But the problem was they wanted me that year to go down. And it was a longer internship than normal. And Humber didn't give credits until after second year. So I went to the school and I said, listen, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's never going to happen again. And I'm afraid that after second year, this opportunity isn to the school and I said, listen, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's never going to happen again and I'm afraid that after second year this opportunity

isn't going to be there for me. So here's what I'm going to do. Let me do this now. Let me do this this year and then I'll go and do it. I'll come back. I'll finish second year. You wait until second year

to give me the credit for it. They said, okay. So I wound up taking all the money that I had saved for second year school, spending it in New York with zero intention of going back to Humber

for second year. Right. But still being able to do the, still being able to do the internship and then that's how I went up in New York. zero intention of going back to Humber for second year. But still being able to do the internship. And then that's how I went up in New York. That's like, to me, if you had to intern at a radio gig, that is the dream. Yeah. That's the top of the food chain. It is.

And it was very eye-opening for that purpose alone. You know, you wonder what that atmosphere is like and you wonder how professional it is or you wonder what the guys are actually like. It's a huge staff. I mean, it's a massive... Who is the call from? It's not from Stettering John or anything. No, it was a woman named Kathy Tobin who ran the office at the time. She was under... It's weird because

to think in terms of the Howard Stern show as a regular radio station, you can't do it because it's not like there's a program director who they report to. It's its own show within the radio station. They have their own production company within the radio station. And so they have

their own staff, which even at the time was a small staff and it was about 20 people. And it's syndicated, right? So it's all over. This is before, of course, because it's before the movie. I know it's before Q107 actually. It wasn't even in Canada. You never really heard the movie. I know it's before Q107, actually. Yeah, it was before Q. You never really heard it here.

I used to see a couple interviews. Maybe David Letterman. Yeah, and they would syndicate Howard on a station out of Buffalo. I think it was called WKBW or something like that out of Buffalo, and they would put it on in the mornings, and you could get it on AM if you were really high up in the top of the building

and lived in at the time. You know what's funny? You mentioned that. I used to listen to Howard Stern on Buffalo Radio, and I'm trying to remember. It was an FM station, though. Was it? Yeah. I'm trying to remember. And I remember even when Q got it, I still tuned it in from Buffalo because Q would do a lot of censoring. They had different standards here.

So a lot of stuff got killed because, I don't know, they were making fun of the French or whatever the hell they were doing. Yeah, that's true. But you could hear it on the Buffalo, and it was just a better. It was a much better show. Yes, a much better show. Yeah, it was a much better show. But no, that show was, it taught me everything at that time that I needed to know about professionalism. And, you know, because when you're there, it's very much an office.

You know, it's a fun office, but it's very much an office, and it's not this crazy, insane, you know, atmosphere. They get a lot of work done, and there's a ton at stake. Sure. And you worked your ass off on that show. But did you get any airtime? I went in, here's what happened, is I went in, when you do an internship on that show, they split it, so you get a couple days in the office,

couple mornings a week, and then other stuff, archiving. And I really loved the archiving, because the job was to just sit there and listen to every show. Beautiful. On cassette tape, and write down, minute by minute what is said you're basically transcribing the whole show and that's all that's all you're doing and they were like five years back so you're going back into the archives and and and archiving and by the way i totally signed an nda so i am probably talking about all this um you haven't revealed anything juicy enough to get sued over. And there really isn't.

And I'll tell you that when I went in, they were fascinated with the fact that a Canadian guy wanted to be an intern. They were really fascinated with it. Howard had somebody else come and talk to me if I'd be willing to go on the radio and talk about all this stuff. And I was like, yeah, absolutely, for sure. I was terrified, and I never wanted to be on the radio. But I went in. If you're a fan of The Howard Stern Show, I went in at the same time that Gay Rich went in. And as soon as they found out Rich was gay, they had never had a gay intern before. And then Gay Rich became the star and did no work and he became a personality on the show for years.

So I went in at that time. So I'm like, ah, you know, kind of suck. But that was just that. And I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I didn't because I didn't want, at that time, I wasn't ready to be. I didn't have the confidence to be on air. And my aspirations were not to be on air. I more wanted to learn from the producers. But did you have regular interactions with guys we'd know, like Stuttering John? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Gary was, I started to run out of money. Oh, yeah, so Bubble Booey. I started to run out of money. And his solution was, he's like, well, I can have you move office furniture with Mexicans on the weekend. If you wanted to do that. The way they wrote Bubba Booey was just classic. The way he spoke and the teeth thing and all the caricatures.

It's a very deep, deep show. It is a very deep show. And everybody knows exactly what they're doing. It's crazy. And he had great success. And yeah a very deep show. And everybody knows exactly what they're doing. It's crazy. And he had great success. Yeah, you'd think. Awesome. And you come back to Toronto after this? I did. I came back. Before I moved to

New York, I was doing weekend board hopping at Q107 in high school during my last couple of years in high school with a woman named Sid Vandenberg, who used to do weekend evenings kind of of thing and so i did that during my last year high school and then it just so happened that every person once you were sort of in that howard stern world everybody just wanted to talk to you about howard of course that's all i want to do every every job interview i ever had i would get the interview because people just wanted to hear stories of

howard stern which was really which was quite amazing and then uh i i wanted to hear stories of Howard Stern, which was quite amazing. And then I wanted to write and I wanted to produce, and I started working with Paul Cook, who does mornings on 680 News, and he really gave me my first shot. We became friends. We were doing freelance work together. I was doing audio production, and he was the voice of it. And he had a producer at the time when FM still had to do talk.

There was a show on CHFI called Chronicle, which Arlene Bynum hosted. And they were building a national version of that show, which was going to be Arlene Bynum and Dick Smythe. Right. I remember Dick from the 680 days. Jesus. And then Paul's producer was leaving. He was going to go run the Mike Harris campaign. He was going to go do media relations for Mike Harris. And then so they hired me for $19,000 a year to go and chase, produce, and do research and write for this radio show.

And that was that. And then that show then became a television show. Paul went off to do 680 News. I stayed with Arlene. And the Dick Smythe show ended, which was one of the most glorious moments of my life. Is that right? I loved doing that show. It was so – we used to torture them.

It was so great. They would just fight. It was like an old. It was like network. It was like any sort of movie that you could think in that atmosphere, just over the top. Dick's an old school guy, right? He's like classic. I loved the guy. Every day he would come in, he'd have a new Band-Aid on a new part of his body.

It was really nuts. Yeah, it was really crazy. But it was a great learning ground. And they were tough, man. Both Paul and Arlene were viciously tough. And there was no room for error with And they were tough, man. Like both Paul and Arlene were viciously tough. And if you, there was no room for error with either of them at that time. Like no room for error.

You had to be insanely sharp and on all the time. But they were such a wealth of knowledge, the two of them, to learn from. That's really what led me on the path to start writing and producing. Now, speaking of the work you did with Arlene Bein, and I have a note from... So my friend's wife was known as Carrie Overholster

at the time. Okay, yeah. So whether you remember or not, pretend you remember. Okay, yeah. No, I'm just trying to think of where in that sort of world that it happened. I remember Carrie, I just don't know what the period was. Yeah, Carrie Overholster, she says she worked with you

at CHFI when you were working with Arlene Bynum. And she says hello. Hello. Yeah. No, because I was doing two jobs at the time, right? I was doing, we did the radio show on CHFI and then we'd go up into the TV show for Global. So it's, P, there's like in my head, it's just this massive crossover.

Dina from Breakfast Television was in the tape library. Oh, yeah. Right. She was one of the producers on the show after a while. She's done all right, too. She's done all right, too. So Arlene, content-wise, fine. But I actually always struggled with her delivery.

Did you really? Yeah. A lot of people did. I felt it too slow. Yeah. Like Barbara Hall, our former mayor. A lot of people did. But I think that when it comes to delivery, I think middle of the road is a killer.

I think that you have to be a little bit polarizing in the way that you deliver content. And she's nailed that. regardless of who she's interviewing. She could be talking to, you know, somebody who just had a baby or she could be talking to somebody who's confessing to a murder. She will speak to them the exact same way. She's so consistent in her polarization. Okay. Fair enough. People that listen to the show. Yeah. I noticed her. Yeah, exactly. But that's, you know, how many other people do you know? Yeah. there's a lot of vanilla out there. There's a lot, yeah, that you don't even notice. So we mentioned right off the top that I knew you were at Toronto One.

So we got to remind listeners. Okay, so because Toronto One came and went pretty quick here. So it was supposed to be the new City TV. Right. It was the first free-to-air license they had given out in the city of Toronto since City TV. It never happens. It was the first free-to-air license they had given out in the city of Toronto since City TV. It never happens. And I remember it on my cable box anyways.

It was like channel 15. Channel 15, right. Yeah, you didn't even need cable for it. No. That's how great the station was. That's pretty great. It was one of those. So tell me how you got involved with Toronto One, and we'll talk about some of the cool stuff you did there.

Yeah. And then what happened at Toronto One. I was, where was I? I was, Jesus. you did there yeah and then what happened to jona was where was i i was jesus i was at um uh i was i was ready to leave uh doing the mad dog and billy show when they moved them over to chfi oh yeah you were doing so you were with them at was that a kiss or a kiss and then we moved to chfi okay yeah i had lost my job in in when i was still at globe when we were doing arlene's show within like i was on the top of the world i I was making more money than I ever had, which was really not that much. But at the time, I was a young guy making more money than I ever had.

And within three months, my dad told me he was dying. I got fired from my job. I lost my job. And my marriage was falling apart. That's the triple-header, man. And I was like, oh, you've got to be kidding me. So I went to Schrenk and did all this stuff. And then I just realized that I needed to have fun.

You know, if I'm going to tell the same story every day, because news was killing me at that time. 9-11 had just happened. And I'm like, I can't do this every day. I can't write this stuff every single day. So I'm like, if I'm going to do the same thing every day, we're going to go and have fun. And then I knew Billie because I went to college with Billie. And she was a great friend of mine. And they were looking for a producer for the show.

So I went and worked for them for a while. And then Toronto One started. And they were doing this late night show called Last last call which was this live show in a real bar with real alcohol and real customers when they were going to shoot a television show there and i was fascinated by this and i went and i met with them to executive produce the show because i wanted i'm like i need this show i want to run this show this sounds like a ton of fun to me and they told me i didn't get the the job to executive produce it and then the and then the executive called me and was like, but do you want to be on it? And I'm like, what do you mean do I want to be on it?

Like, well, come and audition for the show. And I'm like, I've never auditioned for anything in my life. I never wanted to be on air. And so I went back and I met with them. And I was about ready to leave the radio show. And I was the first person they hired for the show to do the late night show. So you were hosting. And I got a note here. It's the show to do the late night show. So you were hosting, and I got a note here,

it's Toronto's first live late night talk show. Is that to say Ed the Sock wasn't live? Is that what that's telling us? Yeah, I don't know if it was live. But I mean, when I say live, this was very live. Right, so it's live to air and it's whatever happened. It was live. I get this idea you never wanted to be on air.

You never wanted to be on air. But A, you look good. I'm going to tell you that as a straight guy. You look good and you sound great. And is it shyness? Because you've overcome it, clearly. Yeah, no. No, I have not overcome it.

I really haven't overcome it. I wanted to make the biggest impact. And when I started in radio and television, these types of shows didn't exist. There was no late night shows for young dudes. There was none of that. It was you had to go and work on the local news. And I didn't want to go and work on the local news. I didn't want to do that. I would rather write for bigger shows. I was always very interested in production value. That's why I love ET Canada. If you don't like the content of ET Canada, the production value on that show and what they do with television is amazing for, I don't want to say a Canadian production, but that's what they, that's what

they do. They make great television every day. And so slowly, slowly, these sort of opportunities started to come around. And I had such a bad taste in my mouth for so many people that I'd worked with that were, that were on air. And, and, and a lot of people that I hadn't worked with that were on air that I felt like a hypocrite if I had said no to a job on air because I would have had the opportunity to do something different or to do it my way or to do it how I thought it should be done.

And so I wound up taking the job and it was just a ton of fun. So how long was Last Call on? Oh, geez. The funny thing about that show was people still today ask me about that show. That show was on a channel that nobody watched for eight months, nine months. Okay.

You know, and, and, and. If it makes you feel any better, no one, no one watches on TV either. Nobody, more be exactly. It makes you feel better. But I'm just saying people still talk about that show. So it goes to show, you know, if you do something that is weird enough and it resonates with people, uh, you know, 15 years later, 10 years later, they will talk to you about something that was only on the air for eight months. And you did another gig there.

You had the A-list. The A-list, yeah. They wanted to do an Entertainment Tonight show. Right. So that's the Toronto, I guess, the Toronto One Entertainment Tonight ripoff. Tina was on that show. Half, I would say 60% of the staff of ET Canada worked on that show. We all moved over to Global.

So were you recruited or did you apply? No, when I was at, no, because it was the same network. Oh, okay, wait. So it was till Toronto One. So wait, who owned Toronto One? At that time, Craig Media. Okay, and they also owned Global? I think, no, no, no.

They owned, and then Quebec Corps bought Toronto One. And then they switched it to Sun TV? They switched it to Sun TV. I left before it switched to Sun TV. Yeah, I left. You were too liberal for that station. I was way too liberal for that station. No, I just, no, because they started ET Canada up at Global,

and then everybody just slowly started to move up to ET Canada to help build and launch that show. Cool. That show, I remember when it launched. See, I'm not, I have to confess to you, I don't watch entertainment. You're not our audience, though. I'm not your target audience.

You don't look for 40-year-old dudes. No, I take zero offense to that. But when I was a kid, I have distinct memories. I guess the time slot it came on, I remember distinctly Mary Hart's legs and that John Tesh voice.

Yeah. This Mary Hart, John Tesh, I remember these guys entertaining. And that's what it was. And that song, really, the licensing of that song and part of the success of that show is the theme song.

We bought the logo and the theme song and we built our own show. And it just so happened that the people at CBS were very happy about it. Very happy about it. But at that time, I had an opportunity to move to Orlando, Florida to do a different show. And I turned that down to go back up to stay with everybody and kind of do ET Canada. I didn't want to move to Florida. And the show you could have got became the great show. Exactly.

Nothing. It would have been suicide for me. You made the right call. And they were offering a lot of money, like a lot of money. But it was to go down there alone and to live a life where you wake up as mornings and to go down there and wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning, I would have had no life and I would have had no friends. And I just was not ready for that.

And you work with – I'm a former Much Music fan, so Rick the Temp is there, right? People still call him Rick the Temp. I know he tries to shake it, right? They do and he likes it. No, I don't think he tries to shake it. He did try to – No, I think Rick is at a point right now where he's embraced it.

I think that when you try and right now where he's embraced it. You know, I think that you, when you try and run from what made people happy, I think that that's a mistake that people make in this business. So I gotta, I mean, he's not going to listen. So tell me the truth. You notice how,

how Rick the Temp spoke. If you watch and you remember his speaking pattern. Yeah. And the Rick the Temp, Rick Campanella. Yeah. That we hear on entertainment today. Campanelli.

Yeah. Very different speaking styles. I wish I was smart enough to have put the audio together so I could play it now. No, I know. And he's heard that before. And that's not anything new to him. I think that we all have our own style. And I think that Rick is genuinely, he's a very, very nice person. And he's very upbeat. and Rick is super positive. To get Rick to say anything bad

about anyone or anything is very difficult to do. I'll do my best. Yeah, it's very difficult to do. And I just think that part of his persona is that positivity. And I think that when I listen to Rick, I don't hear it as anything other than him just being super happy and super positive and just super upbeat. I think that

that's where he puts his energy to work. And this is a drug-free happiness. And this is a drug-free happiness. Yeah. I've never done drugs. I should say I've never done drugs. I've never done, I haven't ever done drugs, but I've certainly never been around anybody who's done drugs with Rick before.

And your Mary Hart, the Canadian Mary Hart is Cheryl Hickey, who is like a weather person at Global, right? Am I remembering? She was even better than that. Cheryl was the cameraman that used to go up in the helicopter. Nice. That was her job. It was even cooler than that.

I mean, she was always easy on the eyes anyways, but she did all right for herself. No, and to watch Cheryl sort of go from, to watch us all really, because we were all just so green when the show started in a way. It's been fantastic to watch everybody, you know, go through this. It's really great. I, you know, I have great respect for them.

Years ago, I could never be happy for a peer. I was far too jealous and I was too competitive. I could never be, I could never celebrate a friend's success. Never. If I had a friend, if I went to school for radio and I didn't get a job and they turned out to have this fantastic career, this career I have or whatever it is, I would never speak to them again. Because I was far too jealous and far too competitive. We're now at the age I am now and I'm okay with things. I love nothing more than when my friends do well. When people in this business.

So when did the change happen? Like at some point, was there anything significant or is it just, you got older and realized that when I, uh, yeah, when I, uh, I think a big part of this business, you know, when you are, when you put yourself on air, you know, I, I don't have a resume. I don't have a demo tape. I don't listen to my show. I don't listen to other people's shows. I don't watch myself on television. I don't follow the entertainment news. I don't do to my show. I don't listen to other people's shows. I don't watch myself on television. I don't follow the entertainment news. I don't do all this stuff. But if I lost my job, I don't need

any of those things to get another job. So when you're at the point of where somebody will just call you because they know what you're capable of doing, that's when I became okay with things. You know, when I no longer had to, you know, would have to fight for work. And if it wasn't me, it wasn't going to be because I didn't have the resume for it. So if I'm not right for something, I'm not right for something, and that's fine. You're an employer, you're building your show, you're allowed to do what you want.

And so I became cool with things then. I have a friend of mine who's a director, who's one of my dear friends, and he just did his first episode of Big Brother Canada the other night. And I saw it on TV and I freaked out, like I was his wife. I was like a proud wife at the moment. I've worked with the guy for 10 years.

But I love that stuff. I love when people that I really respect do well. True or false, Cheryl Hickey, did she insure her legs for a million dollars? I don't even know if you can do that in Canada, to be honest with you. She should, though. She's got beautiful legs. I know. You're going to ask her, tell her she should come on Trotter Lake.

I will tell her to come down. Tell her it's safe to come in my basement. It's safe. I will. Yeah, Cheryl, there's a guy. I have a lot of references. Go to his basement. You'll love it. You'll have a great time. basement. It's safe. I will. Yeah, sure. There's a guy. I have a lot of references. Go to his basement. You'll love it.

You'll have a great time. I'll give Aaron Davis as a reference. Yeah, exactly. It's safe down here. Oh, by the way, you mentioned Mad Dog and Billy really quickly.

You should go back and listen to the Mad Dog episode I did of him because it's very revealing and fascinating. I think it's one of my favorites.

Okay, good. The Mad Dog episode. Okay, great. Now, I'm going to quote my brother, Steve, who's a... Older or younger? Younger. Okay. Curmudgeon Steve. Okay, this is a quote I'm going to quote my brother, Steve, who's a... Older or younger? Younger.

Okay. Curmudgeon Steve, okay? This is a quote from him. I've always wondered if people working on those shows feel creatively stifled because it has to be surfaced and meaningless. That's about Entertainment Tonight Canada. Yeah. It's supposed to be... Like, it's not supposed to make you think, right?

I don't... We're not doing 60-minute stuff. You know, you could say the same thing about Monday Night Football, though. Yeah. supposed to make you think right i don't we're not doing 60 minutes stuff and you know you know that you could say the same thing about you could say the same thing about monday night football though that is true you know like this is you you really could it is what it is and you don't you don't feel creatively stifled because you have many i actually i feel the exact opposite of creatively stifled because um the deeper you get into how a show is put together and how it's edited and the the stuff that you have at your disposal, you feel very creative working on a show like that.

It's never about the content. That's, I think, what people misunderstand it. There's a lot of people that work on that show where it's not about the content. It's about doing cutting-edge, creative television in different ways that you can do it. The content could change tomorrow. They could tell us we were a sports show tomorrow. different ways that you can do it. The content could change tomorrow. They could tell us we were a sports show tomorrow. We would all go into work and produce something that looked amazing and that looks better than the majority of the sports shows that are on the air right now. And you've had a

very long run, right? How long? 10 years. And that's, that's 10 years on any show, whether you're in Canada or the U S you know, that's something that you don't take lightly and should be, and should be celebrated. So how does the KISS 92.5 gig arise? Where does that come into play here? I was at ET Canada and they wanted me to move to Los Angeles. And I was debating as to whether to move to Los Angeles and then my girlfriend got pregnant.

So we were going to have a baby and then Jack was flipping back to KISS and I found out that Jack was flipping back to KISS. And I called Julie Adam, who Julie Adam has been so fantastic to me throughout my career, like amazing to me. And I called Julie, and I was like, listen, I want to do mornings. I've never hosted a radio show before, but I want to do mornings. And she's like, you're right.

You've never hosted a radio show before. How would you like to do mornings? And I was like, okay, listen, if this doesn't work out, I already have a great job. I already work on AT Canada. I'm like, if this doesn't work out, fire me. No harm, no foul. I will hug you the biggest hug for letting me have this opportunity on the way out of the building because I really don't care. I've never back-selled a song before. I've never introduced a record on the radio before. I still haven't back-selled a song before. I've still never introduced a record on the radio before. I've never done an overnight shift. I've never worked middays. I've never done anything like that. I

just wanted to do mornings on Kiss in Toronto. And so she brought me in, and then I told them at ET Canada that I was not going to move to Los Angeles. So this all happened within a week. My girlfriend getting pregnant. Things happen to you in like threes. They really do. And it's always so stressful

in the knee therapy right afterwards. So I did this, and at the time it was great because the the deal that i that i have and it's fairly unique to this country which is i have two full time jobs with two highly competitive different media companies you know as you just stole a future question i'm sorry it's okay no this is better Because Kiss 92.5 Is owned by Rogers Rogers yeah By the way Julie Adam comes up In a lot of podcasts

But that Aaron Davis episode I mentioned She talked Because you know Julie Adam fired Aaron Absolutely And then Yeah

Did something you never see Which is Never Undid it Yeah undid it That's unique Yeah yeah No it is

It is yeah And yeah you're right So the In Entertainment Tonight Canada Is owned by Shaw Well Shaw now But it was global.

They're kind of in bed now. It was Canwest, though, at the time. Gotcha. Which they are not in bed. Well, there's... Right, but Rogers and Shaw seem to have an unholy alliance of some sort. They do. They do.

And I think that when there's three big companies in the country, you do business with the ones that are going to help you take down the person that you both equally hate as much, which is Bell. Right, that's right. But they do Show Me Together. That's the big... Yeah, they do. And it was person that you both equally hate as much, which is Bell. Right. That's right. But they do Show Me Together. That's the big thing. Yeah, they do.

And it was great. It was a great idea. Show Me is awesome. And I'm not saying that because I love both companies. I work for both companies. It's great. Is it perfect? No, it's not perfect.

And I think that that's the way people need to do. People need to work together if you want to win. So why did they allow you to work for a competitor? One, I have a great lawyer. One, I have a great lawyer. One, I have a great lawyer. And I would say to anybody who is getting in this business, get yourself a great lawyer. You're going to need them throughout your entire career. I have a great lawyer, but both companies were at a weird time. It was right in the middle of the recession. It was 2009. And Shaw hadn't fully purchased Global yet. They didn't really have a

parent company. We didn't have parents. And Rogers was sort of in the same way and they both wanted to just make me happy not in a sense that they owed owed me something but just i'd been there a long time and then i also had the relationship with rogers so they hashed out a deal together so i have my i have a contract with et canada right i have a contract with kiss and then kiss has a contract with et canada on their own. Fascinating. Right. So they have their own deal that allows them each to employ me.

The Roswest. Yeah. I can't get fired from the TV show for something you say on the radio show and vice versa. Like all that stuff that you need to have. But again, your lawyer figures, you know, your lawyer figures all that out. But I only ever wanted to do radio and television together. I never wanted to do one or the other. I was only happy when I was doing both.

That's amazing. So how does Mocha come into play here? We were looking for a partner for me because I don't know how to do anything. I've never pushed a button on the board. That's the fun stuff. I don't know the systems. I don't know any of that stuff.

And I wouldn't pretend to know that stuff. And so Julian at the time, Karen Steele wasn't yet the the pd on the show uh and julie was going we were going through all these people like who can we get who can we get who can we approach and she hired mocha to do afternoons on kiss and she played me she played me his tape and i'm like oh god damn it that's the guy i'm like i i sort of knew him from the days when we used to work at kiss way way way way way okay but we never we were never really tight we never really had like a full huge conversation or something like this and i'm like i'm like that's the guy i'm like get rid of everything else i don't want to work with

anybody else i'm like it's going to be that guy or it's going to be nothing and so she's like okay and i was in new york at the time and i was at a hotel that had terrible reception so i i had to run out of the hotel and i'm sitting on a bench in central park and she's like okay we're going to call mocha and i go okay cool so she calls mocha and she's like just so you know we want you to do mornings with ross and mocha goes let me think about it and i was like oh my god there was no plan b there was no plan there was no plan b at all so i wind up being on the phone with him and i'm begging him to do the show with me i'm'm like, I was promising him everything to do the show with me. But he said no at first.

And then I literally had to beg him to do the show with me. So why did he say no? He had just come from doing mornings. And I think that he was maybe a little curious about what life would be like to do afternoon drive. Because it's a pretty sweet life to do afternoon drive. Because you wake up pretty early for these moments. I get up at 10 after 4 every day. And then I wrap. So I go straight through. So I do 10 after 4 in the morning

until I get... We do the show from 6 until 10 and then I do ET Canada from 10.30 until 5.30 every day. Get home at around quarter after 6 at night. Play with my kid. Make dinner every night. Hang out with my girlfriend. That's a tough get actually. Yeah, it's a brutal day. Is there a nap in the middle there? No, zero nap. I go straight through. The shortest my day is 13 hours.

That's the shortest day I have. And then you travel and then I travel on the weekends for the TV show. I'll get on a plane Friday afternoon, fly to Los Angeles, land 11 o'clock Sunday night, wake up at four o'clock in the morning, do it all again for another week. And then that's just it. And they say it's a sweet life. That life that sounds oh that part sucks that part's terrible that part's terrible how did you know like how did you know you'd have good chemistry with mocha i didn't based on this lack of a lengthy conversation and all that you try you try but mocha and i and we didn't even mocha and i didn't have a con we went out for one beer um before the show started and i was like what do you want to do and he's like I

just want to do a fun show and I'm like okay I just want to do a fun show and then we we didn't plan anything and then we went in there we went in day one and we hadn't had anything planned and we just sort of went on and I realized that Mocha is like he's an improv genius and absolutely he's so fast and he's so he's he's the when it comes to improv and being able to maintain that you know while still sort of in character and while still having a lot of fun and still you know flying a show he's the best he's so good at that stuff and i'm like i'm in love with him like he's so talented if they fired mocha i would quit i 100 i would never i would not do a show without him if if like i'm not in this for the long haul like I'm not in this to make a career where I'm going to go off on my own.

I would say right now, I would not do a radio show without him. If they ever did anything to Mocha, I'd play this clip ad nauseum. No, absolutely. And I wouldn't do it. Unless he did something. Unless he was fired with cause or something like that. But if they just thought that the show needed a change and they wanted to get rid of him, I wouldn't walk in.

I would not walk into the building. Was he known as Mocha Frap before the show? Yeah, and then Starbucks tried to sue us. Or Starbucks tried to sue him. They got a cease and desist letter from that.

Did he frame it? I would frame that. I have a couple and I keep them because I love them. Yeah, I know. Somebody's got that. That's funny. Hey, you know somebody's got that. That's funny. Hey, you know, sometimes I'm in the car,

drive my kids to school or something, and like Fridays, for example, I'll hear this DJ Climax with three X's, by the way. With three X's because he's that dirty. He's that dirty. And what I like, okay, is these mixes, and I know it's not a new thing. Like I hear Girl Talk does this stuff all the time

and everything but you know he'll have something for my daughter likes Taylor Swift or whatever and you get a Taylor Swift thing but then it'll kind of

tie into some Cyndi Lauper thing or something from when I was a kid right yeah yeah so I like the blend of the old and new

and I'm a big fan of these mixes so these are the these are the official I don't are they like branded the Roz and Mocha DJ Climax mixes or whatever?

Yeah, it's the Roz and Mocha mix of DJ Climax every Friday morning. It's one of the most listened to hours of radio in the country. It trends across Canada every single day,

every single week that it's on. And I've always said when it comes to radio, you know, if you want to be, if you think that you're in the music delivery business and you're going to win in that, you're not going to win in that. You're going to lose in that.

And the way that I've always looked at the show is we're in the original content delivery business. Right. And that's the only way you're going to win. You know, if your mandate is to play music, I can show you five apps right now that got you beat. No, that five stations are playing the new Rihanna single right now. Every single station in the city played Lorde when Lorde came out. Right, yeah. You know, every single station in the city.

And, you know, so it's about original content. And how do you make original content and still base it around music? And that's what Climax does. And because we have such a large audience that is in the upper demo, the 2544 area, you know, he'll pepper it with nostalgia. And it does very well. It works for me, man. Exactly. You know, I like hearing the new stuff,

but it's the old stuff that hooks me. Yeah, and he's a genius. You know, he's great. And he's a lawyer, though, you know. You know what? This is the shit I need to hear. Yeah, Climax is a lawyer. He's a very good lawyer, too.

Is he? Yeah. Is he your lawyer? No, he's not my lawyer. He's not that good. No, no, he's not. No, he's not my lawyer. No, he's not.

Here's the thing, man. I use it as, like, a learning thing. So, like, a my lawyer. No, he's not. Here's the thing, man. I use it as like a learning thing. So like a tune will come, I don't know, I don't know, a song will come on from like, is it ACDC or whatever? And then I'll tell my two oldest kids about the tune. It's like my chance to like, my gateway in to like, hey, talk about the tune.

And it does. And I think that this is really the first time now where this generation is right now, where kids that are 10 watch the same television shows play the same video games listen to the same music and enjoy the same sports as their fathers did when i was a kid my old man and i did not we didn't have anything in common right came to sort of pop culture entertainment this is really the first generation where a dad who is 40 and their kid who is like 10 yeah 11 whatever it is yeah i got a 10 yearyear-old daughter. You share all the same sort of references in pop culture.

You're right. And it's amazing for that. That's why it's fantastic. I love being in this time, especially in radio. Radio to me, it's a fascinating model. One of the reasons why I wanted to go back to radio is print and music and television and movies are all trying to figure out a business model. And that business model is how do you make money off delivering product to an audience that

doesn't want to pay for it? Right. And that's the rate, that's the business model of radio. You know, everybody else now is trying to figure out how to do this And radio has been doing it forever. And, uh, that's the, the fascinating thing. But with that parents and kids and everybody else, the content delivery to them is so direct now and it's broad and it's not niche anymore. And you can enjoy stuff and you can like ACDC. I'll tell you right now, if your kid decided to play guitar, I don't care what, whose kid they are. They will learn how to play smoke on the water because that's what you do when you play guitar, whatever, you know, that's just what's going to happen, so there's things that transition, and there's things that, you know, that make sense and carry over, and it's fascinating to me. You, you know, your station plays Top 40,

but what do you listen to on your own time? I don't listen to, yeah, I'll listen to, you know, like sometimes classic rock, Sometimes I'll just sit and listen to love songs. Sometimes I'll listen to electronica. But I don't really have a favorite genre of music. So you're not like a grunge guy? No, and I never was. And I really never was. I don't listen to a lot of music, to be honest with you.

You got no time, man. Between the kid and the 13 hour days where are you gonna fit in the music yeah no i i don't uh you know a couple of the streaming sites like songs is really good because it's all mood based you know and my girlfriend will be you know put that on i'm like what in the hell are you listening to she's like songs to empty your dishwasher too and i'm like that's an actual playlist she's like that is an actual playlist and i'm like fuck it's kind of good sorry i didn't swear no you can swear okay and and i'm like fuck that's kind of good you know like songs didn't swear. No, you can swear on this. Okay, and I'm like, fuck, that's kind of good. You know, like songs that you can empty your dishwasher to.

And then the more I listen to them, I'm like, shit, they aren't really songs that you can empty your dishwasher to. That's funny. So I'm exposed to a lot of music just from, you know, my girlfriend's 10 years younger than me. So she has a different taste in music and whatnot. But no, I do love music. I just don't listen to a lot of it.

Okay, cool. How big are you on ratings? Like radio, when the books come out, a lot of the radio guys are all over these numbers and the demos. I'll tell you, when we started, not at all. Because when Mocha and I started the show, Kiss was brand new. We started at zero.

We started at zero on a brand new station. Our goal when we started the show was to become somebody's preset on FM1 and not FM2. We wanted to get into that first round of presets on that. So ratings were not even a concern. And this is coming out of the Jack FM. It's coming right out of Jack FM. And there was no marketing.

It was in the middle of a recession. There was no money to be had. You had to just build this show and build this brand. I've always been more concerned with, um, how, what research says about a show and brand awareness about a show, because you can get the same revenue dollars from brand awareness that you can for ratings. You know, uh, the daily show doesn't do a quarter of the ratings that NCIS does, but people desperately want to advertise on the daily show because they want to be associated with the brand.

Right. So that was always the goal, was to build The Razamokha Show and build this brand, and then hope that the ratings followed. And then once the ratings started to follow is when I started paying attention to the ratings. So now you pay attention because they're better than they were when they were flatlined. Yeah. I mean, yeah. My goal was, and it's weird when it comes to ratings because there's certain things that I don't like. I don't look at male ratings, although our male ratings aren't that bad, but I don't look at male ratings and I don't look at two plus or whatever. I look at what matters. I look at what you get paid on. I look at what the expectation that is put forward by the company, which for us is females 18 to 34 and 25, 44. And that's the numbers i look at and for me our goal my goal was in because

we've only been doing the show for less than six years for five and a half years i just wanted to be top three i wanted to be chfi chum and and us in the morning that was the that was sort of my goal you know i've known aaron davis for forever uh marilyn dennis and i sort of had this you know kindred spirit you know we got each other's back a little bit just because not many people know what it's like to do television and radio on the same day so i was happy being in that in that company you know and and that's and that's where we were you know we hit that at like you know year four and a half kind of thing of where it was like one two and three and i was like i'm okay with that now we just build the brand and build the show from here so let me ask you uh would you

consider your biggest competitor would be 99.9 is this this the... Do I now? No. So who now is the big... Chum and CHFI. Chum and CHFI. Yeah. And, okay. And, I mean, CHFI is a sister station, so it's sort of like cannibalism. Well, you still want to beat them.

Of course you do. Of course you do. I was just thinking, because my daughter, if you ask my daughter today what her two favorite stations are, she says 92.5 and 99.9. Sure.

And they're actually interchangeable to her. Yeah. She toggles and sees which song is better or whatever. Absolutely. And I think a lot of people do do that. You know, it's about building a connection with the audience. You know, it's no longer about who plays the greatest songs. It's no longer about the – when we started the show, I had never hosted a radio show before.

And when we were building the show, we sat down with Karen and Julie. And we said, okay, what do other shows do? What do all the shows do in mornings? They were like, okay, well, you have benchmarks and you, you know, you got to do the news and you have to do traffic because we sell that and that's easy money. And then, you know, this, this, this, and this. And I said, what if we just did away with everything?

I don't want to do news on the show. I don't want any traffic on the show. We won't have any benchmarks. We're not going to tease stuff. We're not going to tell you what's coming up. We're not going to do the Thursday at 8.15. We're not going to do any of that. We're just going to tease stuff. We're not going to tell you what's coming up. We're not going to do the Thursday at 8.15. We're not going to do any of that. We're just going to go on, and the mandate will be to have fun.

And what if that works? And so slowly, slowly, slowly, all the stations that we were competing against started getting rid of news. They started getting rid of traffic. They started doing it a little bit more freeform. And Virgin at the time was in a really weird position. Their ratings were better than us. But I think that the station lost faith in the morning show,

and then they had them start doing this thing of where they were paying actors to come on their show and do these segments where the audience was then led to believe that these were legitimate people coming on to talk. And it was at that point

when they started to pay actors that I knew that it's a's a soul sucking thing. When somebody tells you that your show isn't good enough, unless you, unless we hire paid actors to come on and be guests on your show, it's a soul sucking thing. So, and I knew Billy very well. So I knew that that show was about to sort of falter because you can only lie to your audience for so, for so long. And when you're forced to do that, you know, it's, it's crushing. It's really, it's really, really crushing. And it's demoralizing when you have to do that. And as soon as they could get rid of it, they got rid of it. But at that point,

we had already started building our audience, you know, and that was, and that was really that. And, and so really, you know, the goal for me is to, yeah, it's, it's, it's CHFI and CHUM. And speaking of awareness campaigns, I mean, I think you guys do a great job on like TTC awareness campaigns, only that you can't ride a subway or a bus or whatever. No, I know. I know. You know, it's funny is that we had no, there was no organization to do that when we started the show. My girlfriend and I built those. Oh, wow. Built them.

We did every ad campaign except for the most recent one. My girlfriend and I did it. She's a photographer. Oh, nice. And we would sit there and build them, you know, submit them, everything else. And so for all the ad campaigns that you saw that we did for the first three, four years of the show was we did them all. But that's the thing.

And going back to even Flo and Virgin and Z, Flo and Virgin and Z and Flo are doing very well now. They're picking up. They're very niche. They know their audience, and they're doing very well. But my goal was always when you get hired somewhere to do a show, you know, a company can pay you, but it's, you're in a very fortunate position when a company decides that you're worth spending money on, because there's a difference between getting paid and having somebody spend money on you. And when you get

somebody to spend money on you and invest in the brand and invest in the show, that's the real victory. It's not collecting a paycheck. It's, it's when they're trying to, when they see value in the property and that Mocha and I hit that with, you a paycheck. It's when they're trying to, when they see value in the property. And that, Moak and I hit that with, you know, with Rogers and with Kiss. And then that sort of snowballed.

And now we do, you know, new ad campaigns every year and they're fun as hell. Nah, cool. I mean, because we're building awareness

that you're out there. It is. It is. It's brand awareness. And I know it's not Roger, Rick and Marilyn, but we'll still call it that

because they pounded it on my head as a kid. That's it. That's all you know. But that doesn't really happen anymore. Or it takes a long time for, for, for a station for that to, Mad Dog and Billy had fantastic recognition. I was about to say. They had fantastic brand recognition because Rogers invested in them.

Yes. You know, Rogers was the one that built that brand. And, and, and when they went over to Virgin, I guess it was Mix at the time, they started to as well, they sort of capitalized on the money that Rogers had spent. Of course. We don't have to spend a ton of money.

Rogers did all the hard work in building this brand, Mad Dog and Billy. Right. And so, and everybody knew that. And then after a while, what happened was is they just stopped investing in it. You know, they stopped investing and spending money on that brand.

So they were really, you know, they were on their own. But when you're in that time and back in the day like the mad dog and billy brand was huge yeah absolutely it was a massive brand it was worth a lot of money because people had paid a lot of money to invest in the brand absolutely and and that's that's a good example actually where you have this brand and then for reasons that are actually kind of nicely explained in the mad dog episode but your you're personal friends of Billy's, so you would know best. But, you know, Billy's let go,

and then they let go Mad Dog very recently. So now you're... Is there any schadenfreude there? Like when you see a competitive station kind of blow up the morning show and know they have to sort of start from... A little schadenfreude? No, you know what?

It's the only German I know. No, I'll tell you what it is. I prefer things to stay the same. When we were gaining and everybody else was staying the same, I didn't want anybody to get fired. Right, because it's status quo. Yeah, I'm like, don't worry. I'm shaking everything up here.

But when we started, the first one to change was Flo changed their morning show because JJ was working at Kiss when we first started. And then Z blew everybody out. They got rid of Ashley Greco. They got rid of Dave, and. They got rid of Dave. And they got rid of Scott Fox. And then we hired Dave and Scott Fox, which was fucking awkward. They're nice, though.

And they took it very, very well. And then they still wanted to do their own thing. And they both wanted to do Mornings. And I think they're both very, very happy now. And then they let go of Billy. And then they changed that show. So there was a lot of change. Even though I didn't want change, there was a lot of change happening.

A lot of change there. A lot of change happening, yeah. Right. Which is fine. You know, it's great. Listen, this isn't forever. You know, and I am not... Roger Ashby disagrees with you.

Yeah, I know. Well, for him, it will be forever. But I'm not as emotionally attached to, I think, this job or this business that a lot of people are. You know, it's employment. It's work. It's a lot of fun, but I am not...

I don't build my identity around doing a radio show. If they fire you next week, does Mocha stay on as a gig? He wouldn't have the same level of loyalty. Would Mocha and Dammit Maury still do the show? No. I don't know if he would, to be honest with you. I don't know. Like when Robin was

let go and Howard Stern stayed on there? The funny thing is with Mocha and I, we have fantastic chemistry. I don't know if he would, to be honest with you. I don't know. Like when Robin was let go and Howard Stern stayed in there? No, you know what? And Mocha and I, the funny thing is with Mocha and I is we have fantastic chemistry. I think Mocha and I have been out socially three times in the last few years. I hear this a lot. And it's better that way because you know how I met you for the first time today and I wanted to start? I find it much better when you don't do all your chatter off air and then you can do it fresh. We don't email during the day.

We don't text during the day. We don't do any show prep together. We don't. We just don't. It keeps it organic. When I see Mocha at 5.30 in the morning when I walk in, the last word I said to him was at 10 a.m. when we left the day before. That's really it.

But that keeps the – It does. So when you're hearing stories that you're telling each other, it's the first time you've heard it. You don't have to fake it. Yeah, but Mocha's hardcore, man. That dude is like... If he weren't Mocha, he'd be

in Wu-Tang. To play in reverse, I think that if they let me go and he was left there, even though he just bought a giant house up in Vaughan and he's got a beautiful new wife, he would start throwing hands. He's hardcore.

I actually just got a tweet from him this morning that he's going to come on the show. Oh, is he? I'm going to ask him straight out. Yeah. If anything happened to Roz, would you leave on principle? Because he promised,

and I have it recorded, he promised to do this for you. He shouldn't. And he's a very sweet guy. He's got a bigger heart than anybody I know. He doesn't forget anybody's birthday. He's got my kid some of the greatest stuff for her birthday. He never forgets anything.

He's like the kindest. He writes the best cards when it's Christmas. He's a sweetheart. He is an absolute. But not nice enough that you'd ever want to hang with him outside. No, God no. Why the hell would I want to hang with him? That's funny.

But the problem is that his wife and my girlfriend have become close, so that causes a little bit of an issue. Yeah, now you're going to be dragged into couples things. That's the worst. What's this? I read that on September 17th, 2011 in Acton, Ontario. Yeah. You know, it's worth the drive. It is. That's where I grew up. My great aunt lived there forever. She just passed away, but she lived there forever. Right by there was a church there and she used to work at the church, this Catholic church there. Yeah. But I digress. But they named a street after you. They did, yeah.

What is there? There's a Weston Street? No, it's called Rosweston Lane. And it was an unnamed, unassumed alley. This is the greatest thing in the world. It was an unnamed, unassumed alley that connected the Tim Hortons to the beer store. Two things that every small town has. In Acton especially.

Exactly. And I just went on the air one day and I just, I don't know. It's fun to have a giant ego when you're on the radio because it just plays way better. And I forced Maury to get the mayor of acting on the phone because I was quizzing him on if there was anybody more famous than me that came out of acting. That's funny. And I felt that I deserved accolades for it. I felt that I needed to be recognized for being the most famous than me that came out of acting. That's funny. And I felt that I deserved accolades for it. I felt that I needed to be recognized for being the most famous guy to ever come out of acting.

And he played along because he liked the press. And he was a real fun mayor. And he played along. And I said, I will accept nothing less than a street named after me. Little did I know that there's laws for that. Yeah, there's probably bylaws. Yeah, there's actual bylaws for that. Yeah, there's probably bylaws. Yeah, there's actual bylaws for that. And so he played along with it and he fast tracked the papers to have this

dirty little alley named after me. And then I got all this hate from local papers. Oh my God, people were destroying me and they didn't get the joke. And it was a joke that went way too far. And now there's an actual, like the town has to take care of it now. And if my sign falls or somebody backs into it, it's like the taxpayers dollars that have to go into putting it back up. So can I go on Google Maps and actually see this? I don't know. You know what's funny? I've never tried that.

I've actually never tried to go and find it on Google Maps. The first thing I would do is I would try that. But it is registered. I have a plaque. They give you an actual plaque that happens. Who's the second most famous person to come out of Acton? Me. No, I don a plaque. They give you an actual plaque that happens. Who's the second most famous person to come out of Acton? Me. No, I don't know.

I don't know. I just wonder who your competition was. I think there was a comic that came out and did a reality comedy show. I'm so sorry. I forget the guy's name. Different generation than me. But my brother's been nominated for an Emmy. Is that right?

Yeah. He's a director. For which show? He does a lot of animation. Is that right? Yeah, he's a director. For which show? He does a lot of animation. That's what he does. He only does animation. So he's done everything that your kids have watched your entire life. All that Treehouse?

Because I got a baby now who's watching a lot of Treehouse. The first show that he did that did very well directing was Magic School Bus. Oh, yeah. That was his big show. Cool. But no, it's a small town. I mean, you want to get out when you're in a small town

did they close the old hide house? they did yeah I'm more than positive that it does not exist anymore but it was very sad it was being in that town when the old hide house was going through stuff it was like a John Mellencamp video

it really was because my mom worked there most people I know worked there there was a big beautiful restaurant that was attached to, you know, it really, it really was because my mom worked there. Like most people I know worked there. There was a big, beautiful restaurant that was attached to it that my girlfriend at the time when I was in high school worked there. And so when, when that place shut down the first time, there was a glove factory that had also just shut down. And so you were literally in a John Mellencamp song, you know, it was a small town where everything was just shutting down around you. Like, and, and, and the people that lived in that town were so fantastic and everybody just just sort of rallied behind one another. But when you were my age, oh, my God, you wanted to get out.

I can imagine. Whenever I visited, because my great aunt was there, I guess because I'm coming from Toronto, it just seemed kind of small. Yeah. Did you grow up in Toronto? Yeah. See, that's the – it's crazy. It's crazy.

Growing up, I would never have taken – if I had the choice to grow up anywhere else, I would never have grown up any different than I did in Acton. That's good. That's crazy. Growing up, I would never have taken a... If I had the choice to grow up anywhere else, I would never have grown up any different than I did in Acton. That's good. Because it teaches you how to treat people. You're not an audience. Maybe you could reopen the old hide house. See what you can do.

Bring it back. The problem with the old hide house is they didn't change fast enough. The last couple of years in the old hide house, you were going to go in and get a really fucking great deal on a green suede miniskirt. That was the problem with the old hide house you were going to go in and get a really fucking great deal on a on a green suede miniskirt all right you know like that's that that was the problem with the old hide house it was a great camp you know that mayor must uh would really miss it because that was like all us toronto guys all we knew and if you had acted all we knew yeah

everyone still it's worth the drive to act in my still my whole life that tagline and again we were talking before but like a brand you know the quality of the stuff in the old high house was not that great. But if you told somebody, where do you go? People were driving 90 minutes to go and buy a leather jacket. Could you ever imagine somebody doing that? No, no, absolutely not. Here's another tagline I quite like here. 10 seconds here.

It was loaded up in my soundboard because I had Retro Ontario in here talking about old Toronto TV. All right. Fabric Glent, same thing. Great tagline. Same thing. Fabric Glent, same thing. I'm a sucker for that stuff.

Yeah. I really love that stuff. Last question before I let you go. Do you have your dream job or what's your dream job? Don't have one. I don't have one. I'm, you know, I don't,

I work on the radio. I don't listen to the radio. It's difficult for me to actually talk about other people that are on the radio because I don't, and I purposely don't when I was getting into this,

going back into it, to not listen to somebody because I never wanted to be influenced in any way. I never wanted to hear something great that somebody did and I never wanted to hear something great that somebody did. And I never wanted to hear something terrible that somebody did or that I thought was terrible because it would give me some sort of inflated sense of,

you know, self-worth. So I, but so it's all about influence. It's not about because I think I'm better than somebody or, or I'm afraid of somebody. It was just all, I never wanted to be influenced by anybody.

I never, ever, ever wanted to be influenced. So I don't listen. But is that because you're afraid you'll copy them? No, no, it's not that I'm afraid Because I know in my heart that I would never copy somebody But you know when you're given a story

McDreamy dies on Grey's Anatomy I can't believe you said it again There's a few ways that you can go with it And if I had a way in my head I would be mortified if I found out somebody did the same thing For fear that somebody would think That I copied them. You know what I'm saying?

I just can't believe. I'm sorry, man. I can't believe you think it's okay to just say that. To spoil shows? The day after. Although, I'm actually not going to post this till Monday, so maybe it'll be okay. Monday is when this episode gets released. Those people can catch up on their PVRs.

Yeah, that's my dream job is spoiling everything for everybody. In real time, you could be tweeting, Don Draper just jumped out the window. No, I don't have a dream job. I'm living it pretty much right now. I want to do great, fun, creative radio and have a really good time and connect with people and build a fantastic, loyal audience,

which we have. I'm so thankful and grateful for it. I have great bosses. Karen is amazing. Julie is amazing. Everybody wants to work for them. Everybody wants to work for them. But do I have a dream job?

No, my dreams change all the time. Your dreams are fluid, man. Listen, I've walked my kid to school once. That sucks. Yeah, that's what I hear. That's the one thing. When I have friends who do morning shows and they were let go, let's say. And the one thing they'll say is I got to actually walk my kids to school.

You know, so is this my dream job? In a way, oh, my God, yes, it is my dream job. But in a way, I look at that. I'm like one time I've walked my kid to school. And that sucks. You know, so could I say that hands down this is the dream? No, because that's part of the dream. You know, I would like to be able to do everything.

And unfortunately, when you need to be like to be able to do everything. And fortunately, when you need to be employed, you can't do everything. So my dreams usually tend to be things that are other than employment. Cool, man. I'm glad you came over today. Thank you for having me. It's really great down here. I would encourage if anybody is you know, come and do

the show. It's fun. I like this form. I don't like little quick things. I say no to them all the time. You know, that's why I do it, because I'm tired of the 30-second soundbite. I need to drill deeper. I say no to a lot of press. Publicist hates it. Really? But this is great. It's nice. You get into

stuff. You're great at what you do. It's a great setup down here, and I can't thank you enough. Thanks, man. Yeah. And that brings us to the end of our 120th show. You can follow me on Twitter at Toronto Mike. And Roz Weston is at Roz Weston. That was convenient.

What? Yeah. And Roz, by the way, R-O-Z. See you all next week.