Damian Rickards: Mr. D Radio

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound off podcast, the show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:12  
Damian Rickards has surpassed 25 years on the air. It's been on the air in Toronto, Calgary, and just about every market, from Ottawa and Cornwall down to Windsor through the power of syndication, one thing I discovered in my research leading up to the show is that he's a second generation broadcaster. I love the social media he does on the retro songs, even though I never get them. And you're also going to love what he does to prepare and create for the future when he's not doing his show at 91 five, the beat in Kitchener, this is a trip through his 25 plus years in Canadian radio, and what he's doing to make sure that this will be a lifelong career. And now Damian Rickards, aka Mr. D radio, joins me from Guelph, Ontario. So if I were to roll it right back to the beginning, does it go back to 1998 and mix 99 it does, what a time to be alive.

Damian Rickards  1:12  
Quite a crazy time to be in radio, especially when you're you know, fresh out of high school, did one year as an internship there, working with JJ Johnston as my program director, diving in head first, if you will, Wayne Webster, working in the music department with him. Legend, learned a lot very, very early about music programming on DOS. Old selector, things have changed up since then.

Matt Cundill  1:37  
Obviously, do you know that I installed that selector? Shut up, really? No, sorry, I did a later version. Still. Yeah, still wild.

Damian Rickards  1:49  
The people I work with in that building, overall, another mentor and a good friend of mine, Bruce Barker, who I worked with at mix, and also working with the Mississauga ice dogs. With him when he was doing pa i was doing music, so he's great. And names like Rob Christie, Buzz, Reynolds, Nat Lauzon, the late Matt O'Neill, Donna saker, Mookie slash, Millson Wilson, back in the day, just so many wonderful people you know, worked with in that building as an intern, and then eventually, and of course, working with Daryl cornicky as the assistant morning show producer for Rob Christie in the morning, and then the mixed morning crew with Matt Neal and everybody. It was just a crazy time to be in that industry and in the building.

Matt Cundill  2:28  
Yeah, what a time to be alive in that spot in mix 99 at the time too. JJ had that thing going, and he had, I think, the target on a couple radio stations, namely Q 107, and chfi, and just found a way to build some sort of coalition with the music and the personalities so that, you know, people would listen. And they

Damian Rickards  2:46  
did. Yeah, I remember when we were celebrating getting a million listeners, and a million listeners in Toronto is absolutely insane. They found a perfect formula to go up against a couple of big juggernauts and really hold their place in the market. So, like I said, Great Building, great vibe to be in.

Matt Cundill  3:06  
So it's nice to start with mix 99 and, you know, a great story, but it also starts at home for you, because you're a second generation broadcaster.

Damian Rickards  3:14  
I am my dad. Colin Rickards was a dBc and Cbc broadcaster for CBC. He works for radio Canada International, so he was broadcasting to the Caribbean. And for him, living in the Caribbean and having that experience, and also as a white man, which for a lot of people were very surprised. It's like, Wait, like, That guy knows this stuff. It's like, that's my old man. And yeah, I followed in his footsteps. He was the news and historical guy, and music was my first love. Sports not far behind. And I'm very lucky that dad got to see me when I really got my career established and going for him to be around, it was very, very special.

Matt Cundill  3:55  
You also worked at flow at 93 five. I'm not even sure I could tell the story. It was so long ago, but just, you know, the acquisition of the license, you know, getting it and then having a station that was gonna play, you know, urban music for Toronto that went through a lot. So tell me what it was like being on that frequency, in that building and playing that music. It's kind

Damian Rickards  4:16  
of crazy because in a lot of ways, from a lot of the stuff that I learned through mix 99 nine, which was so professional and so polished, and, you know, which took years to build, you're going into a place where you're launching and everything is from ground zero. So, you know, you're establishing an audience. You're working with talent that's a lot younger. I mean, I was in my early 20s, and I was doing production and, man, if I go back to some of my production demo stuff, man, I was raw, but it worked for the time being. And I was I also did on air as well. I was working in there six days a week. My still absolutely loved it, but playing hip hop and R B, not just the stuff that, you know, crossed over into CHR and hot AC, but some of the. Stuff that was, you know, on the urban chart, which in Canada and Toronto, a lot of people like, Oh, this is deeper, not if you were listening to the community stations or things like that, because they would play that all the time, but you had trying to get the right music mix with hip hop and R B. And remember urban music in Canada compared to urban music in the US? It's two completely different worlds. If you go urban music in the in the US, it's hip hop and R B, anything else extra, like the reggae dance hall or whatever that goes into the mix. Shows in Canada, especially where Mr. Denham jolly was trying to get the license. He was trying to get various kinds of urban music represented, hip hop, R and B, reggae, jazz, Soca, high life, and just getting that all together to make one flowing radio station. It's not an easy thing to do, but, you know, being in there, I was only in there for about just under two years, maybe like 18 months, but just being in there where it was exciting, and you watched it grow. And there are some things that, you know, we took a lot of pride in, and we made mistakes, but we're young, young radio station, young cast, young people. It was quite the time being in there.

Matt Cundill  6:06  
So one of the problems that I have with Canadian radio is the lack of diversity on the dial. And here we are, 25 years after this launch, and we are in the exact same spot in terms of numbers of radio stations that are playing urban music. I mean, my joke is, I think I can count the number of stations on one or two fingers, I guess. How did we get so far and put up with it and not make any changes? How'd we get here?

Damian Rickards  6:34  
I've wrestled with that back and forth, you know, I'm looking at different sides of it, saying, like, let's just go with the talent that gets played on the radio, like the artists, like you have Drake, you have the weekend Cardinal, official Julie black. You want to go farther back to the days of Maestro fresh, Wes and the Dream Warriors and me. She me. And these are big, established names, especially for you know, that time. I mean, obviously, you know, weekend and Drake are present where it's like, you've got this amazing pool of Canadian talent. It's like, well, can they give me an R B record? Can you give me a sing songy record? Can you give me something that doesn't scare people, if you will? And it's like, okay, but, you know, that's one step forward and then two steps back. And it's funny, because I was in a time when urban radio was starting to grow in Canada, so obviously we had flow. 93 five first, then the others started to come. You had the beat. 94 five in Vancouver, hot. 89 nine in Ottawa, launched as an urban rhythmic. I went to Calgary and was part of the early days of vibe. 98 five, and I remember Rogers flipped rock station to go up against vibe with Kiss 969, like there was a solid urban build. Even 91 five to beat was an urban Chr. And then, you know, come like 2004 ish, 2005 those stations sing the mainstream out. It's so funny because I think even in this day and age, for some people, some businesses, urban music is still taboo based on ignorance, whether it's delightful ignorance or like, oh, I don't need to talk to that audience, or we don't need their dollars, or whatnot. It's crazy. And the urban stations, really in Toronto are flow, which is now on the 98 seven dial and 5105, which is I run out of, C, H, R, Y, and then York University, and person who I work with, an urban radio legend, mastermind, is doing his thing with so it still really makes me shake my head. I don't know how 25 years later, we can, like, count stations on our fingers,

Matt Cundill  8:39  
the shift to Calgary. Tell me about going to Calgary. You're working at vibe 98 five. I know. And remember the station because it was a standard radio station and I was up in Edmonton. Tell me about the Calgary experience.

Damian Rickards  8:51  
It all actually started from Gary slate, where he had reached out through Bob Harris, who was the PD of vibe 98 five, and said, Hey, I've got this guy in Toronto worked his tail off with me at mix. He's at flow. He's doing some production, doing some on air. I think he'd be a good fit. So Bob Harris was in Toronto, I guess he was doing that conference with standard. So he came down to flow, which was across the road from the Eaton Center and the agency, 107, the course building was right there too. So he and I went to lunch, and we talked for a good 90 minutes about Calgary and what they were doing. And next thing you know, I'm coming on back, and I'm like, Well, I think I'm going to Calgary. Next thing you know, I'm giving the flow peeps my notice and getting ready to hop on a plane and head out west. But vibe in its heyday, when it was hip hop and R B was so much fun, so much fun. Chad Martin, who's still out there now, he's running shop for the bell cow group out there. So welcoming. Great program director, awesome modern talent, fuzzy love, who's still on 98 five under the Virgin brand. He's a rock star pretty much just become mayor of Cal. Were you there? But like I said, mastermind drew Atlas, Miss Andrews over at CBC, doing her thing with the block, amazing talent. We really, really, really made some noise in that market for being out everywhere, being at the clubs, introducing urban music to a lot of people in that Calgary market. It was so much fun. Some of the best days my career, especially in 2004 when the Calgary Flames had their crazy run of the Stanley Cup final, we did a song called in the dome, using the beat from three cents in the club with a rap artist who was on air, guy by the name of Getty, super talented and man VI was so much fun, especially in the early days. But I have a soft spot for vibe, and always have a soft spot for Calgary.

Matt Cundill  10:41  
So Bob Harris would probably do a really good cell job on you, having programmed in Calgary at CJ 92 for all those years. And yeah, he, he loved that city. Yeah, that

Damian Rickards  10:53  
building on broadcast hill, where we are. You know, they're back there now, because we start from broadcast Hill, and then we went over to Center Street Studios, like, up the road from the Calgary tower, which was crazy. Now they're back on broadcast Hill, and just being down the hall from the CJ 92 guys with Forbes and Graham Reaper and JD and Ben Jeffrey and Jodie Hughes and everybody that was in that building. I remember Red Dog and JD made me feel very welcome my early days there, and like, Okay, let's take you out for a night on the town. I'm like, All right, cool. So we went to, thing was the back alley. Oh, it was the back alley. Yeah. Oh, my God. Got pretty crazy lit, and I still had to be on air, because I was started there doing weekends and weekends and overnights at that time. And I remember, because obviously, didn't drive, took a cab there, took a cab back the next morning, I'm getting ready to go. I'm about to leave. I dropped my keys and then I walked, dropped my keys twice, and then dropped my keys third time. I'm like, Well, we're taking a cab. We're stopping at Subway for a breakfast sandwich and a big ass bottle of Gatorade. We're gonna work our way through it

Matt Cundill  11:59  
great times. And Chad the Pog Martin, who I worked with, and I worked against, really, in Edmonton, because he was doing afternoon drive, I was doing afternoon drive, and I really only cared about the person who was in front of me, and it was him. So he had the number one show doing afternoons in Edmonton for a fair chunk of the 90s. Yeah. Pog, producer, op Gopher, is that what that stands for? Yeah, I didn't know that, man. Things you learn 30 years later. How'd you wind up at MTV? When I left vibe, you

Damian Rickards  12:34  
know, through a couple contacts, got like a little mini internship, I worked with a guy by the name of Mark McArthur, who was running MTV two and, yeah, just unpaid, but I wanted to still keep my foot in the industry and still hang in Calgary as long as I could. I actually learned a little more programming from him, except, you know, we were programming music videos, but still using selector, so that was cool. Archiving. So funny to say, tapes now, damn. But yeah, doing stuff like that and working with a few of the on airs, like a guy named by the name of Kevin knuckle who, think it's back in Thunder Bay, but he was in Calgary for a long time. I think he actually still might be in Calgary. But yeah, just being in there and getting the experience and learning the music stuff from the TV side, see if I can bring it back to the radio side. It didn't last too, too long, but it was a lot of fun being in there and learning music and learning the broadcast world

Matt Cundill  13:25  
in a different way. And then you moved back to Toronto. Yeah, it came

Damian Rickards  13:29  
to a point where it's like, you know what? Haven't landed another gig here, and maybe it's time to go home. And you know, my old man would always say, you're more than welcome to come back. You can come back anytime. I'm like, okay, dad, okay, dad, well, Dad, I'm coming home. So rolled back home spring of 2005 and yep, went back to the six, hung there for a little bit that summer. One of my closest friends said, Hey, I know you're in between radio gigs right now, but I got this job at the most an amphitheater now, Budweiser stage, and it was kind of like an Artist Relations job, but it was almost like glorified security. But they placed me at a spot where I was backstage. Occasionally I was upstairs, where the dressing rooms were over in the VIP, and I had a boss by the name of Mike, who was really, really cool, and he said, The reason I'm putting you over there is because you know how to talk to people, and you know how to handle egos, as in, you know whether it's management or whether it's artists doing their thing or people who are just trying to sneak where they're not supposed to sneak. So that was a that was a really fun summer, and met, you know, reconnected with a lot of the people I work with at the mix and other industry people. That's where I met George strombolopoulos For the first time, when he was getting ready for an oasis show. We had a little barge area set up, but it was open that night and he was looking for a spot to do an interview. So I said, the barge is open. He's like, Are you sure? I said, Here, let me get my boss on the walkie, and got it all cleared, and we started from there. And then occasionally we've connected back and forth on Instagram. Graham man, yeah, that was the first experience with George. That was a fun summer. There a lot of shows, lot of late nights, but a lot of fun in between radio

Matt Cundill  15:07  
gigs. Any star studded stories you wanna share?

Damian Rickards  15:12  
Hmm, actually, when Liam Gallagher that same night comes on out, shakes hands, says, How you doing? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and he's like, every fucking time in Toronto it bloody rains, every fucking time. Well, guess what this time around when the area it rained again. So this continues. So that was fun, yeah, just I got the chance to, you know, meet some pretty cool people. One of the coolest memories I have there was meeting Roy Halladay, the late Roy Halladay from the Toronto Blue Jays. He was actually, that was the season where he got hit in the leg by line drive in Texas. So he was out for the year, and people just were like, hey, Roy, autograph this blah, blah, blah. He just wanted to have a nice night with his wife and see a show. So I took him to a little spot kind of out of the way. Chatted with him for a little bit, and then Mrs. Halliday Brandi comes along and said, there you are. And just like, just wanted to make sure he was away from the Riff Raff, the Riff Raff, the hoard of fans. But that was really cool. I got a good 15 minutes with him and me being a die hard Blue Jays fan that, you know, the baseball fan in me was like, freaking out.

Matt Cundill  16:18  
Well, there's a lot of sports here, and this is sort of a sports time for you, because I think you did some satellite radio sports stuff, right? It was hardcore sports.

Damian Rickards  16:26  
Yeah, hardcore sports. Part of the score, I was doing that also with my early days of the beat. So I was going in there one night a week, doing a Sunday night, late night show and some updates all the way through. That was a lot of fun getting in there. You know, when I was kind of like hanging between gigs, doing closed captioning at the score got over the radio side for a bit. If the beat hadn't come around, I probably would have done a lot more on the serious side. But one thing I always had to remember, because we were encouraged to swear on satellite. And it's like, okay, I'm doing that on a Sunday night, but then I go to top 40, I'm like, don't drop an F bomb. Don't drop an F bomb.

Matt Cundill  17:00  
And again, you point out that you were working at 91 five the beat during this time as well. So you're in the

Damian Rickards  17:05  
car a lot. I was commuting from Mississauga to Kitchener. And when me doing evenings till I was doing that five nights a week, the drive is really 40 minutes. But if you leave after three o'clock, you are screwed. So it was like, Okay, leave it two o'clock. You get down there in 40 minutes. All right, hit the gym, get a workout in head on into the radio station, do your prep, do your thing on air at seven. Seven to midnight was the time, and then back home to Mississauga. And there are some times where it's like, okay, nowhere to pull over, nowhere to lay by and get a 15 minute snooze. Because if you're doing that, and the score gig and the serious satellite gig, it was, it was a lot on the body when you're young and stupid,

Matt Cundill  17:50  
do what you do. Yeah. So what's, what was that time period like, you know, because you're doing music at the beat, and you're doing the show and the times, tell me about some of the trends that were happening at the time with top 40, you know, during that 2010, era.

Damian Rickards  18:05  
So I started As music director 91 five to be right after mocha left to go to kiss 92 five. And God bless mocha. Love him like a brother. He was like the guy that kind of gave me the extra push to go after the music director job. Apparently, when he met with our general manager, Lars and Scott Turner brand director, they asked him, like, Who do you think would be a good candidate for a music director? And mocha said, your next MD is already in the building. So that meant so so much trends of pop. I mean, for example, the Justin Bieber craze was in 2009 the early Bieber craze, we had him in the radio station. I mean, having him in his early days in the radio station was crazy enough. We had CTV there doing a piece for w5 at the same time, we had a whole bunch of listeners that were kids. Some got in to ask Bieber a couple of questions during the show. He got in during the afternoon drive show with Mike Devine, and I'm talking with the music reps. And you know, we're doing stuff outside with some of the people who can't get in and things like that. So, you know, that was pretty cool. Long after Justin left that night, there were people who were hanging out there at the radio station for like, another hour and a half, like, outside and were like, he's gone. He's gone. Like, I literally had to hop on the air doing the evening show and say, if you're wondering where your kids are, Justin Bieber left here an hour and a half ago, come pick him up. They were literally outside the door waiting to get a glimpse of him. But music wise, I mean, you know that 2920 1020, 11, phase music was fun. There was a little bit of everything. We did pop, we did urban, we did dance. I give kudos to Scott Turner when it came to the programming stuff, because he gave me the okay to look at certain things and take risks on certain things, our music meetings, I would look at not just the Canadian pop chart or the American pop chart or any peer station. I'd look at the US urban chart to see what would make sense. I looked at the Rock chart see what would make sense. I think the beat was the first top 40 station in Canada to play radioactive by Imagine Dragons and. And a couple people thought we were nuts to add it, but it works. And next thing, you know, hits the pop side and does really, really well. So it was crazy, you know, doing the On Air and live to air as an MD during that time. But I loved every

Matt Cundill  20:12  
minute of it. Yeah, I was gonna mention that, you know, your brand manager, program director is Scott Turner, and Scott's been on this show before, and we where we talk a lot about, you know, putting music and playlists together. And I was gonna ask, you know, what did you learn from all that? What did, what did Scott Turner teach you that you still carry with today when it comes to programming music?

Damian Rickards  20:35  
For me, Scott taught me, like, here are your basics, but here's where you can go, and don't be afraid to go certain ways. I mean, one thing is with Scott, Scott would take a risk. He's always had that, that thing, you know, from his days of energy, the old days of energy, and, you know, take a risk. Sometimes throw something at the ball and see if it sticks. Sometimes you get a win, and sometimes you don't. And then you learn from it. So that I always kept with me as a music director and as a programmer, but that was one really big thing with him, and the trust factor there was, of course, trust your gut. There was a lot of that. Of course, trust your gut, but let the boss know. And to say, Hang on, try this out. Do you mind? And be like, yeah, you'll give me a thumbs up, or be like, and but whatever. But he did encourage me to go with a lot of my instincts when it came to certain things, like ads and why certain things, like involving rotations and can con and how certain things worked. And that really stuck with me, and still does to this day.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  21:35  
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Matt Cundill  22:08  
I wanted to ask you about the work you do on Instagram and Instagram reels and the quizzes, because I find them a lot of fun. First of all, I never get them. I feel I should get them. I don't, because I've worked in rock radio, and rock is a different animal, but yeah, so I never get your quiz, but it's a lot of fun. So tell me how you came up with doing the quizzes for Instagram. I kind of took

Damian Rickards  22:30  
advantage of, like, what the nostalgia vibe is right now. And I mean, you know, first on the radio station, we do Throwback Thursday play some of the classics from back in the day. But also, and I can, you know, kind of go back to, like, days of programming in the 2000s or going back to my days at flow, or even going back to my days of the mix where, you know, we're looking at Canadian talent and thought, You know what? I'm sure there's a lot of people that don't know a lot about some of the artists that, either, you know, made their way, you know, open doors for the tricks and the weekends in the world, like, like, the cardies and the maestros and, you know, and I'm just doing urban, I'm doing dance and a little bit of rock and pop. And, yeah, it all started kind of on a whim. I mean, let's try it out for a few weeks and see how it goes. And it really, really built on Instagram. My Tiktok blew up with it as well. So, I mean, I put the new one up just today because it had been a month. So, you know, after starting here, moving whole bunch of stuff, I, you know, don't have time to do a re all. I can just check a couple messages and that's it. But it's been a lot of fun to do. I've even actually had some of the artists that were featured hit me up, like Kim este and Maestro fresh was classified, who would be like, Yo, thanks for the shout out. It's great. The audience has really responded to it. And don't worry, there are people, professional people, who are on air and do pop music and like one today said I couldn't get the song. I'm like, Oh my god. How old are you? Oh my god, you're so young. No, I know why you didn't get it, but yeah,

Matt Cundill  24:01  
it's a lot of fun to do. So for those of you who have been listening to this episode so far from the beginning to now, there's a definite trend that is sort of emerging here. And that said, in most of the places that you've been to, you've been at the very front of something, right? You've been sort of at the peak of mix 99 but the front of flow, you were sort of at the peak of the front of what was going on at vibe. And now, you know, putting music together in Kitchener at 91 five. And again, what's going to come up here is syndication comes up. And syndication is a very scary word for most people in radio, because, I mean, someone's going to lose their job, and then somebody has to relearn their skills to do radio in multiple markets. And that's what I think happened next for you. Is that right?

Damian Rickards  24:45  
Yeah, when I went to jump initially, it was, you know, to handle the evening show there, and it was just jump alone. Actually started as music director for the first eight months. Had a lot going on in my life, including a child being born. So there was quite. Going on there. And, you know, good old Ottawa with the days of the hit and non hit, which was handcuffed in its own it's like, Why? Why are we dealing with this? Why is this so dated, so

Matt Cundill  25:09  
So yeah, for the rest of the planet. Who wants to know what that is in Montreal and Ottawa, English radio stations were only allowed to play 49.9% hit records, which probably represents the only industry in all of the planets that would regulate you to manufacture and display half unsuccessful product. But, yeah, crazy, thank god that's gone.

Damian Rickards  25:34  
Yeah, well, for that, it actually became a bit of an advantage for me doing evenings, because where you break new music is in the evenings. So, I mean, I had a lot of stuff that was brand new, and a lot of stuff that was really, really cool. We knew some of the songs probably wouldn't hang on the station too, too long, but were definitely, you know, stuff that we can break into the market, stuff that was trending online, that we could put out there. Mike Lavalley, who was the MD there, found some pretty cool stuff, some really cool stuff. But for me, doing, you know, next at night, and then eventually at night, that was a big, big advantage at the time when hitting on hit was there. But I will tell you, we celebrated big time when, when that rule got dropped, because that handcuff made radio sound not as good. So, you know, now, with that being gone, we felt like, yep, you know, we can really compete better records out there all the time. Don't have to worry about restrictions or or things like that. But I, you know, we took advantage of the cards that we were given, and then that's how that rolled there.

Matt Cundill  26:38  
What is broadcasting radio in the evening, like, Now, I know that sounds crazy, but what's the audience like?

Damian Rickards  26:46  
Well, it was crazy enough for me to do it for the better part of

Matt Cundill  26:49  
20 years. Then the better question for me to ask is, tell me how the audience has changed. Wow.

Damian Rickards  26:55  
Digital world, you know, Spotify, Apple music. You know when at one point, it's like, oh, that, you know, where the attitude in radio was, oh, you know, they have that it's not a big deal. Well, guess what? It became a big deal. And radio, in a lot of ways, because their listening habits had to catch up to that. So, you know, we were looking at how people were streaming in their music, where they were getting their music, audience wise, overall, there are some things that remain the same. I had a lot of night shifters, you know, those that were working either in factories or nurses. I had a lot of people in Ottawa who were in the medical field who were doing night shifts. That was really, really cool. Truck drivers. Truck drivers, big time. And at one point I thought, okay, satellite radio or streaming, they're not going to hit me up. I had a bunch of regular truckers, whether I was at beat during evenings or at jump during evenings, that would tune in because they would punch around. If they were doing a 401 route or the 417 route or whatever. They knew certain places where they would go to get what they wanted. And I would get a lot of those people. When I was in Ottawa, we got a lot of people that lived outside of Ottawa, like out in the Ottawa Valley, because jump was on a repeater on the 99 nine sticks. We get a lot of people from Pembroke who are out having drinks by the campfire or, you know, just hanging out doing their thing. It's like, Yeah,

Matt Cundill  28:18  
listen, listen to me. Those people out there are some of the biggest hosers Canada has to offer up starts at Arn Pryor, okay, Renfrew, and cruises all the way down to Pembroke, all of them.

Damian Rickards  28:32  
Yeah, they're great, though they're they're incredibly loyal. They're incredibly fun. Yeah, like, it's funny, because I went from, you know, doing evenings where I'm talking to a bunch of kids, you know, who had the radio on, you know, in the background, or had their friends, you know, hanging out with her, playing video games. And still had a little bit of that as I got older. But then it turned to, oh, here are the Uber drivers, yeah, driving Uber tonight, driving Lyft, or, like I said, the hospital workers, or somebody who's working at Toyota or whatever. So I got to get more of, you know, growing along with those people, you know, those ones who were kids in my younger years, and then all of a sudden, as I grow, they grow along with me. And it's like you're doing night shifts while you're at work, and you still have me on,

Matt Cundill  29:15  
I think, of a vibrant radio market like Edmonton, where there are only two radio stations and maybe one that even have anybody on in the evening. So for anybody who owns or programs a radio station that does not have anybody in the evening, what are they missing?

Damian Rickards  29:33  
It's sad, because I loved when my early days here in Kitchener and in my days in Ottawa, where it was either just me or maybe me and one other person. And yeah, sure, the work day is done, but it doesn't mean things don't happen at night. I mean, I remember we'll go with the syndication thing at one point where this was the very early days of covid. So I'm doing the live show on jump, and I also have. The show on 91 five to beat at the same time, where I'm doing it from Ottawa, and also doing the show on fresh and Cornwall. I have my Twitter and everything you know set up for markets is that and the other. And I just see Guelph goes into a state of emergency, like, Oh boy, here we go the other places, not yet, go down the hall, make an announcement, okay, because covid Guelph goes into a state of emergency. Get it on social media. The day doesn't end. I know there's a lot more competition now, because people will go home and they'll watch Netflix, or, you know, they handle things for family, and this, that and the other. The day doesn't end, just because your mere regular routine may end come five o'clock in the afternoon, six o'clock in the evening, whatever. In a perfect world, there's somebody live on the radio, at the very least, going up until 1011, o'clock at night. I mean, and I was very fortunate to have that role

Matt Cundill  30:53  
for 20 years. How do you manage nine pop stations and one shift? Like, that's a lot like you're working, you're doing, you're doing your show. And there are nine stations. How does that go? Explain it to me, like I'm five.

Damian Rickards  31:09  
So how can I put this way, think of it as one big city. However, you can't talk specifically about that one little neighborhood. It's not easy for me. I made sure that my local content was Ontario based content. So, you know, parts of the 401 in the province, going from 100k an hour to 110 it's like, here's a list of where it's gonna change. Oh, it's gonna happen outside of Ottawa. Oh, it's gonna happen between Kitchener and London like things like that, that kind of content. Ontario based, where you still get your local I made sure I had that as much as I could. And when it came to the artist interviews, I mean, that was what was great, was the playlist for those stations. They all melded, especially in the evening, if you have a newer artist too, where you know that artist might not have been on that hot AC station in the middle of the day, but come after seven o'clock, you hear them with me. So I mean, that was a big plus. So in other ways, you were breaking new music on an Ontario wide show. But yeah, I just always had to remember when you know, doing my prep, it's like, oh, this is big. Oh, this only affects London and Kitchener. No one in Ottawa or Peterborough or Barry's gonna care. So certain things to just kind of like, gotta put this to the side. Or it's like, Hey, if you're making your way to cottage country, because you're in London or in Toronto and so and so, if you're on your way to barrio or Muskoka, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you have to incorporate everybody into that thought. And some nights it was easy, and some nights at all,

Matt Cundill  32:39  
what are you working on these days? And that's a crazy question to ask, but I was once asked it, and I was like, Oh, I think they're asking me what I'm really looking forward to in my job and what I'm doing. So what's one of the things that you're working on? It could be something in social media. It could be something in video. You could be learning a new program. What's something that you're working on these days that I would be interested in? Well, for me,

Damian Rickards  33:00  
adjusting to daytime hours is reconnecting with the beat audience in southwestern Ontario. So I'm very fortunate I get to do that daily, and I'm very fortunate that I still get to use my skillset and with programming on the beat side, and also still with jump in Ottawa and a few other stations when needed outside of the radio walls. I'm part of a podcast called NsFR, new sketches for radio, which is created by somebody I worked with at Boom 99 seven in Ottawa, Tom shock, who is a crazy, hilarious writer. He's worked on some scripts for some TV shows and things like that, and he wanted to do a podcast involving the twisted life of radio. So we have him and a few other radio people who are currently in and outside the business doing characters and things like that, myself included. So that's been a lot of fun to do, and doing some characters where you can go a little, you know, over the line where you couldn't necessarily do on terrestrial radio, but it gets to point across.

Matt Cundill  34:03  
I love this idea. And I love it because comedians, and I think they still do this, I think they really use podcasts for trying out new material and seeing what works and what doesn't work. And, you know, they'll record for four hours and just talk. They'll take the best material and then they'll work it into something that's on stage. So I love that you're doing that that's a very innovative approach to, you know, to honing your craft. And, you know, it's a form of writing really. Yeah, it

Damian Rickards  34:25  
really is. Like, one character I'm trying to work on is a guy who goes on a four minute rant about, you know, what his kids did at the house the night before, and make it sound like, Why did I do this? Why is my house a mess? Why am I always broke? But I love my kids working on that for the pod as well. It gives me an avenue to be creative in a in a different way, as opposed to just doing, you know, the regular everyday show stuff, where I still get to be creative and have some fun on the air, but it's doing it in a different world, and I really enjoy it. I think a lot of people don't

Matt Cundill  34:59  
understand. Understand that actually about radio is that there are the creative moments are not on the radio. Those are performing moments, right? I, for one, did not do well at the transition from performing in the afternoon to performing in the morning. I just found that to be a big stretch, and then having to re establish when the creative time was and the creative time later in the day, that's a big switch, right? So I could not make that. And still, to this day, I do all my creative stuff in the morning and the performative stuff in the afternoon, and that's big on you to have to make all those big switches. But I just love that podcast technique of the sketching in a podcast,

Damian Rickards  35:33  
yeah, it's a lot of fun to do. And sometimes Tom will hit me up and be like, Hey, I got this little bit of crazy idea out of left field. Can you throw this in and see what it sounds like? I'm like, hell yeah. Give me 20 minutes. It's funny because, I mean, there was a point where, you know, we were encouraged for quite a while, like, you know, if you're on air, think about a podcast. To a podcast. Try a podcast. And there are podcasts, 1000s upon 1000s and 1000s of them now. So I never really fully got into it, because, one, well, if we're doing programming and things like that, and life outside the radio station, I had no time. And I would need something that would be very, very niche. And you know, you gotta be very, very narrow in this lane for it to really, really be successful. So having fun, you know, doing radio that's not radio for a podcast. You know, it's fairly new, and we're trying to grow it, and it's been a lot of fun doing something a little bit different, but yet still

Matt Cundill  36:30  
kind of familiar. How far the Jay's gonna go? Oh,

Damian Rickards  36:34  
well, depends on that damn bullpen. Gosh, I'm trying to think between who they have, a leftover Boston, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, they can win the division. Get the one or two seed. Please avoid the wild card round, or else you'd be like, Okay, we're out in two again. Get to the Division Series. If everything goes right, I think I can win the whole thing. If everything goes right, I think they can win the whole damn thing again. Bullpen, looking at you, and by the way, what a crazy bills game you were at on opening

Matt Cundill  37:02  
night. My God, I know I picked the right game, huh? Yes, you did. That was insane. And you know, I have to keep my voice so I can't yell like I can't yell, right? And so my wife's looking at me. Why is she yelling and screaming? I said, I gotta keep my voice so I I just had to watch the whole thing unfold in disbelief.

Damian Rickards  37:20  
I'm glad you weren't one of the 20,000 people who left and tried. People who left and tried to

Matt Cundill  37:23  
get back in. Oh, there were people eating. So some woman's yelling me on the way at the door, and she's, she's like, this is horrible. I'm going home to bed as I can't believe the defense is so terrible. I go, we're only down by two scores. I've seen stuff happen. Just relax. You know, 11 minutes to go in the fourth quarter. Unbelievable fair weather fans. We call them.

Damian Rickards  37:42  
They don't cross the street to the new stadium. You can leave them there at the

Matt Cundill  37:45  
Ralph Damian, thanks so much for doing this and being on the sound off podcast. I appreciate it,

Damian Rickards  37:50  
Matt. It's an honor. Thank you for doing what you do. It's a podcast I have a chance to tune in when I'm doing my drives, and it was an honor to be on with you. I appreciate

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  37:58  
it, man. The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan sirminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai