Taking 5 with

Robert Lucas
Director of Promotions of
BUZZ Magazine & iwantaBUZZ.com

BZ ~ What got you started in the music industry?

RL ~ My uncle was a DJ for WIYD in Palatka. I loved to watch him spin records and I liked the way people thought he was a big deal when they'd call in and then he would say their name on the air like "hey this song goes out to Joe Schmo" At home I would record myself on my cassette player pretending to be a DJ; you know trying to be Wolfman Jack. I was 7 years old and I was hooked. You know some kids want to be a policeman or a fireman; I wanted to be a DJ.

BZ ~ How many years have you been involved in the music industry?

RL Over 18 years either in radio or on the road with a band or doing things for the record labels. I once had my own music and entertainment magazine called CRANKIT and I spent a lot of time interviewing bands.

BZ ~ What bands have you been on the road with and what was that like?

RL ~ HINDER out of Oklahoma City. They are like Active Rock meets Bon Jovi or early Guns n Roses and Motley Crue. Life on the road was like the movies Rockstar and Get Him to the Greek combined together on Steroids. We went around the world 3 times in 3 1/2 years and sold almost 4 million albums. It was great to go to the airport or some places with a lot of people and the band would be recognized then we'd getto skip lines, moved to first class, free drinks or some, not me of course, joined the mile high club.

BZ ~ What bands did you and HINDER tour with?

RL ~ Papa Roach, Motley Crue, Godsmack, Nickelback, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, Shinedown and more.

BZ ~ What do you do now with BUZZ Magazine?

RL ~ I am the Director of Promotions which means I set up and handle all of our outside events like promotions at the Arena, Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville, Happy Hour Parties, and all the thinks we do with radio stations and music venues. I take care ofall the concerts and social media. Basically I am the guy for the BUZZ that's everywhere.

BZ ~ What do you enjoy most about your job now?

RL ~ I get to meet a lot of people and promote The BUZZ Magazine and iwantaBUZZ.com... basically I just have fun, but don't tell my wife because I keep telling her I'm working.

“The Givers” Lex & Terry Are Back!
By: James Neal

    The Lex and Terry morning show has returned to Jacksonville! As of April 1^st, Lex and Terry came back to the “Freakville” 6-10am weekday airwaves. Special thanks go out to the Jacksonville AM sports talk radio station 1010XL who signed the duo and gave BUZZ access to the hosts for a first hand interview.

BZ:
Lex, Aside from hosting the Lex and Terry show, you have a long history of experience in the radio industry and have become quite a businessman. How has your skill as a businessman made you a better host?

Terry:
I’m laughin my ass of right now!

Lex:
I have had my successes and failures in business, but as far as being a host goes, I managed morning shows before I became the host of one. And in working with one, he probably taught me more about morning radio. Which the thing he taught me isn’t rocket science. It’s just be yourself and do compelling content and everything will take care of the rest and don’t try to do manufactured fake things no one likes.

 My ties to the business have worked in our favor, but for the most part I have used it for our benefit more than anything. Other than that I have been on a 17 year learning curve because I was on the other side of it.

BZ:
Terry, you have experience as a stand up comedian, how is the radio audience different or similar to that of a physical audience? Is there ever any anxiety or pressure to deliver a solid show the same way you might have felt during a set?

Lex:
Now I’m laughin my ass of right now!


Terry:
The audience was definitely different because you get immediate feedback when you do a stand up. On our radio show, I know if something is working because we have Taint or Lex and we all say something to make each other laugh. If the other guy is laughing we know it’s working. We’re the toughest audience in the world.

BZ:
Is the anxiety different?

Terry:
No no.. doing stand up comedy is much worse than radio. Now I only do stand up comedy from time to time when I need to scare the shit out of myself, and that’s the truth. It’s like skydiving it really is. (Lex in the background “without a parachute”) I became a really bad comedian because I got stuck and afraid to write new material. I found my own stuff that worked and I stuck to it, and I stuck to it because I was afraid to try new jokes. On the morning show, if it doesn’t work then we make fun of it not working. On stage, you’re getting stuff thrown at you. So it’s a lot worse to do stand up.

BZ:
You guys have had your hands in the promotion business for a while, and even reviewed unknown artist’s albums on air. Has the fame of your show sparked any careers for other musicians and entertainers?

Terry:
No, we have had some people that wanted to come on the show that we said no to. Like Limp Bizkit, before they were anything, we said what a stupid name. Norah Jones, she actually called our show and wanted to come in, and we said don’t worry about it kid you’ll do fine, And about 3 weeks later she won about 22 Grammys. Some guys it has helped their career, but we have not made or broke anybody. I think it has helped some people out by far. Carlos Mencia did well with us. You know, there are guys that wouldn’t get noticed otherwise and have an ok touring thing like Odis. We played their music on the show and nobody really knew anything about them, and because of us they were able to tour the southeast and do it successfully and put out a few things and make a little money.  They had a shot at it.

Lex:
I say the biggest favor we have done is let some people go back and do the jobs they were meant to do instead of foraging around in music where they were not going to make it.

Terry:
Yea, we will play stuff that is absolutely horrible and you’re crazy and you’re never going to make it. Like Lex said, they will wake up and say that sucked being trashed I don’t want any of that, and because of us you are getting your burgers cooked better.

Lex:
Or they go on to be something great in something else. I spent 3 years in the music business. I know, I spent time with the guys who make those decisions. If they don’t like the color of your packaging your thing goes in the trash. You know, that’s kind of how we treated that bit when we did it. Would this interest me? Even aesthetically before you even play it? Because that’s how bad it is. If they don’t think you have your crap together enough to even do that. If you show up with a CD that you wrote and scribbled on then whatever, you’re weak, you’re gone, and we can’t work with you. So we kind of took that approach on it. But yea there are some guys that had some real talent, they didn’t make it, but I think they could of. Some of them are still doing it. Souls Harbor up in Savannah and even Rivethead is still playing the house of blues and all that.

BZ:
You guys have a great show that balances serious discussions with entertainment. You give out relationship advice, share opinions to voters and information on politics, and you have women go into detail about what kind of underwear they have on. How do you keep a balance of facts and keep your show informative while also a bit racy and entertaining? Is it ever a challenge to keep the show from being too far one way than the other?

Terry:
Not really, we have so much to choose from every morning. Our big goal is we will have things planned in the morning, and if we never get to all the things we have planned then we know that was a good show. I don’t know if that makes much sense, but that just means that things started to roll. If we’re able to talk about something topical then we will do it. If it’s about abortion we will talk about it, but if it gets too serious then we know we need to burp or fart. It’s just an instinctual thing. Taint’s the first guy, he’s a real good barometer for us. If things start to get too serious he gets really bored.

Taint:
I start going on craigs list.

Terry:
Yea he gets bored and will start calling us out on things or he says something just completely stupid.

BZ:
What is the next step for Lex and Terry? Do you have any big plans that have not yet come to fruition but are in the works?

Taint:
We’re going to buy the jaguars…

Terry:
No, one of the big things we hope was a big step we recently took was signing with United Stations which is Dick Clark’s syndication company out of New York, and we hope that was a big step for us and they are going to start getting us onto a lot more cities. But the business is changing the bottom line is the business is changing, and the fact that we are actually still in it is a big step. There are a lot of talk shows that have been ditched, A lot of people out of work, and Adam Carrola is gone. All of these guys have done well because of their rating systems and everything else because companies don’t want to pay people anymore. But we’re keeping it going. We opened up our own business.

Lex:
Yea the business thing you talked about, that’s our biggest challenge. Because it’s like people are choosing not to listen to the radio anymore. They will listen to you on a podcast or a phone app, except we were never set up to have platforms to make money on those things. We had the radio people that went out and sold it and you got paid. Well it’s not that way anymore. Now you have to figure out ways to fairly charge a listener to listen to you or want to listen to you without over charging them and still making money in 6-7 different areas instead of one. That’s kind of what our challenge is to be honest, and if we manage to stick around everyday and start flourishing in those 6-7 areas then things are going to be really good, but that’s definitely a challenge.

BZ:
As a journalist I have a lot of criticism towards modern media being more interested in an artist’s money and who they having sex with than what their last album was. Do you guys in the radio industry have any comparable criticism?

(Taint farts)

Terry laughing:
Too serious a question as you can tell.

Taint:
Sorry about that..

BZ:
What do you want to do to change radio? How do you think you are bettering it?

Terry:
I personally want it to go back to the way it was. I want the rating system to be the way it was. It was really good; there was a sense of community now there is not. We love being in Jacksonville, we feel like we are part of Jacksonville even though we do not live here. It is a big thing for us to be back. We will be coming back a lot. We are not going to be going back to other cities. This is really our second home, and the reason why is because it is a community to us. Radio is going away. Nobody gives a shit. They don’t even want to say station’s names anymore. They don’t spend money on bumper stickers. They don’t do anything anymore. They don’t care.

Lex:
They are living in investor land. They are in stockholder 3 month intervals of making decisions and this industry right now is a much bigger problem than 3 months at a time. To sit there and say you’re going to play music all day long when every one of us has an iPhone and an iPad that we listen to our own shit on, and they think they can do it better than we can. That’s what they are going for in the future and it’s really crazy to even entertain the idea of sending talk shows packing. If you’re a radio station, to me it’s ludicrous if that’s the direction they’re going in.

Terry:
What used to make stations worth money was their own original content. That means their own shows. Nobody owns ACDC. You could have 50 stations playing ACDC. There is only one station that can have us. Our big goal is to push it back to that. The way that works is by connecting with the cities. Reaching out, doing appearances, hanging out and being a part of everything, and we want to show the industry they are wrong.

Lex:
If you are going to go up against somebody’s personal musical taste and let’s say they do not want deal with it on as elective basis. I even get tired of programming my own iPod at times. You got something like Pandora where you’re just in the mood for something hard and you just hit it.

Terry:
Pandora will be in cars soon and this will be the death of radio. The only thing that can save radio is original content.

Lex:
If you’re a smart radio company, right now you’re buying up every talk show you can get your hands on, and you don’t web stream it you don’t do anything except put it on the radio. That’s really where all it started was when they started doing their own web streams of their own content. It’s like who do you think you’re competing with? Yourselves! It’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.

Terry:
We hope that people will follow, we really do. Our relationships with clients are a big thing. We know you guys are going to get the ratings. We’re in first before everyone else.

Lex:
The other brands on the stations are already built and been around for a while. You throw us in the mix and this is going to be a highly rated radio station. Even though it’s AM, in Dallas, AM stations rule the roost. It doesn’t matter if it’s AM of FM if the content is there.

Thanks to "The Givers" Lex and Terry for sitting down for this interview.

www.LexandTerry.com

Souls Harbor