Seven months ago, I wrote my first piece for Barrett Media. It was about Cumulus updating Classic Rock KQRS/Minneapolis to a more modern version of the format. The thing I remember most from speaking with Format VP – Alternative/AAA/Classic Rock James Kurdziel was how he said that the audience was mainly concerned about the future of morning host Steve Gorman.
Kurdziel shared that when the station first started stunting to call attention to the changes, many of the early messages from listeners were about making sure the morning show would still be there. He felt that was a great sign. “The audience showed they are very protective of Steve,” said Kurdziel.
With that stuck in my brain, I decided to interview Gorman to learn more about his unique career path which, prior to KQRS, includes drumming for the Black Crowes, sports talk radio, and hosting a syndicated nighttime show. I also wanted to know how he built that intense connection with listeners in Minneapolis.
I caught up to him on a tour bus rolling down the highway on his way to Ashbury Park, New Jersey. He was with his new band Howl Owl Howl which also features Darius Rucker (Hootie and the Blowish) and Mike Mills (REM). That’s part of what makes Gorman’s success in radio so intriguing. He’s defied the odds considering the industry’s history is littered with recording artists who tried to make the leap to radio host and failed.
Gorman says that starting off in sports talk was key to making the leap. “I could not have possibly started in music radio. It was too close. With sports talk every little thing wasn’t so sacred and personal.”
He continued, “I have a real sense of humor about things. As a Sports host if I’m making fun of a band or a musician it’s genuinely in good fun. If I’m doing that as the drummer of the Black Crowes, it’s not fun. People would be like ‘what’s wrong with that guy.’ There’s something that gets lost in translation.”
The other thing that helped Steve go from music to radio was not taking anything for granted. “A lot of times when people have succeeded in one realm they assume they’re gonna succeed in another,” Gorman explained. “I realized that having had a couple of hit records 25 years ago is not a basis of a radio career.”
Gorman set out to prove himself. “I knew I was going to be underestimated by everybody I met, so I have to show them that I’m here and I’m taking it seriously.” He approached radio with the same mentality as being in a band. “I looked at every show like a gig. If you’re going to get on stage and play a show you really owe it to the people that showed up to do the best you can. I think about every radio show the same way.”
Despite his determination and focus his early shows weren’t necessarily good, which was OK with him. “I was willing to not be good because when the Black Crowes started as a local act we were terrible, but we had potential. We just had to keep going and I thought the same thing in radio. I didn’t think I was good at it at all, but I thought that I could be.”
After five years his sports talk show ended. Almost exactly a year later he made his first leap into music radio with the launch of his syndicated night show Steve Gorman Rocks. The show he says is quite different from mornings on KQRS. “I’ve got a great programmer who worries about the music and the format for me. My job is just to make the short breaks between songs interesting or funny or hopefully both. Its real adrenaline. It’s like turn on the mic, go, turn it off.”
Mornings uses a similar set of muscles but in different ways. “The morning show is much more talk and, as much as possible it’s about local things,” he said. “Plus, we get a lot of great listener interaction. I’ve always thought the average guy is a lot funnier than you might think if he is given the right subject, so there’s a lot of a lot of humor in the show from listeners as well what we’re trying to do.”
Which brings us around to why he thinks the listeners were so passionate about making sure his show stayed on after the format update. He chalks it up to being real. “I’m as authentic as I know how to be on the air.” That remains true even when he’s telling stories about living the rock lifestyle in the Black Crowes. “I can drop names with the best of them, but I don’t tell stories to say look how cool I am. It’s more from the point of view that this was a cool thing that I was around for. It didn’t happen because I am great. I just was the right guy at the right place.”
When Gorman started at KQRS, he replaced a market legend, Tom Barnard. I asked if there was a lot of pressure taking over. He again took a pragmatic approach.
“When I buy a Powerball ticket I think my odds are 50-50,” Gorman explained. “I’m going to win it or I’m not. In this case I knew enough to know that no matter who it is some people are going to hate it. But I also knew no one was going to be able to compare me to Tom. They could contrast us but not compare because there was nothing he was doing that I was interested in. We see the world entirely differently.”
Today the show consists of Gorman along with Ryder who he’d already been working with and Fletcher who was added when the format was revised. He says the chemistry between the three of them is growing, much like his new band. As much as he knows Kurdziel won’t want to hear this, the moments he enjoys the most are often the unplanned ones.
“I love discussing a story that just happened where there’s no prep at all. I love being surprised, and having to think on my feet. It might not always make for the best radio, but it always makes for interesting radio.”
Maybe that comes from playing in the Black Crowes, a band that jammed a lot on stage. “It’s a feeling not unlike when you’re a drummer playing a gig and someone on stage looks at you and says, ‘follow me’.”
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Mike Stern is a Classic Rock columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. He has been with Jacobs Media consulting stations in the Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative and AAA world for more than a decade. Prior to that he programmed stations in Chicago, Detroit, Denver Las Vegas and other markets. He also worked as News/Talk Editor for Radio and Records, wrote about Top 40 Radio for Billboard Magazine and had his own radio talent coaching business called Talent Mechanic.
