The Mens Room was born out of a firing, a noncompete, and a lot of patience.
Miles Montgomery lost his Baltimore morning show job when his station flipped formats overnight. Meanwhile, Steve “The Thrill” Hill was building a show at the city’s sports station with Ted Smith, a former intern he simply thought was funny. Their boss, Bill Pasha, wanted all three together — he just had to wait out Miles’s noncompete first.
When the trio finally met, it was at a bar. Steve laid his cards on the table right away, and Miles didn’t flinch. “That was 21 years ago,” Steve said. “And we’re like, ‘Cool.'”
In 2005, the show headed west to Seattle. Now, more than two decades later, The Mens Room remains an afternoon institution on 99.9 KISW.
Listen to all three talk about how they got there, though, and one thing becomes obvious. The show isn’t really about them. It’s about whoever is on the other end of the phone.
The Caller Is the Star
Ask Miles to explain The Mens Room, and he doesn’t start with the hosts. He starts with the audience.
“The caller is really the star of our show,” he said. “The people are the star, and we set them up that way. That’s the whole idea.”
For Miles, that philosophy means the show is always out in the community, even when the hosts never leave the building.
“We incorporate the listener into our show so much that we’re on the street even when we’re not,” he said. “We’re talking to everybody all the time about whatever it is we’re talking about, which I think is the best part.”
“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t,” Miles said. “Sometimes you get callers, you’re like, ‘What is this?’ And other times you just get absolutely incredible stories from people who have had great life experiences.”
Steve added the other half. “Or really f***ed up life experiences,” he said. “But it still translates to a great story to listen to.”
Getting Off the Highway
So how do you turn a random caller into compelling radio? Miles described it like a road trip. The topic of the day is the highway. The listener’s story is the exit ramp.
“A caller might call up with whatever the topic is, but if they veer off a little bit on a really interesting thing, f*** it, we’re getting off the highway,” he said. “You were deployed six times, or whatever the deal is. Now that is something we want to talk about. Then we’ll get back on the highway with the next caller.”
That, Steve argued, is interviewing — just without the celebrity.
“It actually hones your interview skills,” he said. “They always talk about getting interviews, and Miles always says it: that’s all we f***ing do. It’s just not with people you’ve heard of before. So when you can take someone no one’s heard of, by the end of that phone call everyone’s now interested in this person because you just asked them the right questions based on the info they’re giving you.”
“The typical statement is radio interviews don’t work. People don’t like interviews,” Miles said. “We interview people for two and a half hours every day. That’s what we do.”
Steve boiled it down even further. “Don’t ask the same dumb f***ing questions, and you get better answers out of people.”
Nothing to Lose
That freedom started with uncertainty. The Mens Room arrived in Seattle on a short deal, landing on an all-male-targeted station following Tom Leykis, who dominated the market at the time. Nobody knew if a Baltimore show would translate.
Steve said that uncertainty became an advantage.
“It almost makes it nice,” he said. “Look, guys, we don’t know how people are going to accept us, and I don’t care who you are, you can never predict that. So let’s just do what we want to do. We’ve got nothing to lose. We don’t figure we’re going to be here long, and then it turns out people really liked it.”
It wasn’t instant. When the show moved to KISW, Ted admitted the first six months were brutal, with longtime rock listeners grumbling that the station had become “the talk of Seattle, not the rock of Seattle.”
Stupid Works
Early on, the guys learned their audience would follow them almost anywhere.
A few months after arriving, they announced a mustache-growing challenge — years before Movember — and invited listeners to an Irish pub in Fremont. They expected a handful of people. They got a line around the corner and a clear lesson.
“Once we did that, we were like, ‘All right, we’re onto something,'” Steve said. “There was no discount on the beer. But the fact that that many people showed up, it’s like, okay, stupid works, and we’re really good at stupid.”
For years, the show barely needed official events at all. “We would just say, ‘Hey, we’re going to so-and-so bar after the show,'” Steve said. “Five hundred people would show up.”
Today, those gatherings are more likely to be live broadcasts tied to a new Mens Room beer from Black Raven Brewing. The point hasn’t changed: put the listeners front and center.
“We Are Social Media”
Steve doesn’t sugarcoat the show’s approach to digital outreach. Their bosses have told them they do “the worst social media ever.” He doesn’t lose sleep over it.
“My thought is always: if what we do does not generate new listeners, then what’s the point of doing it?” he said.
Miles took it a step further. Social media, he believes, should always point back to the show.
“No one gives a f*** if I’m at a concert,” he said. “But if it’s a clip from the show, if it brings you back to the show, then to me that’s the ultimate use of social media and radio. It all comes back to center. If we don’t have listeners, we don’t have a show.”
Then he made his case for the medium itself. “We are social media. That’s what radio is,” Miles said. “You interact with us, we interact with you. We like your comment, we think it sucks — either way, it’s social media.”
A Beer for a Good Cause
That relationship with listeners extends to the show’s charity work. Proceeds from Mens Room beer, sausage, and salsa benefit the Fisher House, which provides housing for military families during medical treatment.
The partnership started with a simple question. Ted’s father was a Bronze Star-winning Vietnam veteran, so when the show needed a charity, Miles told him to ask his dad.
“He goes, ‘This Fisher House is really good. They give all the money back,'” Ted said. “But you don’t have to run a 5K. Just go down to Black Raven and drink a beer. Part of that’s going to the Fisher House. It’s much easier for the fans to be involved and help vets.”
Steve, naturally, had his own endorsement. “You hurt yourself in a way that you enjoy hurting yourself,” he said. “The hangover beats being sore.”
Radio’s Fine
As for where radio is headed, Miles isn’t worried. “The sky’s been falling since we got it,” he said.
Steve kept it even simpler. “Radio’s fine,” he said. “Just entertain people.”
After 21 years in Seattle, that’s The Mens Room’s formula in a sentence. Put the listener at the center. Ask better questions. And trust the audience to show up.
They always have.
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