Eddie Pappani didn’t grow up dreaming of a microphone. He graduated from high school in 1991 with no real plan.
“I basically graduated high school and didn’t really have a game plan,” Pappani said. “I was kind of floundering a little bit, thinking I was going to go to junior college, and didn’t really have any interest in much, to be honest with you.”
What he did have was a friend in radio. That friend was bouncing around as a weekender and producer connected to the morning show Kelly and Klein. Pappani was the funny guy, so he started calling in voices and writing bits. They liked them.
Then a brand-new radio network opened in Rochester, New York, and it was hiring just about everyone.
“I was 19 years old, didn’t really have any kind of path, and they were hiring everybody for anything,” he said. “I kind of threw my name into the hat and wildly got hired on to be on a morning show out there.”
Today, Pappani leads The Show, the morning team on iHeartMedia’s Rock 105.3 (KIOZ) in San Diego, alongside Sky Williams, Tylhor “Thor” Dodd and Emily Griffiths. The program has owned San Diego mornings since 2010 and recently signed an extension through 2030. Getting to the center seat, however, took a long time — and plenty of years in someone else’s shadow.
Rochester Was His College
The California kid packed up for upstate New York with no experience and no winter clothes.
“I kind of looked at it like that was kind of like my college,” Pappani said. “I’m gonna move 3,000 miles away. I don’t know how to do anything. I don’t know anybody. But you know what? I’m gonna jump full-fledged into this thing, and somehow it worked out.”
One of his two winters there brought a record snowfall. Pappani had barely been driving for a couple of years.
“I’ll never forget driving maybe like 10 miles an hour on my way to work and did a full 360 on the road because I hit a patch of black ice,” he said. “Luckily there was nobody on the road at whatever time it was, 4:30 in the morning, or else I would have been in a gnarly accident. But it taught me real quick how to live out there.”
The Sidekick Years
Around 1994, Pappani landed in San Diego at KCBQ as morning show producer, pulling double duty in promotions.
“Mostly I was a morning show producer slash sidekick guy,” he said.
The résumé from there reads like a tour of second chairs. He was the morning sidekick at Z90. At Star 100.7, home of local legends Jeff and Jer, he co-hosted middays and pitched in on mornings when needed. Next came two years at KEGL The Eagle in Dallas and two more at KSJO in San Jose.
In 2004, Howard Stern exited Rock 105.3, and the company needed a replacement show in San Diego. Pappani’s team was sent back to fill the slot. He was still the sidekick and producer.
“You Guys Are the Show”
Everything changed in 2010. The host at the time left for a rival across the street. The station, however, wanted to keep the rest of the cast.
“They were kind of telling us, ‘Hey, you guys, you guys are the show,'” Pappani said. “And so that’s how we ended up with the name The Show, and that’s how I ended up becoming the host of the show in 2010.”
He was also working San Diego Chargers broadcasts at the time and had no interest in leaving. He was thrilled. He was also scared.
“Pretty, pretty intimidating, to be honest with you,” he said. “I’ve never been the host. I’ve always been the second mic. But I kind of knew I could do it. I just never got the opportunity to do it.”
The comfort didn’t come overnight.
“It took a couple years, to be honest, to fully get comfortable in that role and knowing that you’re the guy and you’re the lead mic,” Pappani said. “But once we kind of figured out our rhythm and our characters and all that stuff, it really took off.”
The Secret to the Sauce
Ask Pappani why The Show works, and he has an answer ready.
“I always say the secret to the sauce is just being us,” he said. “We are as real as it gets. I think the days of kind of doing contrived bits and being the wacky radio guy, I think that’s gone. I think people really crave real on the radio.”
The formula is four distinct personalities talking about their lives. Pappani believes every listener can find themselves in at least one of them.
“Whatever we’re talking about, we want it to be kind of under the filter of the show,” he said. “We have to have a reason why we’re talking about it and why we care. And if we care, hopefully people out there care.”
Ringmaster, Chef, Chess Player
For anyone stuck on the second, third or fourth mic, Pappani won’t pretend sidekick life is a consolation prize.
“There’s nothing wrong with being the second mic. I actually really enjoyed it,” he said. “I loved being the sniper guy with a quick joke and then kicking back and waiting for my next opportunity.”
If you want the lead chair, though, the job changes. The skill that matters most is listening.
“I always say I’m the ringmaster of our circus,” Pappani said. “I’m sitting there, I’m listening, and then I got to direct where the conversation goes. I got to move the pieces around the chessboard.”
He also compares it to running a kitchen.
“I’m that guy who’s the chef in the kitchen. I got to add the ingredients. I’m the one that’s got to stir the pot,” he said. “I don’t necessarily have to be the person that’s shining the most in the break. But I also got to know where the direction of the break is going to go.”
Those old producer instincts still drive his self-critique. The Show rarely sits down for formal airchecks anymore. Consultant Dennis Clark, who has worked with the team since 2010, still checks in every couple of years.
“I do the show almost through my old producer ears,” Pappani said. “I know when a break isn’t going right. I know when a break didn’t fully come to life.”
Embrace Your Weird
Pappani walks through his cast with obvious pride. Williams handles news and has been his on-air partner for 26 years.
“We’re kind of the old married couple on the show,” he said. “We’ve grown up together in the business. Been through hell and back and have the strongest relationship.”
Thor started as an intern from New York who simply wouldn’t leave the studio. Pappani saw hunger and fed it.
“Any young person in radio at this point who wants to know the business and wants to work hard at it, I’m gonna feed into that,” he said.
Griffiths was the station receptionist when the crew arrived in 2004. Later, she spent years on Jeff and Jer’s show before pitching herself for an open seat on The Show.
“She has been the biggest surprise,” Pappani said. “She is a never-ending ball of content.”
That thread ties the whole cast together.
“You always want to embrace your weird,” he said. “You may be embarrassed to talk about it, but somebody out there listening, and probably quite a few out there listening, can relate. People love to love weird.”
He also credits assistant producer Jaime Martinez. Martinez moved over from promotions about two years ago, helped sharpen the show’s social media and video work, and now handles nights on the station, too.
A Podcast on the Radio
Pappani says The Show was putting itself on demand before podcasting became a major iHeart initiative. Today, it runs an entire network of podcasts.
“I feel like we’re almost a podcast on the radio,” he said. “We don’t take a lot of phone calls, because I feel like they listen to the show for the show. They don’t listen to us to hear other people talk. That doesn’t work for everybody, but for our show, it really works.”
It’s a fitting philosophy for a guy who spent so long making room for other voices. Now, from the center seat, Pappani is still doing what the second chair taught him: listen first, then know exactly when to move.
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