If you spend five minutes talking to Tanner, the morning host at 105.9 The Brew, KFBW in Portland, Oregon, two things become immediately clear. First, this is a guy who genuinely loves radio in a way that feels almost old-fashioned by today’s standards. Second, he is absolutely, positively not going to let you call him a star.
“I don’t think radio people can be stars,” he told me when I pushed him on it. “I feel like we’re more part of the community than we are above them.”
That’s a pretty grounded perspective for someone who has been one of the most consistent morning voices in a top-25 market for over a decade. But that’s Tanner. He’d rather talk about the grind than the glory.
The Long Way Home
Tanner’s path to Portland is the kind of radio career arc that used to be standard and is increasingly rare. He grew up in Portland after moving there as a kid, started in the business at sixteen, and quickly realized that if he wanted to do “real radio,” he’d need to leave.
“You needed to move away, get fired a couple of times, and then come back to where your home is,” he said. “That was kind of my goal.”
So he packed a hand-me-down Ford Focus from his mom and headed to Eugene, where he hosted his own show. He planned to stay a year and a half. He stayed eight years — and left on terms he didn’t choose.
“I got let go,” he said with a laugh, “and that was me officially in the business.”
From Eugene, he did a two-year stint in afternoons at 106.7 The D in Detroit — a station he said he was initially “exiled” to but ended up loving. He made his way back to Portland in 2014, landing at KFBW, and he’s been there ever since.
The Little Station That Could
When Tanner came back to Portland, KFBW wasn’t exactly the flagship of the building. The station shared space with some heavy competition — including what was the market’s number-one station KKCW — and wasn’t initially expected to challenge anyone.
“Originally they just wanted to be a thorn in the other rock station’s side,” he told me. “They didn’t have any expectation that it was gonna do too much.”
What changed the trajectory, Tanner said, was the decision to put live talent in the building. When he was given the morning show and was able to bring back his longtime co-host from Eugene, Drew — someone listeners in both markets already knew — the show had a running start that momentum could build on.
“It was exciting for a lot of people because they hadn’t heard us in two years,” he said. “And from there it just kind of took off.”
Today, Tanner Lauren and Casey is one of the more established morning brands in the Portland market. The show has survived lineup changes, including the loss of a longtime co-host to what Tanner called “basic corporate nonsense,” and has kept moving. He speaks about Lauren and Casey the way anyone would talk about family — the kind you actually want to see.
“If I go on vacation, I start to miss them a little bit,” he said.
Adapt or Die
If there’s a single phrase that defines Tanner’s philosophy, it’s one he offered right out of the gate when I asked what he’d learned over the course of his career.
“You have to adapt or you die.”
He said it without any drama, like it was just the weather report. He remembers when next-gen automation first hit the studios during his early days in radio. It registered as a signal, not a crisis. Things were changing. Okay. Keep up.
That mindset has served him as the industry has contracted around him. When I brought up the wave of layoffs and the friends and colleagues he’s watched disappear from the business — people he’d call family — he didn’t pretend it was easy.
“It is very tough,” he said. “Not just colleagues, but longtime people I would call family friends have lost their jobs. I don’t know what I can expect from the industry in the next five years.”
But then the pivot, almost immediately: “I have to adapt and offer as many things as possible.”
It’s not bravado. It’s almost matter-of-fact. He also tracks morning shows in Seattle and Charlotte, which gives him a broader view of markets beyond Portland. He sees the country getting smaller with technology, and he’s thinking accordingly.
His long-term dream, articulated with genuine enthusiasm, is a regional footprint — a small network of Northwest markets where the show can air. Portland, Seattle, Eugene, Spokane, Bend. He mentioned his friend Mojo in the Morning, syndicated across several Midwest markets, as a model worth admiring.
“I just want to have a little network,” he said. “I want to grow and be as useful to this company as possible. Because again — adapt or die.”
What Actually Made Him
Tanner grew up listening to Loveline obsessively — Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew on KLOVE 91.1. He described a kind of unconscious alignment with Carolla’s rhythm, where he’d think of a question or a bit and then hear Carolla pull it a few seconds later.
“Once I kept coming up with things that Adam would almost end up doing right then, I started thinking, maybe this is something I might be kind of good at,” he said.
He also cited Stern, Opie and Anthony — the national shows that felt larger than any single city. That’s always been part of his orientation. Even as a local talent deeply embedded in the Portland market, Tanner has a national-show mentality about scope and reach.
His creative philosophy is refreshingly simple: you being you is the product. He makes his own music. He’s drawn to improvisation, to the acting element of live radio. He never wanted to be one of those boss jocks who thought they had it all figured out and acted like the rules didn’t apply to them.
“After this, it’s public access,” he said, laughing. “So just be humble and appreciate it.”
The best radio advice he’s received? A line from Mojo: Make them laugh, cry, or angry — but make them feel something.
Still Portland, Still Grinding
More than ten years at one station in one major market is genuinely rare these days. Tanner hasn’t just survived the churn — he’s become part of the fabric of Portland radio in a way that can’t really be manufactured.
He’s the first to resist any romanticized framing of that. “When you say it like that, it sounds pretty grandiose,” he told me. “To me it’s just the grind, the love for it.”
He wakes up early and does the show. He self-grades — and he’s a tough critic. If the show is a six out of ten, he says so to his crew.
“If you have a bad show,” he said, “guess what? You got four more this week. You can fix it tomorrow.”
That’s it. That’s the whole philosophy. Show up, adapt, keep getting better, don’t act like you’ve arrived. For a guy who hates the word “star,” Tanner has built something most broadcasters would envy.
He just won’t admit it.
Barrett Media produces daily content covering the business of radio. To stay updated, sign up for our newsletters and visit BarrettMedia.com.
David Hill serves as a Music Radio Editor, Columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. A radio lifer with more than 30 years behind the mic, in the control room, and in the program director’s chair, David’s career spans influential stops at brands such as WIYY 98 Rock, WBAL-AM, and 99X. He has worked across multiple formats and ownership groups, including iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media, developing talent, breaking music, and navigating every major industry shift from diary to PPM and terrestrial dominance to streaming disruption. When he’s not writing or analyzing the industry, Dave runs The Tune Farm, a marketing firm built to help artists and brands grow audience the same way great radio always has—by creating connection, not just impressions. He can be reached at David@BarrettMedia.com.