Eric "The Funky 1" Q&A

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF AND HOW YOU GOT STARTED IN RADIO?
I was born and raised in San Francisco, CA. I wanted to either be a professional baseball player, or on the radio. Once I figured I sucked at sports I knew radio was it. I was lucky enough to grow up in the Bay Area in an era of great radio, legendary stations, and On Air Personalities. When I would listen it was more than just music to me but I studied everything, the DJ's talk breaks, how everything was formatted, etc. I got a shot while I was still in High School to intern in the Programming department at KYLD, the station I grew up listening to. From there worked my way up to Promotions (eventually leading one of the most aggressive street Promotions teams in the country at the time), then the boyhood dream of being an On Air jock. With time I got a call from sister station KDON with a huge offer I could not refuse. I journeyed down the California coast to do Afternoons, and be the stations Promotions Director. Continuing to work up the ladder I'm now the Assistant Program Director, and Music Director in addition to the Afternoon show. It is something I've always wanted to do since I've had this passion for radio, and am thankful every day to do what I know and love.

HOW DOES A NEW ARTIST(S) GO ABOUT GETTING A SONG ON  THE RADIO?
My job as Music Director can be very hectic. All day every day there is always someone contacting me to hear or play their new song. My E-mail box, and phone basically does not stop going off throughout the day, some independent artists, some major record labels always with something new. One thing up and coming artists need to understand is how radio works, and what radio is looking for. We're a business like any other, we have ratings to maintain, and revenue to continue to make. Therefore our playlist is going to be every best possible song at the moment. The best way to get a song on the radio is to put T Pain on it, LOL jk although it will well help! Basically just have patience, and also understand that your record might not be for our station or something our demographic will like. Sometimes we get the "Why do you guys play Pitbull, and Lady Gaga". Well last time I checked songs like that get tons of requests daily, and work tremendously well in the clubs, and on ringtones, and MySpace pages so we'd be crazy not to play what people want to hear.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE CHRIS BROWN INCIDENT?
Since the incident we have covered it on the air though the tons of rumors. We still don't really have facts as to why it happened. One thing I do know is that I have a rule, and this needs to apply to every guy. The rule is you NEVER hit a Woman, never, never, never, no matter what the reason. The only reason should be if she's using a weapon against you for self defense and even then you should probably not. A man who does that is not a man in my opinion. I also think that women should be strong enough to leave if that happens. So many times we hear about women getting abused, yet they go back to their guys, and what makes it worse is you hear how they love him and can't leave him. Well here's the deal, if he hits you he doesn't love you, and each time you go back he will know he can keep doing it. As for Chris most of his fans are/we're Female, so that is NOT a good look for the people who have made him who he is. I'm not sure that he will be able to bounce back as strong. Rihanna faces the same problem where if she does take him back her career can be in question as she is sending the wrong message to tons of girls who looked up to her and can loose respect as well.

WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON THE CURRENT STATE OF HIPHOP AND R&B?
I honestly like the past couple years how Hip Hop has grown and gotten a little more open minded. It used to be all about bling, and money, and bragging. I don't see how someone talking about their millions of dollars can relate to their audience, especially these days with so many good people loosing their jobs if you are bragging about money that is just not right while their very own fans struggle to pay the bills. I like how it has evolved into a party type vibe with up tempo beats, it shows that artists like Kanye can be open minded, and try new stuff such as experiment with House music. One thing that I hear people say that bugs them is artists like T Pain who have 5 or more songs out at the same time. It's over saturation.

HOW DO YOU GET PAST THE HATERS IN THE INDUSTRY?
Honestly I personally don't or have never had haters. Like I said before besides some ignorant new artists basically demand that we play their new stuff and saying we "need" to do this or "need" to play this. What we have been doing works, record breaking ratings show that, so it's kind of funny listening to people saying you "need" to play my song about drugs, guns, and violence, what's worse is they go "it's radio friendly" yet has a ton of cuss words. I'm like WTF! I'm a cool dude don't believe in beefs or hating, life is too short so we all need to get along, be friends and enjoy life.

IS SATELLITE RADIO MUCH COMPETITION TO BROADCAST RADIO?
NOT at all, it's funny when Satellite first hit years ago people thought it would change terrestrial and local radio forever. I always said there's no way people will pay for radio unless they are like die hard Howard Stern fans. Since then the two major companies have merged into one and it's currently struggling with subscribers down each month.  Radio is one of the last free things in the world, and Satellite can't be local like we can, besides music we're here with events, club nights, concerts, contests, local info, etc. I tell people in the business to never underestimate the power of you meeting or talking to listeners whether it's at a station event, or Facebook, MySpace, etc. That's a relationship people can't have with Satellite radio. We also have the power of the internet as we are not just a radio station but also an online streaming station which people can listen to anywhere like when they are online, not just in the car.

IN YOUR OPINION, WHO ARE THE TOP 5 ARTISTS IN THE GAME TODAY?
In this format there's a quick turnaround of artists. The 5 that are hot today were not the 5 that were hot this time last year. As far as consistent artists that continue to deliver hits at the moment, I have more than 5:

Kanye West
Lil Wayne
T.I.
Chris Brown & Rihanna (BEFORE the incident, not so sure how their futures will turn out now.)
Pitbull (He's had a ton of hits, geared more towards us Latinos and continues to deliver)
T Pain (Every record he seems to get on becomes a smash)

HAS THE ECONOMY AFFECTED THE RADIO INDUSTRY MUCH?
Unfortunately it has with all major radio companies forced to cut employees just like all other business right now. It's hard to see great, talented people go, and if we're lucky enough to still be here that means more work and responsibility to keep it rolling. Beyond that our job is to entertain people and we are the escape of bad news. Everywhere you look there is the dark could that is the Economy. Our goal is when people turn on the radio they get away from that gloomy news and just have a good time listening.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE AN ASPIRING ARTIST(S) TRYING TO BREAK INTO THE INDUSTRY?
Like I mentioned before you have to be patient, and also understand the game. It's a business so be professional. Also understand that your record might not fit some stations. Think about this with the MySpace boom a few years ago it gave the chance for anyone to be an aspiring artist. There's probably a million up and coming artists with new songs in the entire country yet only about 7 are hot as I said before.

HOW DO PEOPLE GET A HOLD OF YOU?
There are too many ways to get a hold of me whether it's Facebok, Twitter, MySpace, E-mail, Office Phone, Texts on cell, the Request Line, etc. ALL of those can be found on my blog page at KDON.COM Keyword ERIC, except my cell of course!

SHOUT OUTS!
There's not enough room on paper for this lol.  Just a quick what up to everyone whether we know each other or not. Also to the tremendous staff we have here at 102.5 KDON, each and everyone of us are the hardest workers who can handle pretty much anything, what's best is we are all like a family.