Unknown: JB, I knew that if he would, if I could get him into
the studio, I knew how much love he would be showered with, yeah,
and so I got him in the studio, and he told his story, and his
story was that he was in the Navy for four years. He served
on Navy submarines in the 1970s he served his nation in a way
that we, you know, beg people to do on the regular, and I wanted
to make sure that people understood that backstory and
understood some of the issues that he went through. And
frankly, I think many of them were horribly unfair to people
that were just trying to live their lives back in the day, I
got him to tell that story and the level of people that came
out of the woodwork. And I'm not talking about just listeners.
I'm talking about, you know, mayors and Congress people
calling up and saying, We love you. We appreciate you. Thank
you for your service and and he didn't kill himself.
Welcome to a podcast about music and entertainment before it all
goes down the disposal. This is circling the drain.
Hey, welcome back to circling the drain. You know Jay Harper,
yeah. Hi there, Johnny B, that's right. And now you got
Jim McCarthy over there. Hello. And of course, me. Johnny
Bozeman, who cares? Johnny B is here, and we've got, we've got a
special guest, a superstar, a superstar from Super talk. We do
seven. WTM, can't wait to meet him. Matt Murphy,
thank you guys, thank you for inviting me, yeah, but thank you
for coming. And we can't pay you anything, but by gosh, we got
you. You got your cardboard box. Cardboard box. Thank you.
Just as long as there's no drug sniffing dogs around, we'll be
fine. Yeah, you may want to, you may want to wait till you, wait
till you get home to try some of that.
Well, I regularly, I regularly expect that I'll be fired soon.
So this cardboard box will come in
handy for packing up my things. You don't have many things,
apparently, not a lot of things. Well,
he works in radio, right?
But speaking of we have worked together for a brief moment. We
did, it was a couple of years we did at Super talk, 99 seven.
WTN, where, you know Jay Harper still?
Yeah, I still hang around. He's around
very often. He does the traffic reports with popcorn going on,
with the old school teletype going on in the background, fill
in on news occasionally. Oh yeah, we love having Jay. We
love Jay. Yes,
well, we love you. Well, thank you. And we've been wanting to,
you know, because I, even though we worked together for so long,
I never really got to get the matt Murphy story? I've heard
some of it, and that's why we wanted to have you in, because
we want to learn more about Matt
Murphy. I didn't think this was that type of show.
This is your life. Matt Murphy, no, because you came to us from
you actually were born in Georgia. I was in Tom, Thompson,
Thompson, T, H, O, M, S O N, no. P, in time. No. P, there you go.
Thompson, yeah, but everybody tries to put a P in Thompson.
And there's also a Thomas stun. There's a Thomasville, there's a
Thompson Ville, boy, there's not a lot of, not a lot, not a lot
of thinking going on in
Georgia. Didn't have creative people behind that.
We're rubes over there, across the state line. So, yeah. So
Thompson, Georgia, which is just outside of Augusta, it's a
suburb of
Augusta, Georgia, yeah. So you, how long did you live there? And
I was born
in mcduffy County Hospital, September 1, 1973 the world has
known no peace nor quiet ever since. And I grew up there and
lived there until I went to college at West Georgia College
in Carrollton. So what got you into radio? My friend, my dad.
So my dad, my mother, had malignant brain cancer in 1978
when I was five years old and my father left the family. It was
me, my older brother, my older sister, and my dad decided that
the quote that I always heard growing up was I can't handle
this, so he left, and my mother went through brain surgery. She
was given a 20% chance to live two to five years. She lived 25
years. She died at the age of 53 so she lived a lot longer than
people thought, and it was an absolute miracle that we had her
for the length of time that we had her that we had her, yeah,
but all of that to say, my father was a radio guy, and he
was kind of a wanderer as as folks in the 1970s and 80s were
want to be, right? We're Gypsies in those days, and socially
radio, yeah, well, and my dad would jump from town to town,
and God love him. I mean, he's passed away now too. But my dad
would, would jump from town to town until the point that he
would, he would reach a level of irresponsibility in the
building, and people figured him out, and then he would get out
of it, right? So he would BS people for a while, get about a
year or two out of a radio station, and then move on to the
next town. And so he was in Macon, Georgia, Charleston,
South Carolina, Valdosta, Georgia, Greenville, South
Carolina, Augusta, a couple of times. Thompson, of course. I
mean, just all of Milledgeville. I mean, he was just jumping all
over the place. And the sad part about it was he was a great
radio guy. I mean, he was fabulous on the air. So, long
story short, I didn't know my dad very well until I was 12
years old, and my dad came back into my life, unbeknownst to us,
because of court order, because he wasn't paying child support.
And eventually he had to go to court, and the judge said,
you're gonna need to start paying. He owed like, $50,000
for the three kids in child support, and he said you're
gonna have to start paying on this start paying on this. He
wanted to put him in jail. And my mother actually spoke up for
him and said, No, he's no good to us in there. But a part of
that, and once again, we didn't know any of this, was that he
had to take us for the summer, for two weeks for the summer.
And, you know, we got to experience a dad. I didn't know
this guy. He left when I was five, but we went to, he lived
in Macon at the time, and worked at, I think it was W, D, E N, in
Macon, Georgia.
Oh, yeah, a big deal. Yeah. I used to call that station. Did
you really MCA record?
Oh, there you go. Yeah. So my dad went, he was music director
over there, and he was the afternoon drive guy, and he,
they called him Dr Lee. I mean, it was, it would, you know, Dr
Lee, curing all your country music, blues, you know, I like,
oh, it was this hook, right? And so he it was the whole Dr
shtick, yes, and, and so I went in. I was almost 12 years old.
It was the summer of my Yeah, I was right before I turned 12.
And, and I went to work with him, and I watched what he did,
and I was fascinated. And he told me, he said, When the
light, you know, he had one of those light bulb, you know,
switches that when the mic comes on, the light bulb goes on. And
he said, when the light goes on, you've got to be quiet. You've
got to pay attention. And so I had this perception that when my
dad started talking, everybody had to be quiet and pay
attention to him. And I'm like, I want that. That's what I want
that in my life. And so I became fascinated with it, and I went
home and I just I didn't see my dad a lot. After that summer, we
kind of went back to normal. But when I was 14 years old, I
applied to the local radio station in Thompson, Georgia, W
T, H, O, W t, WA, and it was an am FM combo. You guys will get a
kick out of this. I thought it was big time, right? 3000 watt
FM country music station. Who your better? Country FM, which?
We're not the best, but we're better. And and W, Tw is a 1000
watt full service am radio station. It was called the heart
of Thompson, your favorite easy listening hits from the 40s to
the 80s. So they were, you know, full service. They had, but
here's the fascinating thing, guys, and I might be getting
ahead of this a little bit, but they had, back in the day, they
had a news director. They had a continuity director. I mean,
this is a 1000 watt, 3000 watt combo. Sure, local, you know, a
town that serves, I mean, these radio stations served a county
of about 25 to 30,000 people, and they had all of these
positions. But anyway, I applied. I was too young.
Obviously. I was 14. I didn't realize that when I turned 15, I
was working at Winn Dixie and and and Mike wall, the general
manager and eventual owner of the radio station, called me,
and I did not real. I did not realize that he had worked with
my dad when he called me up and he told me later on in life, he
said, I didn't really want to hire you, because I figured if
you turned out anything like your dad, you would just be a
big old piecing Jim.
No wonder we got along with my dad. Every time I meet somebody
in Nashville that worked with my dad and radio, it's always, oh,
you're not like, yeah, I have to go into that. So what got you so
you you did end up going to Montgomery, Alabama. I know that
you is that where you started talk radio?
Montgomery was where I started talk so, you know, I worked in
high school at W t, w, T, H, O, and I knew I loved radio, I
loved performing, and that's what I looked at it as
performance. And so I decided that I wanted to be an actor,
and that's when I went to school, went to college, I I was
a theater major, and I also worked at the college radio
station. And at a college radio station, I learned the freedom
of doing whatever the hell you wanted to do, whenever you
wanted to do it and ask forgiveness later, yes, which
was a very, very nice lesson. But I also learned the very
important lesson that there are there are lines. One of them i i
regularly would play. We were still playing records. We were
still like a college jukebox before they turned us to NPR.
And we would, you know, so we're playing, you know, we've got
these stacks of records. And I would play live cuts off album,
so I could go to the McDonald's and get better. I put in the
morning. Yeah, that's radio
I was playing. That's why red so vine became so big, because
those songs were so long.
So no, I was live version of whipping post is 22 minutes. So
I would put on live version of whipping post, get my car and go
to McDonald's. And so I got into a fender bender. I got into a
fender bender the parking lot of McDonald's, and the cops are
there, and I got my radio on listening to
that record. I'm looking at a cop going, can I go back to the
race? Like, no, I've got paperwork. What are you talking
about? You talking about at a radio station? So that was a
little bit of a line that I couldn't go back from that.
So, you know, I loved when they switched the format. It's kind
of funny. My the director of mass communications, Dr Chester
Gibson, which was a complete, you know, I don't know, hard ass
is what he was. But he, he we had a love hate relationship,
because I think he saw potential in me, but he was also just
really, really hard on me. And when they flipped the radio
station to Public Radio, not, you know, it was, it wasn't NPR,
I think it was Public Radio International, is what they
called it within, you know, all of us that just used it as
jukebox we're kind of out of a out of a gig for, for lack of a
better term. And he brought me in, and he said, Have you ever
thought about doing a talk show? And I said, Well, no. And he
said, I think you would be good. And I invite I was liberal as, I
mean, you know, I was, I was a sophomore in in college, and I
was in the theater program. I mean, I was as liberals, as as
they come at that point. Yeah. And he said, I think you do a
good job, and we want some local programming. So why don't you
think about it? So I did it. I did a one hour daily radio show
on the college radio station. It. I still have tapes. No, you
can't hear them because they're horrible. It's just really bad.
But in that, I got a bug out of that. I got just a buzz and
that, you know, that's like a 50 watt, or whatever it is, one of
those college things where it gets to the Student Center, and
that's,
right, yeah, you could put speakers on top of the building
and reach more people.
But, man, I thought it was big time, right? Everybody's
listening to me and, and so, you know, I traveled a little bit. I
moved to Connecticut for about nine months. If you have nine
months to live, move to Connecticut, because by the time
the nine months is up, you'll want to die. We're in
Connecticut. We lived in Middletown, okay, I grew up in
Danbury. Oh, well, see, yeah, Jim knows, yeah, Jim's 25 years.
I get it. It was, it was a no Connecticut. It's a beautiful
state. The people are different. That's what
it's basically just like. It looks like Tennessee, just with
a lot more taxes and jackals.
That's a great, great way. But I was at Middletown for about nine
months, and could not get a gig in radio up there to save my
life, because in the in the south, right? I don't have a
southern accent. In the south, I sound like everybody else, but
let me promise you, in Connecticut, they're like, What?
Radio rubber band in his mouth. Who's this hillbilly?
I moved back home to Georgia. I was looking for something to do.
I worked part time in Georgia. Time in Georgia, and I got a
call from a buddy of mine that I worked with. I got my first full
time gig in country music radio in Augusta, doing seven. So my
arc there was just mark was I got the job doing seven to
midnight, and they liked me, and so they promoted me to mid days,
and they liked me there, and they promoted me to afternoons,
and they didn't like me so much there, so they moved me back to
mid days, and apparently I wasn't good enough for mid days
anymore either. So they moved they moved me back to seven to
midnight, and then they changed the format of the radio station
to urban. So that ended that, and that was like all in the
span of 18 months. But the one note that I remember getting
from my program director all the time, guy by the name of Bob
Raleigh, was, would you please shut up? Nobody, I mean, nobody
cares what you think about anything they want to hear.
Shania Twain.
He's like, Yeah, haha. He went, he came
into the studio one day, and he goes, he goes, these are the
words I want you to coming out of your mouth. Here's Garth
Brooks.
That's it. So I gave you cards. That's what I got. Cards. Read
these cards, liner, liner cards.
We did that for a minute, and I realized, well, maybe this music
radio thing is it for me. And it was around that time I got a
call from a buddy of mine and he Well, the format flipped. And I
went back working at Waffle House trying to figure out what
to do. And a buddy of mine called in Montgomery and said,
Hey, we're we're. Starting up this talk radio station to
compete with the heritage talk station, and if you're
interested, you can produce the morning show. And so I went over
there to do traffic in the afternoons. I did some news in
the afternoons, and I was producing the morning show. And
about five months into that, they fired me too because they
felt like it wasn't working. But Don Markwell in Montgomery,
Alabama, had heard me. He was the guy that ran the heritage
talk station, W, A, C, V, and he called me up, and I'll never
forget it, the first meeting that we had. Markwell was a very
imposing guy with this huge, deep voice. And, you know, I'm a
young like 25 I'm 25 years old, and the Bob gamba curta was the
guy that had started the morning show, and he had been a
television guy who thought he could do radio. And talk radio
is littered with TV people that think that they can do talk
radio, and then they find out it's a little bit harder than
paying for it. And gambacurta called his show gambacurta
against the morning. He thought it was oh, gamba curtain against
the morning. The morning against the morning. He thought it was
combative and it was tough. Yeah. And so I sit down with
Markwell, I'm interviewing for a job. And he said, So you
produced gamba curta against the morning. And I said, Yes, sir, I
did. And there's this long pause, and he said, the morning
won.
Yes, sir. He took a shot. And here's the wonderful thing, he
created an afternoon news position for me. He created a
local afternoon show. Oh, wait, a morning news position for me.
He created a local afternoon show for me, because, and, you
know, look, I think that there are plenty of other people that
are far more talented than me in the business, but he saw a
certain amount of talent in me. And he said, You're wasting your
talent doing what you're doing over there. You need to come
over here, and we need and he was one of the old school guys
that would literally look for talent and try to bring it in
and cultivate it in a way that radio does not do anything and
hasn't for some time. Yeah, that's right, that's a concept.
So so, you know? So I went to work in Montgomery at wacv, you
know? I worked briefly for the competitors, interestingly
enough, at cumulus, who are the guys that fired me. And at wacv,
I would get up in the morning, I did an hour of like news, which
was really just rip and read. I had no interest in making it a
good product. It was between six and 7am so I would rip and read
for an hour of it was a news hour. Just here's what's
happening in the news, here's what's happening in sports,
here's what's happening in weather, here's what's happening
in traffic. And then at seven o'clock, I would produce the
sports show that came on from seven to nine, and do news for
them from nine to 11. I produced Don Markwell show. I would take,
get a break from noon until four, and then I come back and
do my own show four until six o'clock. We did that for a few
years before Birmingham called
and you went to Birmingham, and you actually worked at 99.5
which I actually worked at before it was a rock station, k
99 and then it became a country station,
and people still talked about K 99 when I was there. What? 20
years later? Oh, yeah, Birmingham.
I don't know if you've got the same feeling. Birmingham was a
great radio town right at the time I was down there, radio was
like, You were above TV to them.
Well, they had, they had people like Johnny B they had people
like and I got to meet some of these folks before. I mean, now,
sadly, a lot of them are gone, but people like Doug Layton, who
was the voice of Alabama, he was a color guy for Alabama
football, and Doug did morning radio, John Ed, Willoughby,
Tommy Charles, were two guys who were just absolute. I mean, it
was back then when, when these guys were absolute, just
monumental icons.
Well, they were the ones. I think it was TC and John Ed, or
maybe one of them that began the Beatle burning. You know, the
burning the Beatle records over John Lennon's, you know, Jesus
Christ remark.
It was, I think it was, it was Doug Layton, and it was one. It
was two of those three, because Tommy Charles and John Ed did
stuff together. Doug did stuff by himself. And then eventually
John Ed and Doug. I think it was John Ed and Doug, one way or the
other. I asked him about that before Doug passed away, and
Doug and Doug said, I mean, it was a radio stunt. Oh, sure. I
mean, it was 100% a radio stud. It became huge. It exploded. He
said, We had no idea that it would explode, explode in the
way that it did. Oh, yeah, he said, but when it did, man, we
were like, Let's go. I.
I need all these southern girls, you know, burning their album if
they're gonna talk about Jesus like that, John Lennon needs to
go to church. But what did it become a talk station? Because I
did know when that happened.
So it was actually when, when I first, when I first got to
Birmingham. Work for a number of years at Crawford broadcasting,
who's primarily a religious broadcaster, but he wanted to
branch out into secular radio, and he did it too. He created a
radio station, and they put me on in mid days, and then
eventually I got afternoons, and eventually I got fired there
too. So, I mean, because you get fired? Well, I mean, I got let
go because they changed formats again, sure. Well, I hooked up
with WAPI 1170 AM, oh, yeah, and 99.5 was, let's see. They went
from light rock to country, then back to soft rock and then back
to country. Wow, in the span of like, four years. Wow. And they
were Nash icon. It was Birmingham's version of Nash
icon, and it was cumulus broadcasting that was doing it,
and it was not working. And it wasn't it wasn't working just
for I think these are issues systemic with radio right now,
that music radio is having its own, you know, set of issues,
and it's 100,000 watt radio station, and I knew that to be
successful, I was a program director of 1170 and I was doing
the morning show. We had an afternoon host and we had a news
person, that was it. And I knew that in order to generate any
level of success, we had to have an FM it was it was just the
nature of what we were doing. This was, this was back, I
guess, in 2012 2013 and so we got a new general manager in the
building, and the old General Manager made a lot of promises
that were a lot of lies to me, and that's fine, but, I mean,
they were, I mean, he just, you know, he just that. I was like,
Hey, would you I didn't think that happened. No, you would go,
you would go to this guy, and I would say, Listen, I really
need, can you just pitch this FM? Here's my concept. We really
need an FM signal. We can make a lot of money. Oh, I, you know, I
do it. But you know, you know the corporate guys, they say no.
And I, you know, I made the pitch again. And you know, you
find out later on that he never, he never even talked to well,
the new guy comes in. Is a great man by the name of David walls,
and we sit down with him and my good buddy Ryan Haney, who's the
Program Director of the sports station and the operations
manager, said, Don't hit him with the FM thing yet. Just let
him get his feet underneath him before you go off on because he
knew how badly I wanted that 99.5 signal to be taught, yeah.
And he said, Don't hit him with it yet. And so we sit down, and
he's like, all right, what do you need, Matt to make, you
know, W API successful? And I said, Well, you know, we had
made some changes. I said, well, we need to move me back here,
and we need to do this, and we need to invest here. And, you
know, I gave him kind of the pitch. And he said, and we do
these things, API makes me money. I was like, Oh no. And he
was like, what? And I said, No, no, you're not gonna, you're not
gonna make any money. I said, this will probably get us a
little bit better ratings, but you're not gonna make any money
on it. And he goes, What do you mean? I was like, no, no. The
only way you're gonna make money on this is if you give me that.
FM, Ryan, these eyes get really thick. And he was like, what?
And I said, we needed an FM signal. And he said, and he
said, Why aren't you pitching me that? And I pointed to Haney. I
was like, because he told me not. So he said, Tell me what
your idea is. And I pitched my idea, and I told him, and this
was a it was a miracle. It was in 2015 by then, I said you, if
you can convince the powers that be to invest $300,000 a year
into that signal above what we're already spending on
current talent, it will make you money. And he convinced them,
and so we launched talk 99 five. And it's ironic that one of the
radio stations that I used in my presentation to corporate to
prove to them, to demonstrate to them that the concept works. Was
super talk, 99 seven. WTN, interesting. And I was like,
this is working in Nashville, Tennessee, exactly what I want
to do in Birmingham, Alabama is already succeeding. And you tell
me that it's not making money. And they, they bought it, and we
launched it in the we launched it in the spring of 2016 and we
could not have launched it at a better time, obviously, because
of, well, no, no, I'm sorry, am I right? 2016 2015 my gosh, I'm
getting old. My dates are getting missed. No doubt. I
guess they're nine years old. So it was, it was It wasn't 2016 no
doubt. So the funny thing is, is that we wanted to really hyper
focus on local issues, and Donald Trump came along and just
blew on.
Well, the cool thing about you that I've always loved, I. And
this story really grabbed me. Was a story out of Birmingham
while you were at 99 was Liberty Bell. Oh yeah, yeah. Tell us
about Liberty bill. That was a very touching
story. Well, you know, if we you know, people ask, you know, and
you guys get asked this all the time. If you've been in radio
for as long as you know, collectively, all of us have,
you have these moments and these experiences, and people want to
know You know, the best people that you've ever best people
that you've ever interviewed and the best moments that you had in
radio. And I've always felt like the best moments come a
organically and B, for me, at least, they're the moments that
truly touch people and that impact and affect lives. And so
this guy, Liberty Bell, was a regular caller. And we all, if
you've been around talk radio, you listen to talk radio long
enough, you know, you understand that we have regulars and we
have, you know, and you they come on, they call every day.
They want to talk every day. And I had a number of regulars that
would call the show, and Liberty Bell was one of those regulars.
Liberty Bell was a liberal. Liberty Bell was a drag show
queen. I guess his real name was Sean or Ron Ronald, Sean Simon,
oh yeah, and he, he was a longtime gay activist in the
1970s and 1980s in in Birmingham and in the 90s and 2000s he had
translated that into just harassing talk radio hosts, you
know, calling us up. And he was a great caller and a great
personality, very flamboyant personality, but he would, he
would come to our events in full drag. I mean, it was hilarious,
and Ron was not an attractive man.
Why is that much less
go that way, doesn't it? Why is always some guy that's, you
know, sitting at home, that's, you know,
just does not he's not a good looking man to begin
with. What will make this look better? Something was
sparkles. So he was a regular caller, and I just, you know, I
appreciated the dynamic and his tenaciousness. And one day he
calls me up and he tells me that he wanted, he said, I just want
to tell you goodbye. And he just didn't sound like himself, and
he said, I want to tell you goodbye. And I was like, oh,
what's going on? Are you, you know, I'm thinking, are you
leaving? Are you are you moving out of town? What's happening?
And he said, Well, he said, I'm 50. I said, eight. I think he's
58, years old. And he said, The gay people don't want me
anymore. They don't have any respect for what I did for them
in the 70s. They don't have any respect for what I did for him
in the 1980s they just think that I'm an old I won't use the
word that he used, but I mean that I'm just an old drag hag,
an old queen, an old queen, and they don't like me. Said, you
the straight folks are never going to accept me, so I'm going
to kill myself. And I was like, what? And he said, I'm going to
I've decided that I'm out of here. I'm going to get out of
here. And I said, and I get emotionally just telling the
story, but yeah, I said, I said, Well, do me a favor. And, and I
said, do me a favor. I said, do me a personal favor before you
kill yourself. And he said, What's that? And I said, Would
you mind coming to the studio before you do it and just
telling everybody your story? Because I don't think everybody
knows it. And I did, yeah, and he agreed to do that. And I knew
JB, I knew that if he would, if I could get him into the studio,
I knew how much love he would be showered with, yeah, and so I
got him in the studio, and he told his story, and his story
was that he was in the Navy for four years. He served on Navy
submarines in the 1970s he served his nation in a way that
we, you know, beg people to do on the regular. And and I and,
and I wanted to make sure that people understood that backstory
and understood some of the issues that he went through. And
frankly, I think many of them were horribly unfair to people
that were just trying to live their lives back in the day. And
we, we told he, I got him to tell that story and the level of
people that came out of the woodwork. And I'm not talking
about just listeners. I'm talking about, you know, mayors
and Congress people calling up and saying, We love you. We
appreciate you. Thank you for your service. And and he didn't
kill himself. He I felt, I feel like every every person has
value, whether they know it or not, and I My goal was to show
him the value that he had, and we managed to do that
well. And that's why I've always been a big fan of yours, because
that's what I got out of you. And I think, I think, I think
you even said it in a article I read that covered you when you
were coming up here, that you when you first got into radio,
was all about you, which we're all like that. The whole reason
you get into it is kind of an ego thing. But when you get into
talk radio, you start to learn it's not all about you. It's
actually helping people. It's the audience, and that's what
really turned me on about you. In fact, when you were going to
come up here to Nashville, you were about to start and you were
at a welcome center, the Welcome Center down, you know, by the
state line, right? And my wife and I were listening in the car,
and we about just wanted to drive down there and welcome you
to I dug you from the minute I heard you on the radio. I became
a fan.
Well, thank you. And I dug you. I dug, I dig, both of you guys.
I mean, I think it's awesome. No, the realization was because
it was, I mean, and I still have an ego. I mean, we all have,
well, you have to, I mean, we'll have a certain level of ego if
you're involved in this business, in any level of
broadcasting. And I still have that. But it I realized that it
became so much more fun. And I didn't realize it at the time,
but I recognized that if I made it about the people that were
calling in, if you make it about the issues and the people, then
the people are drawn to you more. But then slowly but
surely, I realized that I was having so much more fun. It
became so much more important to me when it wasn't so much about
me, right, and it was about the people that gravitated to us for
whatever reason, for entertainment purposes or for
very important reasons, or for the news that they get from talk
radio or the camaraderie or the fellowship. And I think a lot of
people gravitate to what we do, or at least they used to,
because they sincerely want to be around people that they feel
like, understand them and get them and they you truly become
family to a lot of these folks. That's what
I love about. I think WT ends audience is very unique. And I
think that's that's why when, when you would I think it was
the first time you were on WTN, and not that my, what my, my
opinion mattered to anybody. I remember texting Dan mandis, and
I said, Man, this is your guy, and I think he already knew that
anyway. But,
I mean, I don't know. I think the jury might still be but I
will say this, and not to get terribly maudlin on the subject,
but there were very, very few. I didn't know Jay at the time. We
met a little bit afterwards, but there were there. I felt like
that. I had the goods to be successful in Nashville, but
there were very few people in that building that I wanted to
impress, and you were one of them. I mean, there's no
question about it. I wanted Johnny B's approval. Still do,
as a matter of fact, but now, I mean, because I have such
respect for the people that did it in the way that we have done
it, and that's not to say that there weren't other people in
the building that have done I mean, I love Dan Mantis to
death. I mean, I love all those guys. I'm not I'm not knocking
any of them, but I knew your backstory enough to know that
you came through in the way that you did, and I had such respect
for your relationship with Phil and for what you and Phil built
over the years in Nashville. And I'm like, Well, if I can't get
this guy on board, then I'm probably screwed. I think it
was pretty obvious that you had made it, because we were having
a bad snow day, and Matt and I were sitting, we were against a
wall there, just talking and the and the operation the operations
manager is never gonna forget this story. The Operations
Manager comes up to to Matt and goes, Hey, man, we got you all
set up across the street. You know, just drop my name.
Everything will be taken care of. And I'm waiting on him to
say the same to me. All he does is come to me and go, Hey John,
good luck getting home. My version of that, my version of
that story. I tell that story. Jay, yeah, he's told me that a
number of times. Charlie comes around the corner and he goes,
Matt, and it's like, it's a five minute diatribe. Matt, we
appreciate you so much. Thank you for sticking in there with
us. We know we've got you always blah, blah, blah. We got you set
up the Best Western and just you just say, money. If there's
anything you need, you just give me a call. And we appreciate you
so much. And just, God bless you and everything you're doing. And
we appreciate you. Do you need a couple of dollars? And then
there's a pause, and he looks, he goes, Oh, hey, Johnny, do you
think he did that on purpose?
Well, can you tell the story about how you came up to
Nashville, how you got to talk to Dan? Because I love that
story.
So, I mean, it's obviously very, I mean, it starts off in a very
sad way, because, and it's sad the way that some people, you go
back to talking about egos, yeah, it's sad the way that.
Some people do their business in this business. And what I mean
by that is that Dan, Dan told me later, Dan Mantis, who is our
morning guy on Super talk 99 and he's a great guy, Marconi award
winner. And I told him that was gonna happen. Oh yeah, there's
no question about it. And, and Dan was just named the by the
way, let me give it a little shout. Oh, I love those. I saw
that the Nashville scene is a liberal rag in Nashville, and
they do these annual best Dubs, and they have the best
conservative category,
which Phil used to win regularly, right? Yeah, number
one all the time.
So this year, the winner of the Best conservative of Nashville,
according to Nashville scene, was none,
and in second place Dan Manders.
So Dan said, this morning, oh, it's great. I'm second to none.
Well, I guess you are. And I told him, I said, I got I called
him. I said, I've got that beat. He goes, What do you mean? And I
said, last year, you know, the Tennessean Does, does these,
best of visual things, best of music, city things, and they had
a best radio personality category. And I have no idea how
it happened, but I won the Best radio personality category for
last year. This year, they don't have the category, the category,
good Lord, if Bobby bones can't win every year.
No, so, so I, you know, obviously we none of, I mean, we
were all praying for Phil and hoping that Phil got better. And
when, when Phil sadly passed away. You know, I had been, this
was going into the sixth year of doing morning radio in
Birmingham and being the Program Director of talk 99 five. And I
felt like we had conquered the mountain. We had beaten the
heritage talk station, the quote, unquote rush station in
the market. And, you know, I kind of had felt like I had done
everything that I could do, and I never wanted to be a program
director. And five years of managing people when you don't
really want to manage people, is exhausting, and I got a great
deal of satisfaction out of it, and I got a great deal back, but
I was ready to move on, so I knew that, and I was watching
what was happening in Nashville, and I knew how similar, or at
least I felt that I knew how similar the markets were. And so
I wrote when after Phil passed, I wrote Dan a message, and I
said, I know you're getting inundated with people right now,
but let me know if I can help you out in any way. And you
know, the next day, he wrote back and said, Thanks,
appreciate it. And so about two days later, three days later, I
wrote him a note, and I said, By the way, I'm looking to move on.
I work for cumulus. I would love the opportunity to sit down and
talk with you about possibly being the guy to replace Phil
and or at least being considered for the radio station. And he
didn't write me back, and so I followed up, like, two days
later by saying, Oh, by the way, I'm going to be in Nashville
this weekend. I'm visiting some friends in Nashville this
weekend, so I'm there anyway. If you want to sit down and talk,
let me know. And this was, like, on a Tuesday or something, and I
didn't hear back Wednesday. I didn't hear back Thursday. Now,
knowing Dan, I know exactly why I didn't hear back, but then I'm
thinking, well, he's just sloughing me out, yeah. But Dan
would just, was being buried. He was just, there was so much
going on at the time. Oh, yeah. And finally, like, on Thursday
afternoon, he wrote me back and he said, Hey, did you did you
say you were going to be in Nashville this weekend? Because
if you are, we maybe can get together. And I was like,
Absolutely, I'll be there visiting friends. If you want to
get together, we can. And he said, Sure, Saturday morning.
And he told me where to meet him, at a Starbucks in
Hermitage. And and I got off the phone, and I told my wife,
Erica, I said, I gotta book a hotel,
because this guy bit I really
got to go to Nashville for the weekend. I
really do so get some friends. It
just so happened that I booked a hotel right across street. It
was unbeknownst to me. It was right across the street from the
radio station. Was the Best Western Thank goodness. Oh yeah,
not the Comfort Inn with the marble
rye guy. That was an experience.
So I went, and I met with Dan, and Dan was 30 minutes late,
which was great for me, because he was very, I mean, but it was
a great week. We spent like two hours together, and then he
asked me if I would do some some filling work in the mid days.
And I did, and they offered me the job. And like, three months
later, Dan and I are sitting talking to somebody, I forget
who. And he said, You know I knew. He said, I want to tell
you something, man, I knew that day that we met for coffee, he
said, I made you do the fill in stuff. And he said, but I knew
that day you were my guy. And I was like, really, that means a
lot to me. Dan, I appreciate that. I was like, I've got
something to tell you. And he said, what? I said, I don't have
any for. In Nashville.
He thought from and he goes. I knew
it. But
the point is, and this is the message, right? Figure it out.
There are plenty of ways to crack a nut. And I knew if I
asked him if he would beat for me, with me, and I told him I
was driving to specifically do that, he would say no. Exactly.
I knew that he would say no, but I felt like, if I told him I was
already there, that it would get me in the door. And I truly felt
like if, if we sat down and we met, that I could get the gig,
and it
worked out, and you did, it worked out, and I'm so glad it
did, because, and I'm glad you know, I loved, you know, of
course, you know, I loved Phil Valentine. I loved working with
him, and I love Brian Wilson, but you being in that afternoon
slot is just, that's just
perfect. Well, I mean this sincerely. I mean, well, I ain't
saying that because, you know, Why would, why would why would I
say it if I didn't mean it sincerely? But the biggest
compliment I know that Phil and I did not do, not do the same
type of show, no. But the biggest compliments I get is
when people tell me that I remind them of Phil and I and
what that means to me, because I know that Phil and I don't do
the same type of show, so I know I can't possibly sound like
Phil, right, but I hope that I'm giving them the same feelings,
and I think that's what they mean. Well, that's what I get
out of it, right? Because people don't. And this is another
lesson that it took me a long time to learn, that because,
believe it or not, for anybody that's listening to my show, I
used to be a lot more bombastic and forceful, and I would say
negative, than I am now. And I realized at some point that
people don't walk away from your radio show, remembering what you
say. They walk away from your radio show, remembering how you
made them feel exactly, and you can either make them feel good
and hopeful, or you can make them feel bad and down. You can
make them feel anxious. I mean, so i hope that i i can come
anywhere in the same orbit to the impact emotionally from a
feeling standpoint that the way that Phil, Phil Valentine, was
able to do it, well, I
think you do, because anytime I've listened to you, I always
fill up, and that's why I was telling you one time, whenever
we were talking on the phone about Phil on the air, Phil was
an upper I mean, every time that dude walked in a room, he lifted
it up. You do the same thing. I used to. I used to just treasure
when I would be working, you know, after the morning show,
and I would pray that you would come to work, because every time
you did, it was like it lifted the place up. Man. And I love
one day when, when I had trace Atkins on the phone, oh, man.
And I noticed Matt was just he wouldn't move. He was sitting
behind me the whole time. That's
Trace Access. I'm a kid, man, when it comes to that kind of
stuff, I'm a kid. But you know, you know, we talk about a lot of
hard edged stuff on the show, and I get very passionate, and I
get very frustrated, and I get very angry at some of the things
that are going on. And so we have those times of anger. But
in generally, in life, I remind myself every day. I get up every
morning and I get to do this every day. Yes, I mean, I get to
do something that I've always loved doing anyway we get and,
you know, I y'all know, y'all been around plenty of radio
stations. That radio station, there's a bunch of hens, man,
they get around, and those hen circles start going, and
everybody hates this guy, and everybody's that guy, and
everybody, everybody hates management, yes, you know, but,
but if we just step back for a moment and recognize what a
blessing it is that we get to do this on a daily basis, I just, I
try to come at it with that attitude. Well,
Phil used to use a great analogy to me. He when things be kind of
going haywire with management, it was kind of on the negative
side to go, Johnny, put on the blinders. Let's just have fun,
and we would, right. And that's what you got to do, and that's
what you're doing every afternoon,
you know, being in talk radio, you know, especially moving over
from music radio and getting into talk radio and having
political talk for the most part, the conversations that you
have, you mentioned, instill feelings in people, and that's
what they remember. You know you're going to have your
detractors, and how have have you? Well, you always have to
have somewhat of a thick skin to some degree to do what you do.
And do you let the detractors? Do they get to you at times? Or
how have you learned to just let that roll off, you know, roll
off your back? Or does
it, no, I mean, haters are motivators, right? I mean, if
you believe in what you're doing. Doing. And if you have
the courage of your convictions, there have been, I will say
this, there have been times, and I, you know, if I sat here long
enough, I could probably think of an instance or two, but there
have been times when I took a position on an issue and maybe I
hadn't fully thought it out. And some people came at me earnestly
and maybe even passionately, and said, I think you're wrong. And
so you you reevaluate. I mean, you think about the
presentation, you think about the positions that you're
taking. You think about is this best for the people, best for
the country, best for the whatever. But you know, as far
as the haters go, I mean, they're, they're just, they're
just that. They're, they're, they're folks that, you know,
I'm all about starting a conversation. So, you know, I
have a long standing policy that anybody that is of interest to
the listening audience that wants to come on my radio show
is allowed to come on the radio show. And I don't care what your
politics are, and I don't care how much we disagree. I feel
like I have the courage of conviction. And, you know, I
have, you know, my foundation grounded enough that I can
present my argument. You can present your argument. And, you
know, the audience can decide who they agree with who they
don't. But, you know, as far as the detractors go, I mean, it's
just a lot of the same old stuff, you know, it's, oh,
they're, you know, it's hate radio, you know, and none of
that. And, you know, and it's just not true. No, it's also
just not true. I mean, are we passionate? Sure we're
passionate. Do we believe that, you know somebody, somebody
called me up one time and say, You know what your problem is?
Murphy, I was like, what it is, you always think you're right.
Well, well, yeah. I mean,
why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I always think I'm right? That's
why we're on here. Do you want me to say things that I think
are wrong? Yeah, maybe you
should have a segment called I could be wrong.
Charles Barkley had a great good friend. Charles Barkley had a
great book called I might be wrong, but I doubt it.
I So, you know, as far as that goes, I mean, you know, for me,
it's very rarely reached a level where I thought, I mean, they
get personal. You know, of course they get personal. You
know, they'll, you know, your detractors try to take you off
your game by, you know, doing that kind of thing, but it has
rarely gotten to the point that I was worried about. It was a
couple of times in Birmingham, I haven't had anything in
Nashville. There were a couple of times in Birmingham, I had my
window busted out at the radio station once during a pretty
heated issue with the City Council. We're pretty sure we
knew who did that we wouldn't have any security cameras. And
then I had, there was one time where I had a guy who, you know,
I made the point that none of our utilities were in my name,
just as kind of a way to protect, you know, it was all in
Erica's name. And your wife, my wife and and her maiden name too
at the time, and someone, I got a letter in the that wasn't
mailed, that was just put in my mailbox to Matt Murphy, and it
was a letter detailing what they had seen me doing over the last
like, 48 hours. And so these people had followed me around 48
hours. It was like, I saw you go into the grocery store and blah,
blah, blah. And that was, that was a moment that it was like,
Okay, what am I supposed to do with this? And you know, you
just, you have to protect yourself as best as you possibly
can. I mean, in light of the Charlie Kirk situation, you
know, I, I know that we at cumulus, you know, we received
an email after that incident saying, you know, we're beefing
up security. And you know, for our conservative well, for
everybody, it's a station, but especially the conservative talk
show hosts. I mean, have you felt any since the Charlie Kirk
assassination? Have you felt any more threatened? Quote, unquote,
and how does your wife react to all of this stuff does? Is she
concerned?
Yeah, she you know, when the day that Charlie Kirk was
assassinated, I was on the air, and that was tough, because we
have Chris hand on the radio station who worked with Charlie
and turning point USA. And Chris had actually, just months
before, dissolved his formal relationship, and he still had
an informal relationship with him, but part of what Chris did
was coordinate those events, he would help set up the logistics
of those events, like flights and security apparatus and
communication. So he was intimately in touch with the
security team. He knew the security team had all their, you
know, cell phones and whatnot. And so Chris had a. Um, he had a
line of communication in with those folks, I think, unlike
really, anybody else in the country at the time. And so he
told me, I went on air at three o'clock. We knew that Charlie
had been shot. We knew it was serious. And Chris told me, just
after I got on air that Charlie didn't make it, he texted me, he
said, but please don't say anything about it yet, because I
want to make sure that you know that's okay. And about I don't
know. 15 minutes later, he texted me and said, you can, you
can say that Charlie's no longer with us, and so I had to go on
the air and say that Charlotte, Charlie was no longer with us,
and and that was just a very tough day, obviously, because
you knew it was one of those moments where you know that,
well, everything is going to change now. I mean, you know,
permanently, in terms of how we do our business, in terms of
interactions and but I never thought about myself. I never,
you know, concerned. I was never concerned about my own security
until I got I got home that night in Mount Juliet, and I get
my bag out of the truck, and I walk in, and I walk through the
door, and Erica's in the kitchen, and she's washing
dishes, and she says, Hey, honey. And I said, Hey honey.
And she looked at me and burst into tears, wow. And, and I'm
like, it's gonna be okay. And I go over and I, you know, I hug
on her, and she was like, I'm just worried that, you know,
they'll if they kill Charlie, you know, what about you? Blah,
blah, blah. And my line to Erica, and it's true, I was
like, Baby, yes, it's true that we live in a dangerous world.
Yes, it's true that there are crazy people out there. And yes,
it's true that they killed Charlie Kirk, and you're right
that I swim in that pond. That's the pond that I swim in, I said,
But you have to understand, Charlie Kirk was a whale in that
pond, and I'm an itty bitty Guppy. If they get to the
guppies baby,
if they get from the whales all the way through the fish down to
this little bitty Guppy. We're in a hell of a lot of trouble.
They're not going to get to this Guppy for a long, long time, you
know. But the thing that I say all the time is that, you know,
when people talk about security or whatever, I appreciate the
security apparatus that they're putting in place, but I've also
never in my life, they talk. I hear talk about these signs that
say you can't take guns into places. I've never seen one.
Never seen one in my life. I see those signs about how you can't
Arm yourself to ultimately protect yourself. And there's
certain people tell me all the time, there's these businesses
that don't want you to I've never seen one of those signs,
really, not in my life. I've never seen one. John, I haven't
never seen I've never seen one. Can't say I'm looking but I've
never seen one.
All it is, is a bull's eye.
Maybe it's obviously, you know, it's a concern. But I, you know,
there have always been mentally insane people, and sadly, not to
get terribly deep into it, but I would say this, that one of the
things that Donald Trump has managed to do, he's managed to
have such success against a group of people that are not
accustomed to others fighting back and winning right, that
they have lost their minds. They have absolutely lost their
minds, and all they know to do, and they've been doing it for
years, is to elevate, elevate, elevate, elevate, and push. And
now we're seeing the chickens come home to roost based on the
language that they've been using. So if I'm an unhinged
person and I hear Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or Chuck Schumer
or Kamala Harris telling me that Donald Trump is Adolf Hitler.
Well, who wouldn't want to kill Adolf Hitler? Exactly, right. So
these things matter. And I think we've reached that inflection
point in American society where we've got to, we got to tone all
of that down. And frankly, one side seems to be willing to tone
it down, and the other side doesn't seem to care.
Well, you know, the whole thing is, I'm tired of the of the
comparisons to Adolf Hitler because I heard it with Obama
too, yes, and neither, neither Barack Obama or Donald Trump are
anywhere near being like Adolf Hitler. No. I mean, you can't
compare the two.
Well, I mean, it's, it's the lack of a better argument. I
mean, there's a, there's a phrase for it, that if you, if
you reach the point that someone's calling you Hitler,
that you know you've won well, your argument, because they have
nothing else to talk
about. Yeah, they have, excuse the expression. They have no
more ammunition. That's right, that's it. That's 100%
correct. But, yeah, I mean, it's, it's a different time. But
I, you know, I don't think we're changing, you know, what we're
doing one bit. I mean, I don't pretend to have all of the
answers, but I absolutely love what I do. I love one of the
things, you know, we talked about, you know, my changing
attitude about it's not being about me, it's being about the
audience. One thing too, is you would listen to other people,
and I think Phil had this approach before. I knew. Him,
and before I listened to him, but I would listen to the knock
on Rush Limbaugh. And the knock on Rush Limbaugh is that he was
a hater, and he was all and he was always yelling and screaming
and all this. And I would listen to Rush Limbaugh, and I'm like,
this is the most optimistic guy I've ever heard in my life.
Yeah, that no matter what, no matter what is in front of us. I
believe in America, no matter what we are facing, no matter
what trials or tribulation. I believe in the concepts of the
United States of America, and I believe in the American people.
He always believed that the American people would be better
than any issue that was in front of them. And I remind myself of
that is don't get too down, because my natural tendency is
to be pessimistic. My natural tendency is to be like we're
host
man, we're circling the drain.
But I try to remind myself that the people are better than the
government that represents them, and frankly, they're a heck of a
lot better than some of the media outlets that want to
proclaim
our doom the 24 hour. I'm so sick of the 24 hour news cycle.
Oh, I am.
Matt. You said, when you were a young man, you were, you were
Joe, liberal, what was what changed you?
Neil Bortz, so I mean it, to put it really, really succinctly. I
was living in Carrollton, Georgia. I had started doing
this talk show, when the station flipped, and I knew that I was
not doing it very well, and so I was trying to absorb people who
were successful. And I started listening to WSB in Atlanta, and
Neil Bortz had just left WGST, had to sit out a six month non
compete and move over to WSB. And I listened to this guy, Neil
Bortz. Was Neil Bortz informed me that I was a libertarian by
listening to him on the radio. I thought, I just thought that I
was liberal. And listening to him, he just made a tremendous
amount of sense. And so I started doing what he told me to
do, which is, go do my reading and go do my homework and and
reading up on, you know, the differences between
libertarianism and conservatism or whatever. And it kind of
informed me that I'm a Liberty first guy, and I'm naturally a
contrarian. So, you know, I like to say that I, you know, Groucho
Marx used to say this, and I say it about myself, that I wouldn't
belong to any club that would have me as a member. And so that
includes good, you know, club Republican. So I don't really
belong to that club, because I feel like my viewpoints deviate,
you know, quite a bit from from Republican or conservative
values. So, you know, that's why I started calling myself a
libertarian with a small l, because, frankly, Libertarian
Party is a little wacky too, but I believe in the basic concept
of, you know, government serves best when it serves least, and
the people themselves are responsible for their own
futures and their own fates. And with liberty comes that level of
responsibility. I just, I just wish we'd get to that too. I
wish politicians would learn that they work for us. It's not
the other way around.
Well, there's no money in you know. I was saying this
yesterday that you know, because we had this race that, you know,
the special election race that concluded. And I'm like, you
know, I don't want a politician to tell me what, if you're a
conservative or a libertarian, why in the world would you want
a politician to tell you what they're going to Washington DC
to do exactly? I want them to tell me what they're going to DC
to undo, exactly, right, exactly. We have far too much
government in our lives as it is, but you don't win re
elections telling people what you didn't do. And that's part
of the problem, is that they get up there and they get
washingtonized, and they become convinced, because of all of
these consultants, oh, you've got to bring something home,
whether that's a project or money or whatever it is, and it
just it feeds the problem. It's called
potemic Fever, 100% exactly what it is. I also want to share
something that's a little more light hearted. But when Matt
started at this station, you know, my wife and I really
became big admirers of his show and loved him as a person, and
his wife, Erica. So Erica and Glenna, my wife, started this
horrible habit of making food, and it grew. It went out of
control. It got to the point where I was walking in. I mean,
I have to go out to my car several times to walk in with so
once again, Matt, we've started it again. My wife has made you
and Erica some goodies of some kind. I
love it. Should I open this? Now, whatever you want to do,
I'll open it. I'll give it, oh yeah, toss it over
here. But it got out of control. It got to the point to where I
talked to both women, in fact, I talked to Matt one day. I said,
we've got to put an end to this, because we're both getting fat,
and we were getting fat, and then we were having to carry all
of this stuff.
So Glenna, I'll tell the quick story that. Glenna, have you?
Have you? Do you like pickles? Oh,
yeah. Well, I've, we've already received, yeah, I've. Out of the
Glenna special in pickles, and they're
fabulous. I am a huge pickle fan. I'm a pickle aficionado. I
would say I subscribe to pickle aficionado max. And these are
the best pickles that I've ever had, the best pickles that I've
ever had. And I accused Glenna putting crack or something in
them at one because they're so good well. So Glenna,
recognizing how much I love them, she gave us, like, several
jars, and one was this huge jar of pickles, yeah, that we lost.
So Erica put that up in the Erica put that up somewhere that
we don't normally keep food, because that's the only place
that that huge jar of pickles would fit. And we found it, like
two months ago, and so I immediately ate them all and and
we cleaned the jar, and we set it aside to get back to you and
Glenna when we saw you next. And so Eric is out of town, and I'm
talking to her this morning, and I'm I say, Where's the jar? I'm
going to see Johnny B and Jay Today. We're doing a podcast,
and she got so angry at me.
Like, what? Why didn't you tell me, you guys were what? What did
I'm like, Why are you so angry? I would have made something to
send to give to Johnny.
Now it continues on. So this is
you're welcome to drop anything off with me if you need oh my
gosh, well,
let's John, let's not get crazy. There's even putting
Oh,
wow. Thank you. God, bless you. You're an angel from heaven, and
not just because you have to put up with Johnny
B that's awesome. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't be here,
trust me. Well, buddy, you can listen to Matt Murphy every
afternoon from three till seven on the big, super talker, 99
three to seven central time. That's, of course, tell them all
the ways they can listen. You don't have to be in radio.
So, I mean 99.7 FM, anywhere from Alabama to Kentucky and all
points in between. You can also get us on anywhere that you
download music or information on the internet. You can get us
right. So that's, you know, podcast, Spotify. Tune in. I
heart. We have our own app. And then super talk TV. Super talk
TV, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch and rumble. YouTube,
Facebook, Twitter, Twitch and rumble. I encourage you to go
over to YouTube, because those people on the YouTube chat are
insane. They are insane. They can say anything they have even
over there,
and you, when you meet them out in public, they're pretty wild.
And I
tried, I tried to do this as best I can. I can. I try to
remember, to remind people, if you go over to the YouTube page
and you engage in the YouTube chat, that is not a monitored
chat, we don't know what those people are going to say. No, we
don't vouch for them. We have nothing to do with what some of
the language that's being used over there, some of the concepts
so but it's a it's a pretty rowdy bunch. I absolutely love
the audience. I love Middle Tennessee. I have fallen in love
with it. I fell in love with the state as soon as I got
here. Well, I think the feeling is mutual. Yeah, I'm and Johnny
can vouch for this. I mean, I'm, I'm a member of the matt Murphy
fan club, and when I first started at the station, I, you
know, and Johnny and I didn't really know each other that
well. And I told Johnny, I said that Matt Murphy guy, that dude,
that dude is a he's a major talent. We both, we both talked
about that.
We both have said that if there's anybody that could be
syndicated on that radio
station, that right
here, are you guys still charging the same fees for this
that y'all
always Yeah, seriously, Matt. I mean, yeah, you're a major
talent. Yes, you just have a good time. I remember, there was
one particular episode where you started speaking about a veteran
or something along those lines, that had passed away or
something, and you were talking about a funeral or what have
you. But, and I remember after that particular episode, I went
to you and told you, I said that that was the most compelling
hour of radio that I had heard in years, I mean, and what
really fascinates me, I mean, I know you do some show prep, but
you don't script anything, and your ability to just speak from
the heart and speak extemporaneously, it makes you
so great at what
you do now. I mean, I don't know about that great part, but I
will say this, that I like doing a show that is more free
flowing. It's and I still really, really love caller
interaction. I love engaging the callers and getting them
involved in the show. I've always felt like, you know, my
producers say, Well, do you want me to screen this person or that
person? I was like, I don't want you to screen anybody out. I
mean, there are obviously exceptions, you know, there are
certain people that don't know how to act, or people that call
chronically, right, right? But other than that, I was like, it
is my job to make it interesting. Interesting, right?
And, and if I get a caller that is not so interesting, I either
need to make them interesting or go on to another caller at the
same time. It's really about the voice of the people. And I love
the flow of a show where you don't where you end up in a
place, and you look back and like, how in the heck did we get
here? Yeah, how in the world did we go from there to here, you
know? But as I get older, I remember the show you're talking
about. And I think it was me relating the story of I happened
upon. It might be a different one, but I happened upon a
funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, and watching a veteran
be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. And I tell that story
quite a bit, and because it moves me so much. Yeah, it moved
me. But man, oh man, as I get older, I get I've gotten I get
so sentimental and so soppy, and I can't tell those stories so
much anymore, because I start
crying. Oh yeah, he started, you turn into Damn man.
Nobody wants that, Johnny, nobody. There's only one dead
man
Well, you know, and that's one, you know, that's the that was
the heartbreaking thing about me having to leave the station was
that I loved everybody there. Yeah, you talk about a great
group of people and a great audience. I would urge anybody
to listen to WTN, because it's a very interesting station.
They've got a very interesting take. Everybody's different.
Every talk show host is different. But I just I love
listening to you, plus you have
Ken Weaver. Oh, man, Ken Weaver is an absolute Jim. I wish we
could get him on here, but he's always busy. Well, he's got a
lot of things
going on. He lives down there in Murfreesboro, and he hates
driving on i 24 so much. Probably, he probably won't come
see I will say that in this business, you learn on the
inside of the business, you know, the part that a lot of
listeners don't see. You try to learn to have thick skin and and
not allow these things to personally affect you, the way
that you handled what happened between you and cumulus was the
most gracious professional manner that I can possibly
imagine. I will say this on or off the air. I've never heard
Johnny B say a bad thing about what happened to him and Johnny
B. There are plenty of
well, those episodes, those episodes,
besides, and there are plenty of reasons why you could,
because there's an unfortunate side to this business where
there are, oftentimes, and I won't speak about my own
employer, but I'll just say, generally speaking, there's a
complete disconnect between what they do crunching numbers
somewhere far, far away, exactly, and how it impacts real
people. And I'm not just talking about you or me, I'm talking
about the listening audience. Oh yeah, and it was incredibly
impactful when you, quote, unquote, left the radio station
and it was bothersome and, and just personally bothersome,
because I felt like you meant so much to the radio station. And
you know, you just have to kind of suck it up. And yeah, you do,
and keep going on well.
And plus, yeah, you know, I would say that the program
director, he, you know, I mean, I was treated with respect and
kindness, and I appreciated that, and they were nice enough
to say, you know, you can say goodbye tomorrow, and because
most places would just say, Yeah,
bring your headphones. Can I tell you
my best firing story? Though? Sure. So. I was in Birmingham. I
was working for Crawford broadcasting, and that's another
one that, if you only have nine months to live, go to work for
Crawford. Well, they, you know, they were a religious based
radio station. They created a secular news talk station that
you know worked for a while for them, but they started kind of
encroaching on what we were doing from a content
perspective, that made all of us very uncomfortable, and
eventually it just wasn't going to work out. So I was kind of
the last man standing. I was doing my afternoon show. They
had let their program director go. We had an interim program
director that had never done it before. And mark a very nice
guy. He was in sales, and he'd been elevated to PD for some
reason. And so my show started at three. I was on from three to
seven, and I would get in about two, and there was nobody before
me. So I would just go into the studio and set up and
everything. And Mark, you know, you could see people coming in
through the lobby. You can see the receptionist through a
window, just to paint the picture here. And then you go
around and you go into the studio. And so every day I would
see Mark come in. He would come in, he would sit down with me.
We'd talk for five or so minutes. All is well, and then
he would go back to his office, and I would continue prepping
for the show. Well, I found out later that the senior vice
president of the company had flown. Into Birmingham, Alabama,
from BLUEBELL, Pennsylvania to fire me on a Friday. Wow. But no
one bothered to check whether I was going to be there, and I had
scheduled a vacation day that day, so I was out of town,
perfect. So she comes in to fire me, the guy she was firing isn't
there. I don't know why they didn't just pick up the phone
and do it that way, but whatever. So that Monday, there
I am, be bopping into the radio station, and I sit down, and I
knew the writing was on the wall for me. I mean, I knew that, you
know, it was just a matter of time, but I was not going to
quit, right? I was going to be let go. And so Mark, this humble
fellow that had never done this before we always say he walks in
like I see him walk in every day, and he cuts me a look, and
then looks away, and then he goes. And I see him talking to
the receptionist, and he's like saying something to the
receptionist, and I see her look up at me with these wide eyes
and and so Mark leaves and doesn't come in like he does
every day. And I hit the talk back button, and my my producer
was setting some things up, and I hit the talk back button and I
said, Hey, I'm getting fired today. And he said, What? And I
said, I'm getting fired today. No, you're Shut up. I was like,
watch, like, five minutes after Mark comes in, the receptionist
gets up and walks into the room and says, Mark needs to see you
in his office.
This is not my first I swear what
I'm about to tell you is true. It sounds like it's not. I swear
this is true. So I walk in and the business manager sitting in
the room, and that was, Oh, all right. We got a witness. We got
the guy that's doing it, lack of paperwork.
Got it going, let's go.
And Mark has just this look of death on his face, and he's just
staring at me, and I sit down, and he starts, Matt, well, you
know you weren't here on Friday and so, and you know Laura was
in. He starts mumbling and fumbling and he starts crying.
Usually it's the other way around, right?
Like I said, I swear this trick, I reached across the table and
patted his hand, and I said, Mark, it's gonna be okay. I wish
you well in your future endeavors. Mark, so if you've
ever been in management, the first thing that they tell you
about this part of the job is, Do not apologize. The first
words out of his mouth ever I said it's gonna be okay is, I'm
sorry,
admitting wrong. If it's radio, he probably got let go shortly
after
that was it being like fired by Michael Scott or something. It
was the best firing ever. I mean, it was so nice. I got my
paperwork. It's happened to you a couple of times. I mean, you
ever think about just messing with them?
You know, like me, I'm not, come on. Oh,
whatever. I'm gonna go do my job, right? What are you guys
talking about? You know, you at the same time, you're like, my
concern is, let's, let's make sure we're not burning the
bridges that we might need to cross back over at some point.
So luckily, none of those bridges matter at Carver
broadcasting anymore, so I can tell the story I want so but
they did. But to your point, they I'm like, Are you gonna let
me do this? Like, 230 my show's a threat. It's like, are you
gonna let me do my show? And he said, Yes, but you can't say
anything about you leaving until the last 30 minutes. Yeah. And I
said, Okay, that's fine. And so they, they, what they did. They
had they wasn't mark. It was another producer that they
brought in to sit in the room with me, in the studio, not in
the control room, but in the studio with me. And they said,
he said, I'm here to make sure you don't say anything you're
not supposed to say. And I was like, What do you go are you
gonna do?
He pats the gun on his What are you gonna do? And he says, I
think I'm supposed to pull the plug to the microphone.
There's a guy in the control room radio well. And then they
also, it was confusing as hell to the audience, because they
put the delay on a 42nd delay.
And they said they did that just well, just in case Matt says
something,
42nd delay, so do not be burning that bridge all day long.
People, you know, it's a caller driven show, so I got callers,
and they're listening on the line. They have no idea what's
going on. They're 40 seconds behind. And so I go to them,
Hey, Jay, you're on the phone. And there's what we talking
about.
Jay, you're on it's
got to give the producer a lot of comfort, though, if anybody
cusses he has please.
Plenty of time. George Carlin, ask, Well,
dude, this has been so much fun, and I'm so glad you came and
hung out with
I love you guys. I love I love you guys. I love what you're
doing on the podcast. I watch the podcast. I enjoy the
podcast. I encourage everybody to like and subscribe to the
podcast.
Well, there you go, and Jay has all the info.
Yeah, we are getting there in terms of being on more
platforms. Of course, any audio platform that you can think of
for podcasts, we're on it thanks to Jim McCarthy or Chris Yes,
but yeah, you know, Facebook, YouTube, we're on, we're getting
on Twitch, and we've got a website that's about to be
debuted, and merchandise is coming.
Merch? Are you buying? Merch is ready?
Well, there we go. Should be arriving in the next couple of
weeks.
Well, we want you to come back to see the Triple J's again.
We'll have more interesting people for you. Sometimes it's
just us, and we're interesting enough, I think, of course, it's
circling the drone. Thanks for joining you.