Latest / The Scene Projects / J. Brooks on Radio, Community Building, and Midwest Country Music

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J. Brooks on Radio, Community Building, and Midwest Country Music · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Welcome into a very exciting episode of the scene.
• 0:04
  I'm your host Bubba Starts, and with me today from Kiss Country in Mason City, Iowa, Jay
• 0:10
  Brooks.
• 0:10
  Jay, welcome to the show.
• 0:11
  Hey.
• 0:12
  Thanks for having me.
• 0:13
  Gotta be awkward getting on the other side of the interview.
• 0:16
  Right.
• 0:16
  Yeah.
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  This doesn't happen very often.
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  Well, I'm glad we could make it happen, man.
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  I I know you've been out there.
• 0:22
  You've been supporting our Midwest Country Music Organization members.
• 0:26
  We were very fortunate to pick up a nomination for content creator of the year with our
• 0:31
  podcast this year.
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  But we wanna support not just the musicians, but the, you know, the media people that are
• 0:38
  surrounding this organization as well, and, your names come up a lot.
• 0:42
  So before we get too far into the interview and our conversation, why don't you tell people a
• 0:47
  little bit about your background in radio, and and we'll kinda pick things up from there?
• 0:52
  Well, it was, it was one of those things where I I started people ask me all the time, how can
• 0:57
  I get into radio?
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  I gotta go to school, do this, do that.
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  I I just worked part time through high school.
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  You know, I was 15, 16 years old and did whatever I could to to get on the air even if
• 1:09
  was just doing the weather.
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  And I don't know if you guys Mike Harvey's Supergold.
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  I don't if you ever heard of that or not.
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  It was but that's that's where I started doing all that and got on the air to do the weather.
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  And and then, then got out of that and did a little bit, as at the agriculture business with
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  the I was a parts guy at, John Deere, and then, got back into it.
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  There was I was filling in, part time, at a country station and then just kept, they put
• 1:35
  kept putting me in there going, hey.
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  We don't have a morning guy.
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  Could you do this?
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  Could you do that?
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  And finally, just told him, I said, I'm not doing it no more unless you just give me the
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  job.
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  Otherwise, I'm not coming in.
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  So and that's kinda how the whole Jay Brooks and the it was Jay and Friends at the start way
• 1:50
  back when, and then, now it's Jay Brooks and the morning rush.
• 1:53
  So so, yeah, so the friends are the my the funny thing is my cohost, my sports guy was his
• 1:59
  last name was Friends, f r e n z.
• 2:02
  And so we just, tied it the Jay Brooks and or Jay and Friends in the morning and and, meaning
• 2:08
  that all the listeners were our friends.
• 2:10
  So I just spelled
• 2:11
  I gotta gotta beat this guy.
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  So I have Starts as my last name.
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  So Starts and Ends is the name of my band, e n d z.
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  And then I created a, our Facebook group where we, you know, collect our fans.
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  It's called starts and friends.
• 2:27
  Oh.
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  With f r I e n d z.
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  But, yeah, now I gotta meet your I gotta meet your partner in crime, man, and we can get a
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  starts in Friends picture for real.
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  Yeah.
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  No kidding.
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  That'd be perfect.
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  Too cool, man.
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  So, yeah, you've been in radio a long time, worked your way up from the bottom until you
• 2:45
  just had to eventually strong-arm them for the position, steal that microphone right out from
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  underneath the
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  Yep.
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  Pretty much.
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  Yeah.
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  And not let it go, man.
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  I love it.
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  So how did you end up getting involved with, our Midwest Country Music Organization?
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  Is the station a member of the org?
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  We're up for a station domination again this year.
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  So
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  Fantastic.
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  Congratulations to you guys.
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  Yeah.
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  Congratulations to you too.
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  But, yeah.
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  So we we were in on the early early launch of this whole thing.
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  There's, like, three stations.
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  And, PT and I were talking, and Bob were talking, when they were getting this whole
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  thing.
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  This is what they like to they they told me the vision, what they wanted to do.
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  There's a couple other radio guys too that were in stations that were in on it early too.
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  And it was we just talked about what the vision of the the, the show and and, what we wanna do
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  with Midwest Artists because there's a lot of very talented artists that are on this in this
• 3:37
  organization, actually, in the in the Midwest.
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  So but, but yeah.
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  And I like it because, you know, it's all about local and and supporting your own, and and,
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  that's what that's what they're doing.
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  And, giving people the the, you know, the artist the opportunity to get on to actual
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  radio stations instead of going out there and playing for crowds of 10 or 20 or a 200 people.
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  So it just it gives them so that way when they're looking to book somebody, they go, hey.
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  Who's that person that you had on the radio on that show, you know, the Midwest organization,
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  or Midwest originals?
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  You know, because we play it twice twice a week.
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  We play it on Wednesdays at noon, and then we play it on Saturday nights at 6PM.
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  So we're and then plus, besides that, I also play them once an hour or play them play play
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  you guys because you're a you're an artist too.
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  So get the rotation to every hour.
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  Once an hour, we play somebody from the Midwest country, originals that, so you get airplay
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  throughout the week as well, Monday through Friday.
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  Is it just like for the show that week, or is it the whole catalog you're going through and
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  picking out of that?
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  No.
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  It's it's everybody.
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  It doesn't don't have to be on the show to do it.
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  You know, I mean, we got a lot of people that are sending me music, and, I just gotta plug it
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  in and, you know, I listen to it, obviously, and then and then, just plug it in and just
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  kinda let it rotate.
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  That's super cool, man.
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  There's just not a lot of space in radio for independent artists these days.
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  Obviously, why a lot of us are attracted to the Midwest CMO just for that.
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  Right?
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  The radio play sounds good.
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  It was never a it was never a motivation for me.
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  My songs have been played on the original show, which I I just am tickled to know that, but I
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  was all about the community.
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  I I saw it for what it was, and it's a chamber of commerce for creative people.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  Which
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  is what we don't really have.
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  And especially out here in the Midwest because all of our local communities are hours from
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  each other.
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  Right?
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  Like, it's very hard to connect with people, but we have the Internet.
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  We have, you know, the blessing of of Facebook and these social media networks where we're
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  able to connect with people.
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  And I was, I'm a fairly new member.
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  I I think we just passed our one year mark, and I had no idea what this family was all about
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  until we went to the awards show last year.
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  And, Jay, I sat back and I watched it, and I was just like, this is it.
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  Like, this is what I wanna spend the next two decades of my life doing, and I didn't even
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  really have a pot.
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  I mean, I had brought my microphones with me and had done 25 interviews at jam night just I
• 6:07
  didn't know anyone.
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  So I said, well, how am I gonna meet everybody?
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  I'm gonna set my microphones down in the corner, and I'm gonna talk to everybody that'll
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  come and talk to us.
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  And we had a line just rotating through the whole night, and that's how we really
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  introduced ourselves, but how we were introduced to the Midwest CMO.
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  And now, right, a year later, you we're getting a nomination for content creator, and we've
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  spoken with, you know, I don't know, dozens, maybe a hundred members.
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  I'm not even sure how many I've talked to.
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  It all becomes a blur.
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  I'm sure you can relate to that.
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  Yeah.
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  But it it it was all built off of who's our community and how do we support these people.
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  And, you know, we kinda took it from, well, okay.
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  Radio can play the studio versions.
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  We can have interviews the same as you could and post those.
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  That's really nice too.
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  And then we took it one step further with our songwriter showcases.
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  So instead of just doing the showcase for the sake of it and playing for 15 or 30 people that
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  might be there and as a great networking opportunity for artists, we started shooting
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  them in HD video.
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  And now we're offering that as not only a show that's out on our platforms, but offering
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  artists a chance to purchase that footage as well to use for their own platforms and to take
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  that and to continue to build this and and taking a lot of the planning effort out of the
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  hands of the artist because it's just more time that someone doesn't have to do.
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  Right?
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  Right.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, anyway, you can get your music out.
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  I mean, I for years, I had people around this area, you know, because I got I got ties in
• 7:47
  Nashville, with a lot of different artists and things like that and working with major labels
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  and independent artists and everything else.
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  And people would always ask me up here and go, hey.
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  Help me get a label.
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  What can I do to get a record label?
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  And I said, you don't want one.
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  I said, if you're making money here right now in the Midwest, then keep doing what you're
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  doing.
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  But I wanna open up for Kenny Chesney.
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  And I go, pick their own a lot of times, but but I know a lot of the Midwest Artists have
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  opened up for big name people.
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  You know?
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  You don't need a copy label.
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  It's about growing your community.
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  It's about being the band in your small communities around you that when those acts
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  come through, there's no one else to call.
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  Right?
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  Right.
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  Like, you know, I I know for Central Iowa, you know, guys like Jordan Beam making a lot of
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  noise right now, Lee Klett and his band, the boys, and, you know, guys like Scott Kirkhart.
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  Scott's gonna be with us here at the March 9 gig as well as Lee too.
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  But, you know, there
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  Is he coming back from Florida?
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  He's down to Florida right now.
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  I think he's headed to Nashville this weekend, he said.
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  So I think he's on his way back home and coming back.
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  And, yeah, it's just been a blessing for me because South Dakota's kind of on the outside
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  of the Midwest CMO, you know, geographic area at least.
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  Right?
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  And and South Dakota is even more remote than Iowa.
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  Right?
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  Like, y'all think you got it bad there.
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  Well, it takes me thirty minutes to get to a damn Walmart, and then it takes me another hour
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  from there to get to a town that has more than 10,000 people.
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  I think I was doing okay.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  It it's it's it's really easy to feel like you're out here alone and that you're so
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  disconnected from everything.
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  Everyone's telling you, yo, you gotta go to Nashville.
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  You gotta do this.
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  And I'm a firm believer like you are.
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  You don't wanna go there anyway, man.
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  No.
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  There I tell you what, there's a lot of competition, a lot of great people down there,
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  and a lot of our artists could actually hold their own down there.
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  I guarantee it.
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  But it's too far it's warmer down there.
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  I'll tell you that.
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  I just came back from there last week and, listened to a lot of music and stuff, and there
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  are some people that I go, you know what?
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  We got artists that are better than this down up up here in the Midwest.
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  And, again, you don't you don't have to to be in country music, you don't have to be in
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  Nashville.
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  You know?
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  Texas has got their own Texas sound.
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  The Midwest has got the you know, Nashville's got their sound.
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  The Midwest right here, we've got our sound.
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  I like hearing songs that are about my gravel roads.
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  You know?
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  Well and I think that's not unique to you.
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  I think that's a growing, a growing feeling among listeners as well, and they wanna be
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  connected.
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  And it's it's guys like us that are bringing it to the people that are kinda building that
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  bigger listening community now.
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  And and it and that takes time.
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  Right?
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  Like, it doesn't happen overnight.
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  You know, I'm sure listeners, you know, your listenership has probably been dropping over
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  the decades that you've been in the business.
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  Local radio isn't what it used to be.
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  There's just so much competition for people's attention these days that you have to be
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  everywhere and you have to be special.
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  And the way that we're special, Jay, and and I'll speak for you in this regard is that we
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  are committed to that local identity.
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  We're committed to supporting these artists that are close to us, and I'm not even
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  interested in in a national act.
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  Right?
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  Like, I'm not seeking them out.
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  If they call me, I'm not gonna spit in their eye, but I'm also not seeking out national
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  level artists to do interviews on my show.
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  It's not what I'm about.
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  It's not the community that I'm serving, and I'm sure that you feel the same way, with with
• 11:33
  Kiss Country.
• 11:34
  Yeah.
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  I mean, I've I've I've got, like I said, I got ties to Nashville, but it it and when they were
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  and some of these guys are megastars now.
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  And I knew them before the, you know, the Florida Georgia Line.
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  I knew those guys.
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  They sat down.
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  Nobody knew who they were.
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  They had a big song, well, a little song, I guess, at the time called cruise.
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  And, they sat right in my studio.
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  We hung out and had a good time.
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  And, you know, I said, you I said, if you boys got my back, I got your back.
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  You know, I said, you got you got something good here.
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  It's something a little bit different, but I said, I think people are gonna hang on to it,
• 12:07
  and they're gonna like it.
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  And, you know, Low Cash Cowboys and other good friends of mine, and they're you know, the same
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  thing with those guys.
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  They came up, and they played around our area a couple of different times, and people support
• 12:16
  them.
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  So I I saw back then how people and how radio actually impacts on the artist.
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  And and now moving into this after the last the past four years, five years, I think we've been
• 12:29
  doing this, something like that, however long the organization's been going on.
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  And, so it's good now to to be able to have the ties, and and and I could call you up and go,
• 12:38
  hey, Bubba.
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  I need somebody for this, you know, or whatever.
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  And and the nice thing is too that it it is it's a big family community.
• 12:45
  And if you need a drummer, you just put it out there and you go, hey.
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  I need a drummer for this this weekend.
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  Anybody free?
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  Anybody you know?
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  Because not everybody's gonna be doing something every single weekend.
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  There's there's gotta be somebody.
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  So it's nice to see everybody helping each other out and then to add the radio aspect of
• 13:02
  it.
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  PT and those guys have all done a great job at the you know, the board of directors and
• 13:05
  everybody else that a great job of, you know, it's it's a we thing.
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  It's not, I did this or I did that.
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  You know, it's we did this together.
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  Totally.
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  Well and I don't have a job without all of the artists.
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  Right?
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  Like, I don't I don't I don't have anything going on without the members themselves, being
• 13:26
  out here.
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  And and I not that I couldn't go find other communities, but how nice to be able to just go
• 13:32
  into the Facebook group, say, hey.
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  You know what?
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  I, you know, my interview schedule's a little light this month.
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  Who wants to get on and talk about their new single?
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  And then hopefully becoming the first call when people are releasing music that, hey.
• 13:45
  We gotta call Bubba and make sure we're getting on the show and being a part of that.
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  And then I don't have to worry about planning and booking anything for the next couple of
• 13:52
  decades.
• 13:53
  Right?
• 13:53
  Right.
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  You get to show up, see who's on the calendar, and roll from there.
• 13:58
  Yeah.
• 13:58
  No.
• 13:58
  That's that's great.
• 13:59
  Like I said, the the artists are fantastic, and the the whole community, amongst the Midwest,
• 14:05
  organization is just fantastic.
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  I love it.
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  I'm glad I'm a part of it.
• 14:08
  You know?
• 14:08
  And along the way, you get it you know, you're up for a nomination, which is great, but I
• 14:12
  don't do it for the the awards.
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  You know?
• 14:15
  So it's it's it's yeah.
• 14:16
  If there an award comes along at some point point, then great.
• 14:20
  That's awesome.
• 14:21
  You know?
• 14:21
  Wait.
• 14:22
  So I win the award, Jay, I'm gonna have to cut it up into 300 pieces and give everybody a
• 14:27
  little piece of it.
• 14:28
  You know?
• 14:28
  Like, I didn't earn this on my own.
• 14:31
  I put in a load of work, right, in the background when nobody's watching.
• 14:36
  You know, I I also write about our artists on, you know, my my website, thesceneprojects.com.
• 14:43
  So we're doing little blog stuff as well, and and some of our artists have turned around and
• 14:47
  used that, you know, as part of their press kit, or they've used it to, you know, pump up
• 14:51
  their next single and using that now.
• 14:54
  And that's where I'm like, okay.
• 14:55
  People are starting to get it.
• 14:56
  Right?
• 14:56
  Like, I'm not doing this for me.
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  I'm doing it because it's worth something to you.
• 15:01
  And and I hope after, you know, the awards this year and getting to see everybody that they
• 15:06
  kind of see it that way as well as like, yeah, it's really cool to be on the radio or to be on
• 15:12
  this podcast to do that thing, but, like, you have to go use it then.
• 15:17
  Right?
• 15:17
  Like, you it just doesn't it's not necessarily gonna bring you a hundred thousand fans because
• 15:22
  you were on Kiss Country a a couple of times this week.
• 15:25
  Right?
• 15:26
  Like, you have to use that notoriety and and be turning people on to, hey.
• 15:29
  Listen to us on Kiss Country.
• 15:32
  We're gonna be on the original shows this week.
• 15:34
  Oh, and by the way, I talked to my buddy Jay, and he said he's gonna play the song on
• 15:38
  Thursday as well.
• 15:39
  Right?
• 15:40
  And it's it's it's kind of pumping up the stations and the podcast and everything, oh,
• 15:45
  because we're out here pumping you up and pumping all those tires too.
• 15:49
  So a little quid pro quo, goes a long ways in this industry.
• 15:53
  Yeah.
• 15:54
  Yeah.
• 15:54
  I mean and I and I I've always been this way.
• 15:56
  I always liked helping people, you know, and and and don't look for anything in return.
• 16:01
  Just, you know what?
• 16:02
  Hey.
• 16:02
  If I could do if I can, I'll do it.
• 16:04
  You know?
• 16:05
  And I'll tell you if I can't.
• 16:06
  But I have a lot of control at the the station that I'm at and the stations that I've been at
• 16:10
  that, that I can kinda call the shots and do the you know, play the music that I want
• 16:15
  because because it works for our listeners.
• 16:18
  Man, that's great.
• 16:20
  Jay, before I let you go, I want you to plug the station, obviously, and anything else you
• 16:24
  got going on, and I'll let you get out of
• 16:27
  Yeah.
• 16:27
  I would just say if you if you wake up early in the morning, it's Jay Brooks in the morning
• 16:31
  rush.
• 16:31
  It's on ninety eight seven kiss country.
• 16:33
  We stream it.
• 16:33
  It's a app it's a download free.
• 16:36
  The app, we have that 987.
• 16:37
  I don't know if you gotta put a point in there.
• 16:39
  It's been so long since I downloaded it.
• 16:41
  So it's it's either 98 987 or 90987, or both of them might show up.
• 16:47
  I have no idea.
• 16:48
  I can't remember.
• 16:49
  So but we got that.
• 16:50
  You can stream us.
• 16:51
  You gotta we got a website, 98kisscountry.com, the official 987 kiss country Facebook page.
• 16:56
  So it's the j brooks at Facebook, and I got I don't I have too many Facebook pages.
• 17:02
  Now I got, the Midwest Drive.
• 17:04
  You know?
• 17:05
  So that, a lot of
• 17:06
  those Just just followed the drive today, actually, man.
• 17:09
  So
• 17:10
  Yeah.
• 17:11
  Yep.
• 17:11
  So it's it's yeah.
• 17:13
  There's so many I can't I need a secretary.
• 17:15
  Can can you find me somebody, Bubba, that, do all my social media and all that good stuff?
• 17:20
  Because I I can't keep up.
• 17:21
  Oh, brother.
• 17:22
  I I I feel you in every way.
• 17:24
  Well, Jay Brooks, I I really appreciate everything you're doing over there at 987 Kiss
• 17:30
  Country, and thanks for being part of the scene.
• 17:32
  Well, thanks for having me on.