REAL ROCK RADIO !

REAL ROCK RADIO !

FEATURES

Don Kaye

It seems gloomy sometimes for rock 'n' roll music in this here wonderful country of ours. So many people are down on the stuff—and heavy metal in particular—that they’ve even gotten around to throwing lawsuits at it for lack of anything better to do. I’m here to tell you about a hope for the masses, a sign of life in the vast wasteland of conservative America and the even vaster wasteland of American radio. Listen.. .faster than adult contemporary. .. able to leap tall prayer towers in a single bound.. .it’s Z-ROCK!

Z-Rock is the world’s first satellite network with a 24-hour format dedicated to nothing but the finest in hard rock and heavy metal. It is one branch of the Satellite Music Network, a company operating down in Dallas that also has six other 24-hour formats under their belts, ranging from country to oldies, which are beamed into nearly 800 subscriber stations in all 50 states. Everything is done in Dallas; the on-air personalities, broadcast and production facilities, and music libraries are all there. All the subscribing station has to do is sit back and take in the signal. So far, the Z-Rock format, initiated a little over a year ago, is operating in five markets, including Chicago and Cleveland, where it has turned around the fortunes of the subscribing stations by showing spectacular ratings.

"The idea for Z-Rock originated with John Tyler, who’s the chairman of Satellite Music Network," says Wild Bill Scott, Z-Rock operations manager. "When I was out at KNAC in California, we started this type of format out there, and the numbers showed that it could do real well, mainly because there was a void for this kind of music. Originally, the idea was to go after the 12-to-24 age group, then we found out that we were pulling in a lot more 18-to-34s!

"As far as ratings go, in the last book (translation: the radio ratings as compiled by the Arbitron rating service) we had a signal problem in Chicago, so that jammed us up, but in the first book that came out for Chicago, we finished #1 for rock ’n’ roll at night. Cleveland came storming through, we had real good Arbitrons there, and the Birch ratings were also strong there. We finished second in morning drive and #1 at night again."

For a new format to finish #1 during the rating period in its first time at bat, so to speak, is an impressive accomplishment, especially when the stations were "going down for the third time” (as Wild Bill puts it) before switching to Z-Rock. And with a metal format, in this day and age! The obvious question is: has anyone in any of the markets now serviced complained about that evil music being piped up from J.R. country all day long, seven days a week? “No, not really at all. We play both sides of the coin, we play Christian metal as well as thrash bands, although we try to stay away from anything that will offend people. A lot of the stuff being played has been so overcharged by some of these groups and they just don’t understand that any meaning they read into it is probably not even there. A band like Slayer, for example, whom people think are satanic, are actually just writing very descriptive lyrics that serve more as a reflection on society, and man’s inhumanity to man.”

It’s nice to see that the people at ZRock take more than a little time to look into what they’re playing, and do have a good knowledge and honest enjoyment of the music they play. Bill is proud of the on-the-air personalities that Z-Rock has, including Boobie Bondage, who, in addition to reading the daily metal and hard rock news reports, is also Z-Rock’s program coordinator. She hails originally from New York, where she got her start working in the marketing division of Liberty/United Artists Records. "I worked there for about eight years or so when I met Wild Bill, and I realized that the record business wasn’t creative enough for me, because I liked writing and that sort of thing. So I ended up producing Wild Bill’s show for nine years at KNAC, and when we got wind of what Z-Rock was doing, I sent a proposal and tapes of our show down here to Dallas, and pretty soon they gave us a call.”

Boobie’s responsibilities at the station include setting up interviews either live or over the phone, getting station IDs, doing promotions and acting as Bill’s assistant. ‘‘Bill and I are basically the only ones who are here every day during the day,” she says, ‘‘so if a record company calls up about a band or if an affiliate calls up and wants to do some promotion in their area, they have to go through me.

‘‘Personally, I thought we’d be in a few more markets than we are now, based on what we did at KNAC and how strong the demand was there. It’s not that the audience doesn’t want it, but more orJess that the people in control of radio stations don’t want to change what they’re doing. Also they have these preconceived ideas about metal or hard rock. We’ve even had debates about using the word ‘metal,’ which to me is pretty stupid. I don’t like censorship and I don’t understand why a word turns so many people off. ‘Metal’ is just another term for music, but station owners have notions about what kind of people listen to this music,” says Boobie, who—incidentally—has gone under that name for more than nine years and is even called Boobie by her mother.

Perhaps the best thing about Z-Rock is that the format caters to all kinds of metal, from the pop-metal strains of Poison to the death-and-doom of Dark Angel, and all is mixed evenly so that fans of any type of metal will hear their faves within any hour of broadcast. Credit for this goes to the station’s music director, Mad Max Hammer, who worked in California radio for some years and used to publish his own tip-sheet geared toward a metal radio format.

“I try to be as accessible as possible, without following anyone else’s lead,” he says. ‘‘I try to play what the people want to hear without playing what other AOR stations are playing. I think we should be the innovator, and we are. We’ll play groups like King Diamond and Slayer and Anthrax, and we’re about the only commercial station that will play them on a regular rotation. Our rotation is similar to that of a Top 40 format in that you’ll hear the newest release several times during the day.”

Does that kind of heavy repetition work well with metal? ‘‘I think so,” replies Max, ‘‘and even when kids call up and say we’re repetitive, that’s good, because that means they’re listening over a long period of time. But the artists we repeat are artists everyone wants to hear. Everything’s logged out and pre-programmed, although we do take requests and the jocks are allowed a certain amount of freedom to choose what to play.”

“ ‘Metal’ is just another term for music, but station owners have notions about what kind of people listen to this music. ”

—Boobie Bondage

With their most heavily requested acts being Metallica, Crue, Slayer, Ozzy/Sabbath and Maiden, it’s evident that the service is appealing to all fans of metal. And despite some bumps in the road (Satellite operated at a loss for the first quarter of 1987), Z-Rock’s future looks bright and its creators are encouraging possible affiliates to look closely at them.

‘‘It’s a format, though, that you have to support,” concludes Wild Bill. ‘‘You can’t just put it on and expect the phone to start ringing. You have to get out on the street and push it, but once you get it out there, it kicks open a lot of doors.” ®