Steve Stone, Director of Creative, Zimmer Radio Group, Joplin, Missouri
No, this is not Steve Stone the national voice-over artist, or Steve Stone the baseball player. This is the “other” Steve Stone, the one you’ll be hearing about more and more as the years go by. Unlike many of our interviewees who got their start in radio at an early age, Steve made his debut at around age 40. In his second year, he was winning awards for his work. Most recently, Steve picked up the 2005 RAP Award for Best Promo AND Best Commercial, Small Markets. This month’s RAP Interview introduces this Creative to the world and finds out what makes his commercials and promos appeal to his peers, his clients, AND his listeners. Be sure to check out his sampler on this month’s RAP CD!
JV: How did you get your start in radio?
Steve: I’ve been a guitar player my whole life. One thing all musicians like to do is go to other musicians’ gigs and try to get up on the stage and hurt their feelings. Well, I had heard about a guitar player named Randall Gower who later turned out to be one of my radio mentors. He’s a pretty good guitar player and did a morning show on a classic rock station in West Plains, Missouri. The station was KSPQ. I went to his gig there in West Plains and got up on stage and played, and he absolutely fell in love with my guitar playing. That’s how we met. Then it was two or three years later when I heard through the grapevine that they were looking for a fill in guy, just a part-timer, at the radio station. So I applied and got the job. It was at that time that Randall heard my work and told me that within five years I’d be major market. I didn’t know if I believed him or not. But I’m well on my way, even though I’m not there yet. He thought I was a natural at it, and my production and imaging just floored him.
Anyway, he was the one that gave me my start in radio. He was also Program Director at KSPQ. I started as a nighttime fill-in, working only when someone was sick or needed vacation. My first paycheck in radio was for $35, I believe. It was minimum wage, like seven hours, and I jumped for joy. I couldn’t get over it. I absolutely loved it.
Well that turned into a regular nighttime shift when they had some trouble with the guy that was doing the night show there. They cut him loose and put me in there regularly five nights a week. That’s when I really started taking off and was absolutely loving it. I thought this might be a career for me. That was with the Ozark Radio Network. They own eight stations in that area down there. From there they took me off that night show and put me on afternoons on a hot AC station, KUPH. From there I worked afternoons about six or seven months and then took over the morning show on that station. I did a solo morning show and just kept getting better all the time.
During this time, it became evident that production was where my shining point was. It was in my second year in radio when I won my first Missouri Broadcasters Award for Small Market Commercial of the Year for a bank spot that I had to sing on. The seller gave me script, a rough script and said, “See what you can do with this.” So I looked at the script and put in some music and just sang it. It wound up being very funny and it won the Missouri Broadcaster’s award that year. From there I thought, “Wow, I might be able to do something with this career.” Since then everything I’ve entered has won something.
JV: How did the job at the Zimmer Radio Group in Joplin come around?
Steve: That was actually through Radio and Production Magazine ironically enough. I had entered this commercial for a dentist. It was also a song piece and it was a finalist in the RAP Awards for 2004. Jason Skaggs won the trophy that year. I emailed him to congratulate him and he emailed back and praised my work. We started talking back and forth, and then I met him at that year’s Missouri Broadcasters Awards ceremony. That’s when he told me, “Hey, you need to come to work for us.” That’s what brought me to Zimmer. It was kind of funny because as soon as I came to Joplin, Jason left for Cumulus, Atlanta, in the same week. I was hired to be his assistant in the production department here. He wound up going to Atlanta for Cumulus and I wound up stepping in as Director of Creative here, which was a pretty good jump. That happened about a year ago.
JV: What are your responsibilities as Director of Creative?
Steve: I write a lot of demos and I cast and control all the commercial inventory for this six station cluster. We’ve got four FMs and two AMs consisting of CHR, a New Country, Classic Rock, Light Rock, and then we’ve got a News/Talk and an ESPN station. While I’m not doing imaging for any of these stations, I am doing some promos. But mainly it’s a lot of commercial demos, trying to get new clients on, and I’ve got a pretty good success record of getting new clients on the station with these demos that I’ve produced.
JV: Do you have some help?
Steve: Yes, I do have a helper in my department, and he does a lot of writing. He’s a stand-up comedian who’s turned radio ad writer, and he’s proving to be a very good asset. Steve Franzman is his name, an incredibly talented writer/producer/air talent who’s a pleasure to work with and has a very bright future in radio.
JV: Unlike a lot of the people we interview, you got into radio later in life, around the age of 40. So radio must be like a second career for you.
Steve: Yes. I was basically a musician/carpenter. I had aspirations to make it big in music my whole life, but with a family and the need to put food on the table I was forced to pound some nails during the day, and hit the stage at night.
I actually started playing on stage when I was 14 in my dad’s band. My dad was an unbelievable musician. By the time I was 18 or 19, I was out on the road for several years. Then I came back in off the road when I was probably 22 or 23, settled down and got married and just played local gigs. One of my downfalls in music was I could never decide on what style I wanted to play because I love to play jazz and I love to play rock and I love to play country, which back then was a curse because I could never focus long enough to make it anywhere in one category in music. But now it’s turned out to be a blessing for these jingles that I write. If a car dealership wants a real rocking jingle, I can provide that, or I can do a polka.
JV: Well, you’ve done well, just four years into the business. You mentioned one mentor you’ve had. Has there been anybody else that’s influenced your radio career?
Steve: Yes, a friend of mine that I’ve known since high school, Pete Bunch. He’s president of Spoken Word Images in Greensboro, North Carolina. That’s actually how I found out about Radio and Production Magazine; Pete turned me on to it. He’s a great guy, and he’s offered me a lot of real good insight and good direction in my career and it’s really helped. So if I fail I’m going to go look for him! Yeah, Randall Gower and Pete Bunch have been very instrumental in the progress of my career.
JV: You won two RAP trophies this year, the Best Promo and Best Commercial in the Small Market category. Where do you get your creative inspiration for award winning pieces like these?
Steve: Well, ever since the alien abduction it’s been… no, actually I think inspiration’s everywhere. It’s all around you. I get a lot of inspiration from my kids because nothing in my world is more important than hearing my kids laugh. So I’m constantly trying to be a cut up at home, whether it’s singing a polka or talking in some funny voices. But I see things and I automatically try to make a commercial out of it. One thing I’ve learned in this business is that it’s a delicate balance trying to make a commercial that the client will like while at the same time making something that will be effective over the air, and third, making sure that the listener doesn’t push the button during the spot break. That’s the balance that I wrestle with, and some of my work will be rejected because it’s a little too over the top – “…come on, reel it in, Steve.”
But I like listeners to want to hear my commercial again. As a matter of fact, that “Eccentrics” commercial that won first place this year actually gets requests. They call in and say, “Hey, play that commercial for me will you?” I don’t know if that’s common or not, but it was flattering. If I can be entertaining and deliver the message and provide the client with results, then I think I’m winning.
JV: Do you remember how the concept for that Eccentrics spot came about?
Steve: That’s an interesting story actually. They told me this guy was eccentric. He’s a multi-millionaire who owned a chain of bookstores and sold them out to a big national chain and then opened this smaller store, Eccentrics. It has just about everything you can imagine – they’ve got books, CDs… well the commercial lists it all. They said the guy was eccentric and the best way to deal with the spot was to just go down there and see the place. So I took a legal pad down there and walked around in the store, writing down everything that I saw. They told me the guy was weird and to make the commercial over the top. So I did. My original idea was to make it a polka. But after I got started with it I thought, “No, this doesn’t work right.” Dave Zimmer has set me up with the equipment to create jingles and to record music right here in the production room — we’ve got a full music production facility here. So I recorded that punk music bit and then sat down with the tablet of paper and started singing. Then I’d stop and re-arrange the clips a little bit and so on. That one basically wrote itself.
JV: The other winner you had this year was a promo for ESPN. It was called “Balls” and started out with just a lot of sound effects of different balls in the beginning. How did that concept come about?
Steve: I was working on another project, actually a promo for our ESPN station, and came across the sports sound effects. I was looking at the list and I said, “You know what? It would be kind of neat to put all of these in one promo and not say anything until the very end.” So that’s how that one came about. I found the basketball dribbling sound effect, and it was rhythmic, and right there the light bulb came on over my head. I said, “Oh, yeah. Start that ball bouncing and then just add some other sports sound effects in a rhythmic pattern!”
JV: Do you find “rhythm” to be a big part of most commercials that you create?
Steve: A lot of them. I’ve had the sellers say, “Steve, we’re going to have to talk on this one instead of singing okay.” My first instinct is to make everything musical, and to me it just makes sense. You’re listening to the radio for the music. When you go to the spot break, why not have some more entertaining music instead of an announcer yelling a bunch of numbers at you?
JV: More music but this time with a message embedded.
Steve: Right. Like the Freeman Urgent Care spots I did. I developed a whole campaign for them. We started off with those goofy little bouncy 2/4 rhythms and the goofy voice and they loved it. We ran that for a while and they said, “You know what? We’re going to have to change it up. Do you have anything else in mind?” I said, “Well, I’ve always had a hankering to do an Elvis spot.” So then we did a bunch that were real rock-a-billy sounding and they loved those. They’ve been extremely effective for them. [Elvis spot featured on April 2006 RAP CD.]
JV: I’m guessing these musical or jingle type spots have worked better for your clients than other types?
Steve: Yes. I’ve found that if I can stick something in their head that won’t go away, whether they like it or not, it’s going to work. I’ve had some people say that the Freeman Urgent Care spot is absolutely annoying to them, but they can recite the words. So I believe it’s working. I love to create the jingles because I think if you can stick it in somebody’s head to where it just won’t go away, then you’re delivering the message whether they like it or not.
JV: Sounds like something Roy Williams would agree with.
Steve: Yes. That was something I was enlightened to when I first came here to Zimmer. I’d never heard of Roy Williams until I got here, and they provided me with the books of his stuff — an unbelievable influence that had on me. The first one I read was the Secret Formulas, and I loved it so much I read it four times before I gave it back. It has a lot of great insight on Broca’s area of the brain and all that stuff I never even thought about. But yeah, if you can tickle Broca’s area and at the same time put something in there, it’ll just stick in your head.
JV: Tell us about your studios.
Steve: It’s all very nice stuff here. We have a Wheatstone board. We use Adobe Audition 2.0, which, when it came out, I could not believe how much cooler it is than 1.5. The mixer window alone is just fantastic. I crawl inside that program I love it so much. We use Scott Studio 32 in all the studios. We’ve got two production rooms and they’re identical, and six air studios that are all identical. That’s one thing that I really like about Zimmer; their equipment is all top notch and it’s all identical, so you can walk into any of the rooms and know all the equipment.
When I first came here I told them I had the abilities to make jingles, but I didn’t have the equipment. They said, “Well, what do you need?” So they bought a Korg Triton which is a very nice synthesizer and sequencer, which enabled me to program all the drums and horns and whatnot. They also provided an outboard Soundcraft mixer and some small diaphragm condenser microphones for miking acoustic instruments and such. They set me up with everything I needed, tube compressors and Lexicon reverb, everything to make these jingles, and it’s paid off. We’ve got quite a few jingles on the air here in this market. As a matter of fact, I made one for Shake’s Frozen Custard that went regional. It’s playing in seven markets now. So were trying to branch out a little bit.
JV: That leads me to my next question which is, do you charge the clients for these spots that go above and beyond the simple script over some music? Is there a fee that is added to the buy for the production, or is the production free unless they want to use it elsewhere?
Steve: For the standard demos they’re just free of charge, but when we create a jingle for them we’ll charge them for that. For some of the jingles, the rates will start at $1,000 or $1,500 for just a sing-out or a donut, but the full package with full sings and the 10 item package, they go from $2,000 and up.
JV: This is even if they just run on your stations?
Steve: Actually, if they buy the package they own it. They can run it wherever they want, which is what the Shake’s Frozen Custard did.
JV: What if they choose not to buy the package? Will you make a free jingle for them that runs only on the Zimmer stations?
Steve: Well we’ve only had one case like that. Usually they want to own it. But we’ve had one, a guy that deals in vans and family transportation. I made him a neat little swinging country jingle, “The Van Man,” and it’s very catchy. But he didn’t want to pay for it to run it on other broadcasters here in this market, so he’s only able to run that one on our stations.
JV: But it sounds like the vast majority of what you’re doing is creating revenue for the stations.
Steve: Yes. We’ve got a lot of really good talent in this building. The programming side is amazing. These guys are all really good people. There’s some amazing talent here in Zimmer and Joplin. They’re philosophy is to give us what we need to do what we do. I think that matters a lot.
JV: How does your new found radio career compare to your career in the music entertainment business, when you were doing your gigs with the band? Do you feel like you’re still in the entertainment business?
Steve: Yeah, I do because of the style of work that I do. It’s an outlet for me to still be able to play my music without being in the smoky bar, listening to drunk people yell in my face. I like it. It’s wonderful and I’m glad that Zimmer has provided me with what I need to do it.
JV: About how many jingles are you doing in a week or a month?
Steve: Well, they’re not real regular here. We’ve probably sold 20 of them since I’ve been here, which is almost a year. It’s not real regular revenue, but they are buying and they are running them.
JV: So it’s not like every commercial in your stopsets is another one of your jingles.
Steve: No, but there are a lot. When I first came here, I was singing a lot of commercials, and then management said, “We could be making some money on this.” That’s when we set up the structure of the jingle package and started charging money for them.
JV: Smart people. Any plans for the future or are you pretty much a day to day kind of guy?
Steve: Well, I hope to sell hot dogs on the corner in a thong one of these days, but… [Laughter] No, I’m always looking to the future. I like where I’m at but I always want to shoot for the top because my feeling is, when you say you’ve succeeded and you’re good, then I think you’re done. You can stick a fork in it; it’s just going to get stale from there. So I’m always constantly trying to improve and do better.
JV: Most people we interview have a childhood memory that relates to what they do now. Anything come to mind?
Steve: Yes, my first memory of editing. I was 10 or 12 and I had one of those little mono tape cassette recorders that looked like a shoe box and the buttons were on the end. I would record the radio by sticking the microphone up to the radio. Then I would play the tape until it got to the end of the song, and I would pull tape out and cut out the spot breaks and the DJs. Then I would record my own break and splice them together with fingernail polish. I was just a kid. It was ugly. It would make some crazy noise at the splices, but I was the DJ. I was on the air.
Then I remember eventually I got my hands on a cassette recorder that had a counter in it, so I didn’t have to do all the splicing. I would just get to the end of the song, and I’d know how long I had to talk. It would be a rough in-and-out, but that was my first audio editing, 1/8 inch tape.
JV: So I guess one could say you did some analog work.
Steve: Oh yeah. Actually I’ve done a lot of recording in music through the years, working with a lot of 2-inch tape and 24-track and then mastering down to ¼-inch. So I’ve done a little bit of that but not a whole lot. Not like these other guys; I couldn’t imagine putting together a commercial with tape like the “Eccentrics” spot that won the RAP award this year. That would take weeks. It seems like it would just take forever. I’m glad I stepped in during the digital age.
JV: Well it’s spots like that that would never have been created because you would not have had the time to do them.
Steve: Yeah, and actually that commercial probably only took me 45 minutes to put together after I had the music completed. The music probably took an hour, hour and a half, but to piece it all together took inside and hour.
Adobe Audition, I love it. Since I started working with 2.0, I don’t open an older version anymore. The new version is just unbelievable. What you can do on each individual track and the multi-tracker is just mind blowing. You can add the automation lanes, the real time effects. It’s amazing.
When I started at KSPQ, when Randall first gave me my break, I was working with SAW, a really old version of SAW, which was real primitive. Of course to a rookie it was, “Wow, this is neat.” Then they had a version of Cool Edit at the station they weren’t even using very much, and I said, “Hey, what’s this?” That’s when I discovered Cool Edit Pro and fell in love with it.
JV: Any words of advice for those many RAP readers who are still striving to win their first RAP Award? What’s the key? What do they need to do?
Steve: One thing my friend Randall Gower told me is to just watch for inspiration everywhere you look. Something that a child will say can be an incredible ad campaign. Just watch for inspiration and work hard. I’ve worked hard to get where I am.
Oh yeah, and vote for me every year.