My Time In Radio with John B Tannon

What a journey this boy has been on. Everything he does has a purpose to get him to where he wants to go next. 

He started out as a Stuntman and worked his way through to Film Works and then in to Broadcasting.

John explains his way in and probably the beltway to do it. He is a stickler for learning your craft. Helpful hints and tips along the way.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to Backstage Goss, the podcast where we dive into the entertainment world. Not just the red carpets and glimmer, but the panic, the tears, the questionable career choices, and the what was the thinking moments too. We're talking to real people with real dreams, surviving the highs, the lows, and the occasional identity crisis along the way. So, grab your popcorn, this is gonna be fun. Today on Backstage Gus, we meet John B. Tannin. Now, John started off as a stuntman and moved into broadcast radio at 103.2 in Mansfield. We're gonna find out all about his journey. I know we go back, we go way back. Can you remember when we go back? Uh we started in pantomime back in the 90s. Um I was at college at the time trying to learn my craft, and uh that's how we met. You invited me along, I auditioned, got the job, and we spent a great six weeks at the Newark Theatre doing Dick Whittington. Brilliant port and lemon. Do you remember? How many duo extraordinary award-winning um they they did we got some good reviews actually? We got some amazing reviews. Yeah, yeah, they're they're not reviews way back then. I can always remember before we get into your story of radio, I can always remember the director saying to me when I came off stage, what do you think you're doing? Why are you out there? Why are the two of you running around chasing the the audience? We slightly extended the show every week, um, every day, every performance. Um, add lines here, take lines there. We're just milking it for us, but it was great entertainment and kids loved it as well, so we kept it clean, but that's what Panto was about. Yeah, but you were very animated, weren't you? And when I say animated, I mean you were physically animated. Yes, yes. It was all part of the entertainment business. That's how you've got to be. You've got to multitask, and my journey into my present career, that's how it led me there. Every little thing is connected with entertainments, yeah. It's like a little tiny jigsaw puzzle to make the whole picture. So, what was your journey into radio? Radio, basically, um, I was doing uh various jobs, and I and I decided to buy some DJ equipment, and I thought I'll earn myself a bit of a living, doing some DJing, uh into karaoke's, I studied for people at karaoke, and I thought I can do this on my own. So I bought my own gear, earned a little bit of money on a Friday and a Saturday, and then it got to like four or five nights a week where I was doing like discos, I was doing weddings, I was doing karaoke, I was doing hello, welcome, uh today's performances. I was doing like a little bit of uh uh comparing work as well. But after that, I just thought you know, I was getting a bit boring. This I've done it for a few years. There's something else I need to be doing, and I noticed um it was a community event. It says community radio. You can put your name down for a couple of weeks, learn how to do community radio, learn how to do a bit of editing. So I did an editing course and then I did Ashfield Community Radio way, way back 22 years ago in 2004. It's been that long, yeah, 22 years. Wow, and I thought, oh, this is really interesting, this I like this. So I I got another community radio station in sunny Ashfield, and then somebody said, Oh, would you like to do one for it was Byron Festival in Nottingham, Lord Byron? Could he do some shows for that? So yeah, yeah, it was just unpaid, uh, morning work, two or three hours, do a little breakfast show, and just just talk about Lord Byron, a little section there, and then just play some music. So I can do that, and then I got offered uh another one, uh another Ashfield Radio, and and I thought, oh, this is really interesting, I do like this. And I thought I really need to learn radio properly. It's been alright doing like two or three weeks and then taking a few months off, but I wanted to do more, wanted to know more, I've got a thirst for radio, and somebody said, Why don't you join hospital radio? I said, Okay, I can do that. So I applied to King's Mill, which is our local hospital here in Mansfield, uh, Millside Hospital Radio. Uh, waited about six weeks, uh, did the usual checks and all that, and this is my CV, I've done a little bit of you know, sort of community stuff. Great. So they took me on once a week, and I was doing like a Monday show. It was called Pillow Talk between eight and ten. Pill talk. Pillow. Oh, pillow, yeah, pillow tool. Hello, good evening, I'm Joe B Telling and requests, and if you're in hospital and you want to play this, blah blah blah. And it was great because I get to like you know, use it for decks and use different equipment, and that's how it is, isn't it? And you get used to it, you sort of build a little rapport. It's quite a short audience because they're only there for a few weeks or a day or two. Some of them are not there at all at the end, but we don't talk about it. Oh no, I don't positives, anyway. But I was there to entertain, inform, and educate, so that's what I was there for. Um, I did that for a while and I thought this is really good. So I did that for about six months, and I thought, oh I really like this. I really do like this. Maybe I thought, you know, maybe this is another career here, so 20 years ago, and I was about 2004, 2005. Um, and then an opportunity arose. I thought, right, I'm gonna put a CV together, put a little um uh back in the day it was tapes, I was taping stuff for the city. Oh, the good number, and I I actually I was really poshed one day. I went on to a CD, so I recorded something on a CD, and I put a little thing together, a little show together, and I sent it to Manshell Not 3.2. They were um I just said, Is there anything available? Nothing, they said, Okay, we'll keep your stuff on file. Oh, brilliant, you know what it is. Um so another six weeks later, I got another call. We'd love you to come down to talk to us about you know being interviewed in my other line of work as a stunt performer, which we'll come across. So I came to Manshell No 3.2 in 2006. I had a little chat to him, we talked about yes, I'm still doing radio, but I was doing stunt work and filming TV. And I said, Oh, I'd love to come and work for you one day. And then it was, I think, another couple of months after that, the um they offered me an evening show because somebody had left. So would you like to stand in for I think it was Joe Bevan at the time. It's quite late at night, it's uh eight, eight, uh eight till midnight, I think it was, and they said, Would you prepare to do that for I think it was like something like 25 quid or something ridiculous for the week? It was just it it was a pittance, but I didn't care. I was in commercial radio for the very first time, and I had a show and it had my name on it. Endorship. I was like, right, I'm in. So a little bit of prep. I used to come in quite late at night, do my stuff, and then still do my theme park stuff during the day. So it's quite hard, but it was you know, it was worth it. And then I did that for six months on the evening show, then that dropped back to six till ten, which was great. Oh, wow. So I'd already done six months, eight till midnight. I dropped back another six months to go six till ten. Uh, and then it was like, right, well, would you like this show full time? I went, Yeah, this is great. So they offered me that possibly a year down the line. So you're talking 2007. 2008, the breakfast show host left. So I said, Would you be prepared to do that just standing while we found another breakfast show host? So I stayed there from 2008 to 2012. So I did that. No way. Yeah. So uh so I was that full-time. So I was full-time radio outside broadcasts, uh, live events. I was doing the big Christmas light switch-ons every year, someone's street, party in the parks with special guests, um, and they're all timed to perfection, they are literally limited. You've got to you've got a schedule, you've got your scripts, you've got your timers, and you've got to go bought me. Start doing the radio show with in front of like 10,000 people, which is amazing. And judging by all the stuff I've done previously, you build up that experience. You you know, you start off with your your lower audience shows, a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger, a little bit more responsibility, and you and you sort of look back, oh, that's why I did that, that's why I did this. But there's good shows, there's bad shows, you know, there's things you just want to go, I don't want to do this anymore. You know, nobody's listening to me. Everything's going wrong with tentacles, you know. You walk out, you're you're on an outside broadcast on a rainy day, and there's like three people in front of you, hello, welcome. Yeah, the following week, glorious sunshine, you've got 10,000 people there, and it's that's how it is. But I was taught at a very young age that um whether you're doing uh to one audience, one person, or one thousand people, you do the same show, it's professionalism at all time, you know. You never lose watching, you never know who's listening. And sometimes that's very true, isn't it? Sometimes you get that. Oh, I saw you in sound, so I saw you do that show, I saw you on that programme, or so you do, and you're like, oh really? Well, you don't know, you never know who's listening, never knew who's watching. Correct. And it's bizarre, but yeah, it's a hard slog, and you're constantly listening to other presenters and and other sort of you know actors, you just get little ideas and stuff, oh that's really funny that made me laugh. I think I'll try that. And sometimes it works, sometimes it don't. It's all trial and error. You have a certain uh amount of show prep to do, which you do which you do anyway, and and then you just go in and do your show. So just listening to you, anyone looking to go into radio who thinks it's easy, it's not, is it? It's not, it's hard work, it's dedication. Give us a rundown. So you let's go back to your first days in radio, yeah. So when you came in, yes, I mean, all right, you had your your hospital radio and everything else, but the commercial side is different, isn't it? Yes, it is. There's a lot more rules, you've got the Ofcom rules and stuff, you know, it's sort of local radio, as in uh your amateur radio, your sort of community, so you can just put your CDs and just play anything you like. It doesn't matter if you're slightly out of time, it doesn't really matter. This is very structured. You play this song at this time, you do this traffic and travel, you do um sport, you get your news, you've got your national, you've got your local, and everything is by the book. You can fill in the gaps in between, you know, but everything's it's it's very structured Monday to Friday. I'm on 7 till 10, same show, same format, but you know, I try and vary it a little bit. In what way do you vary it? Um I I try and obviously bring in different types of music, different genres. Um keep up the new stuff, the old stuff, try and do a mix of 60s to the present stuff, um, try and get a comedy song in there, comedy story. I don't do bad news, there's too much bad news in this world at the moment. So I try and do lots and lots of good news. Um, and just literally just you want somebody to make you happy. If you're driving to work, you want somebody to make you laugh or smile or just tell them a joke, and that's what it needs to be. It needs to be light-hearted, nothing too serious, and that's that's what I do. Let's just have a look at you know your show. Yeah. So, how much prep do you do? Because prep is is all important. It is it, yeah. You can't just sort of turn up and just go, right, morning, everybody. You're not gonna know what you're gonna do unless you look at the paper and go, oh, just read out of the paper. And and people know you're reading from stuff. You think, oh, you know, I've seen that in paper this morning, but I know what you're reading. If you look at something in the paper and you go, Oh, I like that, you just sort of make it your own. Might be a funny story, but you know, you might just change a line or a word or or a place or a name. You know, I'm just reading about this today, about da da da da da da da da da. But yeah, if you just read it straight, people oh yeah, I read that on paper this morning. So with will you show that you know when I come in? When you come in. Typical day, I come in here at 20 past six into the radio station. I don't know. I'm not on. I'm not on there till seven. Oh right, okay. So um I literally look look in the papers, get all my sheets ready, uh, I do uh weather, check the news, check what headlines are, so write them down. Um I also put in um the mystery years, so I do a little bit of prepper, a little bit of like a top ten songs. I think who's the best sellers of the year? I do a headline from that year as well, so look which year. If if I think, oh, there's something happened in my life in that particular year, I scribble that in as well. Or oh remember that from last time. You know, I just fascinating fact somebody told me about you know this for uh today's example. I played a song by um Lisa Stansfield, and somebody mentioned that it was on the soundtrack to the bodyguard. I didn't know that. Once it chants to uh the um the uh which one I can't remember now, so it's it's quite a long time ago. But yeah, uh it's a 1992. Lisa Stansfield song was on the soundtrack for the moment it's so memorable. I didn't even know that. But somebody somebody said I've got I've got the tape available. Well, that's brilliant. Thanks a lot, thanks for letting me know. They were looking at at the tape. I I didn't know that. I didn't know this this man was gonna look at it, so yeah. But yeah, it's that's how it is, and then you listeners will phone in and they'll give you fascinating facts. But what be tired if you gave a wrong fact? Suddenly the phone lines will flash. But did you ever do that deliberately? I do it deliberately sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Oh, yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

I mean, I know I would. I do Freudian slips, yeah, all the time. So yeah, the World Cup back in 1967. Sorry, yes, 66. You were our listening, yes. So yeah, yeah, and that's how it works, but yeah, you uh just just do the basics and add some little bits in. So you've got to have that framework there for a show in the morning, a Monday to Friday show. Mondays are slightly different, it's like hello everybody, come on, we're back to work, da da da Fridays a little bit more relaxed. We do a full Monty Friday at 8 o'clock. We play the song, we have a little silly dance to it, and I know lots of people doing this silly dance uh um hot stuff, Donna Summer, 8 o'clock. Everybody knows it's gonna be full Monty Friday. Oh, right, yeah, some little eye dance, some little messages from some of the cast of Full Monty. I've got um the uh the guy who used to play Nathan uh Lomper, he mentions it, but Dave on it, so they also welcome to the full morning on Friday and stuff like that. So you could okay, because that that's that's one of the things that's really interesting is the fact that you know you almost get access to a directory of stars. Yes, it's it's very strange. You get like celebrities in the area, and I'll go and interview. Like today I was supposed to interview Kenny Thomas, 90s legend. Unfortunately, I had to cancel, but uh I had Jason Donovan yesterday to phone, but he's really busy, he's gonna get back to me, which is kind of nice, and it's kind of surreal. One minute you're talking about news, weather, sport, travel, local stuff happening. Next minute you're talking to an international superstar who's in the area, and it's really weird. Or we get like Christmas light, the big the big events, yeah, we get like E17, so we have to interview those before, then we're on stage with them. And last year, when we did the big light switch on, I dress as E17 and says, Hello, I'm MG20, and we have a bit of a laugh with them. And it was like Tinshi Strider the year before, Tinshi's on, giving it sunglasses. I put tinsel around and went, hello, I'm Tinshi Strider, and they love that sort of thing, yeah. They like to be parodied. But you you've actually got a bit of a character to you, yes, and a personality. Yeah, it's how important is that to these people that are coming in the industry? It's it's it is very be yourself, don't be anybody else, because you people instantly see through that they'll be listening, oh he sounds like so, oh he sounds like so-and-so. Uh you want to be individual. It it's flattery, it's it's really good when people oh you sound a little bit like so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so. That's really good. I like that. Oh, you sound a little bit like him or her or that, and that's good. But if you go, oh yeah, he sounds exactly the same as you want to be individual, you want to stand out from that crowd, you know. You want to be, oh yeah, did you hear him yesterday? Did you hear what he said yesterday? And that's his sort of don't be too controversial, but get noticed. Well, that's an interesting word that you use here, controversial. Yeah, how much of a boundary do you actually push, or are you allowed to push? There's certain offcome rules on radio, obviously, but I'm sort of like I'm like what I term is the carry-on sort of radio. I can, you know, innuendo, and there's certain lines I push in two or three times a week. Um a song will come up and I go, Oh, that's brilliant. Dolly Parton, for instance. Oh, it's from her greatest hits album. You take that how you want, you know. You gotta listen because you get to listen quick witnesses, very quick, and then Samantha Fox came on the other day, so it was 1987. I said, absolutely fantastic from her latest album. She only she only had uh uh two greatest hits, nothing's gonna stop me now, and and then I listed the other one because I got straight through it so without noticing. So you're probably I mean, it is it's like when we come back to our pento days, yeah. You know, it's it's pantomime humour, yeah. It's pantomime humour, adults want to sound children just yeah, okay, mate, whatever, you know, and you've got to think of your audience who's listening because you're in our school run, you're there between eight and half past, you know, the kids are listening, yeah. So you've got to be very careful, you've got to amuse the adults because they're in a stressful situation taking the kids to school. You know, the 65,000 people listening, and they want to be able to do it. Rough the 65,000 people. It's not bad though, is it? No, it's great. And um, I can just suddenly say, Oh, yeah, something from the 90s, but something from 70s, coming up later on, something from the 80s. I should love 80s, I used to collect music in the 80s. You can't beat a good 12 inch in the morning, bosh straight in. End of. End of. And that's where you've got to bosh, bosh, bosh. You can't do all that on radio. You do your line and you're out. So what what's what are the um the cons to being in radio? Um, you've got to get up early, you've got to be dedicated to you can't just say, oh, you know, I might come in this week, but I've got a better offer. No, you're dedicated to that radio station or whoever your employees, you know, you go and do your stuff and you're there, you know. You break me in half, that's you through and through, whatever station you're at, Matsuana 3.2. People know you as the presenter for Mass 13.2. I go out and about in the area, I shall be telling hello, mate. Now you're in, all right. We can see you. Just be nice, you know. Yeah, it's a privilege. You know, how many people say, you know, you get to do this job, you know. Yeah, I think the thing, the thing for me is I've always been worried about being tied down. Now, in radio, like you say, you just were use the word commitment, yeah, you know, rock through and through, you know. That that for me frightens me. Really? Yeah, it does, yeah. As much as I love it, don't get me wrong, because I love doing the uh the documentaries and research and talking to people and finding out everything about them. But to actually do that on a day-to-day basis, I'm like, do you know what? I need my freedom. You've got to find that little bit of energy in it, you've got to find something a little bit special every day. You've got to look forward to oh, I'm gonna be doing that today, I'm gonna be meeting that person today, I'm gonna be talking to that person. So if you plan it, today, yeah, today is this day, oh tomorrow I've got that to look forward to, and Wednesday on Thursday, and Friday it's for Monday, Friday. You know, that's how you do it. Every day you've got to sort of twist it a little bit differently. You've got your template, but you've got that little bit of a oh, out of nowhere, let's do this today, let's do something silly. Somebody might say some things, all right, and then you just straight onto that subject, and then that just makes it so much funnier. Yeah, I suppose the other thing for me is you know, when you look at um radio, unless you're one of the big boys, the money's not that clever, is it? No, no, it's not. So why do you do it? It's uh because I love it. I love entertaining. So you're talking passionate? You're a passionate entertainer, you've got to be an entertainer to do radio, you know, you've got to create that illusion. You're sat in a little room where the little red light goes on, that's it. You've got to paint that picture. Television film is easy, you're there, you've got you've got your picture. There you are. Boom, look at me, look at me. Yeah, but when you're on radio, that microphone goes up. Hello, welcome to my world of radio. In my world, this is what I'm doing today. Yeah, I have I have uh Ronnie the Rooster. Is there really a Ronnie the Rooster in studio? I've got to paint that picture. Yeah, I've talked to Ronnie the Rooster all the time. He answers me back. It's it's the illusion, it's it's you've got to create it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Do you think you're you're you're slightly mad?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

You've got to be a little bit crazy to do this. You've got to be that performer, that entertainer, that that and you've got to go into it. Unless you're like the serious hello, welcome to my radio show. And today we're going to be talking to a politician. You have to be serious sometimes when you get interviews, obviously, but you can't be serious all the time. People don't want that. They want a little bit of, yeah, coming up, we've got this, this, and this, but oh look at this, you know. I dribbled egg down myself today when I had my egg and bacon, I made a right mess. And you just got life. You've just got to do life. Yeah. So here's the other thing. I mean, nowadays it's all about, you know, the long form and then we cut things down to the short form. It's on YouTube, it's on Instagram, and everything. Do you have everything recorded? No. No. Nothing's ever recorded. So people cannot see what you look like. No, straight out, straight on. There's no cameras in there. I can do her alive.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

It's just as well, in it really.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

There is. There's my picture on, you know, when it when we're on air, it's on air at the moment. There's my picture with a cab and all that, and you can tell what music I'm playing, but there's no webcam in, there's nothing.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

The biggest stations have them, but we're we're just when you sat in local, it's very rare you have a camera in there. But uh but we do a little we do match uh uh Mats 13.2 TV, we do 103 TV, so we do a little bit of that so people can actually see Mobly Moog, which is kind of if beautiful skin deep I'd be inside out, that's why I do radio. It's like that's what I'm saying, that's not great. You're ugly, eh? Yes, yes, but um but yeah, there's um there's that fine line. I like I don't want any restriction, I just want to be in there, me in my own little mindset, doing my show. Yeah, there's usually shoot the opposite. Some people are in there, but I just pay no attention, I'm in my little zone. Do you think you could have been uh uh a Kenny Everett? Uh yeah, yeah, back in there. It's really weird because I got into radio in the sort of 2000s, but if I'd have gone in the 70s, it'd been a whole lot different because there'd have been probably records, there'd have been spool tapes, there'd have been crazy stuff like that, and big buttons to press, and I've got 33s, 45s, well probably 78s when I were younger, but there you go.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Well I went I went over to America and I was in Houston, and I went down, I was doing a documentary, you know, on the community radio out there, and I went down to their local community radio. Oh my gosh, it was a biennial museum, CDs and tapes. Tapes and I I know and I was the things where you clunk in like that and press the button, yeah. I was like, you you you guys are archaic, and they went, Yeah, we're not gonna change. No, you know, we don't need the modern world, we we would we want to run retro. It is the performance at the end of the day, isn't it? No, it doesn't matter what equipment you're using, or they've got a million pounds set up in the studio or your low budget. Same as films and TV. As long as you do your best performance, you're proud of it. I think there's something I'm gonna use the word romantic, you've probably got the right word to use, but to actually go and sift through a whole section of LPs, pull them out, yeah, take and read tactile. Very tight. You just go, oh, and the smell. And the weird thing is when I do that, and if I do go to a record shop and I pick them up and I go, Oh, I've met that person, I've interviewed that person. And that's what I do. I'm like, oh, it's like an A to Z of like people I've interviewed. And this is really weird that all these records, tapes, and things from my childhood. For example, my dad, who's sadly no longer with us, bought an album in 1976 from Tony Christie. I remember going shopping with him to buy this album down this little alleyway. What was it called? Uh The Best of Tony Christie. Fantastic album. And I've always kept it. Yeah. And I got to meet Tony Christie last year and watch him rehearse and go behind the scenes of and he signed it for me personally. And I said it means so much to me.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Because it it it's what me and my dad used to listen to with the avenues and alleyways and uh and sort of Amarillo and Is he is he any nearer to us? Does he live any nearer to us? Or is he Who's that? Tony. He he lives uh in well he's from Doncaster, isn't he? Is he a Donny Boy? He's a Donny Boy. No way. And he lives in Spain, but he comes over to the UK to do all his sponsors. Um and I saw him years and years ago, many, many years ago at Derby, and sort of did get to meet him there. And I remember my mum and dad going to see him in like um the clubs and the pubs in the Doncaster area in the 70s and 80s, and it was a massive thing to my old man, and he had his eight track in the old Vox all viva and stuff like that. And that just happy memories. Yeah, yeah. And when you meet the man himself, it's like, thank you so much for entertaining as a kid, and it was brilliant. And and I've got his phone number, I've got his agent number, and his son is his agent, and it's like anytime I can just ring Tony Christie up and go, Tony, would you like to do an interview? And looks like I just find that so surreal through working through radio, yeah, that I can an icon I used to listen to as a kid. I can just go now, just go, hello mate, yeah, how are you doing? You're right, Pa. Yeah. Oh yeah, mate, you're right. Here's one for you. Now, you you've just mentioned you've got Tony's number in your phone and everything else. Confidentiality. Yes. Talk to me about that within radio. Yeah, um, you get so many interviews to do, and you get um people to talk to, you sort of do the interview and you say thank you very much, delete everything, just obviously, you know, GDPR, whatever it is now, and um and and you get the agents, so you get an agent first. Can you phone so and so? Yeah, okay, here's a contact number, and you have to delete that, or you go through the agency and they connect you through. So and that's how it works most of the time. But um, but but you cannot sometimes you say you've got to hold that uh interview off because they're coming to an area and say, Oh, I've got some great news about celebrity coming up in the next from the 70s, and you sort of tease it. Like if I said Tony Christie was coming to Mansfield, which is great, I'd say, Oh, I've got an icon from the 70s. Who Peter K had something to do with a few years ago? Find out more later in the week. Right. So you tease it, you don't go, oh Tony Christie's coming next week. Bosh. Bosh, she's done, eh? Spoiled. Yeah. So you go, I've got a 70s style coming this week. Oh, and then a little bit more, a little bit more, and then by Friday you're like, ladies and gentlemen, reveal, and then you're Tony Christie. Here it is, yeah. And then you go, Tony Christie on the phone, hello, and then you go, there he is. And it's like the big buildup to it. Yeah. One of the other things that's obviously really important, you know, when you're doing your own shows and everything else, interview techniques. Yes. How did you learn your interview techniques? Uh the basics, who, why, what, where, when. Just five little things like that. So, who are you? Why are you here? What do you do? When's this happening? And all that. And that's how you do it. You sort of go through them all. Yeah. But you have them right in front of you. Do a little bit of basics and then throw like a little spanner in. So which I do all the time to celebrities. So you were like serious interview. Oh, yes, you you're doing this show in at the theatre and so and so and so and so. So I kind of just take you back 25 years. Remember, you were at a show in Lincoln and there was a man, and that's usually means I'm usually stood outside stalking them or something like that, but watching them, watching them illegally. Um and they go, oh, yeah, and uh and then they get into like a bit of a pickle. Yes, remember when I had to oh right, that was you like, yeah, that was me. So I came to see you in so-and-so and I remember you when you did. Yeah, yeah. How much research do you actually do? Um, if I know they're coming on, um I just dive into the usual stuff, but I want to know more. Yeah, you can see the basics of it. You see, that's the thing for me, right? Sorry for interrupting, yeah. Shut up. Um, what I was gonna say was I don't like to do the research because the way I always thought of this was uh someone said to me at the beat, Oh, you're getting research done and then you can ask all the questions and everything. For me, I want to get excited whilst we are here and we go down that exactly, and it's like, you're kidding, tell me more about this, or why did you do that? You know, instead of it's all and I'm like, can't be bothered with it. I I found that you know a little bit about their background, a little bit about the old stuff, a little bit about the new stuff. There's like two or three things I put in. I don't want to know everything about and then I just want to open it up. It's like I was uh I went to an event last week and I met a Bond girl. I was asking her questions about Bond and stuff like that, and how she started, and then I went on to another actor which is a great actor called Julian Glover. Brilliant, always plays the bad guy, and he and he said at that point, which I thought was brilliant, I never play the bad guy, they just misunderstood. And I thought that was fantastic. Yeah, it's a bit dark, but he's in Indiana Jones, he's the guy in uh um Techno Dreams the the chalice thing, and oh yeah, all that, and then he's he's in like he's he's the bad guy in in Bond as Aris Christatos, and you know, and he's also uh in uh Fourth Protocol, which is great with Michael King. He's the standing boss, and again again he's like he's like the baddie, but he's like a misunderstood bad guy, so it's great, and and I love I love the fact that he comes out with stuff like that, and but he's 91 now, he's getting on, but he's 91 now, and and um Caroline Monroe, who played Naomi in Spiral of Me, she's 76, but she's got a fantastic back catalogue of work, and she's learned on every single job. Wow, and she's evolved, and that's what you have to do in radio, in film, in TV, you have to evolve. You sort of move on to the next. But you know, I started in um community radio and I evolved into uh the hospital radio and then I evolved into commercial radio and then evolved into film, TV, you're learning right. Use that skill, keep it in your back pocket. Oh, I need that one. If I'm doing an interview technique, I've already learned that, I know what I'm doing now. Then I move into like television presenting. I've learned the interview techniques by doing radio, it's just a case of looking at camera. Hello there, I'm John B. Tanner, and that's how you do it.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

You learn, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

If you had to give um anybody any advice, you know, looking to come into the industry, what would you tell them? Uh start with the basics, start right at the bottom of the ladder, and then when you get to the top, you know every single run. Give us a um a rundown of the basics. What do you mean? So you start, you go onto a radio course, an editing course, like I did. Just sort of see the backgrounds, how little shows are put together. Then you go into like a community radio station, just learn the basics of presenting, how to put a show together, how to work with your producer, how to work with another fellow presenter and watch how they do it. And then you move on to your own show. You might help on one show, you might you know just come in as a guest, but and then start to present a show, start to produce a show so you know how shows are put together. Then apply and get a regular show because it takes and doing you've got to keep that content covering. It's alright to do one show, thank you very much once a week. Try doing it every day, you know, three, four hours a day. Find the life out of me. And then suddenly you get thrown a curveball, somebody will be off, right? Can you come in the afternoon to cover somebody? Whoa. But you've already done that, you prepped for that. You know you've you're already doing your shows, just a little bit of different prep, and it's like instead of good morning, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. That's all you've got to do, just change it slightly. Be adaptable. Don't just say this is it, I want to just do morning radio, that's all I want to do, or I want to be an actor, I want to be a TV presenter. No, you've got to do it all because you can switch.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah, no, I was sorry, I interrupted you because I took a deep intake of breath, immediately stops. Um yeah, just listening to you there, yeah. How easy is it to get into a radio station? It's very difficult. It's it's look and talent. More luck, you've got to be the right place at the right time. Right. I I sort of went just because I was bored, saw uh a newspaper and reading it through, and it just said in a local newspaper, um community radio course. I thought, oh, that's something interesting. I just sat there. It was look, pure luck when I saw that. But I got from my backside, I went to do it. Right. That's the thing, you've got to go, right, okay. You can't look at radio presents, oh, that's what I want to do. It's easy, that mate. You've got to learn, you've got to start right at the beginning, you've got to start somewhere, small steps, bigger steps, and then you can start running. Yeah, you've got to do the free stuff before you start getting to do the paid stuff, and and that's it, it's all about experience. No matter how big or how small the job is, whether you make it a tea, whether you're doing editing, whether you're doing a runner, or or whether you're just like, you know, in the radio station, just watch what everybody does, just concentrate, not on your job, what everybody else is doing. And it's still the case because the scenario you give me there is what we used to do in the 70s. Yes. That was it. We started a T-boy, yeah, or sweeper upper. Learn your craft. Learn right from what everybody does, what everybody's right from the bottom. You know, when I started here, you know, uh I was I was new, I didn't know anything, so I just watched other presenters to listen to other presenters. Just sort of took little snippets of I like that idea, I like that's really good. Yeah, certain pieces of music, backing tracks, you know, little um musical beds that you talk over. Oh, I like that, I've never done that before. So I've got my own unique sound, and yeah, as soon as they hear that song come on, they know it's me. What are you using nowadays to um edit your audio? Uh I don't do that, but I can. Uh it was an Adobe system, but it's all done by our news team. The stuff I use is literally straight off the internet. I've got a big screen in front of me for one of clips of music and stuff. I always get stuff sent to me for news items and I click in and click out news. My jingles are already in the system, music's already in the system, it's all digital now, as opposed to putting CDs in and tapes. Mini discs which we had the early 2000s. I love their full. They were great. Uh but now it's all digital. I just drag, click, drag and click. That's all it is. If I want to sound, it's fantastic. But it still has its glitches. You've just got to think. Always have a CD right at the side of it, just in case. It's always there at the side of me. I've got like a a now album, I think, just just to just while the computer reboots, I'll just put this on. Thank you folks for listening. Press it. Sorted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Always have a backup system. Yeah, like you say, it's just thinking on your feet all the time, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Always have your format, always have your this one doing, but always have that little. Oh, just in case, it's right behind me, just say a little pile of CDs. Worst cock up you've ever been involved in. Um a couple of times, uh, I've come on air and literally all the systems gone blank. No music. Vol you can do voice. So we're still trying to rectify this. We won't be a moment, thank you very much. And um yeah, you can't the worst thing is dead air. Uh and uh and uh yeah, no, you've got to talk clearly, precisely. We apologise for the loss of music, we are trying to rectify the faults. But then do you do you do you go into like we've got we've got reads, we've got things. So coming up later on, we've got this, this, and this. Right later on in the area this week, we've got on lots of sheets of information and what's happening and the guide, and so you could talk. I could talk 15-20 minutes. Yeah, you can. It's be very boring. But what about when you're out and about and doing an OB? Yes, now see that's completely different. You've got a little thing in your ear, or you're listening to a radio, and they go, right, after this song, we'll be coming to you, get a phone call, we'll be coming to you. Okay, yeah. So the song finishes, you hear the jingle coming in, it's like, hi, it's Johnny Townway down here today, and we're talking to you've already done your research, who he is, what he is, what Jobby does, yeah, where the location is, and then obviously, if it's like an event, you know, please tell us how people can get here, how much it's gonna be, da da da, and uh when does the event finish? Thank you very much. And then you've got to recap that event. So we've been at so-and-so today, it's on till so and so, and it's four pounds to get in.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Back to the studio.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Oh, in and out, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

You've got to do a clear in and a clear out. Hi, thanks very much for joining. Yes, thank you. And you've got to paint that picture while you're there if you're in the middle of a field, if you're at a big event. Oh, well, I can see around me, there's like big ferris wheels, there's kids with candy floss, and you've got to paint that picture, and you can hear it in the background. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. So that's how you do it. Best interview. Best interview, my favourite interview. Oh my word, that's a too far. I've done so, so many. You have to great interviews. Um John Parr from the 80s. I love the 80s stars, you seem fascinated by the people in the 80s, how they wrote the music. Uh Metco West, great interview with those guys. Um Clem Curtis, 60s guy. Um it's and and Surreal Ones, which is um I met Kenneth Cowunder, the former president of South Africa. Your kid. I met his majesty, uh Prince Charles. What are you bowing for? Okay, Your Majesty. Um and then, you know, Bernie Clifton, you know, icons of TV and Bernie Clifton. Uh and and uh Philip Maddock, who's sadly no longer with us, great actor. Uh he was in uh Dad's army and married to Ruth Maldock. Uh but yeah, some great actors and actresses I've met over the years, some fantastic stuff. And live on air, when you've got like you know, Joe Pasquale and things like that, it's uncontrollable. But you've got to control, you've got to reign him in. Sorry, hey, now hang on, don't go any further. Let's reign you in there. So, Mr. Pasquale on radio. How do you actually control a man like that? Yeah, you haven't talked, you've got you've only got slightly four minutes, so you're like, ladies and gentlemen, joining us on the line, it's Joe Pasquale, la la la la. On he comes bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. Really, Joe, that's fantastic. So, where are you at? You've got to really sort of boss the information. Panzo, which one are you at? What times you want? Okay, how can people get tickets? Yeah, how long you done, Panto? Yeah, you've got to give him a little block questions, just stop him in his tracks. Yeah, but you've got to laugh at his jokes too. Well, I mean he's a funny man anyway, and he's a man. He's a very funny man. I just he just look at him and look at it. And he's straight out with them, you know. Oh, normally go, yeah. I think that one of the most interesting people I ever interviewed was Ken Dodd. Yes, he doesn't so he was incredible. His shows are brilliant because he just continues he overruns all the time. And so people pay for a ticket, they want to be entertained for that night, they want to escape. That's the thing, you've got to make people escape. Yeah. So I asked him, I said to him, Um, Ken, your craft and everything else, you honed it. He said, Listen, we we had to hone it. He said, I was in an apprenticeship for 10 years. Yeah, I said, really? He went, I would stand every night on the side, you know, of the stage, just watching my idols and looking at absolutely anything and everything they did, the mannerisms, you know, he said it was just wonderful. And when he got into the um working clubs and everything, he said that was a totally different ballgame. Yeah, it really was. He said, but you know, people think that they can just come out nowadays and just do it. No, you know, back in the day would work the apprenticeship. Yeah, it's it's learning our craft. The internet, you know, people doing the uh the tech stuff and um influencers and things like that, yeah, they've got great followers and and they're just being themselves. Yeah, you know, it it is it's great, that's fantastic, don't get me wrong. But personally, there's no skill there, just you do your thing, you get on, and that's it. But as an entertainer, you've got to learn. You watch the best entertainers, they've learned their craft. There's something about it, yeah. You know, in the past, you know, like the two runnies and Mukham and Wisers, they've learnt, they've done stuff. Uh, even you know, great entertainers to this day, and and you watch them coming through like you know, the fantastic comedy shows, which Michael McIntyre, yeah, using all the small stuff to get to the big stuff, and it's great, you know. Some entertainers I do like, and some I'm really okay, I don't get it, but it's preference if what you like. Yeah, I mean when you when you look nowadays um at our comedy stars and everything else, um they're just suddenly uh some people, Mark Simmons, oh my gosh, Gary Delaney. Gary Delaney, very good people, boom line. Yeah, but they've been around donkeys. You don't realise how many clubs and pubs and stuff they've done. Stu Francis, the Canadian comedian, fantastic, yeah, very somber, very straight face, brilliant. I love that sort of humour. The one line is boom, the tin vines, boom, straight. Yeah, finish your line boom into your next one, boom, boom, boom. Yeah, no, because old comedians like the Dave Allen's used to do the long draw-out stories, and then bam, the punchline. Yeah, but now it's like da da boom next job, bum boom boom, next, and they're firing. Yeah, now you're right, which is great, and that's you gotta be on radio. Right, moving on, next record. If you needed to um or you wanted to get hold of a particular person, yeah, yeah, to to interview for your show and everything else. What's the um protocol? Right, uh, you contact their agents, you just go through the agents, drop them an email, uh look message, say I know your show or star is coming, would it be possible to have an interview? Or sometimes they contact you. Oh, right. Which is great, you get an email to the radio station, would you be interested in? And you say, Yeah, no, yeah, is it you know is it irrelevant? You don't do interviews for interview's sake, but you think you know, me personally, I think right. Back in the reason I got the Jason Donovan interview because back in 1989 I wanted to be Jason Donovan, obviously the bold haircut they have the hips, the blonde, and too many broken hearts. I was a massive fan, and I'll tell you that when I speak to you, yeah. I so wanted to be Jason Donovan. There were two Jason Donovan's in 1989, the real one and me. So that's it, that that would be my legal thing. There were too many broken arts in Doncaster, mate, but uh, but yeah, I I'd so wanted to be him, so but uh yeah, and the interview with Kenny Thomas, because I met Kenny Thomas in '93 and I did a little pop video. Beautiful show voice, great, fantastic. And he's back on tour, and um I I doubled for him on uh being a stun man, uh some horse riding. So when I contacted him a few weeks ago, I sent him a photo and made him together, and he'd love to do the interview. So we're gonna talk about that, we're gonna reminisce from 33 years ago. So god dear idea. And it's really weird because I meet people from 20, 30 years ago who remember what we've done, where we've been, and it's quite weird. I just thought Yeah, you're a bit like an elephant though, aren't you? Yes, yeah. You're all wrinkly and grey. I'm just your ears. Yes. Um, they're a wheedling. Yeah, well done, my mate. Thanks. Yeah. Um, influences, who were they? Um, I love Chris Evans. I think Chris Evans is great. Yeah. He's he's an individual, and I had the pleasure of meeting him in London three years ago.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Did you?

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Yes, at a party in 1999 in string failures. It was great. So yeah, sort of. And you got an invite to String Fillers? Ah well, you see, I was in the Biz Love, and uh no, it was any kids party, so I got to as a stuntman I got involved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was a surreal party that was. There was he was there, there was um Jilly Cooper, there was uh Burt Kwak who plays Cato from Nah, really? Yeah, uh there was um uh what's the guy that who makes the forks bend him? Oh yeah, what was his name? You know, he was there. We was all sat on his table, we're just all chatting away, and just one of them surreal moments, and Chris is over there with his girlfriend at the time, and we're just chatting. It was one of his Billy. Is it Billy? Not Billy Piper, no. I think it was uh a model at the time. Oh right, right. So yeah, but um, but he's very tall, six foot four, six foot five. Yeah, yeah. Interesting man, yeah. So he was he's one of my influences. I love Wogan many years ago. Bless him. I got uh Tog's sweatshirt, yeah, Teresa Orge's sweatshirt. I've several from Radio 2 from many many years ago. Um Everett, which is just wild and wacky, he's great. Uh a little bit of Ken Bruce, a little bit of Ken Bruce as well. I like lots of different radio presenters, lots of styles. Because nice eclipse running. Yeah, you can't be too crazy, you can't be too serious. No, you've got to find that. But you know, you've got to be true to your listener, you've got to be that yeah, because they'll see straight through it. You say something, oh he's making that up. Yeah, you've got to you've got to sound convincing. I say something, I throw one liner in. You just make it sound like it's a uh off-handed comment. Yeah, you can't be, oh, here's a joke, so or I just say, Oh, somebody just sent me this. No, they haven't. I've written three, four jokes. I ain't taking responsibility for that joke, if you know what I mean. I'll say or Steve sent me that, or Andy sent me that, or Bill sent me that, or yeah, yeah. I did some Valentine's lines this morning. We're talking about Valentine's Day. What the common with? Uh roses are red, violets are blue. There's nothing on the telly, so I'm gonna cuddle with you or something. Somebody sent me that one. That's a good one, but I'm not gonna take responsibility. So I got some off internet, yeah. Yeah, yeah. This is my favourite one, you know. Yeah, um, I think that the one I've chosen for the wife is um I tolerate you, just simply, and then just send it. Same more. Listen, we're we're coming to the end of the end of the show. Um, thank you very much for giving us uh an insight. What would you what would you I mean with regards to again somebody coming in, you know, be careful. What would they need to be careful of? Just be careful not to, you know, go too far ahead of yourself, don't get too big for your boots. Right. I could do that, I can do this, and suddenly you'll fall flat on your backside. Yeah, just step back a little bit until you're really comfortable. It's going, let me do that, let me do that, because it's a big world out there. radio and if you go I can do that show and you go on and you're a massive disappointment you'll go right back to the beginning yeah just if you feel confident you can do it just do it just do it just prove you can do it and say I can do it I've got the skills I've done all this this is what I've done can have the chance to do it but don't go I I want to do that but just get your confidence level get everything right get it all in order know what you're doing technicals building up your rapport with a a celebrity or a guest yeah doesn't need to be famous try interviewing you know your mum your dad your brother your sister just get used to the interview techniques yeah that's that's a good idea yeah yeah it's great but that's the way it is yeah doing that that's okay alright well look um thank you for today I would love for you to come back because your film and your TV and your live event work is amazing stories. Yes see that's how I started out in the entertainment business yeah and that's how I've got into radio because I have some great stories to tell yeah yeah sure and if I hadn't done that before I would have never been there so every little life experience all adds up to whether you're in radio your film your television your live show it all helps well I know we've done this back to front yes but we will obviously we will find out about your previous life yes because it's so exciting and I'm excited to you know that you're gonna come back and talk to us about it but for now can you give us a Mansfield 103.2 fall off oh yeah it's two with John B. Talon on the Breakfast Show weekdays between 7 and 10.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Enjoy sounds like fun doesn't it okay but remember the who the why the what the where the how they're the basics learn them first.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

In the next episode we talk to Caleb Richardson now Caleb is from Newark and he's made good his dream was to be a dancer and you know what? He's living the dream. He's now in LA dancing with all the top stars. So until next time be safe