Jeremy White: Radio Like A Mohawk

Jeremy White  0:00  
What is the day Hi in the Mohawk language. My name is sago wanahoe. It translates to he's carrying the words I was named that at birth. Kind of ironic with what I do. This podcast was recorded on sovereign God Mohawk Territory, and the

Matt Cundill  0:17  
other half of this podcast was recorded on ancestral lands, on treaty one territory. These lands are the heartland of the Mattie people. And the sound off podcast acknowledges that the water used to keep the host hydrated was sourced from Shoal Lake, 41st nation.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:33  
The sound off podcast, the show about podcast and broadcast. See, starts now. Jeremy

Matt Cundill  0:44  
white is the host of the Jeremy white show, and can be heard on radio stations across North America, like energy 95 three in Hamilton, W, j, y, y, and Concord, New Hampshire. And you might have heard him filling in last summer on 640 in Toronto. You might also find him interviewing rock stars on the Jeremy white show. That's a podcast and a video show. We are going to talk about why I could not publish the audio we recorded back in 2023 also why music ANR departments need to update their interview and media approach when it comes to online interviews, and why radio needs to think the Mohawk way if they want to survive. And now Jeremy white joins me from the Kanawha territory located on the south shore of the St Lawrence River, just across from Montreal. Do you know the rules? By the way, Jeremy and no, what are the rules? I don't know. I hope that when we record a podcast, I can actually use it, unlike last time,

Jeremy White  1:43  
yeah, until we get a cease and desist and the old station wants to sue me. So there's that,

Matt Cundill  1:48  
yeah, I kind of figured that was coming. I mean, I really enjoyed our last podcast together, but well,

Jeremy White  1:53  
you know what, we can touch on a lot of the stuff that we talked about last time. Why not?

Matt Cundill  1:57  
I just, I know you were, you just left your job at 92 five, the beat. And I think you took to Facebook, and you said a lot of stuff. I didn't think any of it was necessarily out of line, but it made them clearly uncomfortable, and so they sent you a cease and desist, or

Jeremy White  2:13  
somebody you know how it goes, used to be a program director. Oh, no, an old employee is talking bad about me. Nobody's gonna want to come work for me anymore, because I'm terrible. Because I'm

Matt Cundill  2:23  
terrible. I was totally fine with people saying bad things about me.

Jeremy White  2:27  
I mean, look, it's radio, right? It's, it's showbiz. You got to kind of have a thick skin a little bit, yeah.

Matt Cundill  2:32  
So, I mean, those were in the days just after you left, 92 five, the beat. But now that you look in the rear view mirror, how does that departure look today? How do you look at that today?

Jeremy White  2:42  
Oh, my God, I gotta say, not working in full time radio anymore as like it being my bread and butter and having to wake up and worry about prepping a show and worrying about toxic working environments and abusive management tactics and just the overall stupid crap that you deal with. I it was the greatest decision I ever made in my entire life, I think.

Matt Cundill  3:03  
Yeah, so the first episode that we did together, which is published and anybody can go back and listen to it, one of the things that really stood out in our conversation then was how you sort of buck the trend you moved to Edmonton, but you kind of knew and felt, I really don't need to move to Edmonton to really move the needle on my career and do what I need to do and go where I need to go. Yeah,

Jeremy White  3:27  
moving to Edmonton was an interesting experience because, you know, growing up in radio, you kind of get told all the time, well, you're never really going to get a job in the market. You want to get the job in unless you move and get experience and meet people and go into a different market and fail and try different things. And I always, I always believed that. And I was like, All right, well, I'm gonna go do that. So I had an opportunity to go move to Edmonton, Tammy Cole and Pat Cardinal, they took a chance on this Mohawk kid said, you sound good. Let's try and get you in here. And I moved out there for about four months. And I said, Nope, I'm going back home. Screw this and not. It wasn't because of the people. It just it wasn't home. You know, growing up as as part of an indigenous community, growing up as a mohawk from gunnalog, it was such a tight knit, close community, and being away from my grandparents, my family, my uncles, my cousins, it just, it's weird. I come from a family of iron workers, a family of veterans, and it's like, you know, my grandfathers and all these guys, you know, they'd go away for weeks on end or during the week, and then come home on weekends, down to New York, living in Brooklyn, or, you know, this and that. So traveling away and being from home wasn't foreign to me as a concept, but when it comes came time to me actually doing I was like, nah, this isn't for

Matt Cundill  4:36  
me. Yeah. So I went to Edmonton for that reason, because it's not home, right? So, I mean, you wanted to be closer to home. I wanted to make a home elsewhere and do radio at the same time. I you know, I listen. I love the Montreal market, but

Jeremy White  4:53  
it's incredibly inbred. Yeah, it's hard. And

Matt Cundill  4:56  
I'm an angle Quebecer, so I fit in. Differently than than you would fit in in Quebec, differently than a francophone might fit in in Quebec, the way we all sort of, you know, what we call our home.

Jeremy White  5:09  
Yeah, completely. And the Montreal market is so specific as well, because you basically got four radio stations, three of them are owned by one company, and the number one, big one that I was on was owned by another one. And it's like, if you piss somebody off at one of them, well then you're fucked because you burnt every bridge already, because there's technically only two. And then on the French side, you're just treated completely different from being on the English side, like You're like the red headed ugly stepchild on the English side, and on the French side, everybody's these treated like stars. It's, it's a completely different world. You've also been a

Matt Cundill  5:42  
little bit ahead in that you created on demand audio and an on demand video show with your YouTube channel. And you took the Jeremy white show, not only was it on radio in Montreal, but it was on YouTube and after hours and any

Jeremy White  5:57  
time. Well, you know, I really didn't have to do it, but I did it out of necessity, because where I was at I was really being discouraged from being myself and be original and try and be innovative and create new ways to get my name and my brand out there to go back and talk about the French radio station side of Montreal. It's like, you know, all these people, they're already celebrities on the French side. They're taking TV stars and then putting them on the radio or comedians and then on the English side. Well, if you're not the morning show or, like, you know, take the midday hosts on the beat. I mean, if you're not one of those two people, you're kind of not getting anything invested into you, whether that be time or whether that be resources. So I just kind of got tired of being the night guy, and I said, Okay, well, how can I do something a little different? And we developed the Jeremy white show extra. I was doing a morning show, afternoon drive style, kind of, you know, host, co host, type of show with my traffic reporter, Megan Kelly. At the time, we ended up actually even dating like it was a freaking awesome time. We were making shows, writing, creating content, and Matt like I bought cameras and lights. I made like a set in the studio. I brought my own TVs and led like, I made, like, I'm such a huge fan of, you know, Kyle and Jackie O and, like, capital in London, and you see their beautiful studios. And I was like, Well, I don't want my video to just have this, like, bland Saltine looking gray wall behind us. Like, let's make something that looks cool and is gonna grab people's eyes. And that was in the infancy of social media when you started seeing Kyle and Jackie O on Instagram and like, the way their digital team was creating videos, and nobody was doing that at the radio station. So I had a really good program director at the time, and he was just one of the coolest, best guys ever, Jean Sebastian, la Meyer and Martin Trombley before that. And John Sebastian was like, do it. He's like, How much is it gonna cost? And I was like, well, we just need a couple extra hours to this. He's like, go, go do it. And he kind of gave me free reign, you know, coach me here and there. And it was really, really fun, until it wasn't like every story in radio. It just got to the point where I was like, Okay, I'm doing all these things. We're seeing all these results, the ratings at night have never been better. What can you give me to support me in this? And we had a morning show host that was the most jealous, like vindictive, like person. It was all about that, that that person. And once I started taking away, and this is from what I've heard from other people on the staff, co workers, it was pretty obvious. One afternoon, I came in and we were just so tired. I literally worked like 14 hours the day before, because we would voice track three shows in advance, and I was writing, I was filming, I was editing, I was producing, I was doing all of it, like everything. And we went in for a meeting the next day because we had to be in there early. And I left my stuff set up, and I came in, and all of my cameras, my lights, even my TV, was thrown outside of the studio door in the corner where they just had a collection of trash to be taken out. It was next to broken chairs and all this stuff. And they were like, Oh, well, ex Morning Show Host didn't like the fact that you left your stuff up, so they just threw everything onto the side. And I was like, You know what? Fuck you. And that was the beginning of the end for me, that program director ended up getting promoted somebody who was way less qualified, who was a brown nose in boot licking just, you know, did everything he possibly could to work his way up with so little experience compared to everybody else there. And you know, when you have somebody on the staff that is just so jealous of you, and that person gets into power, well, they make your life a living hell as much as they possibly can. And that's essentially what happened when you have such a creative person, and you just start sucking that life out of them, little by little, they just get slowly discouraged and slowly discouraged, and they kind of fizzle themselves out. And I tried to do everything I could to not let that happen to me. But at the point I was like, I don't need this

Matt Cundill  9:44  
listen. I totally understand the frustration in a place like in Montreal, where you've got Anglo stations that do really well, because people who are English and French will listen to English radio, English radio plays English records, English. Records are popular, and even at night, when you have the non hit rule, where they're burning all the hits during the day and you're kind of dozen into the graveyard of literally unsuccessful music, it's kind of what goes on in between it that might make people want to listen. So that's what we kind of did, and we had fun. I mean, it's frustrating because because Francophone talent, where you actually try to avoid playing Francophone records and you fill the airways with talent, they get paid a lot more. They get more vacation. They're marketed as a brand. They're treated as a brand. But no, not English people. Shut up and play the hits and Jeremy, can you keep that break down to 12 seconds?

Jeremy White  10:35  
Well, that's it, you know. It's like, you know. Okay, so you want me to be personable. You want me to share my personal experience, talk about me, get the audience to relate to me. But then you I also have to sell two hours of hits non stop tomorrow morning at 820 and Donna sacred and the beat of your work day and our own Season Pass contest and beat around the world to see blah, blah, blah in X city. Like, what do you want me to do here? People talk about what radio is in 2025 and if you're not selling something on the station, well, good luck getting yourself out there in any way. Any way, shape or form. You know, in our context, we were even discouraged from talking about or promoting our own social media. So if I went on and said, Hey, go follow me. I just posted this really cool thing on my story. Jeremy white shell, blah, blah, loves connected. We were discouraged. It was in our context we weren't allowed to do that. We had to direct everybody to our station socials. So

Matt Cundill  11:21  
this is why radio is in the trouble that they're in, because people are coming to radio for personalities and fun and show because we can get the music anywhere.

Jeremy White  11:30  
Yeah, and I gotta say, man, like I got treated really, really well when I was there, like 90% of the time I started at the beat 92 five when I was 17 years old. That was this chubby, long haired into Van Halen Mohawk kid working on the radio station in gunnalog and Leo distrella heard me and said, Hey, this you got some potential. I'd love to bring you in and show you how to do this the real way. And I got the break of a lifetime, and I never took it for granted. I every day I walked into that place, and I tried to be a sponge and learn everything and anything I could, because in my mind, they were the best. They were the top of their game, you know, cat Spencer, to me was David Lee Roth, and that station was Van Halen, you know, like, I wanted to learn from the best and be the best with them. And it's kind of sucked the way it ended. And there's a bit of a pre end, like, kind of that goes along with how I left and why I left. It's not just, you know, the disgruntled employee kind of story, but, I mean, there's just so much more to it, and it sucks and it's sad at the same time, but it's kind of like, like, I said it was the best decision I ever made.

Matt Cundill  12:34  
Well, it's just possible that, you know, you both wore one another out, yeah, in a way,

Jeremy White  12:39  
and at the same time, it was sort of like, well, there was no growth there for me. And I think talent in this stain ages in our industry, they just need to learn. It's like you have so much more potential. You have so much that you could do with yourself. Stop worrying about, you know, the next person you know, stop worrying about getting promoted to afternoon drive or the morning show. It's like for me, there was nowhere for me to advance at the beat, like I was the night I was designated to after 6pm essentially, for nearly a decade. And the closest thing I got to hosting afternoon drive was like, you know, on Friday afternoons, I hosted the Friday party jam. It was the number one afternoon drive from five to nine, doing mixes and stuff like that. But even that show I wasn't doing, you know, typical, you know, afternoon drive content. It was hopping in between songs, doing speed breaks, you know, doing promos, selling the music, sell the lifestyle, sell the station. And to do stuff like that, it's great, but you know, you kind of, you need to leave a little bit more substance, or else you start to drive yourself mad. Well, you do some voice

Matt Cundill  13:35  
trackings in places I want to talk about, you know, how you do that? Because you are really working for 1215, 20 seconds a break, and sometimes a little bit longer. So how do you approach that side of the business when you were doing like voice tracking, say, for the station in New Hampshire, whose call letters elude me right now,

Jeremy White  13:53  
105, 5j, y, y, and ironically, not long after I left the beat and I was already voice tracking for them, they changed their whole positioning statement, everything. So they became the beat of New Hampshire. So I started saying the beat of your work day on one of my five five JY, like, I couldn't escape it. It's kind of hilarious. So with a station like that, I'm on three to seven, Monday to Friday, and it's literally that, like, I hop on in five breaks an hour for four hours, and I'm going on saying, Hey Elvis, Saran and the JY morning show. They're waking up tomorrow morning, and they got Katy Perry a special guest. And if you missed what happened this morning, got the phone tap retap in about 15 minutes, guaranteed to get you a chuckle tonight. Here, stick around. It's next on JY, like, boom. How long was that? That's literally the intro of, I don't know, before the baseline kicks in on Billie Jean or something, you know, but it's like stuff like that, or you're trying to just throw in a little kind of tidbit before you play. Benson Boone, it's like, you know, there's Rihanna, Hey, did you miss the Grammys last night? Benson Boone still trying to adjust himself in those tight pants. It's j, y, y, and then, you know, it's little quirky, little funny things like that. And I don't think people might think that there's an art to that, but there really is, in my opinion. You know, anybody can just go on and blabber on. On for, you know, 10 minutes at a time. But that is even harder and an art on its own, as I learned last summer filling in for John Oakley on 640 Toronto.

Matt Cundill  15:07  
Yeah, I don't even need to ask questions with you, because you'll just sort of pivot right into it. It's almost like I know what I'm doing, right? I don't even know why I'm here, but I mean, doing the, you know, what we call a rock to talk kind of thing. But, you know, to go from hit radio over to 640 and to start doing the talk who took a chance on you and what in your mind made you think that you could ever pull that off?

Jeremy White  15:32  
Well, I gotta tell you, I never once thought in my life that I would ever be doing Talk Radio. I'm a huge Howard Stern fan, and like that kind of prepped me for it at the same time, it really didn't. One of my my best friend named Joe Cristiano, and he was the morning show producer for Jim Kerr in New York City at Q 1043, for like, 15 years. And he met a girl, and his dream was always to move to Canada and work in Montreal, Toronto. Now he's John Moore's producer at News Talk 1010, so his old program director, Mike Ben Dixon, worked there, and then he lab. Now he's at chorus, and he heads their whole talk format. So from my understanding, they were in like, a meeting him, Tammy Cole and a couple of people, and he's like, hey, you know, I'm looking for some new talent this and that, you know, try and coach them, or, you know, blah, blah. And they're like, What about Jeremy white? And he's like, Oh, that's a good idea. Like, and I thought it was a joke at first, because Joe also produces my podcast. He books all my artists and my guests and everything, and they stayed in touch. And he was like, So Mike wants to, I give Mike your number and this and that. And was like, okay, like, I had no interest in this whatsoever. I was like, so done with radio, Matt. Like, I was like, if my voice tracking gigs just come to an hour, my dad said, like, I'm out, and I never expected to ever do live radio again, let alone be on, like, you know, one of the biggest news talk stations in the country, in the middle of all the stuff that was going down in Toronto and Bolivia Chow and on top of not being from Toronto, like I was on the area in the market for a little bit on energy, 95 three. But aside from that, I don't know what it's like living in Toronto. I don't know what like the struggle is of these people. Struggle is of these people and Mike got in touch. We had a great conversation. He's, like, the coolest guy ever, one of the most just smartest radio minds and like, he also really gives you the sense of confidence. Like, he really made me believe that I was good. Was like, All right, well, that's half the battle. Like, you know, fake it till you make it. As David Lee Roth once said, it's not what you're like, it's how you look doing it. We had a meeting. He came down to gunna walk, actually, from Toronto on a weekend. We had a couple of non alcoholic beverages at Patton's golf course. And, like, two weeks later, I was, I was filling in for John Oakley. I did a one off audition show, I guess, on a Sunday. And he was like, Yeah, I think you could do this. And he put me on an afternoon for two weeks in the summertime. If you've never done radio like that before, there's no better learning experience. Like screw radio school like that is the best radio school you could ever do it like trial by fire. It was hard.

Matt Cundill  17:58  
So what was your takeaway after the first show, what were you left

Jeremy White  18:02  
thinking? Well, first off, I haven't been nervous in a really long time, and my intro song was top of the world by Van Halen. And I was like, okay, that gave me a little bit of like confidence. And then I hopped on. I was like, All right, here we go. And then the first hate texts come in, because the usual. You know, the regular listeners are like, Who the hell is this guy? And on top of it, it was like, Oh, he's just a dei hire. He's a typical liberal native from a reservation, like, all this stuff. Meanwhile, like, we were talking about stuff that had nothing to do with that. So my first takeaway for that first show, I was like, I think I did okay, but then at the same time, there's always that little bit of self doubt. I mean, we're our own worst critics, right? And when I say, Mike, how can I put this lightly, constructive criticism is the best way I could put it. It wasn't like a scathing review, but he was like, Yeah, you did all right, but here's you could do better. And with each note he gave me, I just improved on it, and I listened to him and I learned. And by the end of it, like I thought it was pretty good, I got a groove going. The audience was behind me. Like we had great calls and like, it was really good. And on top of it, I was surrounded by some really good producers, and, you know, board ops over there, so it was a really good experience. But if you think that you could just hop into doing a live talk show, like 10 minute segments, long winded conversations about whatever is happening in the news of the day or that topic, it's like, if you're not well researched, like you're screwed. And that was one of the mistakes I made when I got into it, I thought that I was going in because I had a producer and a board up that I would literally just be the teleprompter guy. I'd be Ryan Seacrest. Okay, so they're gonna give me all the talking points. I'm gonna make it entertaining. No, no, no, no, no, I was a furthest from the truth. I had to go in with some topic ideas. Producer would go and. Book the guests, or chase guests and this and that, and I was responsible putting together the whole freaking thing, essentially. And if you don't have the time of day to do it, because I was balancing doing my actual day stuff that I do with my other businesses and things. And then I stopped that at two, prep for an hour, and then go live on the air at 306, like, if I actually had the time and energy to put into it full time. Oh, I would kill it, but it just I couldn't do it at the time. And it was just freaky to me that, okay, I made a big mistake in doing this. But it wasn't the biggest mistake ever, because it actually worked out fine. Because, look, it's broadcasting, right? So if you've ever hosted a morning show on a music station, yeah, you get the top for a little bit about 90 seconds, is very different from a 10 minute segment. So, you know, it's so, so different. And it's also different from being on a podcast or just doing an interview like, you know, you have a live audience that's coming and going, and you're getting real time feedback from them, saying, Ah, you're just an idiot, or, Oh yeah, I love this. And you know, we were talking about everything from immigration to spending as City Council. I got in trouble for calling the mayor of Toronto a liar, which is pretty funny, because she was on her station that morning talking to Ben Mulrooney. And that was the other thing, like being surrounded by these guys like Greg Brady and Ben Mulroney, I'm like, How the hell did I ended up on this freaking station with these guys? Like talking politics. Meanwhile, I went from talking about Lady Gaga meat dress to you know, talking about Pier polyev and Justin Trudeau, like it's so night and day. It was a bit of a mind fuck, but it was fun. I would do it again.

Matt Cundill  21:30  
Yeah, it sounds like the story Rick Peterson had when he moved from FM 96 in Montreal to CJD his first show. I think he ran out of material after eight minutes, and there was still like a three hour show to go. Yeah, that's it. And you

Jeremy White  21:44  
know what the formats of it is? The easy part you're coming out of the song, hi, it's a 324, sun, today, tomorrow, darkness. We got traffic in about five. So you see the story about blah, blah, blah, and, but then after that, boom, you have to talk about it for you know, and it's weird, because I was learning like I thought every segment had to be 10 minutes, but it didn't have to be okay. You can have one thing, you can tease your thing seven minutes from now, and then do something for three minutes and then go into that like I was learning different things as I went along. And he was kind of crafting it, and helping me craft it on my own. And it was a real learning curve, and it was harder than I thought. And I got to say, having that challenge for the first time in a while was really inspiring and actually really reinvigorating for me as a broadcaster, because they're like, Well, shit, okay, I'm actually not just the seven second promo guy. I can actually go on and have compelling content with actual substance if I really want to. And it was actually a really, really good, fulfilling feeling. So I got to thank Mike Ben Dixon for giving me that opportunity. It was really fun.

Matt Cundill  22:48  
Yeah, that makes sense too, because Mike's worked in Montreal. He was in the CJD newsroom for a number of years in the mid 2000s and then went to cfrb, became a free agent and radio, you know, radio is poor without people who know radio. Mike knows radio, and he's, it's good to see him back at 640 in Toronto, which is I find an unusual station in that the listeners are very dedicated. So I already had Danny Stover on here talk about the text line, and it can be a little bit wacky.

Jeremy White  23:15  
Oh, my God, there's brutal, especially if you're not super like, you know, the AX attacks right, leaning like, if you say anything quasi liberal, all of a sudden, like, you like, yeah, they're on you.

Matt Cundill  23:28  
Yeah. I can see how the mayor probably doesn't score well with the audience.

Jeremy White  23:32  
No, not at all. Also, she was that interview she did, though that morning was pretty brutal anyway, and she did get really, really, like, interrogated by Ben. So

Matt Cundill  23:41  
I think my top searches on my website all sort of center around 640 and people who have worked at 640

Jeremy White  23:51  
Oh, okay, so they're creepy fans, and they want to know everything about them.

Matt Cundill  23:55  
It's true, anybody who's been on 640 has the most hits on my website. I go, what's Why is everybody searching this out? What are people doing in Toronto, like, Googling this radio station and the people on it all day? Yeah, it was funny

Jeremy White  24:08  
for me, because all of a sudden, like, my Instagram started picking up, and, like, people were like, Why do you guys have like, a Marvel indigenous voice actor from a cartoon talking on 640 like, what is this? Where's John Oakley? I mean, it's

Matt Cundill  24:20  
funny, because you've been talking about brand building for, like, so many years, and building your brand, but people will just call you dei hire. They'll call you guy off the reservation. They'll call you the music guy. They'll not really refer you to you as the talk guy. I mean, that's frustrating. It's

Jeremy White  24:38  
super frustrating, especially when you're just a fan of everything, like, I'll give you an example the amount of roadblocks and kind of gatekeeping that goes on within just the music industry alone. You look at my podcast, for example, and I've interviewed pretty much every major Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee known to man at this point, from Kiss to Van Halen to, you know, like they've been on the show, but then on the FMS. I I've interviewed, you know, Dua Lipa and Ed Sheeran and these guys, and I'll give you an example, like the record label reps in Montreal know me. They've known me for years. I've gone to events, concerts, parties, after hours, like, you name it. We've been there, done that. We got a good connection. As soon as I left Montreal radio, all of a sudden it was like I was non existent anymore. It was like, we have this artist that we could possibly pitch you. Okay, well, what about this artist? Okay, well, I interviewed, well, we can't give you Keith Urban because you just had kiss on the show. You're not a country show. And it's the same idea with like, you know, oh, well, you just had Keith Urban on well, we can't give you Dua Lipa because you're not a pop show. You're a country show. And then, on top of, don't even get me started on the invisible borders thing, because the regional stuff still goes on as well. So say you reach out to a publicist and they're like, Oh, well, the artist isn't really doing any North American press right now, so we're gonna have to pass on this because they're doing a European tour. Well, actually, 30% of my YouTube audience is based in Western Europe, and that's where a lot of your artists tour dates are. On top of it, my podcast gets quoted in all of the music press internationally. Makes sense for your artists to come on the show? Oh, well, you're based in Canada, so you're gonna have to go through the Canadian publicist, and unfortunately, they're not working with us right now because of the the tour is based in Europe. Like, okay, well, why can't you book it? Oh well, we're not the Canadian publicist, but my show is international. Just because I'm based in Canada doesn't mean it blows my mind that this regional political bullshit still goes on at the end of the day, because it's the artist that just suffers, and it's the audience in the show, and it's, yeah, it's so bizarre.

Matt Cundill  26:40  
Just say you're based in Sweden. We're on Spotify. We're based in Sweden.

Jeremy White  26:44  
That's it. You know, like 70% of my YouTube audience is based in the US, but just because my studio was located in Canada, well, I can't, like, it's such a primitive, medieval thinking, and it's, it's just so not progressive. We need to get guys like my age to start taking over publicity for a lot of hands and artists, because we get

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  27:02  
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Matt Cundill  27:36  
Listen you have some frustrations that I know a lot of the podcasters I work with have when they're trying to book music guests. I mean, the best way to do it is to just call the artists themselves and do it if you so happen to have their

Jeremy White  27:49  
number. But though don't get oh, well, listen, I got so many stories where I'll reach out to the artists directly, and they're either a fan of my show or you became friends over the years, and all of a sudden, you know, that record label rep or that publicist is saying, you know, you can't be going around us behind our backs and going to the artist direct. You're not supposed to do that. I'm like, well, you're gatekeeping him. I can't take no for an answer, because I want him on my show, and if the artist wants to do it, they're gonna do it. And the amount of times I've done that, and then you get, you know, the snooty response from the public says, All right, are available next Tuesday at three. They said they'll do it. Well, was that so easy? You couldn't just pitch it to them like it's your job. I It blows my mind. Or the the classic answer you put in a request for an artist interview, and the answer is, they're not doing anything right now. I'm like, What do you mean? They're not doing anything right now? Do they not have a record? Well, yeah, don't they have six records before that? Well, they're not pushing anything right now, but that's like owning a grocery store and not trying to sell your milk and bread every day. You're a musician. You're an artist. That's your bread and butter, your music, your records. Don't stop selling because you're not in a promo cycle right now. Like, I don't, I don't get it. It's so weird,

Matt Cundill  29:01  
yeah? Well, it's for them, right? Because they only often, they just want to make the money in the promo cycle. So it's just more trackable, yeah?

Jeremy White  29:10  
But it's almost like, it's almost like acting okay, like, okay. So, so you're promoting a new record right now, so everybody has a record before that doesn't matter at all. Or you get the the email saying, uh oh, by the way, they don't want to talk about anything except for this album. Nope. Sorry, canceled. Not interested. Yeah. And

Matt Cundill  29:26  
then they wind up, they will talk about it, or as in one cases, I had an artist say, Hey, don't you want to talk about this? I said, they said I couldn't.

Jeremy White  29:32  
Yeah. Well, there you go. That's happened before, too. My favorite one is Brian Adams on that breakfast show in the UK to like. So tell us. Tell us about someone 69 how was it that we're writing that? And he's like, I don't want to talk about that. I'm talking about my new album live on the air. It's classic. Anybody listening, go check that out. It's hilarious. Actually, I think I had a record rep in front of me, and they said they were from EMI, and they said, Yeah, the band is not going to want to do this. They're not going to do that. They're not going to do this. Not going to do that, and as they're listing off the things they won't do, I called the band and I said, Hey, yeah, would you be able to do that? Yeah, okay, great. I just did the work for them. It's unnecessary gatekeeping, right? You know, they're I guess they're trying to avoid scandal, but it's like, and you know what? Honestly, a lot of the time the artist isn't even aware of that, or they pretend that they're not. Because I've also learned over the years that artists and management are one in the same. You might think a publicist doesn't like you, but in reality, the artist is like, Yeah, I'm never going back on that show. I feel bad for

Matt Cundill  30:30  
like, people who haven't, sort of don't have the money to or can't, sort of upgrade what's around them, like you, you've got a great set, you got a great microphone, you sound great, you've got great contacts, you've got the downloads, you've got the YouTube presence. People quote you from your show. So you're going to get some post promo that's going to come off that. That's the sort of value that I think a lot of ANR people and the PR people really do look for when they want to book an artist on a show, like the stuff that your show has. And you know, if you're doing a show, if you're doing a music show from 2017 and you really haven't upgraded, and you know your video doesn't look all that great, and the experience is not gonna be that good, and after it's over, it's just gonna sit in podcast form and not get reproduced into a reel or something that might go viral, or there's no opportunity to I don't think you really have A chance to get any quality artists on your show?

Jeremy White  31:24  
No, absolutely. I mean, the way I always approached it was from the showbiz angle. Like, I want to go and I want an artist to come onto my show, the type of show that I would want to go on, you know, I want to join in on that zoom and say, Oh, shit, this guy's got a studio. Wow, that looks, oh, he sounds good on the mic. Like the visuals like, you know, he's dressed like he's, you know, the real deal. You know, it really goes back to that old David Lee Roth thing. It's not how it's not what you're like, it's how you look, doing it, looking good, sounding good. Half the battle, if you got a little bit of substance. Go between that even better. But the experience is 90% of it, I think. And honestly, what you were talking about, you know, with getting quoted and, you know, getting the downloads and the views and all these things, the whole idea behind I kept being told that I will never be somebody without a major radio station backing me. And my ultimate goal at the end of the day was starting my podcast on my YouTube channel, was to give a big middle finger to corporate media and all of those people telling me that I will never be anything without them, and quite frankly, I'm bigger than all of them these days, because I've never been quoted in Rolling Stone magazine for any interview I ever did at the beat. 92 five, I interviewed Gene Simmons and Def Leppard BAM getting quoted in Rolling Stone never happened when I worked at the beat. I get international press all the time from the interviews I'm doing for my independent show. Nobody controls me. I have no overlords above me telling me what I can and can't talk about aside from publicist. I'm my own boss. I don't have my program director being snooty in a post show meeting, saying you went over 30 seconds on that little bit or this, and that I don't have to worry about that, and it's the greatest feeling on the planet.

Matt Cundill  32:56  
So let's talk about monetization for a sec, because someone's got to pay those bills, and someone's got to, you know, pay for that nice set you have the wonderful job you've done with your haircut in and amongst other things, because you're looking great. But like, how do you monetize this puppy?

Jeremy White  33:12  
I don't this is purely a hobby, passion project for me. A lot of people get out of radio and want to start a podcast with the with the idea that they want to make money, or this and that, which I easily could, but I never, I've been approached by people wanting to sponsor the podcast or the YouTube channelist And that, and I I never really felt that I had to do that or sell out or make people think that I don't know how to describe it. I just never felt like I needed to do it. I mean, I have the wherewithal to put this on for my own. I mean, I have other gigs that I do. I have other businesses and stuff that help fund this stuff, which is fine. I mean, the original investment, which is a couple of TV, some trusses, some lights and a good mic. I mean, what more do you need? But when it comes down to actually doing ads and monetizing, the monetization really is just from YouTube ads that generically, just get put through, and that's fine. I mean, most of my business is on YouTube. I'm essentially a YouTuber. You know, podcast is just there, de facto, to say that it's a podcast, but pretty much, I mean, I'm getting like, a million views on my YouTube channel a year. I mean, the last three years, so, or something like that. So, good numbers. But other than that, I mean, the YouTube money is just, you know, actually going to vacation money or it's not my bread and butter. It's not my be all, end all. And it's nice to be able to say that, because there's a lot of people that don't have the opportunity or the ability to say that. Would I monetize it more at this point? I would, but I'm weary of that as well, because I don't want it to just be Joe schmoes chocolate shop at the corner sponsoring my podcast. Like I want to give off the, you know, the impression that the show is bigger than that. It's more international. It's not local centric. It's not your local breakfast show, you know, powered by, like I said, you know, Joe schmoes chocolate shop or something like that. So if I had, like, a major brand, come to me, you know, you look at, like the daily wire, all these, you know, major digital brands that have ring alarm, or, you know, expert. Svpn, like actual international brands, I think it brings more value to those actual brands, as opposed to just the local guys, because Joe schmoes chocolate shop isn't going to benefit from Lee in Australia listening to the show. And on top of it, I mean, like, I've talked to so many, you know, different friends of mine in the industry and stuff. And it's not just from an ego standpoint as well, because it's like, yeah, sure, but I just don't want to steal people's money, you know, I don't want to take x business locally or this and that when I know that there's going to be no return on their investment. Okay, brand awareness is great, but it's not if it's not going to bring you actual business, well, then I just, I'd feel awful just taking the money for the sake of it when I don't have to do it.

Matt Cundill  35:37  
Yeah? I mean, it makes it two things you are monetizing. If you're you get a million downloads in YouTube. So there is monetization coming in. You probably could do, you know, a little bit more deluxe on the podcast site, and have some programmatic money coming into that as well, if you wanted to. But inevitably, what this becomes is a marketing and branding exercise, and that's, that's valuable, that is a form of monetization.

Jeremy White  36:03  
Yeah, and the other side of it is like, you know, getting that brand recognition. I mean, like, yeah, okay, I'll get 500 bucks from buddy's chocolate, you know, cat. I keep Joshua's chocolate shop, like pop chocolate shop, any Riverdale fans out there, but it's like taking the money from, you know, the cafe down the road to, you know, do some ads on my show versus, you know, maybe going charge, you know, 20 grand to go and host a rock festival or a cruise somewhere. That monetization makes a lot more sense than taking the local advertising dollars that'll just get, you know, reinvested anyway.

Matt Cundill  36:35  
That's a form of monetization. Live Events are part of it. So we're going for a cruise. We're gonna have poison, we're gonna have Bon Jovi and some Van Halen. We're gonna get on a boat and go Jeremy White's, like, party crews,

Jeremy White  36:45  
yeah, exact stuff like that. I mean, I have some friends that you know that are, you know, like on Sirius XM, and then they'll go host this rock festival, or this Metal Fest, or this than that. And, you know, they monetize it from that's their form of monetization. So it's not really just through ads and stuff. And I want to do more stuff like that, also with the acting side of things. Like, you know, once I did the Marvel show, like, Man Out of nowhere, all of a sudden, these opportunities started coming my way, and because of scheduling and things I had going on in my life, I couldn't capitalize on them, which is probably a dumb thing on my part, but in the long run, it kind of works out. So, yeah, monetization wise. I mean, really, just the day to day bills, you know, I'm paying my producer and stuff to book my guests and keep my calendar like that's really the expense other than that. I mean, I'm in my house on the reserve. It takes up no more electricity to run this studio than, you know, a bedroom.

Matt Cundill  37:33  
How is life on the reserve these days? Freaking awesome, man.

Jeremy White  37:37  
You should see the snow we got. I gotta give a shout out to the the gunna walk a mohawk Council and their whole snow clearing operations, I think they're one of the best in the Monterey area, because, literally, arc roads were pristinely cleared. And on top of it, I don't think I've ever seen snow banks the height and size that they are right now in my entire life, like this is the most snow I think I've ever seen, ever over here. It's crazy, aside from just, you know, political stuff going on with, you know, people are kind of worried about the Conservatives getting into power and kind of funding getting caught, and lots of different things, but more political stuff happening than anything on the res these days. So yeah, and

Matt Cundill  38:15  
what about the businesses you have? Like, what are they like? Well,

Jeremy White  38:19  
I mean, my day to day thing, I'm helping, I help run the Mohawk market. My family, we own the we kind of have the monopoly is we have the only real grocery store in our community that's called the Mohawk market. We have a grocery store in the front that we have grab and go, hot and ready homemade meals that come out of our kitchen at the back of the store. Give you some background of that. We used to own a restaurant here in the community, and it was located in a part of the town. It was in like a strip mall type of thing. And it used to be like a poker Palace, slash like casino restaurant type of combo thing. And the restaurant made more money than the casino. So, you know, just close this the poker part, and just turn the restaurant within that there was also some other businesses, and there was some things that happened, and the place burned down. And we kept our chefs, and we brought them over to our grocery store to do hot and ready, grab and go meals. So basically, I work in the kitchen as, like the sous chef and kind of helping run the place. Every day I'm doing a catering for 300 to 350 people, essentially breakfast and lunch service. You come in, it's a daily special, something that's homemade, hot and fresh, right there in house, I know this frozen crap, real ingredients, you know, stuff like that. So I'm in there, cooking, packaging, doing the ordering stuff like that. And it's freaking awesome, especially being in my community, like seeing people every day like, I'm not trucking into Montreal to go do a radio show, which I probably still could, like, you know, if the beat called me said, Hey, listen, you know, let's bury the hatchet and, you know, come back and do the night show or something like that. Like, I'd consider it, but I do it remotely. There's no way you could get me to go back into a live radio studio at this point, because it's just so off the cards. Oh,

Matt Cundill  39:53  
come on, everybody loves the Mercier bridge.

Jeremy White  39:57  
You know, we have a Facebook group here called that day. Bridge. Literally, that's the hashtag. That damn bridge. Mercia, bridge, traffic group, it's the worst. That's pretty much what I do. Who taught you to break the rules? I'm a mohawk. There's no such thing as rules for us. If you make rules, we will break them. We are the trendsetters, or not, the trend followers. I was raised and brought up by some strong, powerful, independent, smart, Mohawk women that just did not take no for an answer. And my parents were go getters. They started from nothing and became something, and they had to do it for themselves, because nobody was going to do it for them. And that's pretty much how I was raised. I mean, you know, nobody handed me my radio career. You kind of had to work for it. And I think the most successful people in any industry are the disruptors and the the Rule Breakers. You know, the only person that can make rules for you is yourself, unless you're working for a corporate radio station with toxic management that's breathing down your neck and well, more power to you.

Matt Cundill  41:01  
Well, maybe a little more Mohawk mentality and radio wouldn't hurt.

Jeremy White  41:04  
You know what? Somebody's got to do something because, man, I listen to some stations across the country. What is going on? Where did the talent go? I know where they went. Everywhere. Bought radio because radio trees. I'm like, shit. Yeah. I mean, I have my favorite stations. I can count them on one hand. Do you have some favorites that you don't work for in Canada or just in general? Yeah. I mean, in Australia, you mentioned Kyle and Jackie O yeah, I haven't listened to them in a good minute, like I followed them on Instagram. But here in the actual show, haven't heard in a minute. I mean, I still gonna say the B 92 five in Montreal has got to be the best station in the country, in my opinion, aside from my personal feeling towards certain management personnel. I mean, cat Spencer is just an absolute legend, like one of my biggest inspirations in idols when it comes to engaging audience and being a broadcaster, Donna saker, like, just absolute world class talent. And I gotta give them props, I still listen to them every day, like in my car this and that's still my number one preset. Like, you know, you're married to somebody for so long you don't just start hating them for the rest of your life. Like the resentment sort of starts to subside, and you kind of get over it, and that's it. I mean, like, I'm not the type of person I hear. I'm like, I'll turn that off. So the beat is definitely still my favorite. 640 I mean, Mike and those guys, everybody's top notch kiss. 92 five is sounding pretty good in Toronto these days. I Oh, you don't kiss 92 five was like, my dream station for a good minute. Like, I always looked at it as, like, the z1 100 of Canada. And, like, if I could go on to, like, kiss 92 five, blah, blah, blah. Like, I that was always my dream. So I always, I tune into them every now and then, and they're still sounding fantastic with, like, a bit of, you know, Greg Burns is on there. It has a bit of that capital hint to it, and it's got a good vibe. And I love stuff like that. I'm trying to think, like, the edge was sounding pretty good in Toronto, too. I'm not a huge, like, rock alternative fan, but I was trying to figure out, like, what the heck is rock alternative about? And listen to them, Tammy Cole and that whole team at chorus, they're really great. Honestly, I don't really listen to a lot in z1 100, still sounding all right in New York City. I mean, it's kind of gone downhill a little bit, but,

Matt Cundill  43:05  
yeah, I mean, but that's top 40 that's struggled, right?

Jeremy White  43:09  
Yeah, my station, JY is just pretty solid, too. I listen to a lot of like, you know, Sirius XM the highway, or Aussies boneyard, you know, pop 2k like, I listen to Sirius A lot. I listen to show them actually, at my grocery store, they in the kitchen all day, listening to Randy in the afternoons, and like, even Jay Michaels and Sharon in the morning. They're freaking awesome. Like, you know, really good fun. You know. Other than that, I couldn't name you anything else. I mean, everything's networked. I mean, it's the same people. If you listen to Virgin radio, it's what Shannon on every station you listen to pure country. It's what's her name, Sam, I don't even know her name, which is a funny thing, because I'm a radio guy, and I should know these people, but the networking stuff, I don't know. I was listening to my buddy Luke Rodriguez actually on Virgin. I think he's in London, and like, he's a prime example of a talent that's just been neglected and taken advantage of so much by the industry. And he just can't take, no, he just takes all right, I'll do it. Like, the amount of times he's been on in Toronto, he should be a Toronto talent, and they should be investing in somebody like that who loves radio and wants to craft good radio, and they just keep fucking him over and throw him to like, you know, the B markets, when he's a top market talent, like, that's the problem with radio. They take the people that actually care so much about it, and they treat them like garbage, you know, promote people like that, the ones that care, well, they're

Matt Cundill  44:24  
not into brand building. They're not into brand building talents, because if they do that, they're gonna have to pay them more. And they don't like that. That's it. They'd rather

Jeremy White  44:30  
bring somebody in that's already got 100,000 followers on tick tock and teach them how to do radio, as opposed to the other way around. Yeah. And you

Matt Cundill  44:37  
can also tell when they go to market them if you see the billboard afternoons with Fred, who the fuck is Fred, if they're even doing billboards? Yeah, exactly. But there are stations doing them, but when they do them, it's like, or just even, you know, the on their website, in the flash position on the air now, gym, yeah, my problem.

Jeremy White  44:57  
For years at the beat in Montreal, they wouldn't promote. The town, they promote the music. I mean, we had one program director who's a French guy from actually, like Paris, and he'd come into the meeting with this accent. You need to know, the music is the style. It's the music, and that's it. You sell, promote the music. And ever since him, until maybe, like last year, our billboards in Montreal were artists like Ed Sheeran and Shaw Mendes and Madonna were on the billboards, not cat Spencer and Donna saker and the actual, you know, stars on the station, and then you look on the French side, and they got Veronica and, like, you know, all those people. And I always thought it was, like, backwards. I'm like, Well, you you're trying to tell us that we're the reason people are tuning in, but you're not promoting us like it's so ass backwards. And I don't even think they know what the heck they're doing 90% of the time, like they're just playing it by ear, and then they're just trying something smart in the boardroom or the freaking virtual meeting, and it's like, All right, come on now. Hey,

Matt Cundill  45:47  
Jeremy, thanks a lot for doing this. All the connection points to your show and everything you're doing the YouTube channel, if you want to subscribe, it's in the show notes in this episode. Much appreciated.

Jeremy White  45:56  
Yeah, buddy. Thanks a lot. I didn't say anything that's gonna get us sued, right?

Matt Cundill  46:01  
No, no, we're good. We're always good.

Jeremy White  46:04  
Perfect. Part Two coming up the post lawsuit episode

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  46:07  
the sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan Surminski, edited by Taylor MacLean, social media by Aidan Glassey, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.