KPNT/St. Louis Morning Co-Host and Music Director, Scott Rizzuto & ILG/EastWest/Asylum Sr. Director Promotion, Tyson Haller
KPNT/St. Louis Morning Co-Host and Music Director, Scott Rizzuto
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ILG/EastWest/Asylum Sr. Director Promotion, Tyson Haller
Tyson: You’re originally a NYC guy, right? And I was born and raised in St. Louis. So here we are talking to one another in each other’s hometown. Go figure. What do you like best about NYC that St. Louis doesn’t have and vice versa? Imo’s over a NY big slice? Cards over Yankees? Highway 40 over the L.I.E.?
Rizzuto: The one thing I can’t get in St. Louis is a good slice of pizza. I didn’t know this before moving here, but there’s something called “St. Louis Style Pizza,” or as I like to call it, “crap on a cracker.” I think you have to have been born here to appreciate it. This is “St. Louis Style Pizza”: thin crust, you can’t order it by the slice, they sell it in inches (I’d like a nine inch pizza please), and instead of mozzarella, they use a cheese called Provel. Provel is cheese made in a lab instead of a farm. It’s some kind of cheese hybrid that doesn’t have the melting properties of your normal cheeses. They sell it in ropes. As far as sports goes, I will always be a Yankee fan, but St. Louis is a sports city. You can’t help but cheer for the Cardinals (except if they are playing the Yankees) and you can’t help but cheer for the Blues (unless they are playing the Rangers).
St. Louis has some great things that New York doesn’t have. Toasted ravioli…never heard of it before I moved here. I have a burger named after me here in St. Louis…New York City can’t claim that. And the big thing is traffic. The people who live here get pissed off if it takes them more than 15 minutes to get somewhere. I guess nobody here has ever tried to go from the city out to Jones Beach on a Friday afternoon in July. The L.I.E. is a nightmare!
Tyson: Last time I was in St. Louis, I got to listen to your show and was laughing out loud for hours. I heard that Woody was one of your favorite on-air talents when he was at Q101. And now you two have a morning show together! How the hell did that happen?
Rizzuto: Woody and I have known each other for about 10 years. We worked together at K-Rock in NYC…he was the late night guy, and I was working in the promotions department. In 2002, Woody left K-Rock to come work at the Point in St. Louis. Before he left, he said if there were ever a job opening at the point, he’d recommend me. He wasn’t lying. In ’03 nights at the Point opened up and I flew out to St. Louis, fell in love with the station and city, and have been here ever since. Seven years and counting. Unfortunately, woody was bounced from St. Louis six months after I arrived and he took a job up in Chicago at Q101. We kept in touch. After Q101, he went to Live 105 in San Francisco. We still kept in touch. After his Live 105 gig was over, the management over at the Point said, hmmmm…maybe we should bring Woody back (his numbers were huge when he was doing afternoons six years ago) and team him up with his friend Rizzuto and let’s see what happens. And, here we are one year later.
Tyson: What is it like having a PD that is in charge of two different stations in two different markets? Do you ever go into Tommy Mattern’s office when he’s in Chicago and TP his desk and blame Les Aaron? I mean it could happen. Les comes in after hours to do his show; jimmy’s the lock on Mattern’s door with a rare Morrissey b-side. Well, I guess you can’t jimmy a lock with a rare British b-side, but if you could, Les would be your guy, right?
Rizzuto: When Tommy travels to Chicago, he’s never hard to get in touch with. If there’s an issue here in St. Louis, he’s always either a phone call or an email away. I get to the station everyday at 4 a.m., so the place is always empty. Whether he’s in Chicago that week or not, every couple days I break into his office and shove his phone handset down my pants.
Tyson: KPNT continues to be a shining beacon of success at the format. What can other Alternative stations learn from you guys? What is most strikingly different from KPNT compared to the other stations you’ve been at like WXRK/New York?
Rizzuto: Here’s what other stations can learn from us…program to your market. What works here in St. Louis might not work in Chicago. What works in L.A. won’t necessarily work in St. Louis. Just because something is high up on the chart, doesn’t mean our listeners are going to like it. Play what your listeners want to hear! It’s not all about research and charts here…it’s about feel. When being worked on a song, people throw out call letters all the time. Waste of time.
Tyson: This may be related to the above question, but what kind of records does KPNT look for? Is there a hit formula for the station? Additionally, it seems like KPNT has really given a boost to a lot of regional and local music…Ludo, Janus, Cavo and Story of the Year to name a few.
Rizzuto: The Point is a heavy-leaning modern rock station. The skinny jeans/indie stuff doesn’t work for us. There are exceptions like Kings of Leon, or Silversun Pickups…but stuff like that is few and far between. As a station, we really do embrace the local St. Louis rock scene. There are a lot of great bands coming out of this city. You’ve heard of Story of the Year and Ludo and Cavo…they all got their start playing on our local show. More good stuff to come! Watch out for Autovein, Brookroyal and Shaman’s Harvest.
Tyson: I’ve been a dad for one month now. And I joined the club almost exactly a year after you did. Do you have any advice to give me? Why does my daughter look like a boy? Should I be upset that she doesn’t share my love of sleeping in on the weekends? Because I am.
Rizzuto: Advice? Start training yourself to operate on zero sleep. At this point, for you, when you put your daughter down, leave the room and come back, she’ll be in the same spot…for me, when I put my son down and leave the room, when I come back, he’s somehow managed to reach a potted plant and throw all the dirt all over my living room. Cherish those peaceful times. Don’t be scared of getting crapped on, thrown up on, or pissed on. It’s gonna happen. Funny story…when my kid was 6 months old, I was holding him above my head, and he threw up directly into my mouth. Apparently, having that happen to you is some kind of initiation into the club.
Tyson: I remember when I lived in St. Louis, Pointfest was the shit. Now the station has two big summer shows, so I guess they still are the shit. What makes the event so successful, because I’m guessing it’s not the humidity? And by the way, it will always be Riverport Amphitheater to me. Not this Verizon whatchamacallit.
Rizzuto: Yep, Pointfest still is the shit. Cheap ticket for a ton of music. For the past couple of years we’ve done 29 bands for 25 bucks. Hell of a deal! Tommy Mattern has a gift for putting together our station shows. Best in the business…no doubt. The Point listeners look at Pointfest as a right of passage. If you talk to anybody on the street and ask him or her if they’ve ever been to a Pointfest, they would say they’ve been to at least one in their lifetime. The first Pointfest of the year is looked at as the start of summer and the second one of the year is looked at as the end of summer party. And…yes, Pointfest is not at Riverport (scene of the world famous Guns ‘N Roses riot), it’s at the Verizon Wireless Amp. We all must bow down to our corporate overlords.
Rizzuto: Congrats on the birth of your first child. Last year when I had my first kid, I told you, quote, “Shit just got real!” Was I right? Did shit just get real?
Tyson: Thank you! And let me tell you, that quote stuck with me throughout the entire pregnancy. It’s been great. But yeah, sorta surreal. You never think of yourself as a father, you know. Dads carry briefcases to work, smoke pipes and drink scotch on the rocks. I’m excited to help her grow up into a real person. I guess that’s what it’s all about. Even better if she ends up showing a real appreciation for Brit Pop when she’s older.
Rizzuto: In the course of your career, was there one song or artist that you thought was going to be huge that you worked, but wound up being a major dud? A mega fail.
Tyson: It was by no means a major dud or mega fail, in fact it was quite a financial success for ILG, but Framing Hanley’s “Lollipop” should have been bigger at radio than it was. You saw it in St. Louis! That track blew up on The Point. It had huge phones where ever it played, sold over a half a million singles, and over 100,000 albums, and some stations still seemed put off just because it was a rock cover of a rap song. I mean, a hit’s a hit. Over all, it was a Top 20 record at Alternative and Top 25 at Active Rock, but I think it could have been a Top 10 record at both formats and even a hit at Top 40.
Rizzuto: What’s been the most over the top radio promotion you’ve been involved with? Was it your idea or was it the radio station’s idea? And, has there ever been a demand from a station you’ve just had to say no to because it was either ridiculously stupid or ridiculously insane?
Tyson: We worked a Burn Halo record to Active Rock called, “Dirty Little Girl.” To enter to win the contest, the station set it up where girls had to paint their naked bodies with the collegiate colors of the local University. The winner would then be deemed “Dirtiest Little Girl.” The prize was a trip to where else, Las Vegas, to see the band play. Ended up being a big promotion for the station with a huge turn out. I’ve never had to say no to a station because a promotion was too ridiculous. Stations seem to know the limits. It usually comes down to logistics if there is ever a reason it can’t work out.
Rizzuto: If you could eliminate one part of your job, what would it be?
Tyson: The only part of my daily routine that I could do without is all the compliance activities. I understand the reason we all need to do it, and that makes it important. It just seems to slow things down sometimes.
Rizzuto: Without naming names, has there ever been an instance where you would have wanted to punch out a radio programmer? What was the situation?
Tyson: I’m not a physical person, Rizzuto. Have you seen me? I’ve got the biceps of a 5th grader. I do get frustrated sometimes. I can remember a time when a major market station dropped a record the week after it debuted in local SoundScan. And we’re not talking a first week SoundScan debut after street date. The album had been out for a bit already, and sales continued to grow because of airplay, eventually leading to the debut. And on top of that, album sales continued to increase after the drop. To me, that should have been the best research to keep playing the record.
Rizzuto: I know you probably have to be diplomatic here, so I may not get an answer to this question, but, if you never had to step into one city again, what city would that be?
Tyson: Who says I need to choose a radio market? I would say Newark, NJ. I hope no one reading this is from there. Aside from the airport, it can be a tough place. I had to drive to the police station in Newark to get my child car seat checked before I could take the baby home from the hospital (you know all about that, I bet) and it felt like a war zone. The police station was in an unmarked concrete building that looked like an abandoned insane asylum. Totally screamed child car safety to me.
Rizzuto: You’re originally a St. Louis guy. Did St. Louis influence your decision to get into the music biz at all? Was it the radio? The music scene in STL when you were growing up?
Tyson: St. Louis had everything I needed to get me started, once I decided I wanted a career in the music business. I worked at Streetside Records, which was a cool local record store chain. I worked at Mississippi Nights, a great club that got all the up and coming bands. And Washington University set me up with great internships in the industry. And yeah, The Point kept me in tune with all the right music at the time. I would listen to the station religiously so I’d know what songs people would be asking for when they came into Streetside Records. And let me also give a shout out to Les Aaron again. I would plan my Sunday nights so I could be sitting in front of my radio for his show. Often would I hear a song during “New Music Sunday” and go out and buy the record the next day.
[FMQB ORIGINAL CONTENT, published August 2010, please do not republish or reprint without the express consent of FMQB. Make sure you visit us on the Web atwww.fmqb.com]
