MP: What was it that first drew you to radio?
ES: John Landers signed on KKBQ when I was in middle school in Houston. I remember it came on during the summer and by the time we all got back to school, everybody was talking about the station and the Q Zoo with John Lander. That's when I fell in love with radio. My wife and I actually went to middle school and high school together. We did not date at all back then, but we were friends and she remembers all of us sitting around while we were filling out postcards for a school spirit contest and telling everybody I want to do that for a living. All I wanted to do was work in radio.
MP: You obviously made it. What was your entry point?
ES: Years later, I got hired to work at the station answering phones at night and they would let me run the board. I did whatever I could do to help out. And then Lander was doing a national show at that point and needed help on Tuesday nights. I would help out pulling carts and making sure that everything
was set up. Eventually a job opened up to be the morning show producer and I jumped at that immediately. Thank God I did well enough in school that I had teachers willing to tutor me after school so that I could go work for the morning show during my junior and senior year. That was the start of everything and the pill that got me going.
MP: That '80s era of morning zoo shows were so influential. I remember being in college in Buffalo and friends from the New York City area bringing cassettes of Z100 to play comedy bits for me. Do you still feel that same power today?
ES: I force myself to think back to what was captivating about it at the time. Times have changed obviously, and you can't really replicate it, but the goal is to try to at least pass off that same feeling of how it sounded like they were having the greatest time in the world and you got to be a part of it. That's been the goal since I've transitioned from being a behind the scenes person to doing a show. I force myself to think back. It's still whatever comes out of those speakers that is the single most important thing. The listener is still customer one and what comes out of the speakers is the most important thing for the customer.