Interview with DJ Fresh after the 1st Fresh Breakfast Show
METRO FM: How did it go today?
Fresh: I think, uh, given that it was day one, I think it went extremely well, but because I’m always hard on myself, I’ll probably be happy after probably a month in, but I’m almost certain that by Friday we’ll have all the nuts tightened and all the bolts in place. So yeah…
METRO FM: What is the sort of process that you have to go through to sort of fine tune? What do you look at?
Fresh: Um, it’s just re-adjusting your mental configuration because when you work at another station, another format, you know, you rewire your brain to adjust to that. So for me, it’s just re-wiring the way I think, the way I do things. The system is different, for instance, the music is slightly different. It’s another team now, um for instance, you know where ads sets, clocks are different and all of that.
METRO FM: I’m sure the morning – getting up at 3 in the morning doesn’t help, uh, either?
Fresh: Thing is, because I was doing Breakfast-at-Five for the last three years, getting up is not a problem. Getting up is very easy, that I can do.
METRO FM: Got you. Cool, cool. So the next place that I wanted to go Fresh was, uh, you know, you’ve been in radio a long time, certainly all your biographies online say you’ve been doing this for a very long time – Starting out in Botswana, etc. What I really wanted to know is what are sort of the key differences from back then to now that you really see have changed the face of radio and how you interact with fans?
Fresh: I think radios face has changed since the advent of the internet. So when I started on radio on radio in 1992 internet existed, but it was for the very, very, very privileged few. So radio never had access to Internet when I started in ’92. So to do your research you had to read the papers and you literally had to subscribe to the wires. Like AFP, like Reuters, and for me I feel radio was more creative back then because we didn’t all have the same news sources. So you were forced to be creative – you forced to take content that was in the paper and flip it in a way that perhaps someone else wouldn’t have on the radio.
Now-a-days with the internet, social media, radio shows are always using the same websites so, now it’s up to you to see how you stand out. Even if you’re using the same information. So for instance 10 radio shows can use 1 website for information, but one of them will stand out on how they use or flip or turn or transform the information and I think that’s what will always keep your ahead. When you don’t just take in information and regurgitate it. When you make it live in one way or another. You know, let’s not talk about the cabinet shuffle, let’s turn the cabinet shuffle into a skit. You know what I mean? So for me that what makes you next level or not.
METRO FM: Okay. So would you agree with the statement that, I guess, the reason radio actually dub-tails so well with digital or the other way round is immediacy of it all?
Fresh: The immediacy of everything. I mean for instance, uh, we were on at 5 and people were anticipating the show from last night. By 05:30 we were trending number 2. By 05:40 we were trending number 1. It’s 10:17 and we’re trending number 3, you know what mean? But because we are always engaging with people on social media like now there’s already 4 podcasts available for people to check out. So if you missed tats, but maybe you read the tweet and the tat was on your radio, you can now download the podcast and listen to it in the comfort of your own home. Or you can watch the video, for instance, or you can tweet tats and tell them, “Listen, I’m hearing you on the radio, you know, I can’t wait for next week.”
So, for me, I think social media and radio were meant to be together. Unfortunately, or fortunately for us, not everyone does it the same so…
