Interview: KISS-FM’s Van & Nikky B

Evansville has been known for having the same radio personalities on the air for decades at a time. Personalities that do happy go lucky, fun shows where everyone is nice, no one is offended and we all get along. I don’t know about you, but I find that incredibly boring. Luckily, 106.1 KISS-FM is trying to do something a little bit different both in terms of the music their playing and their new morning show. KISS-FM is playing a more aggressive playlist with a more urban sound to it, and to match that new sound they brought in a new morning show: Van & Nikky B.

I sat down with Van & Nikky B this week to talk about the show, Evansville and the competition in town. Check it out!

How did you guys get into Evansville? What’s your background?

Van: I started out at Ball State’s telecom program. From there I landed an internship in Indianapolis for X-103’s Big Dumb Show. From there I got weekend mornings on X-103 and then a job doing overnights in Panama. I went on to do the morning show at that station until I was asked to stop coming to work. From there, Fort Wayne for 2 years doing a morning show until they also asked me to stop coming to work. Now, I’ve been here for about three months.

I grew up just outside of Chicago and was enthralled by morning radio. I was a junior in high school when I woke up to this guy named Mancow Mueller on the air.
I loved it because he was our guy. New York had their Howard Stern. LA had Kevin and Bean. When people listen to our show, they have told me their hear some of the Mancow influence when it comes to the pacing and how it can get loud and over the top. I want to do that.

Nikky B: I’m from Indianapolis. I wanted to do radio when I was younger. When I graduated from Cathedral, I wasn’t planning to go to college, but I ended up going to school at USI and was on the long-term plan. I was there for about 6 years, but I went to the army in-between so that they could help pay for my school.

While I was at USI, I was the president of Black Student Union. I was involved in everything. I hosted every single show that USI offered. They came up with this thing called USI Idol, which I hosted. The second year, I met this guy named Sandman who was the program director of 106.1. I was hosting the Idol show, and being the person I am, I asked the judging panel of USI Idol if anyone wanted to offer me a job. I didn’t care if it was Fox 7, 106 or whatever. After the show, Sandman said he needed my number to discuss my career. At the time, I couldn’t even spell career.

I graduated just last May, and I was already doing overnights or weekends at 106. As I was doing overnights, we got this new program director named Keith Curry and he took over our station. He told me to really work and focus on what I was doing, so I did. One day we got rid of the morning show and Keith asked me if I wanted a real job, and that’s how I met Van.

So did you go into school wanting to be in radio?

Nikky B: Yeah, my major is in radio and television as well as communication studies.

Well did you go to school directly wanting to be in radio or television?

Nikky B: I didn’t care. I was just going for the degree. I was hanging out in college and I bumped into this. I was interested in radio because as as little kid I would listen to Tom Joyner. He’d go on the air at 7AM and just be funny. I thought that was cool. I never really listened to or studied radio like Van did. I didn’t really understand morning radio. I like to think I have my own style. I like to host. I like to be around people. I just want to talk. Period.

When Keith came, how did he decide to pair you two up together?

Van: I had answered an ad looking for a morning show because I was in Ft Wayne looking for work. I didn’t know where the ad was for at the time, but I had a morning show that needed a home. They contacted me that day and I talked to Keith for about two hours. He told me he had this girl who was really really green, but she was raw talent and wanted to know if I would be willing to work with her and teach her as we came along.

I came down and on the interview day and it was kind of weird. We’d been going through Evansville and talking for about ten hours when Keith told us to head into the studio and cut 15 minutes. We barely knew each other. We turned on the mics and started rambling. It was probably the worst radio ever produced. The cool thing about it though was that you could definitely hear a chemistry there even though Nikky and I come from completely different worlds. Even though we are from different worlds, we’re able to come together for the sake of putting together an entertaining radio show.

What are you trying to do to differentiate yourselves from the other morning shows in town? What’s your niche?

Nikky B: I’m black. I’m the only black person on the radio in morning drive that is local. I’m writing history in Evansville. Hopefully that’s good history. Like I said, I was the president of Black Student Union at USI and to take on this role of entertainer. A lot of the stuff we do is crazy or out there, but I always have to remember what I am representing. Being in the small town of Evansville and having such a small black community, I do like to sound educated. I do like to sound like I have two degrees. I need you to know I’m educated and I need you to know I’m black. I’m representing a group of people that’s not very dominant in the city, but do need someone to listen to in the morning.

As the only black morning show in the city, has there been any backlash to your approach or stance?

Nikky B: You’re going to have your people that don’t like the show anyway, but regardless. The show is good entertainment. Yeah, some of the jokes we do are ethnical, but we can make them because you’re dealing with the white/black slash here. It’s about Van being able to come on and say something that a white guy is thinking and me being able to say exactly what someone black is thinking. This is not a joke. This is not a game. If there’s something he doesn’t like and we talk about it before the show, it might get heated. At that point he says to save it for the show.

Van: A lot of local morning shows get really celebrity gossip oriented and there doesn’t seem to be much substance to it. Maybe this was because Nikky came up listening to Tom Joyner and I came up listening to Chicago radio, but you can talk about stuff. You can have an opinion. You can tell someone what their saying is b.s. or that it’s right. You can take a stance and give people something they can argue with the radio about. It doesn’t have to be about spending two weeks talking about Paris Hilton going to jail.

So you’re trying to get beyond happy go lucky radio?

Van: Yeah. The world is not shiny happy people. If you’re having a bad day, you’re having a bad day. We look at it as this world that evolves on the radio that you can check in on. It’s almost like The Sims. You look into this heartbeat of what’s going on. Nikky’s on a tangent. Van’s doing this and Alex is diving off a roof onto who knows what. This show has a personality. It has a life of its own that you can identify and relate with. It’s more reality than shows that talk about reality television. You can put on a show that’s agitating any annoying in Evansville.

You’re not afraid to offend people?

Nikky B: Not At All!

Van: I’m not afraid to offend people. One of the things I said in my interview with the station is that you will love me or you will hate me, but the fact of the matter is that you will experience something when you listen to me. You will have a pure, honest emotion whether its love, disgust, hate. But you know what? It’s real. It’s genuine. It’s what you feel.

Doing a more edgy show than Evansville is used to, are you worried about what’s going on in the radio climate nationally with Imus, Opie and Anthony and such?

Van: Oh yeah. There’s a couple of things we have already done, and after certain things happened, we realized we couldn’t play that bit for a while. There’s a prank phone call we did that was very latino oriented. There was some backlash against it, and we put it away. You have to be aware and honest of the situation.

To ignore that is to ignore reality and the reality is that America is going through some growing pains in that sense as it tries to redefine and find itself. Intelligence will always win out. Just be aware of what’s going on and be self conscious that you could offend someone. Unfortunately we don’t have long term contracts that will protect us so for the sake of our well-being, we’ve walked away from some things because it’s not the time or place to do it.

I’ve always been amazed though at what you can get away with when it’s genuinely funny. When it’s genuinely good, they’ll give you the pass if you’re right on. Even so, there’s still some lines we won’t cross because we like receiving paychecks. The radio climate is weird right now with the stuff that’s going on.

What has been the best benefit to working at a radio station?

Nikky B: You come to work and you get paid to act a fool.

Van: You get to come in, hang out and have fun with people who like to make dick and fart jokes. If you break it down, our job is basically to come in, play some music and try to be a bigger idiot tomorrow than we were today. That’s not a bad gig. I have the utmost respect to labor workers, because I live in fear of those jobs. I’ll sit on unemployment until it runs out because I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.

Nikky B: It’s too easy.

How about the hours? You’re show’s on from 5:30 to 10:00 in the morning. How’s that work out?

Van: You live on a different time zone. She has a social life. I have little to no social life. If I see 8PM, I’m going to be miserable the next day.

Whose be your dream interview on the show?

Nikky B: If it was a girl, I’d say Eve. I’d interview her and then I’d get her phone number. If it was a guy, I’d interview Luda and try to get a job.

Van: I’d love to interview Michael Jackson. I want to know what’s going on in his head. A no holds barred interview with Michael Jackson. What’s frustrating with interviewing celebrities is that you get them on the phone, but there’s a laundry list of stuff you can’t ask them. I’d love to do a radio interview with no rules or regulations. Maybe I’d interview America and ask them what they love about Paris Hilton.

Nikky B: I think I’m my own star, so I don’t really care about celebrities. I just don’t get it. I know we weren’t supposed to be talking about it all the time, but I’m happy I’m learning about it now, because I’d be in total fear if I had to listen to the other shows around here and try to make my own morning show. I’d have nothing to go off of.

Van: I like to believe that people want to be entertained and want substance. Unlike cookie cutter shows that are consistently a C, we’re willing to fall. We’re willing to take chances and take people on a ride. This show is a story and an adventure. Most people say you only get your audience for 15 minutes. That’s fine, we want to try and keep them for an hour. I’m going to try to keep them from 5:30 to 10:00. Can we make it compelling enough that they are willing to take the entire ride with us? That’s what’s good about morning radio: not just talking about what’s going on in Hollywood.

Trying to just grab 15 minutes is background noise. You may as well play 3 songs in that time.

Do you think having to play music between each segment is hurting or helping the show’s flow?

Nikky B: Sometime’s I think it’s bad, but most of the time I think it’s good. When we do topics, sometimes we need that time to chill. If we’re on a topic, having a break with a song gives people that time to build up a compelling argument they can come back with after the song. Other times, it just gets in the way.

Van: Being that we don’t have a delay, you’re just asking for trouble if you start taking live calls, so the music gives us the opportunity to get our stuff together. Sometimes it kills the pacing of the show, but at the same time, there is nothing worse than people who want to talk just for the sake of hearing their voices.

The music is starting to cycle itself out. When we first started we were playing 8 to 10 songs an hour. Now, we might play 4 or 5.

Do you see that song count shrinking?

Van: I’m willing to go less music. I want to evolve into long-form FM talk; not that AM conservative bullshit. I want to talk about real stuff. I believe you can get a better audience in the morning without music. It’ll be a natural evolution. When there is more content, there will be less music.

When are you going to know the show has hit in town?

Nikky B: Syndication.

Van: I don’t think there will be syndication out of Evansville.

Nikky B: I think big. The difference between me and Van is that he is my reality. I don’t play in that world. I think like a kid. I’m a big ass kid. I go out. I stay out. I come in tired. It’s his job to get me rolling and once he gets me rolling, we have a great show. I think syndication. Not in Evansville he says. Fuck that. We can be moved anywhere. Take me to the moon. I’ll look at you from there. Hallelujah. Holla Back.

The Basics

Name Van & Nikky B.

Nikky B: Please spell my name right. N-I-K-K-Y. The first time they were about to put the billboard up, they spelled my name with an I. I was about to whoop somebody’s ass.

Age and occupation

Nikky B: 25 and morning show host.

Van: 29 and morning show host.

Hometown

Nikky B: Nap Town, but I have been residing in Evansville.

Van: Hammond Indiana by way of Munster. I came from a small town. You know. Red state. White. Republican. Charmed life.

Nikky B: I was born in the hood.

Favorite place to spend time online

Van: Is my wife going to read this? I don’t really have a favorite site. I kind of just surf around.

Nikky B: MySpace of course.

Favorite local business

Nikky B: Oxygen Nightclub

Van: Show-Me’s rocks. One of the first things we wanted to do when we got in town is take the audience out to lunch. Show-Me’s stepped up and helped us do that.

Nikky B: The Lloyd Expressway is stoplight city and the people in Evansville can’t drive. I believe it. I almost get run off the road everyday and I’m driving around at 4 or 5 in the morning.

Van: People are so polite here. They will talk to you forever.

Favorite local hangout

Nikky B: Jillians because we get to bowl after Working Women’s Wednesday

Vans: Jillians is a cool place to go. You can go and get wild, but you don’t feel awkward doing it because you got the games and bowling in the other room. You can just get hammered and not worried about whose going to come in and see you.

Nikky B: Alright. My favorite favorite place in town is gonna be Scores.

Evansville has the best…

Van: Road to Kentucky. What exactly is a money saving bridge?

Nikky B: Potential to become big out of all the other cities in Indiana. It’s the next city to blow up.

Best restaurant

Nikky B: Biaggi’s

Van: I like Shyler’s BBQ or Boston’s Pizza. They deliver and I’m within the five minute range. Speaking of restaurants, you know what this town is missing? Chinese delivery. It’s unamerican. It’s an American privilege to have a box of chinese delivered to your house.

Nikky B: I also like Zesto’s. If you’re trying to get down, you gotta go get a tenderloin with some greasy ass fries and mushrooms. Bring your own ranch though. Hidden Valley.

If you were doing this interview what question would you have asked?

Van: I would probably ask what do you think of the competition?

Nikky B: I was trying to avoid that one.

Me too. Well, what’s the answer?

Nikky B: They suck.

Van: I get to work at 3:00AM. I have your show written by 3:30.