Author: Cameron Satterlee

The Sounds of State-Scott Granlund and Jared Kleber

Cameron Satterlee

Just yesterday, I met up with Scott Granlund and Jared Kleber at their apartment to record my final interview of the semester. Scott is a coworker of mine at KPBS and mentioned to me early this year that he was starting a radio show, I’m glad I was able to squeeze he and his cohost on at the very end. I hope you can tell as you read but this was a very fun interview, one of the best I’ve had in my opinion. Scott and Jared have great chemistry and made it a fun conversation. Scott talks almost as fast as he thinks while Jared’s more measured pace somehow fit neatly together. It made transcription pretty hard but I really wanted to capture the spirit of the conversation for my last interview.

A reminder one last time: I try to transcribe the conversation as it happened, to capture the cadence and structure of our speech I put grammar in a secondary role. So without further ado, here is the final interview of the semester:

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Cameron Satterlee: Alright, I am with Scott and Jared, welcome guys, thank you for being on.

Jared Kleber: Thank you.

Scott Grandlund: Thank you, sir.

CS: So, what is your radio spot?

SG: Our show is called the Family Garage, we play garage rock, psychedelia, proto-punk, new stuff, old stuff, the time is ten pm on Sundays and it’s an hour long show. And we talk about random stuff too.

CS: Alright. You’re getting ahead of me, man.

SG: I’m sorry.

CS: No it’s cool. It’s a good answer. So how long have you guys been with KCR?

JK: This will be the end of our first semester.

SG: Yeah this is the first semester we’ve had this show. And we weren’t there before.

CS: How did you guys partner up?

SG: Well we live together, and we’d been talking about doing a show together for I want to say a year, we wanted to do it sophomore year and then we never really got our act together. And then finally we were just like (claps hands) apply online let’s just do the thing, and we kinda sat there like “what should we play?” It was literally one night, cause we knew we wanted to do a show together just to do something different and do something new. We were literally just sitting on the couch saying “what should we play?” And we just kinda workshopped it then and thought of this idea of playing garage rock; kinda a blanket genre where we could do a little bit of everything. And we thought we’d talk about stuff in between songs and we tend to talk about a lot of weird stuff.

CS: Alright well that sounds pretty interesting. You said you kinda just pulled out garage rock sorta randomly, how come you decided on that specifically?

JK: I think we were originally—I think we had talked about it—we were at a record store and we were listening to garage rock and I was like “we should just do that” because it’s kinda a blanket genre. A lot of things can classify themselves as garage rock. You can play stuff from the 60’s and onward and it wouldn’t really matter if it’s not particularly garage, it could be a little punk, it could be a little psychedelic. It’s kinda a nice blanket genre for rock music which I don’t think gets a lot of play anymore, so it’s pretty nice.

SG: Yeah that’s right. I think the record store thing especially. What we were just hearing while we were in Off the Record, in our apartment, at Thrift Trader and stuff just is nice, “I wanna do that.”

JK: Yeah we wanted to play music that you don’t really hear anymore.

SG: Yeah.

JK: You would only hear it if you went and found it yourself or you go into a record store and you’re talking to some old guy at a record store and he’s like “you should listen to this.”

CS: Well maybe it’s fitting that you guys are on Sunday with the alumni shows cause they play a lot of stuff kinda like that too.

SG: Keeps with the theme I guess.

CS: Uh huh. So I guess you sorta answered this already, but I wanna know a bit more in depth I suppose what made you want to do the radio and be rock DJ’s?

JK: Well we are both film students and I think we understand media quite a bit.

SG: Yeah.

JK: And I think that radio is just another form of media and I think that it’s interesting and not as big as it used to be and it’s kinda something that’s still interesting to me. I know we both are people who listen to a lot of podcasts. And I think that a lot of people assume that podcasts are the thing that’s gonna kill radio or something like that. But it’s different, and the idea of a medium where you don’t have to see something and you can just learn new things and hear new things is always interesting to me.

SG: Yeah I would agree. I think that we were just kinda interesting in another form of broadcast really. Especially with the kind of music that we ended up playing, it worked out really nicely. It’s an old kind of medium that we can showcase this music that is old and classic too. Just the idea of the radio show, that there’s two people who are controlling what you’re listening to and you hear their comments about it and what their takes on the world are. In that respect, for the podcasts especially, you’re just hearing what people think about stuff. We just thought why not put our opinions out there.

CS: Cool, yeah that’s great answers you guys. So you guys mentioned it earlier but you play this garage rock because it allows you to play different kinds of music from a long period of time. Is there anything recent that you play?

SG: Mac DeMarco.

JK: Mac DeMarco.

SG: We play some Mac DeMarco, we play some Walter TV.

JK: Black Lips. The Garden. Death Valley Girls. I feel like it’s weird, smaller stuff.

SG: FIDLAR, once. So it’s just smaller, more punk-y bands. We played a bunch of Alabama Shakes a lot on our show too cause they have a new album out. So I mean, it’s more of that blanket theme where “yeah, this is some kind of rock, alternative thing” so let’s play it. So it’s really stuff we like too.

JK: It’s all stuff that’s really small. You wouldn’t hear most of the bands we named on the radio. Those people survive online or on college radio.

CS: You guys are doing your part then!

SG: It’s just our civil duty.

CS: (laughs) Yeah broadcast it out. So you guys are roommates and have known each other for a while now, would you say you have good chemistry on the air?

Both: Yeah.

SG: We met in orientation actually, before college actually started. He was one of the first people I met and we talked for a while, we made our schedules right next to each other, and we ended up having the exact same schedule freshman year. We had every class together and we ended up living in the same dorm hall three door down from each other. So we’ve been friends for a long time now, and then we moved here to our current apartment and we’ve been living here for two years, and we’re living together next year too. So there’s good chemistry. A little good back and forth every once in a while, we sync up and say the same word at the same time and it’s kinda funny. I dunno, it works, works for us.

CS: Hey cool, I know exactly what you mean cause I met my cohost at orientation too.

SG: Really?

CS: Yeah, fun story. So, last question, I always like to ask this, how would your perfect show go? Just an ideal, perfect hour. How would that be?

SG: Well we’ll do a music news, coming down the pipe section, and then we’ll do a random this is what’s going on in our lives talk, and then we’ll do a random here’s a thing that’s happening in the world usually. So the craziest thing in the world, if there’s a lot of great music news to talk about, some funny weird stuff happened, and some weird stuff that happened in our lives that are funny to talk about and then all that. And then every other week we actually have “bi-weekly double shot,” we made a sound bite for it, we play two of the same artist back to back. So I guess if we have a really good playlist for the night and just things that flow well and then it could also tie in well with some of the music news. I dunno, every once in a while we hit our stride and we’re kinda funny at the same time we hit it. We’ve had some good shows.

JK: I think an ideal show would also have guests, we’ve had guests on to also talk about sports for ten minutes.

SG: For no reason.

JK: Because we don’t know sports as much, so it’s kinda funnier. Because you can do a sports show, but it’s kinda funny if you do a sports show and you don’t know sports, you don’t do sports very much. You just kinda have your weird own views on it so I think that’s kinda interesting. We always talk about hip hop news on our show.

SG: Yeah that keeps happening.

JK: We don’t even do a hip hop show but we do hip hop news. And I feel like our listeners probably don’t like that but there’s not a lot of garage rock news. There’s more hip hop news.

SG: We actually addressed that on our first show. I’m sorry, this answer has gone kinda long.

CS: It’s fine.

SG: But we kinda addressed that on our first show. We said we can talk about garage rock news but all it would be like would be “these guys got a new EP out, they’re touring 16 places you’ve never heard of, it’ll cost no money and ten people will go to the show. Yeah they’re not gonna do anything too weird.” Meanwhile literally we had three shows in a row where we had news about the rap group Migos because they kept getting into a whole lot of trouble. That was like our Migos news segment.

JK: Like stabbing people.

SG: Either stabbing nine people at an Albany concert.

JK: They got arrested for guns.

SG: Arrested for guns at the University of Georgia. They’re just doing weird stuff.

JK: They’re crazy so every week we check up on Migos basically to see what they’re up to because they’re insane.

SG: So it’s more fun to talk about them and then we’ve got some funny things that happened last minute like Mark’s mom’s show was funny.

JK: Yeah we found that one of the cohosts of the show the hour before us, his mom always listens.

SG: To our show.

JK: And she was picking him up one time and she was like “I like your show. Much better music than my son plays.” And we were like “shouts out to Mark’s mom.”

SG: We were just talking about her on air, it was really cool. Even if it’s ten people that listen, it’s great to hear that we have the one Mark’s mom. Mark’s mom likes our show!

JK: Yeah some mom somewhere likes our show, it’s pretty cool.

SG: Yeah, so we do it for Mark’s mom.

CS: (laughing) Alright.

SG: That wasn’t really an answer to your question much, I guess it kinda was.

JK: Our ideal show would have five minutes devoted to Mark’s mom.

SG: (laughs) A guest, maybe two.

JK: A guest of some kind.

SG: The Migos literally just blew up the state of Idaho.

JK: A Migos section.

SG: I dunno how much we could squeeze in. I guess the funny part of our show is that what we talk about never matches the music.

JK: No.

SG: We’ll talk about the music but our conversation has nothing to do with it.

JK: We’ll be like “hey did you hear about this thing?”

SG: “Anyway, FIDLAR coming up next!” Yeah. So there you go.

CS: Oh man, well that—

SG: You can take whatever you want of that, please don’t feel like you don’t have to translate all of that.

CS: No that’s cool. That was actually really awesome. Thanks guys.

SG: You’re welcome.

—

So there you have it, Scott Granlund and Jared Kleber. Again, I thought it was a great interview. Scott and Jared are clearly taking full advantage of what KCR has to offer as a way to express a unique vision on the radio. You only have one more opportunity to tune into their show this semester: Sunday at 10 pm. But I’m betting they’ll make a triumphant return to the online airwaves next semester.

This was not only my final interview of the semester but I believe it will also be my final interview for the Sounds of State. I may return next semester to the KCR blog, but I am retiring from this project. Thank you all for reading, it has been a pleasure.

-Cameron Satterlee

The Sounds of State-KC Stanfield

Cameron Satterlee

Two weeks ago, only a couple of hours after I interviewed Camelle Sison for my post last week, I sat down with KC Stanfield for this week’s version. I could tell that he really loved music thanks to the massive headphones around his neck, and he was about to prove it to me in our interview. Let’s get right to it:

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Cameron Satterlee: Hi KC, thanks for joining me here.

KC Stanfield: Oh no problem, thanks for having me.

CS: Yeah alright, well let’s get to it. What’s your radio slot?

KC: My radio slot is the lovely time of Saturday at ten pm to eleven pm.

CS: Wow.

KC: I know, it’s late.

CS: I’ve had a few Saturday morning people because that’s the alumni shows, but I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed someone who has a weekend night.

KC: It’s pretty horrible, I mean cause usually you put your weekend on pause. Especially at the night cause everyone goes out and does stuff.

CS: Oh yeah.

KC: My friends will be like “Hey KC wanna go to a bar?” And I’m like “after my radio show I will.”

CS: Oh man. I think I might know the answer to this but how long have you been with KCR?

KC: Well actually I blogged for them last semester, about the music that I actually play now. I don’t have any time to blog anymore. It’s quicker to have a one hour radio show, prepare for that, and then do everything else I need to do. So I still want to be with KCR and talk and or play music that I like, it’s just different.

CS: But so this semester is your first semester on air?

KC: Yeah it is.

CS: Yeah I think the newbies get the weekend nights for the most part.

KC: Oh yeah they do.

CS: But you blogged before so that’s cool. What was your blog by the way?

KC: I just covered some concerts that I went to, predominately, sometimes I covered underground hardcore bands or metal bands that not many people know. On top of it being metal and no one knows it to begin with. So that’s what I did. I covered some hardcore concerts and wrote about some albums. Basically I was a metal blogger.

CS: Alright well you sort of answered my question but what kind of music do you play?

KC: Metal.

CS: Metal.

KC: Yep.

CS: Saturday night metal alright.

KC: I know right? It’ll keep you awake.

CS: Get the blood flowing.

KC: Ruin a party too, if you play KCR as your background music.

CS: Yeah. Yeah I thought the scheduling blocks were supposed to put the EDM DJ’s like on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.

KC: They’re after me.

CS: Alright, but you got your metal show. Clashes a bit, probably. But maybe next semester you’ll get a slot more in tune with metal.

KC: Maybe. Well actually probably not since I’m graduating.

CS: Oh, alright well never mind. I’m glad I got this interview to document this.

KS: Right?

CS: So, why metal? Why is that your scene?

KC: I dunno, I kinda got into it at an early age. I was, it’s probably not the best comparison, metal is really like drugs. You start off with some of the easier stuff, I started off with some Avenged Sevenfold, some Metallica, Disturbed. Some light hearted metal.

CS: (Laughing) my mom wouldn’t call Metallica lighthearted.

KC: And then in high school I slowly got more into metalcore stuff, post-hardcore stuff like A Day to Remember, the Devil Wears Prada, Parkway Drive. And then now, I still listen to all of that old stuff, but what I can withstand or enjoy, is a lot heavier than what I did four years ago.

CS: Oh that’s such a metal thing to say, the music you listen to is the stuff you can withstand. That’s so amusing.

KC: I know right? That’s how everyone else is, I’ll play some Whitechapel and people will just stare and me and say “you listen to this?” Because I don’t have long hair or are covered in tattoos, I don’t look really like the general metalhead so it kinda throws people off at the beginning. And a lot of them are like “oh my god this stuff uhhh ahhh” but it does grow on you. Especially my roommate, he’s gotten used to it.

CS: Alright, yeah. I know you probably wouldn’t play anything else on your show cause that wouldn’t flow together, but do you listen to any other genres of music, or mostly metal? Or different kinds of metal I guess.

KC: Yes to both. I listen to stuff you’d expect like rock, because it’s an offshoot of metal. I also listen to more indie and alternative stuff like Interpol or Modest Mouse. I listen to rap too, like Nas. I like the political stuff more, Hopsin’s pretty cool. So I listen to a little bit of everything, I listen to techno. Not so much country, can’t stand that stuff, don’t know why.

CS: You and every other DJ I’ve ever interviewed. I don’t think I’ve ever heard any metal fan have the gall to say that rock is an offshoot of metal.

KC: Well technically metal is an offshoot of rock.

CS: Yeah they’re related, but rock came first.

KC: But if you compare—I’m trying to think of a rock band—Nirvana.

CS: Yeah they were influenced by metal.

KC: If you compare them to—any metal band, I’m trying to think—Parkway Drive, it sounds nothing alike. Anything that screams, it just doesn’t sound like rock anymore, it just sounds like metal.

CS: Oh yeah they’re totally related but not close.

KC: They’re oceans apart now. It’s like the continental drift of music. That is the nerdiest thing I could have said, too.

CS: Hey whatever, that’s fine. So I guess you sorta explained it, but I kinda wanted to go a bit deeper. You grew up listening to metal, but I know people who did that and sorta phased out of it, but it seems like you went deeper into it. So I assume the music is pretty important to you, why it that?

KC: Well I do like quicker tempo music to begin with, and that’s metal right there. It’s always fast. And the thing I love about metal is that there’s usually just a ton of passion into it. I mean these people are screaming their voices out, they’re breaking their vocals essentially because they love the genre. They’re not getting paid much, it’s metal, they’re not making—well some of them are—but most of them aren’t making millions and millions of dollars. They’re doing it because they love the music. What more can you ask when it comes to music because they’re artists who are passionate about the music and just about the music.

CS: Yeah, that’s a great response. So is there any new metal band out there that you’ve been listening to lately? Or an old one that you just discovered?

KC: Yeah, I mentioned this on my last week’s show but the band is called Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza. Deathcore. I know that is the most ridiculous name for a metal band in the world and I love it so much just because it’s so ridiculous and out there.

CS: I think I’ve actually heard about them once or twice in high school. Just cause of the name probably.

KC: And I’m waiting for new stuff from a band, probably not many people know them, they’re called My Heart to Fear. They’re really metalcore if you want to define them exactly but they sorta have their own unique sound. They scream to be heard rather than to be loud. So you can understand them a bit better and the lyrics are really well written.

CS: Alright, so I always like to end on this one, what would be your ideal show? The perfect show for you.

KC: I don’t know that would have to be an all day festival of just bands that I love just back to back to back. Because there’s so many bands that I’d love to see live.

CS: Oh no I mean your radio show, your one hour block, like if you could do it really well how would that go? My bad I didn’t word it well.

KC: I do it when my iPod didn’t have technical difficulties. I have a lot of music on this, I have over 8,000 songs on the now discontinued 160 gig iPod. So it froze on me one show!

CS: Oh no!

KC: Oh my god. So I was just trying to ramble and restart it and come up with a story because I totally didn’t expect this since I’m new and didn’t have a set story like “oh technical difficulties, here’s a little bit about me.” Because no one wants to listen to that, when I listen to the radio I always hate when the DJ talks too much. So they’ll explain a little bit about the band or an upcoming concert or a new album and then go straight into the music. I hate when they just talk and talk and talk.

CS: Yeah.

KC: I don’t listen to radio for AM like programming.

Cs: Yeah when your iPod fails you that’s something you don’t plan on.

KC: Oh it was fun, it was a fun day.

CS: So I usually end on the last question, but I want to know, Black Sabbath, are they metal?

KC: They’re like the founders of metal.

CS: Alright but they’re not fast though and you said that was a core component of metal.

KC: True, but I am of the mind that if it was metal it still is, for the most part unless it’s a new album then it’s more rock. But they basically founded it, because Led Zeppelin was kinda like the transitioning period. I think Black Sabbath was the definitive “these guys: metal, yes” band. And I still think that is because think of some of the 80’s music, a lot of it was metal but now it’s classic rock. So our standards of genres have changed and that somehow changed what they were but I still consider them, what they were originally meant to be. That’s just me.

CS: Well thank for sitting down with me, it was a great interview.

KC: No problem.

—

After the interview, we chatted for a few more minutes, but unfortunately my small metal knowledge was rapidly running dry. I had to get to work so we parted ways soon after. Be sure to check out KC’s show every Saturday from 10-11 pm, only on KCR College Radio, the Sound of State.

The Sounds of State: Camelle Sison

Cameron Satterlee

Last Tuesday around noon I went to the KCR studio to meet up with Camelle Sison, the first responder to my new call for DJs to interview. She was very enthusiastic to do the interview just how she quickly responded to my post. I had met her once before in line for basketball tickets last semester with Denise Chang, our current blogging manager. I remember that Camelle didn’t have a radio show at the time, but she’s since moved on to host a show in addition to being a KCR blogger. She was very jovial and always had a smile on her face while talking about her show. Normally I note when my guest laughs but for Camelle I would have to do it almost every line because she was so positive and quick to laugh. I’ll let her do most of the talking now, so on to the interview:

—

Cameron Satterlee: So I am in the KCR studio with Camelle, welcome.

Camelle Sison: Thank you.

Cameron: Alright so let’s start it off, when’s your radio show and what’s it called?

Camelle: My radio show is every Thursday from 2 to 3 pm and it’s called the It’s Glam Cam Show!

Cameron: It’s Glam Cam, alright. I’ll ask about that in a bit, but how long have you been with KCR?

Camelle: I’ve been with KCR since last year, about the beginning of last semester. So probably sometime by September of last year.

Cameron: Mmm hmm, yeah I remember, but you were just blogging back then.

Camelle: Yeah.

Cameron: So this semester is your first semester as a DJ right?

Camelle: Yes yes, first time!

Cameron: Awesome. Well how are you liking it?

Camelle: I love it so far. Well first it was hard because I couldn’t find a cohost and I thought it would be very very difficult to not have one and my first two shows it was kind of hard, just transitioning from the music to talking to figuring out the dials back and forth. Compared to if I had a cohost, I could just talk, and my cohost could do the dials for me. But for the most part I got the hang of it now.

Cameron: Oh don’t even worry about that. I’ve talked to over a dozen DJ’s at this point and the first show is always tough.

Camelle: Yeah it is.

Cameron: But so, you have this fashion blog, I wanna cover that for a second, so what do you do?

Camelle: For my fashion blog, it’s called Fashion of the Week: Aztec Attire, and basically I go out on campus and I just try to interview anyone on campus because I don’t want to single out different styles. So basically whoever you are, if I catch you at a good time, I will stop you to ask if I could interview you for our school’s radio station blog. And I will ask about your outfit. “Why did you choose this outfit?” And everything like that. “Why did you pick those shoes?” “What’s your favorite clothing item?” And not only that but I try to get some of their personalities so I ask “what is some random fact about you?” It doesn’t even have to deal with fashion, cause my main purpose of this blog is to promote the diversity on campus. And through outfits that definitely shows some type of diversity.

Cameron: Yeah awesome. You’re pretty much the only DJ I’ve ever interviewed who also does a blog, which is what I do, so I think that’s pretty cool so that’s why I wanted to bring it up.

Camelle: Yes definitely it’s cool.

Cameron: So you have a fashion blog and a music show, so do you try to bring in some of your blog onto your show?

Camelle: Yes I try to incorporate a lot of fashion into it. The fact that a lot of listeners aren’t so into fashion, especially if I talk so girly about fashion, I won’t get guys to listen to my show. So I try to incorporate it, but to the best way where it will reach out to every type of audience. So I’ll talk about what am I seeing more on campus right now, everyone transitioning from winter clothes to summer clothes, what you’re seeing now, or the things that I blog about. Even not dealing with the fashion sense, cause I blog for other outlets, so I’ll put that in lifestyle blogging. I’ll talk about things dealing with lifestyle, so I incorporate pretty much everything. My show is entertainment and music.

Cameron: Yeah, awesome. So getting over to the music aspect, what’s the music you play for the most part?

Camelle: For the most part I play any music that I hear on the radio that’s very popular and mix it in with hip hop because I love hip hop music. So I try to incorporate both so I have something that I love, cause it is my radio show so I want to put in my own personality into it, and then also for everyone else, usually just one of the top hits on the billboards at the moment.

Cameron: So you said you like hip hop music a lot, and you try to have a good blend of I guess popular top 40 music and hip hop, how did you come about to liking that music?

Camelle: Since I was little I guess, maybe because my older brother was into hip hop music so I always got into hip hop music. Hip hop/R&B. And also that my friends listen to that type of music so that’s pretty much how I got into it, growing up with it. And also I play throwback Thursday songs on my radio show just for the fact that my show is on Thursdays. So I’m like “okay, throwback Thursday songs too!”

Cameron: Yeah that sounds familiar.

Camelle: Yeah that songs that you listened to back in the day. There was a time when I even played an NSYNC song.

Cameron: Oh wow. So why—I want to phrase this correctly because your show is a bit different than the normal music shows because you do music and entertainment—what made you want to do this sort of unique blend of your interests on the radio?

Camelle: I think mostly to inspire. Because I didn’t want it strictly to be music, I wanted people to have a little bit of my personality, know what I’m about. Although I’m a journalism major, I love inspiring people just without having to write journalistically. Instead of writing hard news and stuff like that. I love using the passion that I have for writing to inspire people, to uplift them. So there’s a lot of things I do on my show like quote of the day, and in between a song I’ll be like “okay it’s time for the quote of the day,” and it’s usually a quote that’s really uplifting. And then I have my input on it afterwards. My last quote had to do with being honest and I’ll put my input on there like “being honest will lead you to this, this, this, this, this” and I just want to make sure that everyone that listens to my show, when they’re done listening, they feel good about themselves and just inspired.

Cameron: Yeah and it’s great that KCR, with its whole you can do whatever you want type format, its allowed you to have this real interesting sounding and unique show. That’s just awesome.

Camelle: Yeah, thanks. I love it.

Cameron: Yeah, so I think I want to ask a couple more questions.

Camelle: Okay.

Cameron: Since you play popular music for the most part, what have you sort of been really playing lately.

Camelle: Lately I’ve been playing Maroon 5, their Sugar song is really popular at the moment. What else? Love Me Like You Do, Chris Brown songs, that’s pretty much it.

Cameron: Alright.

Camelle: I’m gonna write my script for this Thursday so we’ll see is on the top hit billboards.

Cameron: Wow you’ve even got a script, awesome.

Camelle: Oh yeah well I try to wing my show but I make sure I have a script too, to make sure I don’t get lost.

Cameron: Oh yeah I think a lot of people have that.

Camelle: There’s some people who literally wing their shows and I can’t do that for a full hour.

Cameron: Yeah I know what you mean, especially when you try to incorporate talk with the music like you do.

Camelle: Yeah exactly.

Cameron: So this is the last question, I usually try to end with it, it’s a fun one. How would your perfect show go?

Camelle: My perfect show go? That’s a tough one, tough but fun. Are you saying how I would want it to go?

Cameron: Yeah.

Camelle: Pretty much how it’s already going. But basically how it goes with more involvement, more people calling in. There’s quite a few people who do listen in because I promote it on my Instagram and on my Instagram I have 10,000 followers, they come and listen. Not only that but I have the most supportive friends and family ever, they’re always tuning in. One my cousins actually makes sure she has no meetings from 2 to 3 pm to listen. The perfect show would basically be everyone listening and breathing in everything I have to say when I actually talk. So everyone listening to the carpe diem part which is to live your life to the fullest and the quote of the day which helps to better your life overall. Basically that, hoping to make sure that everyone truly listens to the parts where I talk and call in afterwards! Yep.

Cameron: I just want to say it again, but you have 10,000 followers Instagram. That’s really impressive.

Camelle: Yeah so that’s why I love this radio station too, I want to make sure that not just college students at SDSU are listening, that I have a wide range of audience. I don’t even know how many people around the world are listening, but I know I’m advertising myself on Instagram and that’s a way for them to get to know me other than just seeing my posts. Because it’s my fashion Instagram, all my posts of me in my clothes that I love and just all these fashion posts so instead of seeing me just like that you know in one dimension, they can see me through hearing me and everything that I do.

Cameron: Yeah well that’s great, you must do a lot of great promoting for KCR too. With your huge audience. That’s really cool!

Camelle: Yeah.

Cameron: Alright I think we’ll end it on that, you’ve done a great job promoting KCR.

Camelle: Thanks.

Cameron: Thanks for sitting down with me, this has been a great interview.

Camelle: No problem, thank you thank you.

—

And so there’s the interview! Afterwards, Camelle and I talked in the studio, we both had class at later so we thought we’d beat the heat and stick indoors. We were joined by none other than Joey Bautista, who came in early for his show at 1. Joey of course was half of my first ever interview, so that was a great coincidence. The three of us talked for a while before going our separate ways. Camelle was a fantastic interview subject, she’s doing her own thing and dedicated to her vision for a great show. She’s taking full advantage of what KCR has to offer and I’m sure her large audience is also helping us out.

Here are her blog posts for KCR: http://kcr.sdsu.edu/author/camelle-sison/

As well as a couple of posts from the other blog she contributes to:

http://www.qtee.com/blog/b/inside-qtee/archive/2015/03/10/carpe-diem-with-camelle.aspx

http://www.qtee.com/blog/b/inside-qtee/archive/2015/03/17/carpe-diem-with-camelle-go-dancing.aspx

http://www.qtee.com/blog/b/inside-qtee/archive/2015/03/24/carpe-diem-with-camelle-road-trip.aspx

http://www.qtee.com/blog/b/inside-qtee/archive/2015/04/03/carpe-diem-with-camelle-create-a-bucket-list.aspx

Be sure to listen to her show, every Thursdays from 2 to 3, only on KCR College Radio, the Sound of State.

The Sounds of State-Carmen Huerta and Marissa Ochoa

Cameron Satterlee

When I first began The Sounds of State last October, the first person to ever respond to me was Carmen Huerta, it took a very long time for us to finally sit down for our interview but here it is! Once we finally met up, we realized that we had actually known each other from our radio shows the semester before. Their show, Aztec Beat, preceded my show, Talking Aztec Sports with Cameron and Jackson, last semester. They always had colorful guests and interesting conversations related to San Diego State topics. Usually I interview music people, so I was caught somewhat off guard and had to improvise questions for the duo, so bear with me on this one. But either way, Carmen and Marissa were wonderful guests and without further ado, here’s the interview:

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Cameron Satterlee: I’m sitting outside of the KCR studio, roughly, with Carmen and Marissa. Thanks for being on here.

Both: Thank you.

CS: So when is your show?

Marissa Ochoa: It’s Fridays from 12 to 1 pm.

Carmen Huerta: Isn’t it 1 to 2?

MO: It’s 12 to 1. I dunno, you’re the one that’s on air.

CH: No it’s 1 to 2!

MO: Okay, it’s Fridays 1 to 2 pm!

CH: It’s 1 to 2 cause I have class afterwards!

MO: Sorry sorry, I’m on the internet so I don’t remember sometimes.

CS: Well let’s just say listen in on Fridays to KCR and we’ll get you covered.

CH: It’s 1 to 2!

MO: Yeah it’s 1 to 2 (laughing).

CS: You’re the first news show I’ve ever had, so this is exciting, I’ll ask you some news related questions. Well first I want to ask how long you’ve been with KCR. I know you’ve been on for at least one semester cause my show followed yours up last semester. So how long have you been with us?

CH: For me, a year and a half.

MO: I’ve been with KCR for two years now.

CS: Alright cool, yeah I guess that’s as long as I’ve been with KCR. So as a new show, our normal news block is earlier in the morning, right?

MO: We’re not really a news, hardcore news show.

CS: You’re talk radio.

MO: We’re talk radio, yeah.

CS: Well so, what do you do for the most part? I mean, I know that’s an open ended question but I’m curious.

MO: Well in terms of news we don’t focus in on local news,, we focus in on SDSU news, so we get guests that are SDSU students or directors or…

CH: Organizations.

MO: Organizations and we interview them. So our news show isn’t for the public, it’s for SDSU students specifically.

CH: It’s like a features show.

MO: Yeah that’s a good way to describe it.

CS: Yeah I remember you had all these cool guests when I followed you up. I can’t remember any of them specifically, but I think one of them was in charge of the gardens here.

MO: Yeah.

CH: Oh the garden guy!

MO: And we also had a really cool guy, a comedian come on our show.

CH: That was our big guest.

MO: That was a huge one cause he is a legit comedian and he came to do our radio show with us.

CH: Cause he actually tours.

MO: Yeah listening to a celebrity is pretty cool, having him as a guest.

CS: Yeah yeah I remember the comedian, he had a whole posse come into the studio.

Both: Yeah!

MO: He did.

CS: That was interesting, you got a pretty neat show going on. I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed anyone who has regular guests on so that’s pretty cool.

CH: Well we were pretty lucky cause of Jocelyn.

MO: Yeah Jocelyn would give us guests, cause the guests we get on our show are normally SDSU based, and the guests Jocelyn gets are bigger in terms of who they are. But Carmen does a good job of finding guests and I do my part as well, so it’s really a group effort when we find who our guests are supposed to be.

CS: And so what made you want to go to KCR to do this kind of show? Because most people do music and sports, sort of.

CH: Well when I joined I didn’t know which section I wanted to do, when I saw news I was like “oh well that’s something I’m interested in” but I’m not a news CNN type person. So I thought “okay I’ll do a talk radio thing” and then my previous host, Jocelyn, she wanted to do something in the same way so we came up with Aztec Beat. And so it was from her that the idea came out, and when she couldn’t do it this year I was lucky enough to have Marissa. She was still on board with the same idea so she came on.

MO: Yeah, well my shows before her were very entertainment based. My first show was a movie-based show, so I did a lot of movie reviews. Then after that I went a lot into entertainment news. And it wasn’t until I got on board with Carmen that I transitioned more to SDSU news. And it’s been a lot better cause it’s much more relevant to listeners any ways.

CH: Yeah.

CS: Yeah that’s pretty cool, especially the movie reviews thing. I know that’s not what you do anymore.

MO: Honestly since it was the first show I ever did it was bad, I look back on it and go “oh my god.” Well what was funny was that I was right before our general manager’s show, our old one, Matt Anderson, and so his show was always really great and my show was before his and I always thought “why did you guys put me in this slot?”

CH: But she’s brought some really good ideas, often we did it more last semester, the trivia games at the end and playing with the guests.

MO: So just try to keep it lively, keep the guests entertained and make sure that the listeners are entertained at well.

CH: Cause you can’t just talk for an hour, that’s weird.

MO: No.

CH: Or our guests ramble and we’re like “what?”

CS: Yeah so where are you planning on taking the show in the future, or are you just kind of on a roll.

CH: I wish our show could get more recognition. I really don’t listen to the other shows but I think we’re doing a really good job and I don’t think we get enough credit. And that might sound a little bit biased, but I don’t think we get enough credit, we do a lot.

MO: Yeah I think we do a good job in terms of shows and all the other news shows do tremendous jobs as well. But the news section in general could get a lot more recognition. I think that a lot of the time they don’t know how much effort goes into talking for an hour. I mean, you should know, you’re a sports guy so you know how talking for an hour is really difficult and so yeah I guess in terms of recognition it’s something we can always strive for. But the show’s direction for next year, I think we need to keep going on what we’ve been doing. Each show is a learning experience, you learn from your mistakes and you build off them. And it’s just continue off of what we’ve already done and make it better than what it is now.

CS: Alright well thanks, this has been a great interview.

Both: Thank you.

—

So there you have it, my first ever interview with one of KCR’s great news programs. Be sure to tune in to Aztec Beat every Friday from 1 to 2 pm, that’s 1 to 2. Only on KCR College Radio, the Sound of State.