Space Coast Podcast Network
Enjoy a medley of shows from different hosts in the Space Coast Podcast Network. Huge thanks to all of our partners: PlacePROS, INI Productions, LLC, Brevard Local and Apocalypse Coffee Roasters for all your support.
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Space Coast Podcast Network
The Heartbeat of Local Music with Steve Keller
As the radio waves marry the beats of our hearts, Steve Keller's voice resonates with the experiences of a lifetime in music and broadcasting. In the cozy corners of college radio where he began, Steve rose through the ranks to become an influential figure at SUNY's first station, intertwining his love for music with a skill for managing talent. From rubbing shoulders with legends like James Brown to the digital transformation of radio, Steve's tale is not just a nostalgic trip down memory lane—it's a symphony of adaptations and innovations that keep his passion for a global audience alive through Keller Radio and his beloved band, Best Supporting Actor.
The tune takes a somber yet inspiring turn as Steve opens up about his dance with mortality, sharing a narrative that could've ended mid-note during a Best Supporting Actor performance. The aftermath of his heart attack, the installation of a pacemaker, and a continued battle with heart health have reframed Steve's existence, leading to a rhythm that's both cautious and celebratory. His resilience reverberates in every word, echoing his dedication to local music as a contributor to Brevard Live magazine and as a fervent advocate for bands that color our community with their melodies.
Finally, we crescendo to the meticulous orchestration of the Eau Gallie Arts District (EGAD) music festival revival. With Steve at the helm, we're given a backstage pass to the challenges and triumphs involved in resurrecting this cultural cornerstone. Weaving tales of logistical feats and the electric atmosphere of a festival reborn, Steve celebrates the undeniable impact these gatherings have on the local arts scene. His experiences with WFIT and mentorship of emerging talents underscore the episode's theme of passion and perseverance, a harmonious duet that defines not just a festival or a radio career, but a life well-lived in music.
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This podcast is brought to you by Place Pros, commercial and Investment, real Estate and NECOTOURBoutique your one stop shop for everything cool. All right, we're here with Steve Keller from WFIT Keller Radio. Sure yeah, do you have a radio voice that you put on, and if so, let's get a little sample of that.
Speaker 2:It's funny because I do a lot of promotion for it. Yeah. So I do these little Facebook videos and I can tell it's coming back. I did radio 30 years ago in college. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And then when I graduated it was pretty much okay. Well, that's done. So I had an opportunity last November to start up again, and I'd like to think I don't. But there's freezing, you know involved yeah pacing. The tagline? Exactly? The tagline is Indy Rock, deep Cuts and plenty of Space Coast original music. So when I do my little promos in the confines of a minute I find myself kind of jazzing it up. So to answer your question, yeah, I guess I do have somewhat of a radio voice.
Speaker 1:I like that. I think everybody has like a little bit of them. Who you know, who just is fascinated by radio hosts and it's been fun, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean I was again. I was in my 20s back then and now I'm in my 50s.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of you still have a youthful look about you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Still dressed like I'm 20. Yeah, well you got to but yeah, I mean, it's one of those things that I enjoy with the radio and just a bunch of whatever else I do. I try to bring some coolness to an audience.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. You studied production at State University of New York. Is that where you had your radio show?
Speaker 2:It is actually. Yeah, it's still there. It's the oldest radio station in the SUNY system outside of Buffalo and you don't know what you had until you go elsewhere. And at 19, I was a program director, I became a general manager and was in charge of 350 people. So I mean that gave me a lot of responsibility, a lot of At 19. Yeah, public speaking experience, confidence.
Speaker 1:Cool. What else happened during your college years?
Speaker 2:Did a lot of interviews which we're bringing back on the color radio show as well.
Speaker 1:And notable.
Speaker 2:James Brown comes to mind. That was really cool. I got to do press for festivals. We had Lollapalooza access and stuff like that. So again, being a young kid and just given opportunities to succeed or to fail, became friends with the Goo Goo Dolls. So that was one of the cool things that came to our school and played a couple of times.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. Did you realize you had a really cool gig back then, or was it kind of just normal?
Speaker 2:I knew that it would end, so I just enjoyed it that much more. I was a radio major and pretty much by sophomore year realized that I wasn't going to pursue it. Why. Communications and even radio today is all about your voice. It's really not anything about your creativity, your reading script.
Speaker 1:So did you crave the creativity and knew you were going to do that?
Speaker 2:I knew I had the opportunity there to do so, which I wouldn't necessarily have in pro radio. So because of that revelation early, I had a ball, I had a blast.
Speaker 1:Cool, what were your classes? Like Production classes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, production back then was reel to reel tape and cutting and splicing. So now that I'm back in radio now, 30 years later, it's all digital.
Speaker 1:Do you find it easier?
Speaker 2:I'm scared to death of it. I'm still not, because I work a day job, so I don't get to be around it as much as I did in college.
Speaker 1:So there's like a learning curve for you.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely yeah, the radio station now is literally a mouse and some screens and then uploading songs, as opposed to queuing up records and stuff like that there's nothing tangible anymore.
Speaker 1:There's just no clicks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but by the same token, we're able to do it online all over the world. My mom lives in Buffalo, my dad lives in Dallas, my sister-in-law lives in the country of Chile, so when it's live, it's all around the world, so that's definitely a cool trade off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what did you end up graduating with?
Speaker 2:I graduated with the bachelor's in radio communication, minor in journalism. Ok. And promptly didn't use it for all these years. I mean, to a certain extent I've always done music, journalism. I started writing for Brevard Live magazine when I got here.
Speaker 1:Yes, and what brought you here?
Speaker 2:My ex-wife. Her dad was stationed at Patrick. So, that's the short cut to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ok, so because you came in 2002. All right, and then you formed your band. Best Supporting Actor. I did. I listened to your Dex music video. Yeah. I loved it Thank you. Thank you. I didn't know what to expect, right, but it was so fun. Who did the animation for that?
Speaker 2:Mr E, who's been my collaborator and a great artist on his own right. Yeah, when he commits to a project, he just does it. And one day he was like I want to make a music video for you guys. And a week later, there it was.
Speaker 1:A week. Yeah, I mean you guys need to watch it.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:It's a great sound, and then, on top of having that animation, it's super fun. How many songs do you guys have under your belt?
Speaker 2:We've been a band this July or this, yeah, just this July it'll be 17 years.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So we probably have maybe 35, 40 songs. We've always been an original band. We don't do any covers Great, so that was very important to us.
Speaker 1:Do you guys record? Do you have albums?
Speaker 2:We have an EP that we did many, many years ago. We did a split album with another band called the Trash City Rockers.
Speaker 1:What's the difference between an EP and an album?
Speaker 2:So back in the old days, a long player, an LP, would be usually around 10 to 12 songs. An EP, which they call it extended play, for some reason, that's usually around five to six songs. Ok, got it. But even in this day and age, it's easier for bands just to record and release a single. It really is no albums anymore.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Very rarely and we you know as much as I'm involved in the scene and try to promote everybody else's stuff best, supporting actor myself specifically. We really haven't jumped on that. Why not? Um, we're busy with other things, you know that's usually been. The success of the band is that and I say this with love we don't hang out. We all have our own lives, we all have our own projects, we all have our own day jobs, which I'm sure ideally would be.
Speaker 1:You know how often do you guys come together and perform.
Speaker 2:Probably five or six times a year. Okay, I don't know when this airs but we're playing on March 9th. Best supporting actor is the name of the band we do these multi-band, multi-genre shows called Best Fest. So we have different bands that don't sound like us on the bill with us to kind of draw a bigger audience. And pretty early on, instead of, you know, making a couple of bucks per band, we just pick a charity and we donate the money that we raise to the charity. So this time around it's the Women's Center.
Speaker 1:Oh nice. What other charities have you guys? Do you guys just pick a new one every time, or do you have a?
Speaker 2:There's some that we, you know, there's Two Right Love on our arms, which I'm very passionate about Good friends with Jamie and the crew over there. What else have we done? It varies. It's topical as well. I mean, we're playing in March, which is Women's History Month, so Do you have a next date planned after that? No, okay.
Speaker 1:Who are your band members?
Speaker 2:So Katie Moist is our. Well, here's an exclusive for you, I guess. So when I started the band with Wade Vargo 17 years ago, we had a lot of different bass players. Okay, we joined on bass and backup vocals years ago and then, with the pandemic, it kind of took a hiatus or Katie left the band for a while, but it's always been me and Wade, with me singing and me playing drums. So health issues and so forth, and Katie's a drummer by trade. So this show on the ninth will be our first show where Katie will be playing drums and I'll just be the front man. Cool and David Lee Roth, for those people that remember that guy.
Speaker 1:How would you describe your music? Because to me it was like it was very nostalgic of the music that I listened to when I was growing up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hear that we're not punk rock. Right. Rock, punk. Yeah, it's kind of how I describe it because, we're fast. Yeah, that song is pretty funny because a lot of our most of our songs and the lyrics are very personal to me it sounds like it. It's about Dexter, the TV show. Okay.
Speaker 2:So it's. It's. You know it's a great show and it's a favorite of mine, but it's not a personal story, I'm not a serial killer, because, yeah, it talks about pain, right. Yeah, I mean it talks about. It's about Dex, it's about Dexter killing people with no conscience. Yeah, you know so. And then the video is actually some kind of video game. Sorry, mike, I don't know what video game it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a favorite of like a video game and for some reason it reminded me of He-Man a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is just another interpretation, which is cool Because, again, we, if left to our own devices, we we would have not done a music video. So it's cool that there was one person's interpretation that's kind of representing the representing the song.
Speaker 1:So you guys didn't have any creative input, you just let him do his thing. That's really cool. Have you done any other music videos?
Speaker 2:He's done a video for us Again. It's it's video game centric and it's for the song Stupid White People.
Speaker 1:What other songs? Should we listen?
Speaker 2:to Like tell us some, because yeah, well, again, I mean, we, yeah, we've done more recording, though Think about it. There's a song and I always blank on the song titles. Oh, okay. But just come see us. You know Again, we're an all original band. We don't fall into those bands that do a lot of covers and have one original. Right and say that they're an original band. We've just we decided a long time ago that this is what we do and as a singer, I wouldn't even try to to cover songs. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, my theory is, if it's an original song that no one can tell me, I'm singing it wrong.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean I need to dive more deeply into that, but I really enjoyed deck. So I think that I'll. I'll enjoy them all, and we can find those on YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you know, did you start with?
Speaker 2:the channel or Came up with the channel. I started a podcast actually with Mr E as well. Oh yeah, called Serial Keller. Okay. And that was really to promote the Space Coast Music Festival a couple years ago. We did about five episodes a season with different musicians. Again, it really it resides on YouTube and probably could have been a lot bigger if I didn't have so many projects going on.
Speaker 1:So what do you do during the day? I work Sure.
Speaker 2:I work at a local fence and gate company. Oh, okay. Doing accounting.
Speaker 1:Okay Cool. So yeah, that's totally unrelated to the music scene. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've never wanted to be a starving artist, right, I never wanted to be that kid that that was working at a convenience store because his band was going to break at any minute. I've always had some, some you know, solid jobs to pay the bills so that we could you know, we could do this, you know, on the nights and weekends.
Speaker 1:And I could tell you're so passionate about it and I kind of I feel like I don't know enough about the Melbourne music scene to I don't know, so like you're going to have to educate me as we go, but before we get there, you told me you had a heart attack at 2010. I did how did that come about and how are you doing now?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well. Okay, so you had one in 2010, actually right after a gig.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as the story goes and for those people that know me, they hear this story all the time we were playing in Cocoa Village there were three bands in the early show and three bands in the late show. We were the first band of the late show, so we were set to play for an hour but they were running behind schedule so they cut our set to 30 minutes but they didn't tell us so legit. Right after a song they're like all right, everybody give it up for Best Sporting Actor. Yay, and I don't get angry often, but I was really more confused.
Speaker 2:So, we got all of our stuff off the stage. You know was kind of like what's going on and in the whole chaos of that it felt like I got hit by a sledgehammer in the back In the back. Yeah, like you need to crack your back but you can't and I just chalked it up Again. We just got done playing. I chalked it up to maybe I didn't stretch enough before we were going to play and then my left arm went numb.
Speaker 1:That's the clue.
Speaker 2:Not. At that point, I think my brain really took over and said, okay, something's going on, but you just pulled a muscle. That was my thinking.
Speaker 2:Right? Obviously it wasn't. My girlfriend at the time had baby aspirin in her purse. Her son has heart issues, so I took baby aspirin and it just got progressively worse. We went outside, we were in the house in November and I started sweating profusely and the light started swaying, so we got an ambulance. Got an ambulance, luckily, wustof in Rockledge was literally two miles down the road and, yeah, I had a blood clot in my main artery what they refer to as a widowmaker and I'm here to talk about it, but I had to have a pacemaker installed in 2011, because part of my heart muscle died that night.
Speaker 1:Wow, did you get a new artery? I know sometimes they put like pig valves in.
Speaker 2:No, I have a stent from that and a pacemaker. I actually had a second heart attack in 2021 and had two more stents put in. So, yeah, I mean the decision to just sing in Best Supporting Actor in addition to Katie's talent. Obviously, Katie's a great drummer, but it was also okay you stepped back a little bit, maybe at age 50, I don't go from zero to 90 in four seconds, like we used to.
Speaker 1:That's an incredible story of recovery. How else has it impacted you, besides not being able to go full force with music?
Speaker 2:It's weird because when I got the pacemaker put in and I think some of it was denial you feel kind of invincible because they basically tell you okay, if anything happens, this thing is going to help, it's your safety net. That's not the case, and nor should it be In 2021. When I had the heart attack, it never did anything.
Speaker 1:What is it supposed to do?
Speaker 2:It's supposed to. If you're going too low, it's supposed to shock you.
Speaker 1:Like on those medical dramas where it was quenched You're supposed to.
Speaker 2:It's never gone off for me, so I'm happy about that. So if it's too low, it'll spark you. If it's too high, and that's come close playing, it'll shock you back down to a healthy rhythm. Yeah, knock on wood, I have never had to use it, but again I'm getting up there in age and healthier habits would be best.
Speaker 1:Probably Are you exercising. Are you eating better than you were?
Speaker 2:I do, I can't say I do. Currently I'm kind of above and I did in January do right. Love on our arms, had a 24 mile challenge. Oh, wow. So I walked a total of 24. I say 24. It's not altogether or not all at once, but over the course of January I walked 24 miles. Wonderful. You know, I've had my moments that need to be more moments as I get over there.
Speaker 1:It's difficult, though, to write that into your habits.
Speaker 2:Well, in 2021, we were all home. I was working at home. Yeah. I didn't know where my house ended and my job began, and vice versa, so it was a very bad time in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry to hear that, but I hope you keep going. Thank you, yeah, we need you. So you joined Brevard Live in May. We have an issue here Tell me about your writing experience for that.
Speaker 2:Well, I wrote on and off in high school, was always reading magazines. Yeah.
Speaker 2:My friends in high school would call me the Barbara Walters of Rock because I would always have these weird little factoids about bands and such. It actually goes back to Mr E as well. We had started to do a fanzine called Underground Juice and we got one episode out before I had my heart attack in 2010. So it was a very big project, took a lot of time, a lot of money. I was out medically, so he suggested including it or at least pitching it to Heike Clark, who's the owner and editor of Brevard Live magazine, that basically, in a very short time frame, turned into me writing for Brevard Live. It was something I still do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you get to meet a lot of bands and talk to them, or are you just fishing out information?
Speaker 2:It's both. It's both. You know it depends. The magazine's been around for almost 35 years now. It's definitely a mirror of what is going on in the scene who's coming to the King Center, who's coming to the fair, so there's a lot of well-known artists. Heike has been great over the years to allow me to give press to the local scene, so I do do the bigger interviews when needed or when asked. But my focus has always been the bands, the artists, the kids that are in a garage band that their parents say that it's never going to go anywhere. This is something tangible where they can cut it out and put it on the refrigerator.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Who are your favorite big name bands? Let's start there.
Speaker 2:Wow, I was just listening to them in the car. There's a band from Canada called the Tragically Hip. Unfortunately, the singer died in 2017. But I was able to see them a bunch of times and just no show is exactly the same. The singer was always going into stories mid-song and just being kind of out there, so that's a huge influence. The Goo Goo Dolls, as I mentioned.
Speaker 1:Are you still friends with them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, not, as they're all over the world. They're in Australia right now, so don't get to see them or talk to them in many years. But it was a cool feeling to know basically that you can hang, and the people that live here as well. Actually, I'll share this story. Pat Bots is the drummer for the band Three Dog Night and he lives here. I've been in L'Oreal moving back and pretty early on in the Brevard live career I got to talk to him and he gave me one of the nicest compliments I've ever gotten, because he sent me an email with some information we need and he basically said you get it. So I try to pass that along with whoever I'm talking to, whether it's he's been in the band for 30 years until his retirement recently, or if it's a brand new band starting out, you're the peers, you're the colleagues. It's not necessarily rock star garage band and I think if you have that mentality from the get go or if you're given that respect from the get go, it'll help you out throughout, however long bands do this.
Speaker 1:So you get it. When you're conducting an interview, what is it that you're trying to fish out?
Speaker 2:I've often thought of myself as a storyteller. You've got an album coming out, you've got the video for a song, you're playing this show next, just tell me, and then I'll relay that to the audience, whether it's in print, whether it's on radio, without having to be starstruck, without having to be flashy about it. You peel the layers back and we're all just trying to get our creativity out.
Speaker 1:So it's not necessarily about digging for exclusive information, it's just like putting out the information. That is just solid. They're going to be here at this time. Their album comes out at this moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's conversational, by all means. I did a column in Brevard Live for years called Local Lowdown, which was more of that. Hey, we're going to talk about 15 bands in this column so we can't give a lot of press, a lot of space to them. But what's the who, what, where and why? The interviews that we're able to do on the radio now are a little bit more of a deep dive. But I'm not going to necessarily ask their thoughts on God, necessarily. It's what their focus is, of what they want to bring out there.
Speaker 1:Do you have any interest to ask the deeper questions?
Speaker 2:Not in that medium. No, not really. I mean unless they bring it up, obviously with interviews. If there's a direction that they want to go in, we can explore that. But more importantly it's who's our audience? And in radio especially, I have a three-hour slot which initially I was like man, what am I going to do for three hours? But now, with everything that we do and we're incorporating the interviews more and more, the live performances in the studio, those three hours go by real quick.
Speaker 2:So, you don't necessarily want to engage in something really deep, only to go oh, I'm sorry, we're out of time. Right. Maybe that's another avenue somewhere else. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's what I'm drawn to getting down to the undersurface, the underbelly, Definitely. Who are some of your favorite local bands, or bands that you see something in them that we all should recognize?
Speaker 2:There's been and there are bands now that I think are on the verge of doing something big. We talk about the speed spirits Paging. Mr Herman is still going strong and they're reinventing themselves all the time. Kristen Warren never ceases to amaze me. Shar Good is doing great things. Sorry for those bands that I can't think of or mention to you, because they're almost like my kids. It's almost like here's another thing that I was dubbed the godfather many years ago and that's kind of ominous, right, but at the same time I think there's a lot of truth to it that again, when we do shows, when we're setting up the music festival, everyone's equal. Let's get the audience a bunch of different sounds and looks because they don't know what they're going to get. So let's just kind of mix it up and see what's out there. And again the opportunities arise for these bands to play in Brevard, to play in Orlando, to play elsewhere. Right, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a great band. Let me give the shout-outs, and I don't think they get the due that they deserve because they're not here all the time. That's a band.
Speaker 1:It's a band. Yeah, ok, it's called.
Speaker 2:Jillian Jillian Carter.
Speaker 1:OK, what kind of music do they do?
Speaker 2:They are heavy. I don't know what the kids call it these days, but something core, I'm sure metal core let's say but again, they're always on the road, they're always traveling. They went over to France last year. Wow.
Speaker 2:And again they're creating opportunities. So I think that's the big thing too, if I can instill wisdom is you don't just sit in your garage waiting for opportunities to come or for the phone to ring. We've created opportunities here in Brevard for exposure, which I think is great, but if you're truly serious about it, you know we live in an age where you can book a tour on Facebook. Yeah. You can talk to people all over the country, all over the world, and crash on their couch. We didn't have that back in my day.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:You had to kind of just drive to the town and see who was there first.
Speaker 1:I was doing it. Yeah, Did you? Or did you not recently have an interview with Swim?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because they kind of came to mind when you're speaking about that.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:They're from here but have somehow, or you know, they've carved their own way. They're predominantly in California now.
Speaker 2:Correct. And it's funny because, yeah, I mean I've known those guys for many years and finally heard the story from Adam, or from Chris rather that they were doing a tour and it kind of ended in California and they were given an opportunity at the end of the tour to either come back home or kind of put up roots there, and they chose the latter. So, yeah, I mean they're a great example of an evolution. What they sounded like when they played shows in Brevard versus what they sound like now is quite different, but it's organic as much as that word is overused for everything.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great example of you know, what are we going to write today and are we going to worry about how that compares to what we've done previously? Yes, you know, and they found success.
Speaker 1:They definitely have. Yeah, Okay, so you have been in charge to some degree for this Space Coast Music Festival. You said that there was a failed attempt in 2016. Can you talk about that? Sure.
Speaker 2:So the Music Festival people might not know this actually ran from 2010 to 2015. It was a multi-day, multi-band festival throughout the county from Sue Lulie, who moved away in 2015 or 2016. I had just happened to give her a call to find out what was going on that year. She had told me that she had basically gifted it, or given her blessing, to the city of Cocoa Beach and that they were going to try to do something. Okay, I mean I should speak to them.
Speaker 2:So all I did and this has happened a couple of times in my career all I did is basically call and say, hi, I want to know more information. And they basically had me come on and plan it, which I was not ready for. But again, opportunities arise. So I worked with the city once a week for about eight months to put something together. They secured funding. We were on the verge of announcing it. Things didn't go as planned and the funding was pulled, so the event was canceled. But that again gave me an opportunity to work with municipalities, with work with okay, we don't have a stage. It was going to be a loading dock of a business to be our main stage.
Speaker 2:So you know, but I made some connections that I still have now in LA and so forth because of it. And again, it gave me the opportunity what two years later in 2018, sitting at my kitchen table to go well, maybe we could do this. Maybe we could do this here instead of here.
Speaker 1:So after it failed, did they give you like this is yours now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it was up to you to revive it.
Speaker 2:We went exactly. Yeah, the actual revival took place in 2019. There were some conversations that were done kind of after the fact. We're going to do this. Is that okay? Yeah, as opposed to asking for permission.
Speaker 1:So when you say funding was pulled and this is a thing that goes on for days, how many days Is it like a long weekend?
Speaker 2:The festival was going to be just one day.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a one day thing, but the venues are Scattered about the county. Is that right?
Speaker 2:in in Suze Festivals, they, they were it was well. It was actually in one location, but that location changed In those five years. It was never in the same spot. Okay twice, hers were two days. Okay the revival, both in 2016 as well as what we eventually succeeded with in 2019, would be a one-day event.
Speaker 1:Okay, and where was that?
Speaker 2:In 2019. Yeah, it would be in Galley Arts District in EGAD. Okay, and that was a huge and that is a huge. Part of our success Was that they were able to incorporate the festival into an event that they had monthly called flea gad. So it was like the, the Reese's peanut butter cup of. You know. We wanted to do a bunch of bands. They welcomed us with open arms and we've had it there for Three times now three times now at that park with the little stage.
Speaker 2:Well, in the in the band show is our main stage. To answer your question from earlier, we had seven stages in EGAD the one in Cocoa Beach, I think it was going to be, maybe two.
Speaker 1:Okay, but Cocoa Beach was like we're not doing this anymore Now unfortunately that that fell apart before we could move forward with Okay, and then you were like let's, let's hook up with EGAD.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean to give credit where credit's due. Steve Spencer was, the was is my partner for getting it done. So we were able to go ahead and From my kitchen table and say you know, we both wanted Original bands. Yeah, the one that suited was a combination of original bands, cover bands, out of town bands when we relaunched it in 2019. It was all it 68 local original bands 68 in one day in one day Wow holy cow in 2022. We had a Friday night Pre-party and Saturday was the festival. We had 103 bands.
Speaker 1:What are some of the hurdles? Like it's to me, which I mean, doesn't say much because I'm not, I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to putting a festival together. What are some of the hurdles? Because you know, you have the context, you know all the bands locally. It's just about getting them to come and perform. It seems so easy, right, and if, especially if O'galley is cool, yeah, we have a free market here. You know, use the space.
Speaker 2:The hurdles would be the space, you know, even in a perfect situation. When we did it in 2019, I was out standing on O'galley Boulevard at 5 am in the dark. Yeah, and.
Speaker 2:Basically thought to myself this could be the coolest thing ever, or this could be the worst, worst event, and I'll never work again in this town. And Then, seven hours later, eight hours later, there was four thousand people there. So, however it came to be, and I get asked all the time what's your secret? I have no idea. I wish I could tell you. You know, positivity perhaps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. Well, what can go wrong?
Speaker 2:Um traffic, traffic, parking. I would say parking is has always been an issue, but as a promoter, at that stage in the game, you Can't, you know you can't concern yourself with that.
Speaker 1:That reminds me of the fire documentary. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, where they they promoted this, oh, firefest?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, we're not. I'm not saying that at all. Jarl rule is not included with with ours, but no, I mean that that is intentional Fraud yeah, right for us it was hopefully a couple people will come and there was 4,500 people that came the first year.
Speaker 1:So you didn't think it would draw an audience.
Speaker 2:I didn't think that People would stay all day right, I could see it being crowded at some times and nothing from our, our my bands Experience local music draws 50 people okay, you know we're gonna promote best fast, like it's the Super Bowl. Everyone's gonna tell you that they're coming and then 20 people show up.
Speaker 2:Okay because the car died or their, their cat got sick, so that that day that first music festival in 2019. I was pumped yeah, everyone was gonna come. And then they did. So that wasn't, that wasn't part of my, my mindset again, I was standing in O'galley With people literally like people, walking all around me and just me going why, why are they here? Because you put it together, yeah well, and it's it's definitely a group effort. The bands I Co-operate yeah right.
Speaker 2:The vendors love it because it's basically ero. It initially was an extended flea god, the people have somewhere to go, you know. So I mean, it was a win-win for everybody and it still is, but it's it's grown exponentially. On 2022, we had about 6,000 people. Wow so at that point, from a from a promoting standpoint, you have to go okay, we really need to work on this parking issue. We need to work on this, we need to work on that.
Speaker 1:Did you do it in 2023?
Speaker 2:We did not. Actually Scheduling was an issue. There is proposed construction in EGAD that's still pending. So those were scenarios that, again with 6,000 plus people, it would be Irresponsible from a promoting standpoint to not make sure that those issues are at least addressed. Yeah, or or resolved. Resolve would be perfect, but I don't see that happening so For 2024, you know, do we not expect it to happen?
Speaker 2:We do, we're moving forward, but again, we're addressing those concerns Earlier in the year. Okay, the issues from last year in 2023 were more towards the end of the year when, again, the the time frame and and discussions that were had Just weren't going to be logistically possible with that many people again firefest as hey, let's, let's throw and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:We were passed that by 2020, which we wanted to do, but we couldn't because of COVID right, that gave us some more insight of saying, okay, let's, let's make sure that we but now it's like the success of it is what's hindering it, because you're gonna expect this many people and now you have more logistics to more hoops to jump, or Is it the matter of just waiting for this construction to happen or not happen? I mean, they're putting on these Flea ads, or yeah things anyway.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's I mean. I'm glad you brought that up, because the events that are taking place are smaller in scope. So again we could go forward and say, hey, we'll just see what happens. Or we can say, okay, do we have something that's structurally sound? Do we have something that has, you know, the staying power for this year and years in it, in the future? Yeah there's also I'm the worry-wart of the group there's also hasn't been any incidents, so I don't want to us to rush into something or to forego what could happen.
Speaker 2:Incidents, and then have it happen medical incidents, traffic incidents, I mean when at the at the height of it, we have police to To direct traffic if necessary. But we're going over O'galley Boulevard right onto the causeway, so there's cars racing throughout the day and, yes, the police are there to kind of Monitor that okay, but there's thousands of people that are still around and again, we haven't had any incidents. And I don't want, I'm not saying that we want to, but you know.
Speaker 1:That is definitely a scenario.
Speaker 2:So if there's construction going on or you know Prepping for that, those are gonna all fall into place.
Speaker 1:With concerns like other venues. Have you? Have you thought of that?
Speaker 2:We have. We've talked about that again. I think part of our success has been e-gad. Yeah, I've always said that you know, the time that will be out of e-gad is when we can't physically be an e-gad. Well, that might be a possibility.
Speaker 1:They just had they do the wine and Food festival every year at downtown Melbourne. Is that ever an option for you? It seems like they have a lot of land there. Same kind of issues with the causeway and the parking being so closed. For downtown, you're saying yeah.
Speaker 2:Downtown, to me, won't work for many reasons, the the biggest one being we have so many stages. Okay, right, even in the beginning in 2016. I'll share this with you. Part of my Planning would be busking right if busking is when there's just a person with a guitar, no stage, no amps, know anything. So my original vision in Cocoa Beach was that, yes, there'll be a stage for this band to play on, but, as you're walking around the area, there'll be this person on the street corner and this person, you know, with a violin in a coffee shop, so that music is all around you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:What we've created with EGAD, by Hooker, by Crook, is that you know, we had seven stages. It was almost like a warp tour where there are just, you know, makeshift stages that bands could play on. So it would have to be kind of a combination of that. It would have to be, you know, scaled down to a certain extent for it to work anywhere else. Okay, downtown, again, the parking you can't park on a Tuesday, let alone on a music festival. So for me, that's my biggest hang-up is again, logistically make it feasible. And I think we work with the city and such and they want that as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, and Coco is completely out of the question. I mean, you brought up the warp tour that worked back then.
Speaker 2:Well, they would do it in parking lots of stadiums, right? So when we say a makeshift stage, it's because there's just a bunch of space over there.
Speaker 1:There was nothing there.
Speaker 2:And now it's a stage for the day. What we're talking about in these places are, you know, city blocks and traffic and customers to their business as well. So we never really wanted to impede on that. So yeah, I mean never say never. We've had discussions. I think I'm allowed to say that People have said well, what about this? And I think anything's on the table, but again, I have to look at it. We have to look at it. Is it going to be sustainable? Is it going to be safe?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I wish you luck on that, because it's a big event from what I hear. And then now you're doing WFIT, you have Keller Radio How's that going.
Speaker 2:It's been a blast. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I've known WFIT folks for a while. It had been discussed about doing a show but the scheduling just never worked out. And then all of a sudden it did and a phone call turned into two weeks of training, which was me sitting there with a mouse trying to figure out how to do this. Yeah, and you know, right before the week before Thanksgiving was my first show and it's pretty cool. You know, there are so many great bands and there are so many friends that I have. We try to kind of space it out now, yeah, so that we're not, all you know, doing all of it in the first three months or so.
Speaker 1:Right, and is it just you there? Do you have a crew of technicians and whatnot?
Speaker 2:It's not a crew. Shout out to Brooke, who, literally this is how things happen. Right, she has a day job herself and she wanted to learn more about radio. She sent a message, I answered it and now she's been on the show the last four weeks five weeks, I think, you know, not an intern, necessarily, but just an apprentice maybe. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and wants to learn. And you know she helps out with the playlist, she helps out with the guests, because the guests have become, you know, an every week thing. Yeah, so yeah, I mean it's, how did you do this? Well, they asked. Yep. You know, and, more importantly, the opportunity was given and she stepped up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how it happens.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Ideally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you feel about radio in general? I mean, to us who, like, grew up in it, it's so, it's warming in a way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's exactly. It's the same as it ever was, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Is it? It's not dying or anything?
Speaker 2:No, I think it's harder to seek out. You know, even when I do these interviews with we had a speech from Arrested Development. I just interviewed Nuno Bentoncourt from Extreme, which was a big deal for me. So now their handlers, the publicity people, go what podcast is this for? So it's kind of flipped right. It's no longer the podcast of you know which radio station is this for. It's kind of flipped to the other side. But WFIT is 49 years old. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, people have grown up in this town listening to it. I listen to it all the time and it's not just because I'm on there now. So, like I said, it's a little bit harder to find perhaps, but it's still genuine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally National Public Radio. Do you guys do video?
Speaker 2:We have the ability to do it Paging. Mr Herman came into the studio and they brought their own 360 camera. Wow. So I mean props to WFIT management for giving me the opportunity to do stuff like this. They haven't told me no yet. Yeah. Hopefully they won't, but yeah, I mean it's again. It's just another opportunity to do some cool stuff with local bands and to blast it out into the planet.
Speaker 1:For people to look at. We're so happy to have you here and you be the godfather of the local scene. Do you have any nominations that you can think of that you would want to see here on local celebrity?
Speaker 2:You know, one of my favorite people and I apologize if he's already been a guest, I don't think he has is Pete Spoth. Okay, Pete is the guy that does it and does it with a smile and is out there writing, you know, musicals with Hot Pink and DJing and playing birthday parties and just hustling and as a musician in his own right. So I think he'd be a great guest.
Speaker 1:Cool. Well, we'll reach out to him. One more thing you are the VP at Harbor City Local. It's a nonprofit that supports original music.
Speaker 2:Correct, that's the main sponsor of the music festival. So Spencer, steve Spencer and I, when we got together he was in the process of putting the charity together. Okay, the money people may not know this the money that we raise then from the music festival goes to Harbor City Local, which then buys musical instruments that are donated to local schools.
Speaker 1:Oh, is that right, like the violins that people get to play when they're in the sixth grade? Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if there's a family out there that needs financial assistance or qualifies you know for themselves personally, or that we deliver to the school. That was Sue's main mission as well. Sue raised over $100,000, those five years for instruments that are donated to the school and then they sign them out basically for the semester. Right yeah. We've tried to keep that tradition alive. We do scholarships for private lessons. Oh, really so if a kid's not able to join the band or orchestra that's super cool. Then we help out with that.
Speaker 1:Awesome, wow, any parting words.
Speaker 2:Just thanks for having not only me, but thanks for the interest in the scene. Absolutely. We've talked about music a lot, but there's a lot of creative content. People out there, artists, people who paint murals I mean I've always looked at it. Dancers, I've always looked at it. As you know, we're all together in this. The music is one aspect of it, but I'd love to see you know that interest across the board.
Speaker 1:Just the arts in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'm with you on that one, steve, thank you so much for being here and educating us and talking to us about music and more yeah that's right, I look forward to hearing from you in the future. Sounds good, Awesome. Thank you To be a sponsor or nominate a guest. Hit us up on Instagram at local underscore celebrity underscore bravard. Until next time, goodbye.
