Chad Bowar: For those who have not had the pleasure of listening to the Tour Bus, give a brief overview of what your show is all about.
If you grew up in the '80s, The Tour Bus is a radio show geared to the music you grew up with. We call it party rock, as opposed to the complaint rock of today. Hair bands alone do not make up our radio show. Sure, you get your Ratt and Warrant, but you also get your Ozzy and Van Halen. Throw in Pantera, Motorhead and Metallica and Dream Theater, Queensryche and Yngwie to spice it up. It’s '80s party rock plain and simple. Plus we seek out the new rock that fits the vibe of the show. We were the first to play The Darkness, HIM and Silvertide. We have great in studio performances and fun interviews. We do fun contests and do our best to keep it interesting with features, interviews with people other than rock stars; like authors, celebs who dig '80s rock, and Penthouse Pets.
How did the whole thing get started?
It’s been 7 years now. I wasn’t even in radio at the time. Through a really interesting fluke, my original co-host Matt started working part time at the strip club I worked at and we became friends. He got me an interview at the station in exchange for me letting him copy my music. I met with the program director who told me to come in on a Monday night to train with the night guy. I showed up at 10pm. At midnight the overnight guy never showed, and the guy decided to leave me behind the board with only 2 hours of training. When 6am came and the station was still on the air they gave me a job. A month later I pitched the idea of the show, and they said as long as I did it with Matt they’d let us try it out. In less than a year we were syndicated.
For people who can't get the show in their area, can they listen to it online?
Thanks to stickman-radio.com you can listen online every Thursday at 2pm eastern time. We also archive all our old interviews on the website. Also beginning this month we will have a lot of our interviews available for podcast.
You were on Queer Eye a couple years back. Do you still get feedback or comments from people that saw you on that show?
I have to give Stacey X all the props for this one. She saw the first QE show, came into the studio and said "Dude! We have to get you on this show." It far exceeded any expectations I had. I figured at best a few more people would know about the show, maybe we’d pick up a new station or two, and I’d get some new furniture. They redid my whole apartment, got me tons of new clothes, and we signed about 7 stations the week after it aired. Then for the next year or so it was all any of the rock stars that came into the studio wanted to talk about. It really made me laugh. Sitting backstage with Queensryche or talking with David Coverdale and instead of me asking them anything they’d be dying to know what the experience was like. Also I became friendly with the guys, and Carson co-hosted the show once with us which was wild, because it was at the height of their popularity. He literally was on Oprah, Leno, and the Tour Bus in the same week.
Tell us about your new column in Metal Edge.
It’s a magazine that has maintained their status as the number one metal/hard rock magazine for 20 years, and we are thrilled to be a part of it. It’s a monthly 2 page column where we either highlight an interview that we did, a live broadcast, or whatever is on our minds. To be 100% honest it’s all Stacey! She’s a great writer, and has been doing a fantastic job. The response has been fantastic.
