Cat Richert: So tell me how the program got started.

Andrew Leland: Joshua Rosen (OC ’01) in 1999-2000 year had this great idea of i’m on the stereo. It’s named after the Pavement song “stereo” in which there’s a lyric [Leland wows me with his singing capabilities] “Listen to meee/I’m on the stereo/ I’m on the stereo-o.” So you know: it’s like kids, enthusiastic that they are on the stereo.

Chelsea Martinez: And that they have malaria.

AL: Oh yeah, yeah. Right now [Rosen] is still in Oberlin working as a tutor, a substitute teacher and assistant teacher. With the middle school?

CM: I’m not sure…yeah.

AL: Some local public school. His major interest is kids and community outreach and that sort of thing, so he started [i’m on the stereo] with that in mind, it being a way for kids who otherwise would not know what to do after school…getting them off the streets.

CM: Out of the living room.

AL: Right out of the living room. Sometimes they would just DJ shows…we do less game shows than he [Rosen] did. His big emphasis was on these quiz shows where they would have some sort of questions. Some would be like, high school students versus college students. A lot of bands, local bands…we have the capability to do a live show on the air. We also do some pre-recorded stuff where you go out in town or go down to the basketball court near Rax, go down to the Boys and Girls Club, have a few questions in mind and ask a wide range of kids the questions. Then come back and edit them. We end up having sort of a cross-section of what local kids think about: what they think about the new building down the road, what they think about cops in Oberlin…stuff like that.

CR: Do you think that these kids go home and talk to their friends about it, and say ‘look what I’m doing, look how cool that is, don’t you want to do that too?’ Is it growing that way, or do you still have to advertise to pull in kids from the community?

CM: It’s hard to get younger kids because they’re shyer and…they’re at home. They’re not listening to the radio, they’re not hanging out with friends after school quite yet, so there’s no word of mouth there. We’re trying to get younger kids, but high school students are coming because they know about it already.

CR: Do you have the same kids on everyday?

CM: We haven’t had any repeats, but after Fall Break we might have people on again.

AL: One major difference between the way we’re doing it and Josh, is that Josh had the ExCo, but as it turned out the people in the ExCo didn’t really end up doing much. But this year, the ExCo kids are basically running it as much as we are. We have enough people so that everyday there’s a different group of people taking the ExCo who help produce. And another thing about that word-of-mouth thing. A lot of times, especially with high school students, their friends will call in and we’ll put them on the air [Leland impersonates someone calling in] ”Hey I’m hearing you on the stereo, man.”

CM: On their cell phones.

AL: Yeah, on their cell phones.

(laughter)

CR: One time last year, I turned it on. There was this little, little kid on there singing that song that’s like “Why do I feel this way/ It must be the money” [Richert also displays her impecible singing capabilities]. These kids were all singing in chorus, and they didn’t really know the words. I thought it was so ironic that these kids have no idea what the song is about, but they know all the words to it. Do you find that these kids have a collective knowledge that you just didn’t have at that age or listen to music that you never would have…you know, “dirty” music.

AL: Not even dirty music. Their intelligence in general, I’m consistantly impressed with. Even just the way they speak is eloquent for freshmen in high school…and their sense of humor is really sophisticated…these kids, their humor definetly keeps up with the college students’ who are in here.

CM: Definitely.

CR: Do the parents get in to it too?

CM: sometimes parents call in, requesting weird folk songs from the ’70s. The kids are like “This is for my mom” (laughter). It’s a weird break in the music, but it’s fun. I definitly want to try and make the station’s resources available to them [the parents] so if they want to look for stuff they don’t know about.

CR: Would you guys have done this if you had had the program available to you growing up?

AL: Definitely.

CM: I don’t know. I was a really big nerd…I probably would have. Although I did not live in a boring town, and I have plenty of things to do, there weren’t a lot of arts or extra-curriculars at my school, so I probably would have done it. Especially if I could do whatever I wanted. Which is what we are trying to do here. We don’t want it to be really structured, like we have this goal in mind, or we have to do kids news. And we hope that enough people get interested in it that want to do radio in the future when they grow older.

AL: It appeals to a broad range of kids. Radio is versitile so…there’s like no newspaper at the high school, so we were talking about maybe doing something on the air. Maybe a newsmagazine that school kids produce. There’s also stuff like…the music, where kids are writing free-style and singing those on the air. So there is this whole artistic side to it. We’re doing skits for the Mad Factory, writing poems, reading books and straight-up DJ-ing…with all that breadth, there’s a lot of people that can get involved.

“i’m on the stereo” can be heard Monday–Thursday at 5 p.m. on WOBC 91.5 FM.