Radio personality at Fredericton’s 105.3 FM The Fox, Uncle Rob (Rob Pinnock), has been in the industry for 26 years. He supports the Canadian music scene, has seen the industry grow and has become a lot more comfortable on the phone. The AQ’s Meghan O’Neil caught up with Uncle Rob in the Fox studios.
Why radio?
I think it goes back to being a little kid and listening to radio at night before you went to sleep. I made the decision I was going to do this before I hit 10 years old. I’ve always been drawn to the mystique and the phantom voice on the air, and I always loved music, so I thought playing music for a living sounded like the ideal job. And here I am, however many years later, I’m doing the afternoons here at what I think is a pretty damn good rock station and I’m the music director as well, so it’s extremely fulfilling for me.
Favorite studio guests.
Well seriously, Plaskett would be one of my favorite guests because he’s just such a genuinely nice guy and he’s been really good to us over the years. We were kind of an early supporter as far as commercial radio goes for him so he kind of hasn’t forgotten that. So he’s been really good about coming in and performing for us and we developed a nice little relationship over the years. He would be one of my favorite guests and certainly as far as being in here the most amounts of times. Gordie Johnson is a fantastic guy to talk to, he’s so cool, Gordie from Big Sugar, very passionate about music. I like a lot of the Canadian artists that have been through here. I think they just seem to really appreciate support that much more it just seems to be the way it is.
Best part of the job.
The phones. I love talking to people on the phone. That’s the fun part of the day. That’s what keeps it from going stale because you never know what they’re going to say. And it’s nice to have that interaction. If they’re phoning you they’re making the effort to contact you so they feel like you’re a good person to do that to and that’s a good day for us.
Top three bands.
My favorite bands probably aren’t even on our playlist. If it came down to stuff I like listening to and broadcasting, we’d probably be broke in about 6 months. I like a lot of the classic rock we play. Led Zeppelin, ACDC, stuff like that. It’s just fun. There’s a lot of energy in the format and again people will react to that. If you’re giving it out there, people will give it back to you. I find the classic rock format generally a lot of fun to work in. Newer bands that we play… I love the Black Keys, I think they’re cool. I think the Foo Fighters are special. I like a lot of the stuff that’s regional as well. I’m a big fan of Maritime music, like I love the new Matt Mays single, I can’t way to see those guys come back to the city. We’re really lucky down here we’ve got a great scene here and we try to nurture it as much as we can, and give some bands a crack at being in regular rotation and there’ve been some real success stories out of that.
