HOT in the AM

The cast of ‘The Kane Show’ dishes on life on- and off-air.

By Buzz McClain

It’s 7:24, and the party is in full swing.

Ke$ha, Bruno Mars and Katy Perry songs percolate through oversized overhead speakers; fast-paced party chatter conversations cover topics such as “Do you know what your dad’s butt looks like?” and “Do you tip a bartender for opening a beer bottle?”

There’s texting, e-mailing, Internet browsing and constant phone answering; jokes fly back and forth at a furious pace; and there is much hearty laughter and light-hearted admonishment for bad behavior.

This is a great happy hour, the ideal way to end the day with jovial co-workers. Too bad it’s 7:24 a.m., not p.m., but such is the life for the early-rising, high-octane cast of “The Kane Show” on WIHT-FM, better known simply as Hot 99.5.

It’s breakfast time for the rest of us, but it may as well be midday for this wide-awake trio of on-air talent and their producer; and at 10 a.m., just about the time most of us are drowsily having a second cup of coffee and trying to wiggle out of 11 o’clock meetings, they’re done for the day, off to play with their babies, work out at their gyms or vanish into the urban ether of who knows where.

This break-of-dawn party takes place each weekday from the brutally early hour of 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., broadcast from the Clear Channel Radio studios six floors above Rockville Pike in Rockville, Md.

Until the new high-definition TV cameras recently installed in the studio are activated by a television partner (there are rumors of a simulcast deal), the listener can only imagine what this throw-down looks like. But here’s a glimpse behind the scenes.

The show’s titular chieftain, Kane, a youthful 33-years old, six-feet-four and in a plain blue cotton dress shirt, sits hunched on a tall chair in front of no fewer than five computer screens on one side of a boomerang-shaped white granite counter.

A microphone on an adjustable boom is never more than an inch from his face as he coordinates the flow of this diurnal discussion, simultaneously manning the controls of an imposing audio console while keeping the patter coherent and continuous.

Across from him stands Sarah, who just recently turned 29, the lovely green-eyed female foil of the show who reads entertainment news and traffic reports, and contributes a youthful feminine sensibility to discussions such as, “Do Realtors really have sex in their listed properties?” (The suspicion is yes.) On-air she’s brazen and shameless—she even does perky commercials for body hair removal services—and boldly talks about previous conquests (Irishmen are OK), all somehow remaining within the bounds of, well, if not good taste then at least within Federal Communication Commission (FCC) mandates.

Then there’s Samy, 24. Samy, Samy, Samy. What are we going to do with you? A first-generation American of Tunisian parents from Cedar Falls, Iowa, Samy is the wayward wise guy given to blurting out unfiltered rejoinders such as, “My dad’s butt is hairy with some pimple action. I know this because for some reason he likes to walk around naked.” (Wait. What? There are Tunisians in Iowa?)

Samy has perpetual bed-head black hair, wears a hoodie everywhere, comes to work in blue UGGs bedroom slippers with no socks (he warns you that his feet stink) and sports a black-beaded earring in the tragus of his right ear.

When asked to describe his role in the show he says, “I’m the adult brother who still sleeps on the couch and works at Pizza Hut.”

“Samy,” Kane says, “is the reason why his mother doesn’t want to answer phone calls late at night.”

How much of it is a put-on is debatable, but otherwise “The Kane Show” is a shtick-free zone of seemingly genuine amenability—everyone is so nice, to each other, to a visitor—and the humor is never forced.

They don’t rehearse their lines when their microphones are off; a topic is tossed out and the reactions are spontaneous and honest, no matter how tawdry.

It works well on radio, but to see this live is to realize how good they are at it.

“It’s taken a while, but it really is like a family,” says Kane, the fun-loving big brother personality of the clan. “And like a family, there’s no filter. Really, I think that’s why we get along together like we do. And we’re all at different stages of our lives, so we have different perspectives. The day flies by, every morning. I have to say, I don’t like to work with anyone else.”

But filter-less families often have disagreements—loud, angry and lasting ones.

“Yes, we do have screaming fights,” Kane allows. “But the best part is, we’ll have a huge fight and be really mad and then we turn the mics on and get over it. You don’t listen to us for drama. You don’t listen to us for politics, traffic or drama. Nobody wants to hear it.”

The putative dad of the family would be Erick (unspoken last name: Villegas), the show’s producer, but at 28 he’s definitely the chill parent, hardly the authority figure for a family that needs to stay on track. He’s on-air only occasionally, spending his time in neighboring studios with interns and overseeing the behind-the-scenes machinations. In fact, by the time the cast concludes the show for this day, there’s been no sighting of a proverbial “corporate suit.”

The kids get to do what they want without grownup interference. And so far, after four years, it’s paid off. “The Kane Show” is the No. 1-rated morning show for the 18-to-34-year-old demographic, and has been for the last year; it consistently shows up in the top five of programming for ages 18-to-49 and 25-to-54, according to Dave Hughes, a longtime local broadcast observer who tracks ratings on his website DCRTV.com. These breakdowns are vital to the success of a radio show since advertisers pay a premium for reaching more of a specific age group.

——

Kane’s real first name is Pete; because of the segment he often does called “War of the Roses,” in which a cheating significant other is caught red-handed and confronted on the telephone, he’d prefer his last name go unknown least some irate cuckolder pay a visit to his Gaithersburg house. (The name Kane was taken at random from a phone book.)

Sarah is the only one who uses her last name on the air —Frazer—but asks not to identify her neighborhood. She does allow that she works out at a gym in Arlington and has been known to frequent the bars there (among her favorites are Lyon Hall, 3 Bar and Grill and Sushi Rock).

Samy, who also asks not to use his last name but reveals his parents originally were going to call him Absatar, lives in the up-to-the-minute U Street corridor of the District, and proudly so. He also is familiar with the taverns of hotbed neighborhoods in Arlington.

Samy, who speaks Arabic and French, started at WIHT before all of them, as an unpaid intern at age 20; he came to town from Iowa to study translation at American University.

“I realized I like radio way better,” he says. He was working at Armand’s Chicago Pizzeria in Tenleytown when the job was offered. “When I told everyone at Armand’s I was quitting to work at a radio station it was like, ‘right.’ No one believed me.” (They still might not.)

Sarah, on the other hand, knew she wanted to be in radio at age 6 as a girl in Wiscasset, Maine; at 8-years old she was pretending to be Sally Jessy Raphael, interviewing dolls that had “given birth” to eight doll kids with five doll fathers. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, an uncle who was principal at T.C. Williams High in Alexandria suggested she migrate to the hipper climes of Northern Virginia.

While staging homes for Keller Williams Realty, she muscled into a job in radio promotions that turned into assistant producing that turned into doing Metro traffic overnights on all-news WTOP that turned into a co-hosting spot on Classic Rock 94.7’s “Stevens and Medley” that turned into fill-ins on “The Kane Show” that became permanent and is turning into a multi-media career (she does TV spots for NBC 4, Fox 5 and Comcast). She nailed down the job in February 2007, and Erick came on board shortly thereafter.

Kane was a well-traveled journeyman even at a young age—he’s had jobs at some dozen stations, including the position of program director for three channels at XM Satellite Radio in D.C.—when he was brought in to host the show in October 2006.

Because digital broadcast technology is so malleable, and because Contemporary Hits Radio music is so homogenous, “The Kane Show” airs in several markets throughout the day, and the locals, ideally, have no idea it’s emanating from Rockville. Kane is heard in the mornings in Memphis and Louisville and afternoons in Tampa, West Palm Beach, Austin, Birmingham and on XM and I “Heart” Radio on the Internet.

That’s a lot of listeners in a lot of places expecting to be amused, every single day.

“That’s the thing about having a morning show like this,” Sarah explains. “It’s here every day. And you have to be here every day, and you have to be ready.”

——

Sarah, Samy and Erick arrive at about 4:30 a.m. each day, and Kane is already there; they each have reams of material gathered the night before that might be useful for the show. For her part, Sarah cannot figure out how Kane and Samy keep the early hours without the benefit of strong java, which she drinks throughout the shift from a mug labeled “Professional Smartass.”

Lesser mortals might carp about the hours, but the Kane cast enjoys calling it a day at 10 a.m., despite the need to go to bed not just before “Monday Night Football” goes off, but before it even comes on. “I’m in bed by 8,” Sarah says. “I catch up [on TV shows] on Hulu. But I’m forcing myself to go out more now that I’m single.”

Going to bed before dark in the summer is a small price to pay for having your dream job. “We’re an improv comedy group putting on a show every morning,” she says. “I love it. I could do this forever. When I get my paycheck I feel like I’m robbing this place.”

And what would she be doing if not this? “This is it,” she says. “All I can do is talk.”

As for Erick, he’s in bed by 11:30, but he naps to get him that far. And his social life? “It’s hard to have a girlfriend when you have a morning show,” he says forlornly. Or maybe that’s just how he talks.

Samy, who is into indie rock, has been known to come into the studio with little or no sleep, having gone to, say, Baltimore to take in a band. What would he be doing if not radio? “I’d be back at Armand’s making
pizzas,” he says without hesitation, utterly confident in his fallback position. (Actually, he says his family opened one of the first pizza parlors in Tunisa “so I’ve been around it my entire life.”)

For his part, Kane, who hustles home to spend maximum time with his daughters, 2-year-old Samantha and 5-month-old Sophie, turns out the lights at 10 each night. And what would he be doing if not this?

“That’s what scares me,” he says, followed by an uncharacteristic pause. “I think I’d be unemployed.”

With the chemistry that’s in place and the current, consistent ratings, that shouldn’t be a problem.

(April 2011)

Tags: radio, The Kane Show