Student Interview With Rog

Wouldn't ya know it, I did my first interview! Mienai Kizu, a highschool student out in the midwest, interviewed me as a project for school! She sent the interview back to me, and I though it would be cool for her, and you guys if I put it up here. So, here ya go! My first interview for Tainted Reality!



How did you come into doing Tainted Reality?

-Last year, I did a show called Bad Transitions with a friend of mine named Andrew Wieler. He played mostly American music, and I played j-rock. However, our fanbase seemed to only care about the J-Rock, plus Andrew hated the music. So, I decided to do my own show. This is my third show now.

Do you work on the show alone or do you have co-workers?

-Mostly by myself, but when it comes to what we do when I turn the mics on, I take everyone's input. I do all of the blogger content, promotion, booking of interviews, and production work, but when we talk, or do special segments, I usually let everyone participate, even fans.

How do the fans participate exactly?

-IMing and calling in. We are trying to find a way to actually air calls, but there are certain FCC (Federal Communications Commission) rules we need to follow for that. As far as IM's, we usually read 'em on air.

That's pretty nifty. And fun to do. Okay, on with the questions. How large is the number of listeners?

-We really don't know because we are college radio. We don't have fancy shmacy sound scan like comercial stations. The only way I have an idea of who's listening is by who is viewing the webcam (which we can see totals for) and requests.

So how do you feel knowing that quite some people are listening to you and watching you on that webcam?

-Pretty damn happy. But I'm always trying to find ways to get more and more listeners, so while I'm happy people are listening to the show, I always want more.

What made you decide to add J-rock to the catergories?

- My hatred for mainstream American music is a big factor, but also because, next to Goth and metal, its my fave genre of music. I really hate calling J-Rock a genre though, as it is only a classification for rock music that comes out of Japan, and as we all know, there are many sub-genres of rock. J-Rock bands shouldn't be called J-Rock bands, which is why I appreciate Dir en grey's recent push saying "We are not a J-Rock band, we are a Rock band."

For those who have no idea about Japanese anything, can you please explain the different sub-genres there are?

-Basically everything there is in the American music: Pop, rock, metal, industrial, goth, alternative, punk, emo... It's just as diverse as our music scene is.

To get back to the radio, what goes through your head when something goes wrong, like when you have to broadcast through a door?

-To be honest, "Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck", which is usually what I can be heard screaming when I turn the mics off. I wanna add censorship is a horrible evil in today's society.

Amen to that. How does it feel to have someone interviewing you instead of the other way around?

-Kinda weird. This is my first time being interviewed about the show. I like being able to explain stuff like this and hope it happens more often.

If you could change anything about Tainted Reality, what would it be? You can even be creative if you'd like.

-Nothing about the show in particular, but I just want more listeners and more bands. It is so hard to get bands. I equate it to fishing. It's pretty much you send out a million e-mails as bait, and hope someone bites.

How exactly do you obtain your music? Do you buy the Japanese albums and singles, even though they're pretty expensive?

-I try to do my best to buy everything, ask for promotional copies of CD's, etc.

Wish I could do that instead of spending $30 bucks on a CD. And lastly. Why are you so cool?

-I'm not. I'm a dork.



What Did ya think? Let Mienai know if she did a good job or not by commenting here on the blogger. Thanx Mienai! It was alot of fun!

-Roger