Your Name: Rich Embury
Your DJ Name: same
Your Station: Pure Rock Radio
Station URL: http://purerockradio.net
Your Website(s) URL: http://twitter.com/purerocklive, http://myspace.com/purerockradio, http://facebook.com/group.php?gid=2386918423 , http://facebook.com/richembury/
Where are you from and tell us a little bit about your home town: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Saskatoon is a small city of about 250,000 people, and the largest in our Province. the city is nicknamed “Paris of the Prairies” because of it’s skyline (and Castle-like hotel on the downtown riverbank), cafe’s, artist community, festivals and beauty. The city is split down the middle by a river, with several bridges, very close together. The city is over 100 years old, is home to a very large university (UofS), crime is low, we are one of the sunniest places in Canada, our temperatures range from 30c in the summer to -40c in the winter. With the wind chill, it can get to about -60c in the dead of winter. Technology is a big industry here, but agriculture is the biggest, with Oil creeping up there, as we are right next door to the Alberta tar sands (2nd only to Saudi Arabia in oil reserves) and have a very large untapped oil resource here in Saskatchewan. While the rest of the country is suffering from a recession and layoffs and forclosures, we are actually growing rapidly and prospering, with jobs all over the place. In fact they are bringing immigrants and recruiting all over the world to fill a shortage of workers in the trades and skilled labour. Saskatchewan is the birthplace of Universal healthcare, and we enjoy free healthcare, no matter rich or poor, no hospital bills here. the entire country adopted the universal healthcare module, which was brought in by actor Kiefer Sutherland’s grandgfather Tommy Douglas a few decades ago. Over-all it’s a great place to live.
Tell us a little bit about yourself: I’m 38, a single father, with full custody of 2 kids (8 & 10). I am disabled from arthritis in both ankles and require a cane to walk, sometimes two. I have been forced off of work for 9 years, and started Pure Rock Radio (originally Radio306.com) to keep my mind busy and for something to do, since I was stuck to the house most often.
What inspired you to become a DJ? when I was a kid, I used to make pretend radio shows with a tape recorder, and became very good at stopping and starting the tape recorder to the point it sounded like a pro mix, even though I only had a cheap radio shack tape recorder..no mixer. About 15 years ago, I was co-chair for a local organization called SOMA (Saskatchewan Original Music Assoc.). At the time, bars and clubs would only book cover bands, so we started an organization funded and run by the musicians themselves to promote local, independent, original music to the area. Our gatherings got so large and we drew a regular large audience to all our events, that bars started to take notice and then started booking original only bands to their venues. from then on, bars no longer forced bands to do covers only and allow original only bands to play all the time. As part of the promotion of saskatchewan original music, we put out a CD, and contacted a local FM station about doing a weekly showcase on their station. the station (CFCR 90.5fm) accepted and I took over a weekly 90 minute radio show with all local original music. At the time, I started out with about a dozen CD’s, but as more and more bands got booked regularly and recording costs went down, I eventually ended up with several hundred local CD’s. The show did so well, that i decided to spread the word and expand the show to the internet, so others outside our city area could hear the show, and we could chat with the listeners and take requests while the show was going on. this was back in about 99 or 2000. At the time, Live365.com offered FREE internet stations and bandwidth and I broadcasted live every week during the show, and the rest of the week, we spun random music of all styles from local bands. I started a website and eventually the internet station was doing better than the FM show, and I was getting submissions from bands all over the Canadian prairies. I expanded the show to include all Canadian prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) on the show, shortly after SOMA folded from lack of membership (even though we accomplished what we set out to do). I renamed the show to Radio306.com after I secured the domain name, because the station was located in Saskatchewan and was originally all local and Saskatchewan’s telephone area code is 306, it made sense to name it with a local aspect. The station and weekly FM show together did so well that the provinces Premiere (which is Canada’s equivelent to an American State Senator) called to be on the show and do a special broadcast because of our local promotion. In 2001, the FM show and Internet station was nominated for “Media Outlet of the Year” at the Prairie Music Awards in Winnipeg, manitoba for our dedication to promoting music from the region. we were up against multi-million dollar companies and were the only radio related nominee from our province. The award show is now called the Western Canadian Music Awards and is one of the largest music awards shows and conferences in the country. A few years later in 2004, since we were no loonger getting many local submissions and the majority of our submissions and web visits were coming from all over the world and mostly hard rock and metal, we changed the name to Pure Rock Radio, secured purerockradio.net (.com was taken, but never led to a website until last year) and sent out a major press release. Upon the launch of the new name and website, our listenership quadrupled immediately, we got more interest from labels, distros and important music related people, were listed on iTunes, Windows Media Player and shot to the #1 search result in Google for Pure Rock Radio. we’ve been improving and expanding ever since, to the point that now we can be heard in addition to a computer, on gaming devices, mobile/cellphones, TiVo and much more.
How do you choose the songs you play on your show? Do record companies ask you to play their artists’ songs? Record companies, artists, managers, and fans ask us to check out music all the time. We get sent Cd’s from independent and major labels, ditribution companies, and the bands and managers themselves. I peronally listen to everything that is submitted and accept music based on a few things that are sort of welded into my core from years in the business, being a musician myself, being a promoter, and being involved in the music industry all around. First of all the music must be in the heavier formats and have a heavy or hard edge to it. Anything from melodic rock/hair metal to punk and hardcore, or the heaviest of metal. I pride myself and the station on having a wide mix, but still with a heavy edge, and to play what regular FM and satellite refuses to play. Then, I look for production quality, songwriting skills and musicianship. There is nothing worse than hearing great music, then when the singer starts it all gets ruined because someone thinks they can sing and should have been kicked out a long time ago. After-all, we have all seen American Idol. DJ’s and programmers will know in the first 30-45 seconds of a song if it is good enough to air. we listen to the intro, how the singer sounds and skip to the chorus, and usually only listen to 30-45 seconds of any song before we move on to the next one or turf it to the rejected pile. The sheer amount of submissions makes it impossible to listen to every song, all the way through. Essentially, it all comes down to my own personal taste. The station is funded, founded and run by me, myself and I, and I have a vision of what I want Pure Rock Radio to be and the submitted music must fit into that model. So far it has worked marvelously, and it seems tons of others enjoy the same variety and the recipe I concocted over the years that makes up the station. As i mentioned though, every single submission gets to my ears first, before it hits the station’s playlist. No one else makes that decision, as it is a one man operation. Of course we do carryu syndicated shows and the hosts of those shows make their own decisions on what they play on their shows, as long as they fit our hard rock/metal or heavier edged format.
Do you recommend any new artists or bands? There are so many bands and songs that come accross my desk, but a few that are standing out for me these days are: Scars On Broadway, Operator, F5, Bobaflex, Grand Magus, Lions, and some independent bands like Scarlet Sins (an all female hard rock band from Canada), & Robot Lords Of Tokyo. But there are TONS of others I cannot think of right now and there are new bands and music hitting my ears every day that is unbelievable.
What are your personal musical influences? I was raised on 70’s arena rock, but goit very heavy into the Hair Metal scene and the hard rock and metal scene of the early 80’s to early 90’s, and even some of the grunge bands like Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Mother Love Bone and so on, but I still hold a place in my heart for those bands like Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, Ratt, LA Guns, Hanoi Rocks, Queensryche, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Dio, Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and so on.
Are you a musician yourself? If so, what do you play and do you have your own band? Before getting into radio I was in and out of bands as a singer, with my most success as the singer of a local Hard Rock/metal band from the late 90’s called Calm (http://reverbnation.com/calm). We put out one CD called “Fueled” in 1998 that was kinda grungy, hard rock, with some metal. The band disbanded shortly before we were due to record our 2nd CD, which would have went in an entirely different way, with more melodic singing and less anger, more radio friendly hard rock, with some metal thrown in here and there still, but overall, for me, the songs had more singing range and showcxased my voice a lot better than the CD from ‘98. Unfortunately, our guitarist became a born-again christian and didn’t want to tour anymore, nor play metal or heavier music, and after a year and a half of searching and auditioning, we never were able to find a decent enough guitarist to fill our old guitarists shoes or do what we wanted to do, or go in the direction we wanted, so we shut down the band in 2001 or 2002.
What do you love most about Metal Music? For me its the way it gets your blood pumping and makes you want to wave your fist in the air. It’s the range in talent and overall styles. I have always been focused on the vocalists and the words, but there is nothing more moving than a good guitar solo.
What are your future plans for your radio program? As it stands right now, we are just trying to get the name of the station and location out to as many people as possible. I am expanding the station into every facet of technology I can, and staying as current as possible. We jumped onto Twitter as it was just starting, and now we have over 3000 followers and growing all the time, as wireless and internet technology progresses and wi-fi and hotspots increase around the globe, it becomes easier and easier to listen to Internet radio. The fact that you can now, tune us in on your iPhones, Blackberry’s and cellphones, and cruise around in your car listening to uncensored hard rock and metal radio is astounding. I’m just tryimg to keep up with the technology and make sure Pure Rock radio is there at the forefront like we always have been since the early days of internet radio, when we were one of the first station’s of it’s kind.
Do you have a saying you like to use? Like “stay classy San Diego” Nothing for me, no slogan, except the station slogan “Feed Your Addiction!”
What was the first Album you ever bought? Motley Crue – Shout At The Devil, and KISS – Creatures Of The Night, I can’t remember which was the first one, but it was one of those for sure, the first one I bought, but my friend turned me on to hard rock and KISS especially at a yoiung age, when he played me his “Destroyer” and “lovegun” records at the age of 10 or 11.
What is the funniest thing that ever happened on your show? Can’t think of anything.
Have you interviewed, or met any interesting or famous people? If so who? Lots of cool people along the way, through interviews, email correspondence or many other ways. Meeting and chatting with people who I grew up idolizing is amazing and i get daily requests fro interviews and have access to interview almost anyone I want in the industry, thanks to Pure Rock Radio. People like Snake Sabo from Skid Row, Victor langen from Kick Axe, Darryl Dwarf from Killer Dwarfs, and so many I can’t think of them all, but as I mentioned, it only takes a phone call or email to the manager of almost anyone in the industry to secure an interview for Pure Rock Radio, but I have been letting the hosts do their own these days and have stepped back from the mic to focus on programming the station, which takes up most of my free time as it is.
If you could hang out with a Rock star for a day, who would it be? Probably someone like Tommy Lee would be a blast to hang with, or Sebastian Bach, or a multitude of cool dudes, who look like they enjoy life, music and all they do.
I’m assuming it’s not for the money so I have to ask: why do you do what you do? No, i definitely do not make any money, in fact it costs me several hundrd dollars a month to keep it running, but I am off work, have no social life anymore, as a single father of 2, I don’t smoke, rarely drink, I don’t gamble (rarely even buy a lottery ticket), and don’t have any bad habbits or addictions, so I take all the money that others spend on cigarettes and beer, or gambling at the slot machines and I put it into my one and only hobby…Pure Rock Radio. I love music and the perks that come with running and owning a radio station are great for a lover of music. All the free music you can handle, you can meet your idols, and you get a certain amount of respect and adoration from fellow music fans for giving them an outlet like this station, where they otherwise would not have it. The comments on the website and the emails I get are the icing on the cake, to know that what I am doing is bringing so much joy and excitement to someone else’s life, is reward enough…but all the free tunes are definitely numero uno. I can’t remember the last time I bought a CD, so my CD purchasing addiction is gone, and i funnel, what i would have spent into the station, and it stands as a promotional tool for many great bands, and of course, a great place for fans of heavy music to get their daily fix and FEED YOUR ADDICTION!