SERIES INTRO: In this series, we highlight independent radio stations across America that are keeping alive the dream of human DJs, unpredictable playlists, and free airwaves.
“We’re not a bunch of radio pros. We’re a bunch of pro-music people,” says DJ Larry Mizell Jr. when asked what makes Seattle’s independent 90.3 so unique. He’s right, as many of the folks at KEXP come from different avenues. Many are club DJs, local music writers, and staffers from the legendary Seattle indie label Sub Pop. Their experiences form what Mizell describes as, “An aggregate of an amazing amount of trust, goodwill, and taste at the station.” Since its founding in 1972, you’ve been able to hear this in KEXP’s freewheeling programming mix of eras, styles, and cultures. As this piece is being written, The Shangri-Las, Olivia Rodrigo, Erykah Badu, Saya Gray, Spelling, Weyes Blood, Neil Young, and Kendrick Lamar all played in the same block.
But the “goodwill” also shows via the extra steps KEXP takes to connect with its listeners. Its station policy is to reply to everybody who reaches out to the station, which Morning Show DJ John Richards explains is part of an aim to have a relationship with listeners beyond simply asking for donations. “I think how we really build trust and cultivate our community is hearing (listeners) when they write in,” says Richards, “It’s us hearing them, then talking about it on the air and playing songs for them… it helps not just connect to the community that wrote in, but also with the other hundred people who are dealing with something similar.”
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This idea of helping through radio is what fuels KEXP’s Music Heals Initiative. Richards explains that about 20 years ago, his father passed away and, “I got on the air the night he died, because I was young enough not to know better. But it actually turned out really cathartic for me.” So when his mother passed away from lung cancer a few years later, “I really doubled down.” When he returned to the station, Richards played the music that he’d been listening to with his mother in her final days and invited listeners to share their grief on the air too. “Initially, it was about what I was going through, but then each year became less about me, as grief does.” Yes, Music Heals has grown from one bittersweet three-hour show featuring songs and stories about loss to an annual day for the station every November. It’s now expanded to a series of special events throughout the year, focusing on specific topics like mental health, addiction, and cancer, during which they even share music people play when going through chemo.
After a few years of Richards handling “the grief show” solo, other DJs joined in and now Mizell says, ”It’s a part of our everyday DNA. Like we’re connecting folks through the healing power of music. Because, you know, Seattle’s a fucking depressing city.” Mizell chuckles as he says this, then adds with a smile, “It’s got that reputation for a reason, so it’s our role, in the music we play and the humanity that we always exemplify, to anchor people in optimism.”
What would you say separates independent radio from commercial radio?
DJ Larry Mizell Jr.: “Those (Music Heals) days set us far apart from anything else on any airwaves. There’s good curation, there’s great DJs everywhere, but nobody persons like us. Nobody humans like us and has license to do that.”
DJ John Richards: “When we talk to other radio stations, they’ll ask us, ‘What’s your secret?’ Well, our most listened–to day of the year is when we take the entire day to talk about death and grief, and you see them be like, ‘Well we’re not doing that.’” So I laugh, but… I wish more stations, especially non-profit public radio stations, would do that. We would welcome the competition in that space because it would help more people.”
What is the most Seattle thing about KEXP?
John: “(Our location) is the most cliche Seattle thing you have ever entered in your entire life. Like, when a tourist walks in and hears me playing Nirvana and there’s a record store and a coffee shop and we’re all inside the Space Needle—dude, I can’t even make this up as a guy who’s lived in Seattle most his whole entire adult life.
The other most Seattle thing we do is play local music every hour. Seattle music is in the DNA of KEXP. It’s why we’ve been around for 50 years. The artists and people who made music in our city supported us when no one else did. So we play something new and local everyday, like I’ve been championing this incredible Tinsley record.”
Any celebrity listeners or supporters?
JR: “Jimmy Fallon’s been one for years. He’s donated, and I know his crew has booked bands on The Tonight Show based on airplay on KEXP. He has said that in public, so I’m not making that up. I swear.”
Current artist that you want more folks to hear?
LM: “He’s not local, but I’ve been obsessed with this Benjamin Booker album, who I recently saw and had in the station. He’s doing something a little bit different working with Kenny Segal, who’s really worked in the indie rap idiom. He cited how Mobb Deep and Jesus and Mary Chain were his guiding lights for the sound where he wanted to go, and I was like, you’re my guy. Like this, this is the space where I live, and the kind of space I found at this station.”
JR: “Someone a lot of people know of, but I think will be one of the biggest records of the year and is also local is Deep Sea Diver. This record is…<laughs> if this doesn’t blow up, all hope is gone.”
Any goals for the future of the station?
JR: “We continue to double down on our community in Seattle, but we’re also trying to translate what we do to other cities too. We now have a terrestrial station in the Bay Area (at 92.7) and recently did a week where we broadcast every day from a different record store in Oakland and San Francisco. And we continue to try and represent the most music from around the world, and that means not sitting around waiting for the music to come to us. You need to go there, watch people perform live, be in their community. Like, we go there and say, ‘Hello, we’re here to learn. Tell us more. We want to hear from you about your city, your music, your culture, and then somehow relay that as best we can on the air.’”
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