So you want to get to “know us” better huh???

Author Deanna R. Adams of the book ROCK ‘n’ ROLL and the Cleveland Connection
did a great job “digging up” our “radio roots”.  This is from the chapter entitled “The Prominent Deejays of the ‘90s”.

Brian and Joe – Brian Fowler and Joseph Cronauer

WONE – 97.5 FM Akron, Ohio

KAZY – 106.7 FM  Denver, Colorado

WAZU -  102.9 FM Dayton, Ohio

WENZ – 107.9 FM  Cleveland, Ohio

WMMS – 100.7 FM Cleveland, Ohio

WMVX – 106.5 FM  Cleveland, Ohio

When it comes to these two Cleveland disc jockeys, you can’t talk about one without the other.  After all, since early in their radio careers, it’s always been Brian and Joe.  And their personal history is full of coincidences.

Both were born in 1963.  Both grew up in Parma, and although they attended different high schools (Brian, Valley Forge; Joe, Normandy), both took vocational broadcasting classes (Brian, radio; Joe, television), which was how they met and began their enduring friendship.  When it came time for college, both happened to enroll in Ohio University, majored in telecommunications, and graduated the same year, 1985.

The similarities don’t stop there.  Both their mothers are named Jean, their fathers are Joe.  Although their wives have different names, the women are best friends as well.  Brian was Joe’s best man and Joe was Brian’s.  When Joe and his wife had their first of four children (so far), Brian and his wife were the chosen godparents (both are Catholic as well).  When Brian’s son came along (Jake) in 1995, the choice of godparents was a given.

In 1985, Joe moved to Nashville for a job as production director (and eventually program director) for a Christian station WWGM.  Brian, in turn, went to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for a job at WLAN.  Later that year, Brian was summoned to Akron for a job at WONE-FM, quickly moving from weekend deejay to host of morning show.  The AOR station’s biggest competitor was WKDD (formerly WCUE), and Brian convinced his program director, Brian Taylor, that he could beat them in the ratings if he had his hometown buddy with him.  During their college days, Brian and Joe had done comedy acts on “open-mike night” at both Akron’s Hilarities and the Cleveland Comedy Club.  The two were thrilled to be teamed up “The Brian and Joe Radio Show,” which debuted on February 29, 1988.  The comedic duo soon attracted a strong fan base in morning radio (after years of camaraderie, they had their timing down pat).  Within months, Brian and Joe had secured their rating (number one in the key demographics, ages 18-34) against the competition: the John Lanigan Show, the morning show at WKDD, and even WMMS’s “Buzzard Morning Zoo.” In September 1990, the company sold the Akron station, moving Brian and Joe to Denver station KAZY.  But things were different there,  with a general manager who didn’t see things the same.  A year later, it was back to Ohio, where the deejays worked at Dayton station WAZU (“The Big Wazoo”).

In July 1992, the duo found themselves back in Cleveland after taking a job at WENZ (“The End”)-thanks to station manager Mark Hyden, who remembered their impressive WONE days.  “Brian and Joe” not only copped the coveted morning slot, they arrived at an alternative rock radio station brimming with contemporary, innovative programming.  The deejays promoted their own fan club, which they termed the “Brian and Joe Personal Friend Tour.”  Card-carrying members, whose ranks quickly rose to 10,000, had their own  “impersonal” number.  While playing the favorite music of Generation Xers,  Brian and Joe were given the freedom to do what they do best.  Life was good, and it was about to get better.

“When we were at WENZ,” Joe says, “We were doing as good as you can, considering the frequency and the actual signal.  We were getting noticed, no doubt about it.” “An unbeknownst to us,” adds Brian, “WMMS was getting ready to change formats.  I think ‘MMS knew they had to blow ‘the End’ completely out of the water so they wanted to bring us on before making the switch.  But we were under contract, we couldn’t legally leave.   What was neat about that deal was ‘MMS literally stole us.  Once we agreed on terms, they told us to walk out of the contract, we’d be covered legally.  Our agent and his law firm looked at it up and down to make sure.  So we did it because we wanted that chance-to be a part of what they were promoting as WMMS-the Next Generation.”

While the stations were negotiating, a June 3, 1994, Plain Dealer article announced that WENZ was not renewing the deejay’s contract.  That same edition ran a picture on another page of the new “Morning Zoo” duo (replacing Jeff and Flash) with bags over their heads, supposedly to tease the audience.  However, the two wore T-Shirts with a “B”and ”J”  clearly visible, making the secret no big surprise.  The two escaped a “noncompete”  contract and became the morning crew for a new generation of Buzzard listeners.  They couldn’t believe their luck.

“It wasn’t just that we were a part of WMMS,” Joe notes.  “It was the fact we were meeting and working with people everyone grew up listening to – the legends of Cleveland radio.  Now that was awesome.”

By now, Brian and Joe were capturing attention wherever they went.  They attribute their success to combining the best things about Cleveland disc jockeys they were weaned on, then adding their own individual twists.

“I liked several deejays, each for different reasons,” Brian says of his influences.  “Jeff Kinzbach had this great low voice, perfect for radio.  I like the humor of Danny Wright. ‘Uncle Vic’ was funny, too.  John Lanigan was, and still is, a terrific talk-show host.  And there was Ray Marshall on WWWE-AM 11oo, who always pronounced his Ws just perfect.  Even today, if I hear a deejay enunciate his W’s wrong, it bugs me!

“But I never really had hopes of working at any Cleveland station.  I just wanted to be in radio, doing exactly what I’m doing now.  And make good money at it, of course!”

“I was actually a big G-98 fan growing up,” Joe recalls. “So I liked all those deejays.  But I felt forced to tune into WMMS because the peer pressure in school was unbelievable.  You had to know what was going on at ‘MMS or you were considered a dork!  Growing up in Cleveland when we did, you never knew what bad radio was, or TV for that matter.  You became so conditioned.  It wasn’t until I left Cleveland and started hearing a lot of bad markets that I realized how good we had it.  My main goal has always been to entertain in one form or another.  And radio is an awesome form to do it in.  It’s a different stage you go to every day.  I feel so fortunate that we’ve been able to make our mark in our hometown and be successful in such a competitive field.”

One interesting note is that until he was working in Nashville, Joe had no idea he had a cousin who had also been a deejay-in Vietnam.  Adrian Cronauer’s life was chronicled in the 1987 movie, Good Morning, Vietnam, starring Robin Williams,  He recalls:

I’ll never forget on evening I was watching Entertainment Tonight. And there was Robin Williams on the set on his new movie.  I happened to notice his uniform and saw the name Cronauer on it, and shouted, “Hey, that’s my name!”  So I called the ET people and asked for information about the movie, and found out the script was based on Adrian Cronauer,  I called my parents, and my mother turned into Alex Haley.  After some research we found out that yes, he’s my dad’s second cousin from Pennsylvania.  We hooked up with him soon after that,  I called him, and when we got our Akron show we had him on the air, it was great.  We hit it off right away and now we’re one big happy family.  He and his wife, Jean, came to my wedding.  He’s a lawyer now, and ironically, his wife works for a radio station in Washington D.C.

The Cleveland Cronauer and his partner, Brian Fowler, got national attention as well when they became the first disc jockeys to broadcast from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  On August 24, 1995, one week before the hall’s opening, Brian and Joe aired their morning-drive show from its state-of-the-art radio studio.  Other local AM and FM stations got their turn as well, and since then, radio stations from all over the world have broadcast shows from the Rock Hall.

The next few years for Brian and Joe would be filled with revolving-door station owners, format changes, and time slots.  One morning in April 1996, while the deejays were preparing to leave for L.A. to appear in the “Drew-Stock” segment of  The Drew Carey Show )the only deejays invited to appear with rockers Little Richard, Joe Walsh, former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar, and actor and Cleveland native Martin Mull),
They were told the station was going in “a different direction in the morning format.”  The different direction was an ill-fated decision to bring in a female rival for WNCX’s  Howard Stern, Liz Wilde.

“We thought, this is it. There was nowhere else to go in Cleveland; morning radio was locked out,” Joe says.  “But when we left mornings , the ratings began a downward spiral.  When Liz came on board, (the station) started losing a lot of money because clients started pulling out.  Some of them, like McDonalds, simply refused to be on with her.  The station realized that in order to maintain the same client pull and not lose any money, they put us in afternoon-drive and moved the clients to that time period.”

Their new hours game them the opportunity to interview some or their favorite rock groups.  “Rock ‘n’ rollers just don’t do mornings,” Joe says.  “So afternoons allowed us to have a lot of them on our show.  It was great meeting Jon Anderson and Steve Howe of Yes,  I used to play those Yes albums so many times on those old turntables (that) the needles and arms would totally wear out.”

“Both Kiss and Aerosmith were the best,” Brian adds,  “They came in and actually did the show with us.  They had their own mikes and worked the control board.  We usually get the guests for twenty minutes.  These guys were there an hour and a half.  They were having so much fun, we couldn’t get them out of there!  It was a really great time.”

When the format changed once again in the fall of 1998, time had run out for Brian and Joe’s WMMS years.  The renowned deejays were offered another morning show on new station WMVX-FM 106.5.  And “Brian and Joe’s Morning Radio Show” is still alive and well.

“Our careers have been amazing,” Brian says. “And we’ve done some pretty crazy things.  When we were at ‘ENZ, I lost a bet with Joe and had to run naked down Euclid Avenue.  Then at ‘MMS, Joe lost a bet with me and had to run naked down Huron Road.   Another time at ‘MMS, we bet the Browns against the Steelers in the 1994 Playoffs, lost, and had to jump into Lake Erie with water temp of thirty-seven degrees.  We’ve been together so long and been through so much.  We’ve seen people put together for a radio show and it doesn’t work.  All the parts have to fit.  There has to be that chemistry.  Ours is built in.  We’ve got all those similarities and maintain a respect for one another. {Our friendship} is not an act.  People know what they get on the air is what they’re going to get off the air.”

“We’ve been very blessed,” adds Joe.  “One thing Brian and I have a very strong commitment to is our faith, which has certainly seen us through all the changes.  We’re grateful to God, not just for the opportunity, but the longevity we’ve enjoyed in Cleveland radio.”

Although predicting their future in broadcasting could be likened to forecasting Cleveland weather, this unique radio pair, as well as their listeners, hope the two will remain a team.

“We’ve persevered through so many managers and owners,” Brian says.  “We’ve been on WENZ mornings, WMMS mornings, ‘MMS afternoons, and now Mix-106 mornings.”
“Plus, we’re from Parma,” Joe interjects.  “You know, everybody in Cleveland makes fun of Parma, and everyone around the country makes fun of Cleveland-or used to.  So we are literally at the bottom of the comedy totem pole.  We’re used to that and we can take it.  But we can also give it back!  So after all the changes in radio and being able to take some ribbing, we’re survivors.  ‘Brian and Joe’ are still here, and planning on being around for a long time to come.”  Radio willing.

Deanna R. Adams
ROCK ‘n’ ROLL and the Cleveland Connection