chrismoyles.net
- Sun Jan 18, 2004 8:21 pm
#240910
An interview with Chris appeared in the 15th January issue of the Cambridge University student newspaper TCS. Thanks to David Reid for sending it across.
More than meets the ear
Oliver Duff leaves the tape recorder behind and packs a spare pair of pants to go meet Chris Moyles, the saviour of morning radio.
An egotistical, racist, homophobic, bigoted, sexist scumbag whosurrounds himself with sycophants who laugh at his every word and agree with everything he says. This, says self-styled Saviour of Radio 1 Chris Moyles, is how the press portray him.
The bad-ass, wisecracking, 29-year-old lad from Leeds is no stranger to newspaper headlines. The DJ was rapped by the Broadcasting Standards Commission last year after offering to take singer Charlotte Church's virginity on her sixteenth birthday. The BCS didn't appreciate his offer to lead her through the forest of sexuality - his comments exceeded acceptable boundaries for the time of transmission, they said. Moyles also received a slapped wrist from bosses at the station after a spat with rival Capital FM's Neil Dr Fox. Bring it on, Dr Fox, he hollered in October 2002. I'm going to rip that guy a brand new hole. I'm gonna tear his head off and poo down his neck. And he recently told the cast of Pop Idol to burn in hell for ripping off John Lennon's Happy Christmas (War Is Over).
With a track record like this, you might wonder why Radio 1
controller Andy Parfitt has just handed Moyles The breakfast Show, the highest-profile slot on the British waves. The DJ admitted as much a couple of years ago: I think they're scared of putting us on a breakfast. You know, Kids are listening; they don't want to hear the word 'penis' at quarter past eight'. Moyles clearly had a bee in his bonnet - he sounded off against predecessor Sara Cox, who lost more than one million listeners in the three years she fronted the show. I think I could do a better job,
he said. I could absolutely kick anybody's arse on breakfast, ever. Having coveted the slot for so long he is now in the position where he needs to live up to his own hype.
Yet for all the pious slating he receives from the pens and mouths of ageing critics - themselves well outside Radio 1's target audience of 15-24-year-olds - it's hard to argue with the listening figures. In the five years he presented the drivetime afternoon show, he put on a million listeners, justifying his reputed £350,000 salary and landing him a Sony Radio gong.
Cox finished with 6.2 million listeners, but that still compares pretty respectably to the competition. Only Radio 4's Today programme with 7.9 million and Radio 2's Wogan with 7.3 million top it. Moyles' job is to win some of the lost audience back and push the station up the Rajar charts.
So how will he go about doing it? I met up with him in the basement smoking room of the Radio 1 studios, just off Great Portland Street in central London, a day before he finished his afternoon slot in early December. We spend a couple of minutes taking the piss out of the 1970s curry house décor and empty fish tank before tackling the more substantive
issues.
He sees the moves as a straight swap, he tells me. At breakfast we'll still have a pretty similar format really, that's one of the things we insisted on when we took this gig.
Why change a winning formula, I sycophantically chip in? Aww, bless ya, he beams. The truth is that I figure we're doing ok, we're getting better at our jobs, our audience listen to us for being the way we have been and if we changed they might not tune in. It wouldn't be what they expect.
When I got offered the job by Andy [Parfitt], I told him he needed to trust me not to get us all in the shit. He does.
I tune in to his first show on 5 January and there's little to suggest things have changed. Moyles is his usual rude and raucous self, despite the early hour, cutting over and reprimanding the other members of his team in the familiar 'zoo' format. He opens with a jingle ripping the piss out of his predecessors - Cox, Zoe Ball, Dave Lee Travis, Tony
Blackburn et al. He has an extended discussion with Victoria Beckham about the best way to pick spots, before advising her that her arse was too skinny, that she was a lazy cow and a whore. He swears at callers, even joking to them: You've got no taste. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
It may all be very distasteful to the coffee-morning classes, but must of it strikes a chord with his target audience, and the plaudits for the show have rolled out over the last fortnight. The ultimate accolade - particularly when you consider this target audience - was the Sun's showbiz editor, Victoria Newton, placing him top of the class. Praise indeed.
And yet to sum up Chris Moyles as conveniently As I have done would be to miss out so much. It would be to wedge him in the same box used by so many other media reports, as the Brash-Lad-Got-Lucky.
Meeting him face to face came as a bit of a shock, and went some way to dispelling the urban myth.
In an age where even the most insignificant one-week-wonder, media upstart can pass themselves off as a 'celeb', Moyles fights against that. He is just a bloke who comes on the radio.
The fame thing's not real for me. I don't do China Whites and the Met Bar and stuff like that. Film premieres are embarrassing. I just go to the pub with a few mates, that's what I've always liked doing.
I reckon the celeb thing is something you only see if you go out and look for it. People in the pub do nudge each other and look at you, and you get a few tossers, but hey, that comes with the job. I don't always like it but it's part and parcel.
Tellingly, I think, he goes on to say: If I could go back and change one thing I wouldn't have any photos of me. I'm on the radio for *'s sake; no one's supposed to know what I look like!
Behind the bullish radio façade there's a charming, friendly and genuine guy who comes through. 'Down-to-earth' would be the way to describe him - an admirable quality in a circuit peopled by prima donnas. You could even have called him shy and understated, at times.
Moyles is generous with his time and his manner, working to put you at ease. I ask him about his roots and an obvious affection shines through for his family and friends, who still play a significant part in his life. His dad, a postman, and Irish mother, a housewife, gave him a sound Catholic upbringing (he tells me he wants to go to church more) and used to run him around at all hours of the day and night to his early radio jobs.
When he left school at 16, he joined Radio Topshop, broadcasting to the stores' staff and customers for 10 hours a day.
I started off just following all the rules, he says. You know, between 5 and half past you'd be playing love songs and reading the TV that night, you'd have a golden hour at 11. But then I got thinking: 'These poor people who work there. Their jobs must bore them shitless.' That's when I
started larking around and doing more talking, coming up with ideas for features and stuff. You have to keep people interested.
So how has a lad from such simple means come so far? He keeps mentioning the word 'luck' to me, but I insist there must be more to it than that. Well yeah, there is, I got here by working my * bollocks off, and always trying to learn something new off everyone I met doing radio, and
working not to get fired.
My dad says: 'Don't say you've been lucky son, you've worked hard for this.' I guess that’s true, though there's always luck too. I know DJs who spend hours more than me prepping their show and are still working in local radio. God, don't let me ever go back there. Some of it just comes
down to raw talent, I guess; one of Moyles' bosses told me last year that he was the most technically skilled desk operator he'd met in all his time in radio.
So there is more to him than meets the ear. Struck by the difference between his on-air and face-to-face personas, I ask him, which is The Real Chris Moyles?
Oh the one on air, definitely, he surprises me. That's the real me. There's something about being on the radio which feels so right to me. I come out of my shell and just say what the hell I like, whatever seems good at the time.
When I'm off air, well, it's still me I guess. But when you meet people face-to-face you have to pretend a lot, don't you? You aren't always doing or saying what you want to.
But walking away from the interview it was still hard not to be impressed by the apparent depth and warmth of a man who is reputed for neither. I set my alarm and tuned in to his show. And sure, a lot of the action fitted the stereotypical Chris Moyles perfectly. That's part of the reason why so many people listen in - they get what it says on the tin. But there is another side to him too - the sarcastic joshing of his callers and team members, which listeners perhaps shouldn't take as seriously as they do.
So can he win the listeners back? He has a proven track record in pulling audience numbers up but concedes: It's a fickle market out there.
My show has lost listeners in the last year - a lot of DJs have - despite the fact the quality is going up. The pieces of the cake are getting smaller and smaller because there's just more choices out there. But he has the gift of the gab: The Breakfast Show is gonna be the best it's been in
years. Since... Tony Blackburn did it. He rolls on the sofa, his head back, roaring with laughter. I join in. With a heady pinch of salt, it's these kind of moments that make Moyles what he is.
The Chris Moyles Breakfast Show is on Radio 1, weekdays from 7am to 10am.
More than meets the ear
Oliver Duff leaves the tape recorder behind and packs a spare pair of pants to go meet Chris Moyles, the saviour of morning radio.
An egotistical, racist, homophobic, bigoted, sexist scumbag whosurrounds himself with sycophants who laugh at his every word and agree with everything he says. This, says self-styled Saviour of Radio 1 Chris Moyles, is how the press portray him.
The bad-ass, wisecracking, 29-year-old lad from Leeds is no stranger to newspaper headlines. The DJ was rapped by the Broadcasting Standards Commission last year after offering to take singer Charlotte Church's virginity on her sixteenth birthday. The BCS didn't appreciate his offer to lead her through the forest of sexuality - his comments exceeded acceptable boundaries for the time of transmission, they said. Moyles also received a slapped wrist from bosses at the station after a spat with rival Capital FM's Neil Dr Fox. Bring it on, Dr Fox, he hollered in October 2002. I'm going to rip that guy a brand new hole. I'm gonna tear his head off and poo down his neck. And he recently told the cast of Pop Idol to burn in hell for ripping off John Lennon's Happy Christmas (War Is Over).
With a track record like this, you might wonder why Radio 1
controller Andy Parfitt has just handed Moyles The breakfast Show, the highest-profile slot on the British waves. The DJ admitted as much a couple of years ago: I think they're scared of putting us on a breakfast. You know, Kids are listening; they don't want to hear the word 'penis' at quarter past eight'. Moyles clearly had a bee in his bonnet - he sounded off against predecessor Sara Cox, who lost more than one million listeners in the three years she fronted the show. I think I could do a better job,
he said. I could absolutely kick anybody's arse on breakfast, ever. Having coveted the slot for so long he is now in the position where he needs to live up to his own hype.
Yet for all the pious slating he receives from the pens and mouths of ageing critics - themselves well outside Radio 1's target audience of 15-24-year-olds - it's hard to argue with the listening figures. In the five years he presented the drivetime afternoon show, he put on a million listeners, justifying his reputed £350,000 salary and landing him a Sony Radio gong.
Cox finished with 6.2 million listeners, but that still compares pretty respectably to the competition. Only Radio 4's Today programme with 7.9 million and Radio 2's Wogan with 7.3 million top it. Moyles' job is to win some of the lost audience back and push the station up the Rajar charts.
So how will he go about doing it? I met up with him in the basement smoking room of the Radio 1 studios, just off Great Portland Street in central London, a day before he finished his afternoon slot in early December. We spend a couple of minutes taking the piss out of the 1970s curry house décor and empty fish tank before tackling the more substantive
issues.
He sees the moves as a straight swap, he tells me. At breakfast we'll still have a pretty similar format really, that's one of the things we insisted on when we took this gig.
Why change a winning formula, I sycophantically chip in? Aww, bless ya, he beams. The truth is that I figure we're doing ok, we're getting better at our jobs, our audience listen to us for being the way we have been and if we changed they might not tune in. It wouldn't be what they expect.
When I got offered the job by Andy [Parfitt], I told him he needed to trust me not to get us all in the shit. He does.
I tune in to his first show on 5 January and there's little to suggest things have changed. Moyles is his usual rude and raucous self, despite the early hour, cutting over and reprimanding the other members of his team in the familiar 'zoo' format. He opens with a jingle ripping the piss out of his predecessors - Cox, Zoe Ball, Dave Lee Travis, Tony
Blackburn et al. He has an extended discussion with Victoria Beckham about the best way to pick spots, before advising her that her arse was too skinny, that she was a lazy cow and a whore. He swears at callers, even joking to them: You've got no taste. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
It may all be very distasteful to the coffee-morning classes, but must of it strikes a chord with his target audience, and the plaudits for the show have rolled out over the last fortnight. The ultimate accolade - particularly when you consider this target audience - was the Sun's showbiz editor, Victoria Newton, placing him top of the class. Praise indeed.
And yet to sum up Chris Moyles as conveniently As I have done would be to miss out so much. It would be to wedge him in the same box used by so many other media reports, as the Brash-Lad-Got-Lucky.
Meeting him face to face came as a bit of a shock, and went some way to dispelling the urban myth.
In an age where even the most insignificant one-week-wonder, media upstart can pass themselves off as a 'celeb', Moyles fights against that. He is just a bloke who comes on the radio.
The fame thing's not real for me. I don't do China Whites and the Met Bar and stuff like that. Film premieres are embarrassing. I just go to the pub with a few mates, that's what I've always liked doing.
I reckon the celeb thing is something you only see if you go out and look for it. People in the pub do nudge each other and look at you, and you get a few tossers, but hey, that comes with the job. I don't always like it but it's part and parcel.
Tellingly, I think, he goes on to say: If I could go back and change one thing I wouldn't have any photos of me. I'm on the radio for *'s sake; no one's supposed to know what I look like!
Behind the bullish radio façade there's a charming, friendly and genuine guy who comes through. 'Down-to-earth' would be the way to describe him - an admirable quality in a circuit peopled by prima donnas. You could even have called him shy and understated, at times.
Moyles is generous with his time and his manner, working to put you at ease. I ask him about his roots and an obvious affection shines through for his family and friends, who still play a significant part in his life. His dad, a postman, and Irish mother, a housewife, gave him a sound Catholic upbringing (he tells me he wants to go to church more) and used to run him around at all hours of the day and night to his early radio jobs.
When he left school at 16, he joined Radio Topshop, broadcasting to the stores' staff and customers for 10 hours a day.
I started off just following all the rules, he says. You know, between 5 and half past you'd be playing love songs and reading the TV that night, you'd have a golden hour at 11. But then I got thinking: 'These poor people who work there. Their jobs must bore them shitless.' That's when I
started larking around and doing more talking, coming up with ideas for features and stuff. You have to keep people interested.
So how has a lad from such simple means come so far? He keeps mentioning the word 'luck' to me, but I insist there must be more to it than that. Well yeah, there is, I got here by working my * bollocks off, and always trying to learn something new off everyone I met doing radio, and
working not to get fired.
My dad says: 'Don't say you've been lucky son, you've worked hard for this.' I guess that’s true, though there's always luck too. I know DJs who spend hours more than me prepping their show and are still working in local radio. God, don't let me ever go back there. Some of it just comes
down to raw talent, I guess; one of Moyles' bosses told me last year that he was the most technically skilled desk operator he'd met in all his time in radio.
So there is more to him than meets the ear. Struck by the difference between his on-air and face-to-face personas, I ask him, which is The Real Chris Moyles?
Oh the one on air, definitely, he surprises me. That's the real me. There's something about being on the radio which feels so right to me. I come out of my shell and just say what the hell I like, whatever seems good at the time.
When I'm off air, well, it's still me I guess. But when you meet people face-to-face you have to pretend a lot, don't you? You aren't always doing or saying what you want to.
But walking away from the interview it was still hard not to be impressed by the apparent depth and warmth of a man who is reputed for neither. I set my alarm and tuned in to his show. And sure, a lot of the action fitted the stereotypical Chris Moyles perfectly. That's part of the reason why so many people listen in - they get what it says on the tin. But there is another side to him too - the sarcastic joshing of his callers and team members, which listeners perhaps shouldn't take as seriously as they do.
So can he win the listeners back? He has a proven track record in pulling audience numbers up but concedes: It's a fickle market out there.
My show has lost listeners in the last year - a lot of DJs have - despite the fact the quality is going up. The pieces of the cake are getting smaller and smaller because there's just more choices out there. But he has the gift of the gab: The Breakfast Show is gonna be the best it's been in
years. Since... Tony Blackburn did it. He rolls on the sofa, his head back, roaring with laughter. I join in. With a heady pinch of salt, it's these kind of moments that make Moyles what he is.
The Chris Moyles Breakfast Show is on Radio 1, weekdays from 7am to 10am.
