A Utah man’s journey from small city music fan to interviewer of the celebrities

Estimated learn time: 7-8 minutes

SALT LAKE CITY — In 2010, Adam Reader’s band received a global contest on-line and was awarded the Hollywood Music Award as finest rock-and-roll band. Along with having a single produced by the person accountable for “Excessive College Musical,” the Utah band had the consideration of enjoying quite a few Hollywood sizzling spots such because the Troubadour and the Whiskey A Go Go.

Sadly, the music trade was in the midst of important financial change and infinite touring was the surer path to fame and fortune than a attainable document deal. Reader had a spouse and toddler at residence, with one other child on the way in which.

He quickly determined to prioritize his household and stroll away from music.

From the very starting

Reader’s love of music had household ties. His father was a profitable portray contractor in Blackfoot, Idaho, and whereas Reader had little interest in following in his father’s skilled footsteps, they shared a love of music.

“My father and I clashed over a whole lot of issues,” Reader recollects, “however music and baseball have been the 2 issues that basically introduced us collectively — particularly music.”

His now-encyclopedic data of music took root when his father would quiz him about something and the whole lot music-related. Reader would discover each e book and journal he may get his arms on in regards to the artists. And finally his dad may not stump him; the coed had change into the grasp.

–Brandon Fugal

Shortly after leaving his band, Reader and a former bandmate began a music growth firm within the Salt Lake space, known as Music for the Plenty. Just like the College of Rock mannequin, Reader would train youngsters and younger bands learn how to hone their craft as musicians.

He grew pissed off with the trendy musical inspirations of his college students and their lack of information in regards to the artists of the previous.

At about the identical time, the brand new common supervisor at KTVX, Salt Lake Metropolis’s ABC tv affiliate, was trying to replicate a late-night unbiased music present that had success at his earlier San Diego station. He requested Reader to assist produce a present that will spotlight up-and-coming Utah artists.

After discussing the venture, Reader steered there have been only a few native bands probably destined to be the subsequent Think about Dragons, and that curiosity within the present could also be restricted. He efficiently made the case, as a substitute, to interview recognized touring acts performing in Salt Lake Metropolis and construct the present round that.

After interviewing quite a few Salt Lake radio station personalities, a number had but to be discovered. These quiz video games together with his father had ready Reader for what got here subsequent.

Richard Doutre Jones, then KTVX supervisor, observed all through the interview course of that Reader was much more educated in regards to the music trade than any of the opposite personalities being thought-about. In contrast to others, Reader would later encounter, he additionally thought Reader had a glance uniquely fitted to the position.

He known as off the search and provided Reader each the internet hosting and producing duties.

On the job

The primary interview lined up for the brand new program was with none aside from Kenny Loggins, somebody Reader has maintained a friendship with ever since.

“About 10 minutes into the interview, Loggins paused and loudly mentioned, ‘Who’re you?'” joked Reader. “Later, he pulled me apart and mentioned I had an actual expertise for interviewing folks and that I wanted to develop this, and that he needed to assist me.”

Loggins helped line up interviews with the Seaside Boys and the Doobie Brothers, amongst others, and it was throughout the Seaside Boys interview that Reader was dubbed “the Professor of Rock” by one of many band’s members. The band agreed that Reader appeared to know extra about them than even they may keep in mind.

The nickname caught for the needs of the KTVX program and is the title of Reader’s now successful YouTube channel, which has over 612,000 subscribers. He has a love-hate relationship with the moniker, as Reader views himself as a stand-in for music followers when interviewing performers, slightly than an knowledgeable professor of something.

“I’m a fan similar to you are a fan — and if the tour bus broke down and there isn’t any cell service and Alice Cooper knocks in your door for assist — you would not ask him about controversy. You’d ask him in regards to the songs,” Reader mentioned. “It is at all times in regards to the songs.”

The late-night KTVX present did effectively throughout its run, even holding 80% of an enormous Oscar night time viewers one week, however Reader was dreaming of doing issues on a good bigger scale.

Over the course of lining up visitors, he met his now-business accomplice Del Williams. Williams, in accordance with Reader, had been an govt for a number of document labels and was a employed gun expertise scout for a number of years after they met.

Williams has helped information the careers of Maroon 5, Coldplay, Dave Matthews Band, Radiohead and others. He continues to assist Reader e book interviews.

Their collaboration, together with funding from buyers akin to Utah actual property mogul and entrepreneur and Skinwalker Ranch-owner Brandon Fugal led to Reader having the ability to conduct greater than 500 unbiased interviews that he and his companions shopped to streaming companies, akin to Netflix and Hulu.

“What I like most about Adam is that he is preserving and documenting the tales behind the soundtrack of our lives,” Fugal mentioned. “I do not suppose it is an exaggeration to say he has a singular capability to personally join with the artists on a degree that we’ve not seen since Dick Clark.”

In the long run, the streaming companies have been extra considering Reader getting dust on the music artists than in speaking in regards to the all-important songs.

YouTube fame

Reader had by no means thought-about YouTube a respectable option to monetize the collected assortment of interviews, however with buyers to fulfill, he and his group determined to provide it a shot.

One of many earliest movies on the channel was a tribute made on the request of Journey guitarist Neal Schon — one other artist with whom Reader has shaped a long-lasting friendship — and about when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in 2017. That video outperformed extra outstanding social media posts by Rolling Stone journal, and others.

Reader’s editor (considered one of a number of he has helping with the channel) advised him he wanted to capitalize and instantly create extra content material.

From that time ahead, the channel has included interviews with hitmakers and one-hit wonders, alike, in addition to content material that includes Reader telling the tales behind the making of fashionable songs and albums from the Seventies, 80s and 90s.

Along with the channel, Reader does reside interviews for followers, interspersed with music from artists at Park Metropolis’s Eccles Heart. He and the Park City Institute not too long ago hosted the Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive singer and guitarist Randy Bachman.

The hope is to deliver these reside reveals to the bigger downtown Salt Lake Metropolis Eccles theater in 2023, the place visitors Billy Idol and Blondie are already dedicated to look.

Issues at the moment are coming full circle for the Professor of Rock, because the streaming companies are reaching out once more. The YouTube channel’s success implies that artists now ask to be interviewed.

Reader has been advised many occasions through the years, by leisure firm executives, that nobody would care what a man in his trademark fedora, eyeglasses and bowling shirt has to say in regards to the music enterprise.

He credit his supportive spouse, Leslie, who serves as his second set of inventive eyes and ears, and his group of producers, editors and companions for serving to him show the doubters flawed, again and again.

In a single memorable second, a type of executives apologized to Reader, at a reside present in Park Metropolis, for not taking him significantly.

Reader is most happy with an interview with Benny Mardones previous to his passing two years in the past. Mardones’ lone hit “Into The Evening” charted thrice over 40 years, together with reaching the Billboard Prime 20 twice within the ’80s.

–Adam Reader

Mardones publicly struggled with drug dependancy and poor well being, in accordance with Reader, and by no means noticed his music profession attain its full potential.

Over the course of an emotional interview, Mardones got here to understand that his work had, nonetheless, been significant to followers akin to Reader.

Whereas he is happy with what a child from Blackfoot has achieved up to now, Reader will not be absolutely glad till he can say he is interviewed Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. Let’s hope both of them sees this.

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