Q & A WITH RICK DEES : He’s Trying to Dilute Radio’s Meanness

In a business where popularity is fickle and disc jockeys on top can quickly find themselves on a plane bound for Poughkeepsie, Rick Dees has remained a fixture on morning radio here for more than a decade.

After starting out nearly 20 years ago at small stations in the South, Dees gained fame in 1976 when his novelty song “Disco Duck” sold 2 million copies. He was hired at KIIS-FM (102.7) in Los Angeles in 1981 and ranked as the top-rated morning host from 1983 to 1988. His standing has fluctuated since then; at one point last year he dropped to seventh, but in the most recent ratings he’d climbed back to No. 2 among English-language stations, trailing only nemesis Howard Stern on KLSX-FM (97.1). KIIS reportedly pays him about $2.5 million a year.

His radio fans are drawn to such loony Dees staples as “Spousal Arousal,” in which a spouse calls his or her partner offering romantic enticements, and “Battle of the Sexes,” where men and women compete in trivia contests. Dees, 41, also hosts an internationally syndicated radio program, “Rick Dees’ Weekly Top 40,” and has made forays into television: In 1983-84 he was host of the variety show “Solid Gold,” and in 1991 he had his own late-night talk show on ABC, “Into the Night With Rick Dees.”

Question: You’ve been in radio close to 20 years and have been the morning drive-time personality at KIIS for 13 years. To what do you attribute your longevity?

Answer: I try to stand for things that are different. People are really searching for communication with somebody. They’re searching for a relationship. And to feel that I’m giving somebody a relationship is exciting to me and very rewarding. I don’t think you have to be goody-goody, because my show is not like that at all. It’s very cutting edge. It takes things right up to the limit. . . . My dilemma is that people are attracted to evil and meanness. So my challenge is to do things that represent making people feel better about themselves.

Q: Do you put much stock in ratings?

A: Of course I enjoy when the ratings go up, but I can’t get too excited when they’re up because then I would get too depressed when they’re down. I don’t really live and die by the ratings. I know that that sounds crazy, but (the ratings make me) feel like I’m always in high school. I’m always taking SATs. It’s a nightmare. That’s the only nightmare part of my job.

Q: Let’s stick with that high school analogy, but take it out of the academic realm. The contest is on for Big Man on Campus. What do you think of the competition on morning radio?

A: First of all, I do enjoy competition and I think the competition now has taken radio to a height of awareness with the public it has never enjoyed before. The competition has also gotten to a point where a certain element of radio is mean-spirited now. And I feel that one of my challenges is to dilute that mean-spirited part of radio.

I used to listen to the famous names in radio in Los Angeles, like Robert W. Morgan, Charlie Tuna, Dick Whittinghill. They always represented being funny and cutting edge and doing satire and having a slanted, strange look at life and doing things you could repeat in a big group of people and not offend anyone. Now you get Howard Stern. He’s the bully who pushes everybody around and knows that they won’t fight back. But now someone is fighting back, and it’s a joy to watch him squirm.

Q: I heard Stern on the air the other day railing about you. He’s called you a moron with a fake laugh.

A: The amount he rails about me on the air is directly proportional to the insecurity he has about the fact that I’m really getting under his skin. So I wear every time he says my name in a negative way as a badge of honor.

Q: There are others on morning radio who also like to make you the butt of their jokes. I’m speaking specifically of Kevin and Bean, the morning team on KROQ. They’ve said that your style of radio is irrelevant. Does this get to you? Is it all part of the game?

A: These guys I feel sorry for because they must not have much of a show if all they want to do is follow me and chronicle what I’m doing every day. What a dull life that is.

Q: There was a recent incident where Kevin and Bean sent someone from their show to follow you to work one morning. You were upset and mentioned at the time that you were considering legal action. Did you take any?

A: I tried. I talked to attorneys. But do you know they would have to do that to me twice? I’ve never had it in for them, but they’ve been very mean-spirited. And I think there’s a price to pay for it. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not for me to decide.

Q: That comment and some others you’ve made have some religious overtones. I understand you’re a born-again Christian.

A: Yes, I am, and I’m not ashamed of that at all. But I’m in a secular world and there’s a tendency for people to think that someone who has a spiritual connection, who has a personal relationship with God, is not cool and they don’t know how to dress right, they don’t know how to make people laugh and be entertaining. I don’t think that’s necessarily true. And it is true I do think about naked girls sometimes. I lust in my heart even more than Jimmy Carter, so I guess I can’t be President.

Q: Your success on radio has not translated to your television efforts. Why didn’t “Into the Night With Rick Dees” work?

A: I was so excited about that TV show. But I had the misfortune of being released to the public on late-night television in the middle of Johnny Carson’s last year on TV and in the middle of the Gulf War. Our show didn’t come on half the time until about 1:45 or 2 in the morning. It’s very hard when Ted Koppel wants to just grab an extra 35 minutes to show people blowing up in Saudi Arabia. I’d love to have another opportunity but who knows?

Q: Do you have any other television projects in the offing?

A: I do. I’m working on a project with Barry Diller. We’re working on a whole new approach and a whole new network. He’s got QVC but there’s going to be a young version called Q2. I’d have a show with celebrities and, if I did have music, most of it would be raw and a cappella.

Q: Are you involved in any ventures outside of broadcasting?

A: A business partner and I have been experimenting for three years with the world’s lightest videocassette. You might say, “What would you want with a light videocassette?” Well, that videocassette could actually be sent out to people in their mailbox for the same amount of money that you send out a catalogue. You’d have a videocassette with (for example) BMW’s 1995 line. And (people would) put it in their VCR.

Q: If this takes off, do you see yourself leaving radio?

A: Never. I just love it; it really is a hobby.

Q: A well-paid hobby.

A: Well, thank you. Although John Madden’s getting $8 million a year. Time to re-negotiate.