It’s been two decades since WQSR radio legend Steve Rouse lorded over the No. 1 radio show in Baltimore with those Good Time Oldies but he’s been happily enjoying the good life on his local farm and tells Nestor why he and the Maynard have reunited to do some storytelling on his new podcast.
Nestor Aparicio and Steve Rouse discuss Rouse’s transition from radio to farming, highlighting his 20-year struggle before finding success. Rouse shared his journey from working at 98 Rock to starting a voiceover business, which was highly competitive. He then moved to a farm, inspired by self-sufficiency ideas from Mother Earth News. Despite challenges, his farm thrived, especially during COVID-19. Rouse also mentioned his new podcast, which he co-hosts with Maynard. Nestor recounted his own radio journey, starting with no experience but eventually buying and running WNST. They also touched on their personal lives and upcoming events.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Steve Rouse, podcast, radio bits, farm life, voiceover business, self-sufficiency, COVID impact, radio career, sponsors, Maryland lottery, Timonium, Baltimore Sun, radio station, farming challenges, radio industry.
SPEAKERS
Steve Rouse, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 tasks in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We are positively here in a great place where the Timonium grandstand on the second floor, we’re at the all new Costas Timonium location. Don’t come here for the crabs. Come here for the crab cakes. The crab Imperial Maggie’s gonna be bringing us a couple crab cakes out the Back to the Future. Scratch offs. Last opportunity to grab these. Next week, we’re going to be at Eldersburg at 1623 brewing on Wednesday afternoon, talking about the legend of Vince Bagley with Mike McKelvin. Also on Friday of next week, we’re going to be at Zeke’s coffee with everyone who’s been fired by the Baltimore Sun. I think Dan Rodricks will be there. I think he was fired and he sort of walked away. CAL will be there. Kevin Collier, cartoonist extraordinaire, as well as my co host, because it’s Cocos, who is raciq. So we’re single. Be with us as well. His wife is in Africa with monkeys right now and on reserves and helping children and doing things. So I’m gonna have her next month as well. I am celebrating our 27th anniversary beginning on August 3. It has been 27 years too long to not have this man on Steve. Rouse is completing now our second segment. First segment was, you’re from, where? Upper, what? Bangor, Maine, there. You ate. What you ate roadkill. You starved. I said to my wife, I’m like, man. Rouse, like, made a lot of money and did things here. And Ross is like, Dude, I starved for 20 years, and then you went out to a farm, right? So Todd Schuler is coming on a little bit, my buddy from Blondel Miller Schuler, and he’s a listener. We all listen to you, man. I mean, he had a 12 Share, Like a real one. You get fired in May of, oh, five, right? And you maybe wanted to work at 90 rock, or some other rock thing, or whatever, the buddy rugo and the lottery thing. You had a television show, I think, around that point, like a Saturday live thing, yeah. Did you do any other radio other than filling in? You get a shift or three. Didn’t you well
Steve Rouse 01:55
after we got fired, I filled in a Bal in 98 rock, and did a year doing the mornings on lif,
Nestor Aparicio 02:06
okay, I knew that. I knew this, which, it wasn’t an ensemble, and
Steve Rouse 02:16
then playing Christmas music for, you know, six months, right? Just like, Oh, my God, not that, you know, I don’t like creativity issue for you. It was various things, right? But, yeah, so, and then I went back to fill in on 98 rock and Bal did a lot of voice, you know, I had my own voiceover business. I knew that okay. And so that was, that was good. You know, a lot of people want to be a voiceover artist, right? Because it seems like easy work. This is how it worked out for me. I would do various auditions every day. Out of 100 auditions, I would get maybe two jobs. That’s how competitive it is. And I mean, if you go and look at different voice over guys, there’s 1000 guys that have got voices that are just like, oh my god, you know, and, and, and the real great deep voice is not the big thing anymore, you know, it’s more like the guy next door kind of thing. So I
Nestor Aparicio 03:17
hate Jack radio, just so, you know, I mean, I mean, I want to say this out loud, like a no one person who’s a snarky, just a computer and says snarky, sort of semi local somebody, it’s, it’s, it’s just plain music. It’s not about doing. It’s just about the art of it. Yeah, I don’t like that art well, like that,
Steve Rouse 03:42
yeah, and that type of radio really helped to kill off, you know, the morning shows, right?
Nestor Aparicio 03:50
Ai before there was AI, yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, so, so how did the farm happen? That’s where I’m trying to get Yeah,
Steve Rouse 03:59
I was dabbling in the in the farm after we got fired. So we always, I mean, even when I was working, I had a few up on a farm now,
Nestor Aparicio 04:08
at zero, place where there were a lot, where you grew up, you grew up in the middle of
Steve Rouse 04:13
nowhere. Yeah, and I would help. So my buddies families hay it. They called it hay in the summer, you know, you would go out in the field, and the tractor would kick up bales, and you would stack them in the hay wagon and stuff like that. You go home and your stomach would be all cut up just from holding the hay bales against your even allergic
Nestor Aparicio 04:32
to hay, it would have been a good hay fever. Yeah,
Steve Rouse 04:35
there you go. So, you know, there were some of that, but I had zero interest in in farming until in the early 70s, my father had a copy of one of the first Mother Earth News’s on his coffee table. And I picked it up and I looked at it, and it was all about self sufficiency, living off the land. Tree huggers, growing your own food. Uh, having your own energy stuff like that. And I thought, Hmm, that seems, for some reason it it called to me a little bit. And so from there on in, I was interested in heating the house with wood, you know, cutting your own firewood and doing all that kind of stuff. So you became handy. I did come become handy, but you weren’t as a kid. No, my father was in construction, so I had a little car. I would just
Nestor Aparicio 05:23
think, if you own a farm as a man your age, you or man who uses your hand in a way that I just would not be the right guy for
Steve Rouse 05:31
a farm. A farmer does everything you know. You become a plumber, an electrician, you work on equipment, you plant, you harvest, I mean, a little bit of everything. So
Nestor Aparicio 05:40
and you get to know the animals. You really have to know your animals. Yeah, I
Steve Rouse 05:43
mean, it’s, I would tell people every day I go out in the field, I come home, I come back into the house knowing something that you know when I went out there. You know, you learn something like every day. So once I got a call from Bal, I was out in the field, and they said I was doing all their voice work, almost all the commercials, everything that run, ran on the station I was doing, and they said, you know, we got some cuts. We’re going to have to just not do that anymore. So that was the end of that. So I remember laying in the field like that, going, Oh, and that actually paid fairly well at the time. So I’m like, Alright, so anyway, that led to, okay, we’re gonna do the farm like 100% commercial
Nestor Aparicio 06:27
here. Don’t be getting fired by radio people. Okay, yeah, there is your self sufficiency that you write that you were hunting for as a child, right? That’s right.
Steve Rouse 06:36
So, and my idea for the farm was, I want to have a place where people can come and get most of what they need to as far as groceries, basically, you know, produce meat. We didn’t. We did a little bit dairy once a once we got going, but, but, you know, it wasn’t just going to be sweet corn. In other words, you know, what did
Nestor Aparicio 06:59
you learn about running a farm in a business and farm, did you read up on the internet?
Steve Rouse 07:02
Total business, you know? Yeah. I mean, that’s what it’s all about. I don’t, I don’t know. I, you know, just kind of common sense, I guess, you know. Okay, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 07:12
but you’ve had a second fun life doing this. Oh, my God, you’re sitting here with me after an hour talking to me. You literally, I don’t let you out. But they were like, I don’t know this radio thing, man, you know, I’m like, You were pretty good at it for about 35 years, right? Yeah. I mean, like,
Steve Rouse 07:28
make you laugh, yeah. But this is something I really always wanted to do, too. And it’s funny you bring that up, because once we were done with the farm, I was kind of like, I kind of had done what I all what I wanted to do, everything I wanted to do, I kind of done, you know, and it’s the farm, like 15 years,
Nestor Aparicio 07:51
and you would call it very successful over 15 years, shut it down because you’re
Steve Rouse 07:58
not going to make a lot of money. And I hate to say this, but during COVID, you know, we did very well. You know, people will say, Hey, Steve, who must have been rough with the farming COVID, I like. And I say, No,
Nestor Aparicio 08:11
will you ask me about my hair? My hair was COVID hair? Oh, really, wait twice. He’s asking about my hair.
Steve Rouse 08:17
I love, you know, I used to have the long flowing locks too. Let me let it out. Well, I’ve seen pictures, man, I’ve checked you
Nestor Aparicio 08:23
see season longer than yours. No, no. Well, maybe, right about, pretty close, all right. So it’s out so,
Steve Rouse 08:30
but I love it, you know, I love it. I’d be doing the same, you know, I’d have a ponytail or something too.
Nestor Aparicio 08:36
See that that’s really, that’s crazy. Well, let
Steve Rouse 08:39
me show you crazy I got, I got big stuff going on here. Look, look at this.
Nestor Aparicio 08:44
Let them brush your rock and roll hair.
Steve Rouse 08:49
Now, tell me about this, because I think you know, it’s been years since I’ve seen you molecules and you, you know, you would have various coloration going on sometimes, but it was always pretty short. So 2020
Nestor Aparicio 09:02
my my hair was, I needed a haircut. It was a little March of 2020, I have the last picture of the night, you know, before COVID, you know. And it was, you know, like I needed a haircut. It was just a little long. I couldn’t get my hair cut. And, you know what Donald Trump said it was gonna be 15 days, and I’m laughing, and I’m like, it’s, it’s, it’s a plague. It’s, this is not gonna my hair grew. And then, like, in June, July, it got, oh, man, this. It got into that weird, like, it’s too long, my wife, am I gonna get scissors, and we thought that was a bad that’s
Steve Rouse 09:41
how the beard gets. Every so often, I want to do a letterman beard, but it gets to about a quarter or a third of the way, and it’s just like, Oh
Nestor Aparicio 09:49
no, yeah, Grizzly Adam. Not good, right? Yeah. Look like, Sasquatch, like, like this, yeah. So it started to grow, and my wife brought me in some moose. She’s like, if it’s if you can’t get your air. Cut you get some Uncle Charlie up on that, you know, Kareem, right? Yeah, little dab will do you. So the lock with velvet go with that to some chewing tobacco that that’s a that big grease man thing, not a Steve rousting. But so I put some stuff in, and I look like young Einstein, like it was just wrong. Wow. And it started to grow. And I said, you know, if I had a Wet Look, she’s like, it’s curling. She’s like, it’s starting to curl. And I’m like, Well, if I do something with a little wet appearance, and I found I went to the Marshalls with my mask on for 599 and brought up some English leather, and I put it up in my hair. And my wife’s like, Hey, that looks good. And I had grown my my soul patch.
Steve Rouse 10:44
Did she invite me? Not that good? When that kind of
Nestor Aparicio 10:47
night, Steve, it was a good night. It wasn’t that good, but it was, it was still COVID, you know, where there were sheets involved, but nonetheless, masks. But I started to grow it and and then it just, like, took off and, like, in this never went back in the can, yeah. And then I was like, I wonder what’s gonna happen. I wonder what it’s gonna look like. And it got really long about four months ago, and she started giving me some like, back in January. She’s like, Dude, she’s like, and she said to me, she’s like, it’s gonna look better when it’s lighter. And then I talked to my rock star buddy, John Allen. He’s like, it will. It really will longer. He’s like, you cut it a little bit. It’s gonna come to life. So I did then it looked better. So I’m keeping it for now. I’m keeping it for you. I’m glad you like it. Yeah, I love it. Doesn’t look very good right now, honestly. So what do you you don’t miss this at all, right? Doing radio.
Steve Rouse 11:37
Yeah, I’m having a great time with you. And you know, you know, we’ve got our own podcast, and I tell me about that, well, we’re only doing once a month. Maynard and I, who was on the show, doing what’s his life, tell us about, oh, he’s doing great. Yeah, he’s, he’s got a big family. He’s a great dad. He’s doing, he’s doing
Nestor Aparicio 11:55
good. He was always very nice to meet. Yeah? I mean, I Well, he’s the one of the I knew Tom Davis, a little bit downtown, Diane, some of your apostles, you know, of the good ship Rouse, the rousing company, but, um,
Steve Rouse 12:08
but Maynard, you know, I mean, he started with us when he was like, I don’t know kid, right, 17 or something like that, you know, and he, he’s just so talented, you know, it’s just, I recognized right off the bat that this kid is gonna how
Nestor Aparicio 12:21
much you loved him was apparent, I think, from him being one of the original intern boys that never went away,
Steve Rouse 12:27
right? Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah. He was almost like a son, almost, you know, kind of to me so and he got himself into so many scrapes because he just, you know, like we all did when we were young. And I would just be like, Oh man, don’t
Nestor Aparicio 12:42
be young and dumb. You thinking, let’s do a podcast, Steve, when you say, All right, what do you
Steve Rouse 12:49
want to do? Yeah, what do you want to talk? I just wanted to try it, you know. And like I’ve said to you, I think, in the earlier segment and off the air that, you know, this is new for me, and you would think, okay, Steve, you were radio for 50 years, whatever it is, and this should be a natural it’s not a natural thing because it’s a totally different way of, you know, broadcasting. I mean, you’re sitting here, we’re sitting here for, I don’t know how long hour and a half, two hours, whatever it is, and you’re just going, going, gone. That’s not how I was on radio. This
Nestor Aparicio 13:24
is like this would be stylistic. So in the 90s, me doing sports radio, I would take calls, and I never worked in a clock. I worked in a clock when I worked for other people. So I’ve had the station 28 years. We installed the clock in 9899 2000 me the Jim Rome show and sporting news, radio, whatever. And we had Meredith marks, who I wish I would have seen last week. Was my traffic person before that, Kim night, you met Charlie. Why rock was? Voice, great. Voice, guy, I had traffic. I had to hit and breaks and top of the hour, sports flashes in the 20s and all this. And there came a point when the internet kind of came like, for real, like in Oh 20304, and it didn’t make me, it didn’t make Meredith happy with me, or anyone at Metro traffic. But I’m like, this sucks. I mean, I’m in a good conversation. I’m on a roll, Ripken on the show, and I got to tell him to take a break to find out about traffic on Johnny cake Road, like I just and it just stopped everything. So I I hated my radio station for a long time. I hated that people would call and be so mean. I hated a couple of my hosts. I hated what they said. I hate the way they say it. I hated some racial things that got said on my air, and I fired people over it who then went on to have glorious careers, and that’s fine, but like, I didn’t like managing people because they didn’t want to be managed, especially people that didn’t want to be managed. And people were Ike bulkery, I did all of that stuff. You’re not going to come in and play God in here. Her. Let me, you know, I thought that I want to play God. I know right from wrong, and we’re gonna do it right, right, because
Steve Rouse 15:05
I know what a sponsor needs, and it’s my station, and this is how I made those mistakes. I made all those let me ask you this, because this is one thing I want to make sure I ask you before we’re out of time, how old were you when you started got Did you buy a station that was already going did you start a station from scratch? How did that all begin?
Nestor Aparicio 15:26
There’s a documentary that’ll tell you a lot about it. If you want to go watch it, it’s it’s up. So it bet it’s better answer there, then I’m probably gonna answer it. I was doing radio. I was at the paper 91 Kenny offered me to be a co host, no pay, no nothing. I quit my job at the sun because I got a year’s pay on Martin Luther King Day, any Albert? We’re talking Kenny Albert, 1992 I walked into an am radio station with no radio experience, but as a journalist trying to get a job, I was trying to get a sports writer job in Topeka, wherever. Right, right. I’m 2319 9192 Camden Yards is about to open. You’re the biggest star in the market. It’s 1992 It’s the opening day of Camden Yards, April 92 we were there, right? And I broadcast on the top of the Holiday Inn, the revolving rooftop restaurant, the bird’s Nestor cafe. So I’m on the air four months, five months at that time, and I had to go get sponsors. My first sponsors were talk Germans, fishing and tackle, pepperoni pizza o’ tools, fireside Inn. They all gave me $75 in cash and free lunches to give away or eat. Okay, so I got $225 that maybe about a third of my paycheck from the sun. And then I DJ at the Emerald Tavern on Sunday and Thursday nights, and they became a sponsor. And then I did gators pub on Wednesday night, where I met Joe Enoch, who then became a sponsor. And they were all 7500 $150 a week sponsors. And once I got eight or 10 of them, now I had enough money, like, yeah, pay my bills, yeah. And then they came to me and said, Well, why don’t you buy the whole show? It was five to seven on big band radio. They stopped big band radio at five o’clock to let this go nuts, right? Big Band rate. It was wi t h station, Allen field, Ken Jackson rock and Robin and Wayne grew it. Wow.
Steve Rouse 17:14
Wi t
Nestor Aparicio 17:17
am 1230 we were at the top of five light street right above the McDonald’s. We had a homeless man that was our our doorman, literally, right? So that’s 9293 I’m learning how to do radio, and I’m going, literally with a briefcase all day long to Squires, to Pizza John’s, to anybody that had a business. And I learned that Walmart wasn’t going to sponsor me, but a bar in Highland town that had enough loonies wood, right? So I’m working on this nasty Nestor shtick, and, you know, whatever, and playing sound effects, opening beer on the air at a piano that we program with a MIDI that opened beer and played, clapped and made the sounds that you made in the studio, right? The sounds Marty bass and Don we’re making on television in the morning, right? They’re clapping and all of that, so taking the phone calls, being wacky and doing all that. I went in one day, and they’re like, stations been sold. We’re getting a new station, Wlg, we’re going to broadcast out of the Sheraton in Towson. And Michael Hodes bought the station, all right, creep. Michael Hodes bought the station. Creep. Creep bought the station, and I worked there for a minute, and then CBM Mangione, the father, was still alive. There was a lawsuit. Was ugly, whatever. Dwight Weller came to me and said, I got a guy named Jim Richardson that has a station down at the end of Hart Road in Towson. And you will go look, it was May of 1998 and I was, I was told CBM was taking over the other station. And this is, this was 15 715. Seven. It was a failed kids radio station. It was w, T, O, W, that was licensed in 1951 that got an FM co link at the time when you were coming through where FM nobody wanted. It wasn’t Philco radio. You know, I talked to Chris Emery about a ye and those stations that came here in the late 70s, wktk became your station, right? So I remember all this like the top, because I was a kid in the market, right? I sang to be one of four song for you in the last thing you did, Maggie’s here. Come on, crab cakes. We’re telling storytelling. Maggie. Oh my Maggie came from Dundalk out here to Towson. And so are you fried? Are you broiled? Rouse, which doesn’t matter me, I’m gonna have you do, bro, because I’m fried. All right, so we’re not gonna eat it, right? Sec, because I’ll start spitting on you. Start eating. So 1998 I’m gonna get thrown out of the business. I have all the budweisers giving me 50 grand a year, like, I have real sponsors. You know, Steve Hennessy was my sales guy. We were both making a making almost much money as you’re making at that point. We were doing well, there were just two of us. The radio station was failed. There was they’re running a tape when I walk. Walked in there, they had an early computer playing kid songs. They had co linked with Fox 45 and the Kenny and Steve morning kids show. And they What year was this? 9798 Yeah, and that range. So I walked in there, and the guy who owned him was a guy named David Epler. Was called capital kids radio, their their thought this was their stupid idea. They were going to be Nickelodeon for am radio for little kids. Okay, little kids aren’t gonna listen to am radio. They don’t control their parents. Style. When their parents are listening to you or the grease man or whatever, Laurie, whoever they were listening to, right? You’re not controlling the kids not gonna own the car for the five minutes they’re going to school, right? What school they go into, Roland Park, every other kids in a school bus, right? So
Steve Rouse 20:43
this automation, were they tall things with the tall tape players, like floor? No, no,
Nestor Aparicio 20:49
no. This was a computer. This was a laptop computer that was playing the radio. They played a loop, because if you went off the air, the FCC will come take your license. So they kept it live by saying the station ID and playing, and they did their public service on Sunday. So it had been dead for, like, a year and a half, like it had been a tape running because they couldn’t find anybody who would want to program it, any sucker but me that would give a million dollars for so I went down and I had a little nest egg and maybe 5080, grand of my own money, and a little bit of this and that and but I didn’t put any money into it, other than fixing it up, making the card machines work, make buying headsets and stuff, you know, like all that. But I had enough money to seed it, and then I had and he sold it out from under me Catholic family radio, because I was paying, you know, five grand a month to own it, and they were willing to pay 25 grand a month to own it, right? So they, I got thrown out for nine months, and then I went back in with a consortium of money. People came to me, and so, okay, we’ll fund you mistake.
Steve Rouse 21:49
And you were, I mean, you were only,
Nestor Aparicio 21:52
yeah, 28 so that’s how I got the station, and now I’m stuck with it. So now they’ll
Steve Rouse 21:58
be amazing. I mean, you know, as a kid, in growing up and thinking about being in radio and stuff. Of course, one of the dreams would always be,
Nestor Aparicio 22:07
I’m at Radio the way the pig was in the farm,
Steve Rouse 22:11
you know. But you would always think about having your own station, you know, and stuff. Yeah, I’m pretty I’m pretty impressed, really, when, when I was reading a little bit about you recently, and I was thinking, how did he get that station when he was so young? How did that, you know? Well, you’re, you know, you work at it. You’re a hustler. Yeah, I’ve had a
Nestor Aparicio 22:29
couple bank loans and a couple dalliances with going out of business and being broke, but so far, I need more sponsors, so that’s why I have Todd Schuler here. I’m gonna beat him up. Get me sponsors over in Essex. Is what I’m going to do when it’s all Did I cover everything because
Steve Rouse 22:43
you said you had Todd just left. I
Nestor Aparicio 22:46
don’t know. No, He’s coming. He’s here. Mr. Funny guy, you
Steve Rouse 22:50
want to do a couple lottery things with buddy? No, I don’t
Nestor Aparicio 22:53
have to do anything to eat this crab cake, but I wouldn’t want you to do that. But buddy and the lottery, I miss him. I mean, the lottery was a big underwriter of your salary everybody else over there. I mean, but buddy and you really hit it off.
Steve Rouse 23:08
Yeah, we, we did. Well, the thing with Buddy was he loved being a performer. You know, every other lottery director that you’ve ever talked to was like, pretty business or buddy loved the limelight
Nestor Aparicio 23:21
was he an actor and on a stage when he was a kid, or,
Steve Rouse 23:23
I don’t know, okay, but, you know, he was
Nestor Aparicio 23:28
left for, he said, my studio, he would come over, whenever the pot got to a million dollars, he
Steve Rouse 23:31
would come over and he, but he was a guy that would, would admit, you know, you got about as big a chance of winning this million bucks as, you know, poppy seed to Baker, yeah, like that, you know. So he didn’t BS at all, you know. And, but yeah, I got to do so much stuff with him. And it really was so much fun giving away a million dollar like we did two actual TV shows I was thinking about the other day. I can’t remember if they were an hour or half, probably a half hour, like 730 to eight on Jay Z and you would just give, you know, you would have all these contestants and give away all this money. I mean, it was a blast. You.
Nestor Aparicio 24:08
I’m very jealous of this. And I’ve told Sarah Fleischer this. I’ve told McEwen this. I definitely told Mickey this, because I know Mickey was did this thing. Did you ever go? You didn’t go over. You were the guy that they did. You got to pull the little air thing when the little ping pong What? No, I would have bet that crap. That would have bet the whole restaurant that you did, that you never pulled a little thing when the ball got
Steve Rouse 24:31
sucked up. Never did, no, no. I mean, I hosted different things. I was on a lot of commercials, but no, I never did the ping pong
Nestor Aparicio 24:40
ball. I’m not jealous anymore. All right, see, we’re a little closer. I admire you. I looked up to you. I still do. I am blessed that you came out. We’ll share this crab cake anyway. All right, we got crab cakes here. Steve rouse is here. Todd Schuler is gonna be coming by. I got mine fried because I’m, you know, not watching my girlish figure this summer, I’m working out twice. Hard now that Jeff Schnitzer fixed my back the other day. So we’re at your cost. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. We have crab cakes here. We have radio legends. We’ve had a lot of fun here today, and the fun is going to end, because Sure and I go start talking about government. Oh, Lord, oh my God, I am Nestor. He is Steve rouse we are wnsta. 1570 Taos in Baltimore, back to the farm with you, Rouse. We’re back from Timonium right after Thanks, man. You.
