By Davis Schneider

In the very corner of a first-floor office in Sirius XM Radio's D.C. headquarters sits a desk stacked high with hundreds of new and old CDs.  They seem to form a wall around the workspace, as if the desk divider weren't enough.  A soft melody comes from an unseen stereo. Suddenly, the sound of hundreds of clocks dominates the room. Mike Marrone, program director for The Loft channel, responds to his Pink Floyd ring tone with a friendly yet authoritative voice, "Hey, buddy!"   

Although the 52-year-old Marrone wasn’t always buried in music, he wanted to be. Growing up in the small New Jersey town of South Amboy, he had a craving for music as far back as he can remember.  His father was a big band singer who consequently quit the industry when he got married.  Marrone shared his father's passion for music, finding his niche in playing the drums at age 12.  Just three years after picking up this instrument, he started to play at bars and clubs. He played everything, from punk to funk to jazz.  Marrone's fascination with drums and music studies persisted through high school and led to his working in, then managing, record stores in Central Jersey and Asbury Park.  Marrone didn't go to college, but a lack of formal education didn’t stop his progress in the music industry.  "I had to find my own way, I had to pay my own way," he says.  "I did what I had to do.     

In 1980, Marrone began playing the drums full time.  But at 23, scoliosis ended his drumming career.  "I didn't want to be a 40-year-old hunchback drummer who couldn't walk and was playing at a Holiday Inn," says Marrone. So he devoted his attention to another side of music, becoming buyer and sales manager for the Texas branch of an import company called Jem Records in Grand Prairie. Even at this point, he created and sent out mix tapes to his friends instead of letters, foreshadowing his eventual move to broadcasting.

In 1983, Marrone got his first radio show – “The Mr. Mike Show” – on Dallas public station KNON.  He drew on his connections with Jem Records to provide his listeners solely with new imported music. This music later would be labeled as alternative music, such as The Smiths.  However, not satisfied with this job, Marrone returned to Asbury Park, N.J. In 1984, a friend approached him about joining a radio station that was being recast as a rock station.  Marrone agreed, and the revamped station's music library came entirely from his collection. “We were in Asbury Park, but we didn't play Bruce Springsteen,” he says. “But we needed to do that in order to make a statement.”  The result: WHTG was one of the first alternative radio stations in the country.

Marrone left WHTG in search of a higher-paying job. In 1989, he became music editor at The Hard Report, a radio industry trade magazine.  He worked mainly on record reviews and interviews with artists and managers.  But his biggest accomplishment at this time was that he helped form the very first adult album alternative (AAA) radio format.  This format, similar to the album-oriented rock format, was spawned by Sixties freeform and progressive rock.

At this point, Marrone was still unsure about his career. Given the volatile nature of the music industry, he tried different aspects of the business. In 1997, putting his family at the forefront of his priorities (he has a daughter), he took a job at Rykodisc in Salem, Mass. There, he was the national director of radio promotion.

Marrone saw huge possibilities in Internet broadcasting and, in 1998, created the first record company / Internet radio station, Radio Ryko, for Rykodisc.  It operated out of his basement. “It was so cool that nobody else had done that,” he says of creating Radio Ryko. “It was a big accomplishment.”  Unfortunately, Rykodisc was sold soon after. The purchaser offered Marrone a position in New York to continue his work with Rykodisc, but he was unwilling to move due to family issues.

Several months later, in 2000, Jesse Scott, a longtime friend who was running the Cross Country channel at XM, asked him to work for XM Radio.  Marrone had no intention of getting back into radio because he felt the industry was near death. “I was already getting my radio jones through a show I produced on WHTG called ‘Radio Terrorism,’” he says. “I had no need to get back into the radio business.”

Marrone was aware of satellite radio – which provides a clear signal wherever the user travels – but this new type of radio was in its infancy; XM Radio had yet to launch its satellites. But, after being offered his own station, Marrone could not resist the temptation.  The Loft launched in 2001 as one of 71 XM music channels.

The AAA-format channel samples cuts from artists such as Fleet Foxes, Tom Waits and Garland Jeffreys. It features 10 different two-hour shows running through the week. Marrone periodically holds “Loft Sessions,” which entail an artist playing music or talking for an hour about whatever he or she likes.  

Satellite radio certainly has had problems. XM faced strong competition from rival Sirius Satellite Radio, with which it merged in July 2008. The combined company neared bankruptcy but received help from Liberty Media, owner of DirecTV Inc., on Feb. 17. It charges $7.99 a month and has a subscriber base of over 20 million. It still is challenged by nonsatellite operations such as Internet radio and the iTunes Store.     

Marrone has maintained a strong following on The Loft channel. He continues to look for new ways to present music to his audience.

 

 

Q: Had you gone to college, do you think your career path would have been different in any way?  How so?

A: Absolutely. I would have stayed in the music realm – that's what I've always wanted to do.  From a very young age, I knew that's what I wanted to do. Let me put it this way: I knew I wasn't going to play center field for the New York Yankees because I only grew to 5 foot 9. It's hard to say – woulda, shoulda, coulda.  I could have gone to college and just flunked out because I was partying so much.  It was a different time.

Q: What do you prefer, satellite radio or terrestrial [AM/FM] radio?

A: I prefer satellite radio because there is freedom and creativity. That hasn’t happened in terrestrial radio in many years.  I am not interested in the kind of radio where somebody is just handed a list of things to say and a list of things to play. It's boring to me.  Anybody could do that. I prefer something with a little more meat to it and some creativity.  I look at it as an art form that has been ignored and pushed to the background for many years.  This is the way radio used to be, and I think many people in my age group – early 50s – miss it.  They may not know they do, but they miss it.  They are finally getting a chance to listen to this progressive form of radio.  So, right now I prefer satellite radio.

Q: How do you identify yourself in terms of occupation?  You have been across the entire music-industry spectrum.

A: I am a program director.  I program a radio station.  I don't see myself as a particularly good “disc jockey” in the traditional sense of the word.  I can communicate with people well, I don't use a phony voice or name.  There is no shtick.  I am there to give you information and put great sets together.  Sometimes I succeed in doing that, and sometimes I don't.  I love what I do.

Q: What do you typically look for in a new album or a new single?

A: It's hard to articulate that because it's more of a feeling than anything else. When I'm listening to something new, I get that little tingle on the back of my neck and I say, “Oooh, that's good!”  Something like Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears and the Fleet Foxes, two artists from completely opposite ends of the musical spectrum, gave me the same feeling.  It's a vibe or a feeling I get where I think other people will like it.  Or when I hear Fleet Foxes, they evoke memories of the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album or even the more experimental bluesy albums. If you put them together and add in a little Elliot Smith, then you'd have the Fleet Foxes.  When it's something I'm excited about or I like it, I'm already thinking, “What can I play that into; what will sound great after that?”

Q: When you are putting together a session, do you stick to a set amount of songs from each genre?  Do you have a template or guide that you follow?

A: NO. People put music in these neat little boxes. Music doesn’t want to be in neat little boxes.  I've been railing against this my entire career. I don’t want to hear those old broadcasting rules, like you don’t play two females back to back. Grab 10 people off the street and look at their iPods. You'll see a wide variety of music, much wider than any radio station is providing.  It's because people don’t like to listen to just one thing.  If they did, we'd only have vanilla ice cream.

Q: So how do you choose your material?

A: It depends on what my mood is.  One day I might want to hear nothing but hardcore punk. And the next day I want to hear Oscar Peterson and great jazz.  Or sometimes I want to hear them both in the same hour. Most people have a fairly wide variety they like, but they don't get to hear it. And they certainly don't get to hear it that way. They go here for this kind, another place for that kind. There's another way to do it. You can mix it all together, have it make sense, and take somebody somewhere. That's what I look for.

Q: Do you ever get overwhelmed by the amount of material to choose from?

A: No, I don’t.  Sometimes I get overwhelmed because there are so many new things that are coming out.  It is so much easier now for people to make a record or CD.  Back in the day, everything was on vinyl.  Now if you have your own recording studio or even a good computer at home, you can press your own CDs and make them look professional.  I get overwhelmed sometimes by the amount of music on my desk that I have not gotten to yet.  I start to feel guilty.  These people took the time to send a CD to me and I owe it to them to at least give it a cursory listen.  There's no way I can listen to all of these albums.  But as far as programming a show goes, the more the better.

Q: What do you do in these cases?

A: Well, what happens is you start listening to these albums and they all start running together. You need a pallet cleanser to put on every third or fourth song.  I'll use Captain Beefheart as a pallet cleanser one day to refresh my mind and wipe everything clean. 

Q: Is there any type of music that you don’t like?

A: I can generally find something I like in just about everything. There are specific artists I don’t care for personally.  But music is subjective, and just because I don't like something doesn’t mean that I won't play it or that I don’t understand why other people like it. There are few cases where I don’t like them and they are extremely popular, and I can’t understand why people like it. In that case, I just don't care enough to remember who they are.

Q: If a lot of listeners want to hear a particular song, will you play it?

A: It all depends on where the requests are coming from.  A lot of times here somebody will send me a record, and the moment I receive it I will get email requests coming from a specific area – certain IP addresses all requesting the same song.  That's fake, and it does more harm than good.  If they were legitimate requests from a wide variety of people, then I would at least go back and listen to the song again to re-evaluate why I passed on it.  In some cases, I would wind up playing it.  Sometimes you listen to something and you just don’t get it the first time around.

Q: How do you listen to new material?

A: I generally listen to music a few times over and in a few different locations.  I always like listening to music either in a car or on a crappy stereo because I want to hear it the way most people will hear it.  I could put just about anything on my home system and it's going to sound phenomenal because I have a great system.

Q: You have worked with a record label and now you are in broadcasting. Which one do you like better? Why?

A: I like what I'm doing right now, always have. The opportunity to play a wide variety of music and turn people to great stuff and to not pander to the lowest common denominator is a very satisfying thing. My favorite thing – outside of my family – is to turn people on to music.  When you can turn somebody on to a song that they love, it's like doing a favor for them. It gives me so much satisfaction.  I loved being on the other side of it, too, because I got to work with some great artists and help spread their music.  I'm one of those half full kind of guys – whatever I happen to be doing, I fully enjoy it.

Q: What do you think about the relationship between record labels and satellite radio broadcasting?

A: There really is no relationship on my end.  It's a whole new world now.  Record companies and their relationship with radio stations used to be a lot more fun.  Now, because of some people taking advantage of the system, it's not so much fun anymore.  There are only a few major labels now and everything else is independent.  Record companies have gotten hit pretty hard ever since the advent of Napster, but I also think it's their own fault. 

Q: How many projects are you working on typically at the same time?

A: Well, The Loft is one big project.  However, there are a million pieces to the puzzle.  For the first four years, I did the whole thing myself and was on the air 23 hours a day.  I have so many plates spinning in the air at one time that it gets a little nerve racking.  But it gets done.

Q: Have you ever run into some trouble?

A: Hell, yeah.  Anybody who says that haven’t is a liar.  Sometime you just run out of time or you do something you think is the right way and its not.  But you learn from that mistake and you move on.  Every once in a while I'll think the audience is ready to move in another direction and I'll put some things in that the audience is really not ready for.  I'll get messages on my work and private email letting me know.  In that case, I'll pull back.  Everyday is an experiment.

Q: How would you describe your connection with managers and artists?

A: One of the great things that has happened over the last 10 years is that the Internet and the digital age have really leveled the playing field: Some artists don’t really need a label anymore. They are able to maintain a valid fan base and generate enough cash flow to operate as their own little record company.  So, we deal with a lot of artists and managers who understand the value of their exposure on The Loft.  I have a ton of people [who] I am regularly in contact with – artists and managers. They are very easy to work with.

Q: How do those relationships play a role in what you are airing?

A: They don’t. What I am airing is strictly based on the music.  If Bruce Coburn puts out a bad record, even if I know him and his manager very well, I'm not going to play it.  I refuse to let something like that effect my work.  It's the worst thing you could do.  You're supposed to be impartial and honest to your audience.

Q: How do you conduct interviews?

A: I don't really like to do interviews.  I was the guy who had to bring people around to do interviews, and it was the same questions all the time in different places.  That's why I created the "Loft Sessions,” which is an hour of an artist playing music and talking as they please.  It allows an artist to interact with the audience in a different way, where I could say, "Here's an hour, do whatever you want to do."  It gives the audience a genuine peak into who the artist is.  I want to know what the artists like, not how they recorded their new record.

Q: How do you prepare for an interview or “Loft Session”?

A: I will have a basic idea of what I want to get at and simply go with the flow.  I like to have a conversation, not a question and answer session.

Q: Where do you look for inspiration?

A: I am inspired every day by my family and by music.  I have no trouble getting inspired.

Interviewed, condensed and edited by Davis Schneider.

 

 

Marrone has written on the music industry in Business Week, among other publications:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_08/b4022091.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_51/b4014088.htm

The New York Times takes a look at The Loft channel on Sirius XM Radio:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/26/arts/music/26SATE.html?pagewanted=1

Marrone provides insight into his “Loft Sessions” on The Loft fan site:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzev80pu/theloft/id28.html