How did you get started with music?

Where I went to school, band didn't start until the 4th grade, but I was given a two octave keyboard when I was really young; if I had to guess, I'd say I was about 7 or 8. When I reached 4th grade, I desperately wanted to play the saxophone, and when my mom took me to buy one at a local instrument showcase held at the high school, they refused to sell any more. Apparently, a lot of kids before me in my elementary school had already bought one and they didn't want an all saxophone band. As we were walking away, my mom said "How about this one?" and pointed to a trumpet. I've been playing the trumpet ever since.

During my Freshman year of high school, my Drum Major (a Senior at the time), said he would sell me his Yamaha saxophone for 50 bucks since he was leaving for the military after graduation. I taught myself how to play and by my Junior year, I was playing trumpet and saxophone in Jazz Band, baritone sax in Marching Band, and trumpet in the Symphonic Band. Once I was in college, after years of expressing how much I wanted to play guitar, my mom supported my passion for music once again by giving me an Ibanez bass and amp for Christmas. This eventually led to guitar, which I've been teaching myself how to play for about 8 years now.

How did you get started in radio?

While I was working at a car dealership in the suburbs of Detroit and going to school to be an architect, my manager there, after hearing my voice, said "YOU NEED TO GO TO MY ALMA MATER!" At first I thought she was crazy! My manager, Nancy Walsh, set up an appointment with someone on the inside, and in February of 1997 I found myself in a whole new world as a student at Specs Howard School of Media Arts. Within two weeks I was a production intern at K-Rock… my life just flipped 180 degrees!

Were you trained to do imaging, or was it something that you fell into?

As an intern at the short lived K-Rock in Detroit, I watched Mitch Todd create magic before my eyes on an Orban DSE 7000. He produced by listening, and looking back on it now, that was my very first production lesson. I moved on from my production internship to become a Radio DJ with production duties in Traverse City, MI, at a country station that no longer exists, B94.3. They just bought this new program called "Cool Edit" and nobody knew how to use it. Since I worked nights, they told me to learn it and then teach them how to use it. It was at this point that I knew I was on my own. I started experimenting with sounds, editing like crazy, and my love for production began to trump my ambition to be a DJ. After Traverse City, I moved to Cleveland to work for Clear Channel as a full time producer and part time DJ. Within months, I was named Imaging Director for Kiss FM and slowly started taking on more imaging duties across the country. At that time it was what most Clear Channel producers did. After a couple of years, our cluster of stations moved into the same building and I was given my first Pro Tools rig. I had the luxury of bouncing around ideas and imaging tips with five other Imaging guys right down the hall. This was when the quality of my imaging really started to take off, but the moment LeBron James was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers, I was off to work for Emmis Communications at Radio Now in Indianapolis, cheering for Peyton Manning and the Colts! There I was the lone imaging guy in the building where "imaging training" became a very independent affair.

At Emmis we had a production staff of three, but I was the only FM imaging guy. The other two producers handled the commercials and AM station. There really wasn't much of an option to collaborate or learn with/from the other production team members. One of the two producers even resisted using Pro Tools as much as he could. I'm not saying Pro Tools is the end-all, be-all, but the program he was "stuck" on was dated and limiting. They simply just didn't have or share the passion for wanting to do more. I'm not saying that makes you a bad producer -- both were respectfully talented -- but the experience I had in Cleveland with a cluster of fellow music imaging producers pushing each other creatively invaded my head movies night after night.

Within two years there, I finally made it to NYC where I now work with an insane group of producers at SIRIUS XM. I swear… I learn something new every day.

What's different about working for SIRIUS as opposed to your past radio gigs?

SIRIUS XM is a whole different beast compared to my last radio gigs. I have so much more responsibility as a Music Imaging Producer here. Each producer is given a handful of music channels to image. You usually get at least one that fits your specialty and the rest are a wide spectrum of formats that broaden your horizons and vision. The celebrity traffic that occurs daily and constantly gives every producer even more content to produce and image. Every once in a while when things slow down a bit you realize "Whoa, I work at Rockefeller Center, in the heart of New York City… cool."

How many channels do you image for?

My current list is HITS 1, Sirius XMU, Coffee House, and Willie's Place. They like to change our individual channel list about once a year or so, to keep us and the product fresh.

How do you give each channel a different persona?

That's our job as music imaging producers at SIRIUS XM, to give each channel its own persona, its own audio image, a specific ambience you can relate to and be entertained by. That's what separates SIRIUS XM from the modern jukebox, or typical local radio stations. Many terrestrial radio stations sound the exact same, because they share "shells" created by some sort of lead producer (which I used to do when I worked for Clear Channel in Cleveland). Other stations with less money or lack of vision would take those shells and add their local frequency and info.

My hat is off to those amazingly talented producers who are able to create what most producers couldn't even dream of. I wish those few could be drafted by our team and given the chance to truly shine. You won't be served any generic microwave audio dinners on SIRIUS XM with all the highly trained imaging chefs in the kitchen creating tasty production from scratch, using recipes they've learned from years of experience.

What do you do every week for your channels?

Every week is different, but there are some staples on your channels that you need to update every week, like imaging pieces for the HITS 1 weekend countdown and Sirius XMU sessions. We're given production orders from the programmers/format managers on our specific channels that we've either collaborated with or are flying into blind. You never know what you're going to end up producing day to day… it all depends on what Charlie Sheen says, Lindsey Lohan "steals," or what new song has just been released. I'm constantly revising my list of priorities to meet deadlines and creativity. SIRIUS XM also loves "pop up" channels. We'll give an artist their own channel for any number of days, weeks, months or years, and as the production team, we create the imaging for that channel.

Let's talk about HITS 1 specifically, SIRIUS XM's Top 40 channel. It has a lot of different voices. Where do they all come from?

As a voice-over talent, I'm able to record a large portion of it myself, but I do get plenty of help from the rest of the production team. Plus, since there are many talented people within the company, we created a database of "in-house" voice-over talent. If you get hired into the SIRIUS XM family, chances are within a short amount of time the production team will find you… and your voice.

Voice-over talent, eh? Where else have we heard your voice?

Besides SIRIUS XM, I also do promos, commercial, and narration voice-overs through my agents at Paradigm. I've been fortunate to record for Discovery Channel, Tru TV, VH1, ESPN, NFL, Investigation Discovery, Science Channel, Animal Planet, HD Theater, Planet Green, Biography Channel, Travel Channel and Lifetime. And if you've ever played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Liberty City, or IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony… you might have run me over, talked to me, beat me up, or heard me on the radio in a car you just stole.

That's an impressive list. Are there any commercials in particular that we would recognize?

At this very moment you can hear me on TV and radio as the announcer for DSW shoes.

From the imaging you do, it's clear that you have some chops when it comes to audio, and that's not something that's common in imaging. How did you get your tech knowledge?

Most tech knowledge comes from research, trial and error, and sharing with your fellow producers! We have such an amazing and diverse team of producers here at SIRIUS XM that I can't even tell you how many times I've learned something new just from walking into another studio and asking, "How did you do that?!"

How do you work with the iZotope products on both your voice over work and at SIRIUS XM?

I'm a huge fan of and have been using Vinyl, Spectron, and Trash for quite some time now at work and at home. Nectar is my overall new favorite plug-in… seriously, what an awesome and fun tool! iZotope products help a lot when it comes to giving my production "layers" and a "polished sound," or sometimes that not-so-polished sound if it's what I'm going for! I try my hardest to not get stuck on a certain setting or preset, and to evolve whatever it is I'm creating next. However, iZotope's presets sound GREAT when you're in a hurry! When you actually have some time to play, you guys make it incredibly easy to modify all your products, giving us total control of the mix. iZotope has honestly always been a staple in my magic bag of plug-ins, and with your new additions and upgrades, you continue to impress.

Well, thank you very much. Do you have a favorite project that you have produced?

No, no, no… thank you! And I certainly do… I produced a full parody of the Family Guy theme song for HITS 1, and within a week, FOX sent SIRIUS XM my first ever cease and desist. AWESOME!

What's on the horizon for you? Any places we should "listen" for you?

Thankfully that list grows, almost by the day! As a producer I'll continue to do my best to grow and entertain you and make you feel right at home on your favorite SIRIUS XM channels that I'm assigned to… and I'm doing all I can to be THE voice of a major TV network in the very near future.