Bobby Bones Details Start in Radio
Listener Eddie from Oklahoma called into the show to ask Bobby Bones how he got his start in radio.
Bones knew since he was 5 years old that he wanted to be on the radio and TV and be a comedian. When he was 9 years old he would call into his local radio station and say his name was “Bobby The Barbarian,” because he was a fan of wrestling. And then at 17 years old he begged for a job at the radio station in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
He was the first person in his family to go to college and he begged for a job at the radio station there too. They hired him to run “Rick D’s Weekly Countdown” where he would take out one CD to replace it with another. So, he started doing that and cleaning the radio station but before that, someone at the station got fired for stealing equipment. Once that happened, they told Bones he was going to be on the air. At the time he was going by his real name, Bobby Estell, but the station told him he needed to go by either Bobby Z or Bobby Bones. He chose the latter and was awful at first. He started doing overnights and weekends and then moved to Little Rock, Arkansas to do radio there for a little, but got in trouble for breaking into another radio station and taking over. He talks about the experience in his first book, Bare Bones.
After that had happened, he was offered a radio job in Austin, Texas that he took. He did nights there for a bit, but the station was failing, so he got a job offer in Seattle. The Austin station asked what they could do to keep him, and he asked to start doing mornings. He started doing the morning show at 22 years old and got in trouble there too. And within three years, it became a big show in Austin. So, he started spending most of his paychecks figuring out how to make the show syndicated. When his contract was coming up, they told him he couldn’t take Ryan Seacrest’s or Elvis Duran’s job, but they had never had a syndicated country morning show, so Bones started doing that.
Now the show is about to celebrate its tenth anniversary of being in Nashville!
Listen to The Bobby Bones Show, weekday mornings from 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM on The New 99-1 AND 100.5, Kickin' Country.