Lisa Brandt: Queenager

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound off podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
Lisa Brandt is a voiceover artist, podcaster, blogger, radio personality and author. Her podcast is co hosted with the legendary Erin Davis, and it's called gracefully and frankly, but it's voice over, where she spends most of her time behind the microphone, reading corporate and YouTube videos, e learning projects and radio spots for brands you know, like des group, Walmart and babies are us. She's the author of five books, including The Naked Truth, which discusses her time at a nudist colony. But you are gonna love the radio backstory, which includes a lot of time at some of the biggest radio stations in Toronto. And now Lisa Brandt joins me from Port Stanley, Ontario,

Lisa Brandt  0:57  
old radio dog here.

Matt Cundill  1:00  
When was the radio dog a puppy, and why did it have its first radio job in Red Deer? Well,

Lisa Brandt  1:06  
actually, that was the first full time job. I went to Niagara College and worked part time through college there at CJ RN, which is, I don't even know what it is now our tourist station. I can't keep up, because you know how many times now I have to say I worked at a station that no longer exists, C, H, M, L, C, K, s, L, C, j, b, k, anyway, yeah. And I went out, somebody said, Go west, young woman. And I went out and just started setting out my reel to reels, and got a job in Red Deer opera, but doing one night, and I thought I'd hit the life lottery. What's

Matt Cundill  1:40  
the level of bravery that it takes to go across a couple time zones and into a town like red deer that you may or may not even know?

Lisa Brandt  1:49  
Well, it's a combination of young hubris and stupidity that you know. When you're young, you think you own the world, and it's not till you get older that you realize the world's going to own you. It's the other way around. It's not all about you. I didn't have a shred of fear or shred of hesitation. I just went I wanted to work so badly, and I wanted out of school, and I quit after the first year, because I got the job, which was good and bad. Good because I got paid to learn, but bad because there were a few fundamentals I didn't know, but, yeah, it was a really good experience. I went for Red Deer after about eight months, to Prince George BC before coming back to Ontario,

Matt Cundill  2:29  
what did you learn in those first two jobs?

Lisa Brandt  2:32  
Well, I learned the hard way about work life balance. I didn't take good care of myself. I got sick a lot. You know, I was I said yes to every shift and everything that came up, I learned a lot about people, not good stuff in some ways, how they'll use you for their own ends. But I learned because I got to do every shift. I'd learned a ton about radio and about, you know, I mean, back then, Matt, of course, the Earth was still cooling, you know, it was 40 fives and albums and queuing them up. In fact, when I had to do my own production, my own commercials, I had to cue the record, hit the card at the right time, and do the read well. And sometimes it would take 3035, takes. I mean, these, this is antiquated stuff that I don't even know if anybody else will remember, but it was very hands on back then, long before anything digital. So it was a big learning curve.

Matt Cundill  3:24  
Okay, so I'm having a few flashbacks as you tell me this, and I'm thinking, cue the record. Two fingers on the cart, cart, lift the record. The record will start, and then you have to record your 32nd spot, and it all goes to cart, right?

Lisa Brandt  3:39  
And make sure the levels are good, because it's music that you're queuing. Then you've got your script, so you've got to do the script well, like when somebody walks into a booth now, and there's a producer and everything else, and they just read, I still always have in the back of my mind that this is a breeze compared to everything else. It's a breeze to not having to do it yourself. But that makes me an old fart, so I don't say it out loud, except you right now.

Matt Cundill  4:04  
Yeah, it's amazing to think of the things that we had to learn in order to be on the radio. We so badly wanted to be on the radio that we would learn just about anything to do it, including, this is your cart. You got to put your ad on here, and when you're done, you got to take it over to that bulk eraser. Could you imagine anybody millennial or Gen Z listening to this? And,

Lisa Brandt  4:24  
you know, bulk erasing? I mean, they used to tease us in college and say, Oh, just wait till we have that bulk erasing test. And when we first started as newbies, like, what's the bulk racing test? But you can bulk erase wrong. Who is harder than sounded?

Matt Cundill  4:37  
What is the correct way to bulk erase? Well,

Lisa Brandt  4:40  
I mean, just make sure you get all sides and get it all really well, some people were kind of lazy and would just do this, and then you'd end up with a filthy cart. So, so a

Matt Cundill  4:49  
bulk eraser, by the way, I think it's a giant magnet, isn't it takes all the audio information off the tape. And, yeah, yeah, bad cart on the fault report every day. Oh, yeah. Have the fault report. See, there's

Lisa Brandt  5:01  
another thing like it will you actually found fault with somebody, and, oh, my goodness, they could. They were right angrily, like Lisa didn't work whatever, you know? And then it would go to all the managers, and you'd just die 1000 deaths, yeah?

Matt Cundill  5:19  
But you spent time in the 80s, and you're playing some of the best music ever. Was a country. Was a tough 40

Lisa Brandt  5:26  
What were you playing? Let me think about this for a second. Well, Lee Greenwood comes to mind because he's a big Patriot now, so he calls himself. Lee Greenwood was big Barbara Mandrell was big. Then Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. All those guys were huge. And I got to meet a fair number of them over the years as well. And, you know, they were, they were just more or less decent people doing, I mean, the rovers. I got to hang out with the rovers. How exciting is that? That's what we were doing. And a lot of gospel. The station I was at did a lot of gospel. I used to run the gospel show on Sunday mornings. And yeah, there's a lot of that Christy lane, and that's all I can think of right now.

Matt Cundill  6:10  
What did the call letter, c k n x, mean? Where was it and it had TV and radio, right? Yeah,

Lisa Brandt  6:16  
c k n x, oh my goodness. What does it mean?

Matt Cundill  6:19  
You don't need to spell it out. But where was it located and what was inside the building?

Lisa Brandt  6:25  
C can X is in Wingham. I was actually just up there to visit with a couple pals and talk with them. Yeah, it was TV. It was a CBC affiliate, am FM, you know. So you got to do a little bit of everything. I was hired away from London and Wingham. Why would I go to Wingham? Well, as it turns out, it was a great move. I left there as Program Director of the FM station. You know, did a ton TV. Got to do remote television. Got to do telethons, everything you name it. Learn about farm equipment because we did auctions on the am station. Yeah, it was a hoot. That was, I consider that my big training ground and and I still got really good friends that work there now.

Matt Cundill  7:06  
So you're more than seasoned. You're a decade into the business, and you find your way into Toronto to 99.9 incredible building, incredible people, incredible talent, who is the programmer who hired you,

Lisa Brandt  7:20  
Marty Forbes. And almost immediately Marty left, and he called me to his office, and he said, this has nothing to do with you. I just have a great opportunity to go back home. And then we had Pat holiday, who I learned a ton from, and JJ Johnson, who I also learned a ton from, after that. So great. Bunch of guys really? Blair Barton was there at the time. I mean, there's just a ton of Maureen Holloway, a ton of talented, super people there.

Matt Cundill  7:50  
Yeah, that's an all star cast. And the station goes through. It was just CK FM, 99.9 I think it became the mix. Yes,

Lisa Brandt  7:59  
I was there when the transfer happened, yeah, so I got hired at CK FM, and then it was pretty quickly became the mix. Dan Williamson was doing afternoons. Lee Marshall was, I mean, it was just all the guys who had the big voices and did all the commercials back in the day, and really talented folks. It was an exciting time. A format flip, if you survive and are brought her car kept on. Is really exciting. It's not so exciting, of course, when they decide that you're not a part of it, well,

Matt Cundill  8:27  
there was also, I think, cfrbs in the building. So you found your way over onto that side of the building as well,

Lisa Brandt  8:33  
right? I did, and I was in transition to becoming full time at cfrb. In fact, this is going to sound terrible, but there's a lot of contacts. Matt, I quit on my first full time day of cfrb. I gave my two weeks notice and was walked out of the building the job that I was going to have morphed into traffic reporter by the time I actually got it, and I just I couldn't see myself doing that. No offense to any traffic reporters, but I'd gone, you know, I felt I had gone in a different direction. I wanted to continue that direction, and so I just happened to run into people who offered me a job on my vacation, and I came back and gave them a two weeks notice, and they said, no, no, no, here's the door. Let us walk you to it. We have mended all those fences since then, in the years since, but it wasn't my finest moment, and it wasn't their happiest. Well,

Matt Cundill  9:27  
I like that line I'm stealing that. I can totally see that, by the way, like to be a personality, and then, you know, come up with all this creative stuff and say, Okay, now you're going to do the cars

Lisa Brandt  9:38  
well. And it was, it wasn't a discussion. It was, you can imagine Gary slate in his cowboy boots, leaning back on his desk, putting his feet up, and going, Okay, so we've decided you're going to do traffic from 7am till whatever PM. And if you can work in some entertainment reports, you know, we'll, we'll squeeze those in as well. And it's like that was absolutely backwards when. It was supposed to be. And I could feel my heart fall and, you know, I didn't know what I was going to do, because just it was, it was just not. The door had already slammed on the mix. They'd already hired Bob Callahan to replace me, and I remember feeling, Oh, what am I going to do now? And Brian line, hand was doing entertainment. He and I were going to be a little entertainment team I was going to go out and do stuff, and they didn't see it that way. And it ended up, it ended up going a different direction. Great people took over for me, Karen Parsons and Sheila Walsh, and I went to do mornings at Cool FM in Kitchener, and I got what I deserved. How long were you in Kitchener? One year to the day? It was not a great situation, you know, again, it was a the transition from music of your life, beautiful music or whatever, to classic rock. Was really fun. We were like WKRP, all the old people freaking out on us. We used to get these angry phone calls and people showing up back our music, and we understood. But it was an exciting time, just not a great place for me to land. I left, and Angie Hill came in. She's been there ever since, and she is amazing, wonderful, incredible, and was able to navigate her way through some things that I couldn't.

Matt Cundill  11:13  
And as somebody who has been in Hamilton at C, H, M, L, where you spent the later part of the 90s, and see those callers go away. First of all, tell me about your experience inside chml, and then tell me a little bit about the heritage of it.

Lisa Brandt  11:29  
I was brought in I was told to be part of a new push to modernize, or whatever, not get rid of the heritage of chml, but kind of hip it up a little bit. Not that I was particularly hit, but I was younger than a lot of them, and it didn't happen because it wasn't it wasn't bought into by the staff. It was the ultimate old white guys club. They didn't want me in the club the morning show I did the morning show there for a while. I don't know how specific I want to get about this, but the one guy, I mean, he was just horrific. He would bring in a like a singing group or whatever, and, God, don't bother with her. That's just the girl we're supposed to be co hosts. You know, he did awful, horrible things, demeaning things to me, on air and off. And the On Air ones would garner a bunch of phone calls, and so then I ended up on the midday talk show doing my own thing, and that was a lot better. But I still, you know, had a lot of, you know, I had a producer to start with who would give me incorrect information, then turn his back to me. And I'm not kidding, Matt. I mean, this is how bad it was when Peggy Chapman came on, things became a lot better. Peggy Chapman, I could not say enough good things about and we had a really good role there for a while, but I still had to defer to everybody else. They ended up sort of altering the format and kept one talk show, which is Roy green, makes perfect sense. And it became sort of a music, talky, sort of, I don't know, mishmash or something, and, and then, you know, when Jeff story became news director, and then ultimately, program director, they seemed to really get their ducks in a row. Things seem to really go back. You know, I don't want to blame other people. It's just that when I came on board, there just wasn't buy in. And the other women felt that too, and the other younger, younger women. So it was a good experience and a bad experience. I got my own talk show, which was really cool. My mom and dad were thrilled to my dad's favorite radio station. It was really exciting time for that. And I learned a ton. I mean, there's nothing like having a half hour planned with a guest and I'm not showing up. You know, like there's no other way to learn how to ad lib and save your butt. It's just trial by fire. So it was a really, it was a really good learning experience. I'm sorry that it's gone. I sure am. I mean, that's all that heritage down the toilet, but

Matt Cundill  14:03  
speak about that versatility. And you do so much, you blog, you do voice work, so you're working with copy every day, radio, podcast, you can do it all. But that versatility, I really hear it when you do a talk show. But some of the people that I listened to on the radio today. If you gave them a talk show for two hours, they couldn't get to the end. I don't hear that anymore. How'd you acquire all that versatility?

Lisa Brandt  14:32  
You know, when I was working at 680 news in Toronto, which came later, of course, I finally came to the realization that I take things awfully seriously. Even doing the talk show, I would get up too early, go in too early, stay too late, work too hard. I didn't I never felt like I had it. I always felt like I was on the edge of the the knife. I had to make it smaller in my life, I had to make. My main job smaller. And so I thought, what else can I do? And I took on other things to do that, in a way, to calm my anxiety. When I was living in Burlington, for example, I went to the Burlington post and I said, Look, I cannot stand an unanswered question. I would like to do a column called the public detective, where people said this before, of course, everybody could Google anything, and I will people send in questions, and I will research them, and it gave me something else to do. I always felt I had to have something else. You know, whether it was refinishing furniture or writing a blog. I mean, the only reason my blog has survived and gained some traction is because I never quit. That's the thing. And I find that the same thing with podcasting, the same thing with anything else, if you stick with it, people get disillusioned and quit. I know a lot of people who've blogged a half dozen times or for six months, and then they just go away because it's not what they thought, or they don't think they're getting the feedback, or whatever. I did it for me. I did it to practice writing because I wanted to write, you know, some of my early blogs, thank goodness, they're lost to the ether, but that's how I learned. And it was the same without living. It was, you know, having to do it. I remember a woman calling up one time when something happened on the air, on C, H, M, L, forget what had happened, or computers died, something went wrong, and I had, like almost nothing. I wasn't prepared. And she called up Peggy, my producer, and said, Why is she saying the same thing over and over again? And I wanted to die. I wanted to curl up and die. But it was a lesson to me, don't just leave it when you got the spotlight on you with no backup, have don't just one backup, have nine backups, because you never know what's going to happen. So you know, a lot of it's just trial by fire, and a lot of it's not just not giving up and not and then not caring what people think. I don't care if someone reads my blog and goes, I don't like that, or whatever it's like, whatever it's not for you, and move on. I just don't care.

Matt Cundill  17:01  
Tell me about the experience at chfi. You are working on probably one of the most successful radio shows in an era where the ratings are ginormous, the personalities are ginormous, and you strike up this great friendship with Aaron Davis. Well,

Lisa Brandt  17:16  
I used to watch Aaron's commercials with Don you know, of course, we'll see them everywhere when I was at chml, and think, Oh, she's got it made. I mean, knowing what it's like inside a radio station, still thinking everything and her life was perfect. And so I quit ch ml. We actually came to an agreement that it was constructive dismissal when they changed my show so radically, and I was on the beach, and Paul Fisher had actually tried to hire me before, when I was at the mix, long before we talked about becoming to C H of i to host a show, and he found out I was on the beach, and called me and asked me to come do morning news. And yeah, I was terrified, so I knew I had to do it, and so I did Morning News for about three and a half years. It seems like a minute and a half, but it was that long. And, you know, Aaron and I got along great. I got along with everybody, but we didn't really have time to commune or, I mean, my shift went longer than hers. We didn't hang out until I became the co host on 680 mornings. Then we started, wait, we're both free. Let's go to the gym together. Or there's a gym at Rogers campus, which was great. Or let's go have coffee and crap about our jobs or whatever. And that's when we really started becoming friends. It was a more equal footing. You know, when I I would fill in for her at first, then they change things around. And, you know, I was her newscaster. I was the moment when they could talk about what was coming up in the next bit, or whatever. I wasn't so much a team member of the show. And

Matt Cundill  18:52  
why did your time at Rogers end? Or how did it end?

Lisa Brandt  18:56  
It ended because of me wanting to move to London for love. And, you know, I had, I gave him six months notice. I wrestled with it, but all my career, I had my priorities, I think, a little bit mixed up. It was work, first, personal life, second, always. And, you know, I've been divorced twice, surprised, and I just thought, I'm gonna do things differently. I'm gonna shove some things around. I'm gonna just work's gotta be second. I really didn't want to leave 680 In fact, for quite a long time, I wrestled back and forth with, you know, going back to Toronto in some respect, mostly because of the horrible pay in London, but I don't regret it for a minute. And you know, I miss some tear I miss working with Paul I miss the laughter and the camaraderie and the chemistry I had with Paul Cook. You know, we're still in touch, but that's why I left.

Matt Cundill  19:54  
It's funny, because I think a lot of people who are Mainstays are successful in radio, especially if you 80s, 90s. Was, you know, early, 2000s Yeah, there wasn't a lot paid attention to on personal life. And if you asked anybody, Oh, tell me about your personal life. Oh, it's inside the radio station.

Lisa Brandt  20:08  
Oh, yeah, like my first two husbands, and my husband, now, I don't like how that sounds, but anyway, they're everybody. They're on radio, all radio adjacent, you know, it was like nobody understands us and and then you get you go outside your scope a little bit, you realize nurses are the same and lawyers are the same, and everybody else, they all think they've got this special job, and nobody understands it unless you're inside it. I mean, it's just life. People understand radio if you explain it to them, it's about that extraordinarily special having said that, I sure love it, and I always did, and still do

Matt Cundill  20:48  
we learn a lot about codependency inside a radio station. If you have a successful morning show, a codependent morning show can be really, really, super successful, but then radio people will take that codependency and shifted into a marriage, and that's why I think there's a little more failed relationships with radio people than in other professions. And I think it's because a lot of radio people don't understand that in a marriage, you need interdependency,

Lisa Brandt  21:12  
right? Absolutely, and you need other things to talk about, oh, then work. So my husband, Derek, and I did a morning show together for several years, and we didn't say that we were married. On the air, he would talk about lovey, his wife, and I would talk about my husband. But we just felt, because there was a third person on the show, there were three of us, that it just wasn't fair. Suddenly, he'd become the third wheel. That's not fair. He was a full third, you know. So we made a decision as a radio station to do it that way, and it got really interesting when he got fired, and I didn't, but it was a little too much. We tried not to talk about it, but I'm glad we don't work together that way anymore.

Matt Cundill  21:56  
Oh, you could have the airing of grievances, like right in the middle of the show. Let me tell you what lovey did last night.

Lisa Brandt  22:04  
We could, did that happen? Yeah? Well, it that kind of thing, you know, and, and he and Blair would commiserate over women or whatever, and I'd have to defend women or lovey. Yeah, it was fun.

Matt Cundill  22:18  
I mean, this is, this is the radio equivalent of Fleetwood Mac rumors, where they're writing songs about one another and making the other one sing it.

Lisa Brandt  22:25  
Yeah, not as you know, he wouldn't say something that might hurt my feelings or that we hadn't talked about, or something. A lot of times, we cleared things with each other. We have a pretty good, you know, like whatever. We don't worry too much about stuff like that, but we protected the relationship first, I think, we made sure the audience was in on the point of it, but they didn't have to know we're married. So have you been in London ever since? Yeah, I was in London 10 years, I guess. And then we did a couple moves around. I live in Port Stanley right now, on the shore of Lake Erie. But yeah, I went to London, and we've been here ever since, I mean, we're 15 years married this year. So I say it worked out.

Matt Cundill  23:06  
You also had a chance to work at the London talk station, and you're going to have a great perspective on this. And that's, you know, we've talked a little bit about chml going away, and you worked in London talk and, of course, the stations in Toronto, and I want to talk a little bit about those smaller markets. And when you see stations like that struggling, do you have an a perspective or an idea or a solution? Should we be holding on to them? Or do you think these stations can make money?

Lisa Brandt  23:31  
I think they can, if my FM, or somebody like that buys them, because they seem to have a formula that works, they make it hyper local. They don't try and compete with everybody in the world. They reflect the community back to the community and everyone I know who lives in Strathroy. I mean, this is just Country Club surveying. It's not empirical evidence or anything. But everyone I know who lives in Strathroy or St Thomas, or any of those places where they have a hyper local, my FM, or whatever else, the Wallaceburg station. They listen to it because they know that if anything happens in their community, that's where they're going to find out about it. You know, the local newspapers are letting them down in many cases, and I think that's a way to do it. Having worked in Toronto, I used to say this to Toronto people all the time. You know, don't discount the smaller markets. In some places, it's more important. Radio is more important than it is here. Radio is just a tool here, you know, it's as important as a wrench or anything else. They throw it away when they're done with it. In a smaller place, it could be your weather forecaster, your music, your whatever, everything it used to pain me, especially at cjbk, when we had literally a zero budget for anything, and we used to have meetings with Toronto about how to do promotions with no money, and we essentially couldn't. It was just starvation. You. It was really difficult. It was a difficult way to live, especially when they would do their big quarterly earnings and never mention radio, TV's doing this, our whatever's doing this, everything's doing this. Hey everybody, thanks for all the good work. And we would sit there and go, I know we're making money. We have to be making money, and we were, but radio just didn't matter. So what was the company, Bell? Okay.

Matt Cundill  25:25  
I mean, I sat here and I go, is that Rogers? Is that bell, or is that chorus? And it, it could be

Lisa Brandt  25:31  
either any of them. Yeah, I had a good experience at chorus. I don't know what it's like there. Now, you know, Rogers, of course, was the best, but then again, I worked for them in Toronto. I don't know what it's like at the other stations and and it's a different world outside of Toronto. Right Bell working for bell in London? No. Thank you. Yeah. And to

Matt Cundill  25:53  
do promotion on zero budget as somebody who had zero budget for eight years, it was a lot easier when you had a rock station and listeners who could participate and do things with you, I would have no clue about how to do that on a talk radio station on AM, so I feel for you. Yeah,

Lisa Brandt  26:09  
and it wasn't just promotion, it was a whole bunch of things. So they, how would you put this? We're tired out the afternoon host, and then we're told they couldn't replace them. Yeah, there's no budget to replace them. So, you know, I mean, it was things like that. It was they basically starved it to death. It was a station where you bonused your commercials for the FMS, but your morning show, Ken Eastwood and I took it very seriously and worked our butts off.

Matt Cundill  26:35  
Yeah, I had somebody come to me recently and say, Oh, they're making no money. Well, I'm playing commercials. So how can you be making no money if I'm playing commercials? Well, we bonus those. Well,

Lisa Brandt  26:47  
then we're part of the buy. Yes, exactly. They just didn't want to distribute the wealth and whatever I've just That ship has sailed. The one thing I will not do is have value in my house, so,

Matt Cundill  27:01  
oh no, I'm in that camp as well. Yeah, they talk about the bean counters and whatnot. Well, there's number fudging that goes on all the time, you know? Oh, well, that's not making money. I said, Well, you're running your ads for your phones on it, therefore, why don't you sell it to me for $1 Oh, no, we're not selling it too.

Lisa Brandt  27:20  
Yeah, exactly. We used to go into the like in the lobby at the Bell station was Rogers CV, and you would see the big Rogers logo. And I asked somebody about it one time, and they said it's because it costs too much to change it to Bell, because the two divisions don't have any cooperation. You actually have to buy from the other and I thought that was like, okay, the competition's fine in the lobby when somebody's waiting for a meeting watching TV, but whatever, it just started a lot of things that didn't make sense to me, but way above my pay scale. So,

Matt Cundill  27:53  
yeah, actually, at that point, I probably would have asked, well, who's in charge? Let's see if we can do some contra yeah,

Lisa Brandt  27:58  
oh yeah, there's, there were ways to do it, right? But, you know, there just, there were just wasn't a will. So, yeah, I had

Matt Cundill  28:07  
a similar moment. It was 2013 and there was a lot of talk, because we could see it coming. And it was Canadian Music Week, and there's two, there's a Rogers person, adult person, on stage talking with somebody from radio. Inc, the editor of radio. Inc, and they're being interviewed, and up comes the discussion, we're going to put an FM chip on the phone so that people can listen to FM radio on the phone. And is there? How do we do this? Can it happen? And I'm sitting here going like, well, two of these companies sell phones, so might have a little bit of sway into making this happen. And no discussion inside the building, on that sort of thing, and then the iPhone took off.

Lisa Brandt  28:42  
Well, that's just it. I mean, this is what the the big heads say radio did wrong is it didn't innovate, it didn't plan ahead, it didn't look ahead. Trying to get some radio stations onto the web even was a big struggle. I remember because I was there in those days. Now that's not to say. I'm not saying I'm not one of those people saying radio is dead and all those kinds of things. I'm not, but it could have done better.

Matt Cundill  29:09  
Yeah, largely mismanaged in North America, more than anything, we're over served. There's too many radio stations doing the same thing. Where I Live In Winnipeg, there's been two flips, we would call it in format. And I'm like, what EVs? Because we can get music anywhere. I think you need to put out a product that's going to have a little bit more personality. We already see the data from Fred Jacobs at Jacobs media with tech survey that shows that people come to radio for personalities. And that's that's bad news for the people we were talking about earlier, because that's really going to ruin that bottom line for them, because you need to invest in people in order to attract people to the medium,

Lisa Brandt  29:47  
right? And so many times over the years, personality was squelched by programming. There were some programmers like Pat holiday who was totally about personality. It's all personality. Everything that comes out of your mouth should be personality. And love them for that. And then there were other ones at other stations and stuff who would No, no, no. Nobody wants to hear what you have to say. Just do the call letters. Tell them what the temperature is, Intro The song and shut up, you know. And I think we're seeing that people, human beings. It's the only thing that's different. Everybody else can play a whatever song you know, pick an artist. Taylor Swift,

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  30:27  
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Matt Cundill  30:59  
apps. Not sure if you're a football fan in the NFL, but we find that most the quarterbacks who get drafted, when you watch this, it really goes to luck, like, who's going to be your coach and what sort of team and what sort of culture are you going into? And I think it's, I'm beginning to see, after 430 some odd episodes of this, is that you're who you get to work with along the way really defines your success. And you've mentioned, I think, an all star lineup of programmers along the way, like Pat holiday and Marty Forbes. I know you mentioned your time was short with him, but I got eight years with him, and I learned so much about how the business goes. And JJ, and I got to spend time with JJ, even though we were never in the same market. And Gary slate, you learn culture of a family owned business, but also be on the mothership. And in two occasions, you were inside the mothership of Rogers and you were inside the mothership of standard radio. And, yeah, it's

Lisa Brandt  31:55  
a world of difference. Yeah, it really is. You know, it's funny. I remember, I didn't have a lot of time with Marty, but I remember things that he said, I mean, he just was a wealth of information. I remember him saying to me. I said, you know, my first time in Toronto, you know, big market, he went, the only difference is the number of zeros on the budget. It's just radio, really good guys, all of them and breed women. Sharon Taylor was PD at CFTR when I was PD at C can XFM, and I remember thinking, we're the two the two women, even though she's running this massive radio station in the biggest market, and I still had to hire and fire and do budgets and

Matt Cundill  32:35  
all that kind of stuff. That's great. It's the second time her name has come up in the last three episodes. So really, I generally, when that happens, it means it might be time to bring her back on to do a catch up.

Lisa Brandt  32:47  
A lot of influence there. Yeah, she's fantastic. So

Matt Cundill  32:51  
you see all these companies doing it badly, and you have your own company, Lisa Brandt, creative services, so you do so much inside this thing. So it all starts with writing, but as time progresses, you know, you get voice work. So tell me about the voice work experience. So just I want you to talk about Lisa Brandt, the voice over talent

Lisa Brandt  33:13  
I have always done, of course, as we radio, people have done commercials and stuff like that, but I don't consider that voice work really. When it became clear that cjbk wasn't going to be my home forever, I kicked up the jam and I took courses and I got coaching, and because there's a lot of misconception, especially among radio people, that VoiceOver is doing commercials like we do in radio, and that's just about the last thing anybody wants in voiceover. So like I said, I got coaching. I paid for coaching. I did all that kind of stuff. And fortunately, I have a husband who's doing it full time, and when the time was right, I left cjbk, and that was what I decided to do full time. I did supplement it at first with some writing, because I do love to write as well. And, you know, it's ebbed and flowed. I've done all sorts of things, some of them really out there. Some of them, you know, nobody will ever hear. And I had a couple of amazing years, and then it just sort of settled down into a decent living, and I love it. I love the challenge of it. I love that it's different every day. I don't always love the editing, but I'm a good editor, so I do it all right, let

Matt Cundill  34:31  
me jump in with the fast questions. Who's the voice coach?

Lisa Brandt  34:34  
Carol monda in New York, New York City. I also did a session with J Michael Collins. There's somebody else too that I am forgetting that I worked with a guy I'm a big fan of, Bill DeWeese. He has a lot of coaching free stuff on YouTube where he tells it like it is. He and I corresponded a few times about a bunch of different things. Can't think of the third coach, right?

Down for us. We worked our tails off every day when we were stuck at home and we just every day, we talked about gratitude. We were so lucky to be unaffected by it. In that way, it was just we had built some groundwork, laid a foundation, and we're kind of reaping that while we were home. Are you available? Oh yeah, I'm available. I'm available all day, you know, I can't go anywhere. So

Matt Cundill  40:28  
were you one of the voices of these are tough times.

Lisa Brandt  40:32  
Could be how many pieces of copy Did you read in these trying times? Oh, my goodness, I can't even count that high. Yeah, there were a lot, you know, and we're here for you, and you need support, and we'll get through this together. A lot of that

Matt Cundill  40:47  
you and I both were ahead of it, because we already had home studios. We had the equipment, the setup, and even if you were a professional actor, let's say in Los Angeles or New York, where you would, you know, take subway to go in to do the recording. All of a sudden you couldn't, because you didn't have a home studio. So then came the rush of, What microphone do I need? And why does this blue Yeti not work for what I want to do? And where do I get a 416,

Lisa Brandt  41:14  
yeah, I even did stuff on video during the pandemic, because so many people couldn't. I mean, just on my phone, but I mean, whatever. What else was there to do work when you're at home like that? So

Matt Cundill  41:25  
tell me about the podcast experience. When did you start your first podcast?

Lisa Brandt  41:31  
The first one is gracefully and frankly, Aaron Davis and I had been talking for some time about why to do a podcast together, and it was the morning I was leaving after visiting her out in on the East Coast, Victoria area. And all of a sudden she were, we did have a title, and I don't know how well, you know Erin, but she's the most clever woman on the planet. And all of a sudden she went gracefully and frankly, like Grace, and Frankie from Netflix, which was huge at that time. And I said, That's it. And she had everything arranged, Rob get the Mini. So we went and shot promos in her Mini, and we did all this stuff. And I'm watching the clock because she's got to get me to the airport and it, you know, we do our best work just before one of us has to fly away, and that's what we did. So we decided that we were going to just be a little cottage industry on our own. See what happened. Have some fun. We took turns editing, we found music, we did all that. We did everything ourselves and and then I forget how many weeks into it, she said, Please,

Unknown Speaker  42:34  
please, please, please.

Lisa Brandt  42:35  
Can I edit it every week? Please? She loves editing. She's kind of new to it, compared to me, and she loves it. Erin Davis produces our podcast, and she produces the promo. We do. We decide on things together, and we choose things together, but she does all the hands on work, and we were lucky that one of her sponsors of her other podcast drift wanted to come on board with us, and then another one that she had an association with years ago also decided to sponsor. So we've had two sponsors for most of the run, which is just a dream come true and would not happen without Miss Davis. And yeah, we've just, we've had chances, opportunities to, you know, join other people and become part of a collective and things like that. We just want to stay a small, little two woman thing, and we're having a blast. So

Matt Cundill  43:27  
when you're telling her what tools to use to edit the show, what do you recommend?

Lisa Brandt  43:32  
Well, I mean, I don't really. We decide on music and stuff like that, but she uses audacity to edit I'm an Adobe Audition girl, and she's fast and she's good, and she doesn't make mistakes. And, you know, from the outside looking in, I think Aaron Davis loves to edit. She She loves it. And when we do the social media together, we do everything is a collective decision. But she's the hands on person, and she loves it. She just loves it. What's been your

Matt Cundill  44:03  
experience as it pertains to radio? So I sort of asked earlier, if you're an announcer or personality on radio, it's like going to voiceover, but what would be your advice for anybody in radio who's like, Okay, I want to start a podcast?

Lisa Brandt  44:15  
Well, I would say, if you're in radio and you want to start a podcast, you're already 80% of the way there, because you already know, you know how to edit, what the software is like, how to use a microphone. You know, somebody just coming in from nowhere is way behind. But the thing I think, is you need patience and low expectations of it. I do another podcast with a gentleman I co wrote a book with, and we don't have tons of downloads. We don't have, you know, it's not taking off at this point, and all that kind of stuff, but we're both committed to doing it and making it a package of something. So for radio, find something. So go with something you love, just whatever you do, be authentic about it. There's a niche for everything. There's an audience for absolutely everything, no matter how small. And I think authenticity wins if you're being yourself and doing something you truly care about. It's funny when we go over topics, and you know, we both have veto power. And she'll bring me something she feels great about, and I'll explain why I don't and veto it, and vice versa. We both have to be on board and interested, and I think that's part of the reason that it works, because we're both authentic about it.

Matt Cundill  45:34  
I know Aaron about as well as I know you, and it's been one podcast conversation, which is crazy, because, you know, sometimes, you know, I've never worked in Toronto and never really got near it, other than I'm just going to pop in for the day and go to the mothership and say hello. And so I kind of feel I missed out on a lot of that Toronto experience. In fact, I work with Maureen Holloway, and she brought it to my attention. We've never met. I've known her for 2530 years, and we've never met. Wow,

Lisa Brandt  46:01  
she's one of the best, most clever writers I've ever known.

Matt Cundill  46:05  
Oh yeah, and she's got a sub stack with Wendy Mesley. And I'll tell you right now. Just sign up right now for that thing. Support it. It's great. I wanted to ask you something very serious. One of the things I admire about your podcast that you brought from radio, both you and Aaron, which is why it is so successful, is the consistency at which you release episodes. You're about 95 some odd episodes in on this thing, but every Thursday morning this thing comes out. And so could you just speak to that consistency as you gear towards episode 100

Lisa Brandt  46:38  
Well, it's kind of like what I said about blogging, you decide to do it, you say you're going to do it, and then you do it. People we hear, we get wonderful emails and wonderful messages from listeners, and they look forward to the Thursday release. And if it's you know, if we started getting lax about that, we would lose people and disappoint them. The one thing we're always reminding ourselves and each other about is that it's not about us, it's about what we deliver to who's listening, and if we don't honor our promise, you know, that's who we've let down. And like I say, it's the same with blogging. I said, used to it every day and it was weak sauce, but I now I do it Tuesdays and Fridays, and even if nobody's ever going to read it, just for my own satisfaction, I said I was going to do it, I'm freaking doing it. And, you know, the election week was the tough one, because we wanted to wait until the election results were end. So we did everything really late. It was a tight turnaround to get it up Thursday morning. But, you know, I have a fabulous editor in Ms Davis, and she got that done. It's consistency. It's consistency, and no or low expectations. You have to do it for the love of it. I believe we have the best time. It's forced visiting for us too, because sometimes we go, you know, sometime when we're not catching up with each other, whatever, and our friendship is even stronger because of it, because we spend so much more time noodling and discussing things. Tell me

Matt Cundill  48:10  
about the concept of guests, because a lot of people do a podcast and you know, guests, I'm sure you get a million emails a day asking for people to be guests on your show. Yet it may not necessarily be a show about guests.

Lisa Brandt  48:22  
We decided early on that it wasn't going to be a show about guests, that we were going to have a conversation. And, you know, I don't even really know why, except that it keeps it consistent. A few people have asked us, are you ever going to have guests? And we just say we're not going to, it's just not that kind of thing. We want to keep it to 30 minutes. That's the max you get in. Hopefully have a laugh, maybe hear about something you didn't hear elsewhere, and get on with your life. It's just the, just the way we we decided to do it. It's funny, because there was a time, maybe, I don't know, 12 or so episodes in when we were kind of waffling a little bit, and then we decided, No, we're just going to keep it that way. And so when we go on vacation, or, you know, I was in Italy last year for three weeks, we did best stuff, and just want to make sure that there's something up there every week. Yeah,

Matt Cundill  49:17  
what if the PMO calls and says, the Prime Minister's available? Would you like him as a guest?

Lisa Brandt  49:23  
Jeez, I don't know what I'd do about that. Now, I don't think we do it. We might put a drop in in

Matt Cundill  49:29  
Yeah, I might suggest that, because that's what's happening now. I think politicians are beginning to discover that there's authenticity and opportunity inside these podcasts for longer form conversations that people are willing to listen to, that they're not going to be able to get if they turn on CBC or CTV, because it's everything's a sound bite, a sound bite, a sound bite, often poisonous, as you've pointed

Lisa Brandt  49:51  
out on your blog. I think it would be a good story to say that we turned down the Prime Minister. We have a really good discussion about that. Right, but that's how we turn it around. Yeah, when it comes to politics,

Matt Cundill  50:04  
you're vocal enough about it, you've got a great blog on it, and now that the results are in, do you have your seat belt fastened for the next four years, or do you look at it as more anxiety? How do you look at what's coming?

Lisa Brandt  50:16  
No, I we got through it. I mean, it's not our country for one thing, but we got through it before. I know things are different now, but my take on it is that everybody justified it last time and said it was a mistake, because this happened and that happened, and now they've shown us that's what they want. It's a democracy, and I equate it to the old radio rating system that everybody hated because it sends somebody A tootie and expect them to fill out a diary. They throw it to their kid, because it's too much work, but it was the system we had, so we had to accept it, and this is how it works. So do I think they made the right decision, not in my opinion, but it's not my country and not my vote. So let's just see what happens. And I really pulled back from getting too immersed in news, because they can't do a damn thing about it. Understood. Yeah,

Matt Cundill  51:06  
I mean, you mentioned earlier on, you've mentioned things like fear or anxiety, or maybe there's fear of failure in there, like some of the things that kind of were drivers early in your career, and now the news is really designed to stoke all that in everybody, and if you're not reacting to it, they'll find a way to gaslight you into it. So how do you control the news? How do you control what you ingest and not ingest? In this day and age?

Lisa Brandt  51:33  
I get a few newsletters in the morning, carefully chosen, and look through them I can click if I want to read more. I get news alerts from a couple of places, so I know if somebody's been bombed or somebody famous is ill or something. So I kind of keep up in that way. I mean, I still am a news junkie, but I don't live and breathe it, and I actively look for ways to just not pay attention for hours as I'm I find him happier that way. You know, I sort of subscribe to the stoicism philosophy. If I can't do something about it, I'm not going to spend my time thinking about it. That doesn't mean burying your head in the sand. It just means taking it easier on yourself in whatever way that manifests, and that's one way for me, just I'm not going to get wound up about it. What is Peter Canada. Peter Canada. So Marianne idason, amazing, amazing talent and voice and radio and everything. And Rachel Gilbert, another 1x, radio, and now, you know, podcast or everything. We formed this little group to, sort of, we kind of consider ourselves a company, almost. We cheer each other on. We give each other advice. If somebody's not sure about what to bid on something or whatever, we're there for each other. We were all at veal north for the last time together. We get together for lunch. So one day, Rachel got a really great, big voice job for Petro Canada. And every time she wrote Petro in the chat, autocorrect changed it to Peter. So she kept saying, Oh, I have a session for Peter Canada. So I think it was Mary Ann who said that's what we should call ourselves. We're, we're the Peters. So now it's, you know, we'll write, okay, how? What is Peter? Rachel still at that thing today, or whatever, and so we call ourselves the Peters, and our partners are honorary Peters that just where it came from. It's silly. It makes us laugh,

Matt Cundill  53:32  
and it's really important too, because you know, when you're working in the creative space and voiceover, you've got people to lean on to talk to. I have a podcast producers group. It's podcast Super Friends. We put out a podcast every once in a while, but I got my voice over people too, and Mary Ann's one of them. And yeah, there's, there's a few of them out there. You can, you can call and ask questions and lean on So talk about that, because a lot of people are going to wonder, especially radio people, they're let go from their jobs and now what so talk a little bit about that fellowship that needs to happen, even if it's just online,

Lisa Brandt  54:09  
you can do more than you think you can if I had a nickel for every time I thought or heard somebody say but this is all I know how to do. I don't believe it. I believe that there's something inside you, whether it's I want to make beaded jewelry or I want to fix motorcycles or I want to grow plants. I don't know what it is, but I think that you know you need other people to remind you how great you are. It doesn't feel good to be kicked out of a club, even if it's a club you don't want to be in anymore, or even if it's a club you know isn't good for you, or a club that you know this is going to happen anyway. I mean, had I stayed at cjbk, I would have, you know, I would have lost my job eventually, right? I think you need that trusted person. And who's going to have your back? There's so much of the so much competition, sort of on a lower level that people don't talk about. You know, Marianna, Rachel and I, for example, have all been up for the same job. And one time we were up for a significant job, and Mary Ann got it, and I didn't have a shred of envy. I am freaking happy for her, because I know the work she puts into everything. I know how much you know she talent she has, and how all those things, it's not about one upping somebody else. And I think that you start to feel less than when you're when you've been fired and you're not you're a number on a spreadsheet that got waited out. That's all it is. And I think people can pivot a lot more easily than they believe. I'm not afraid of failure. I've done it spectacularly a few times, and that's a beautiful quality to acquire if you just don't care about that. I mean, don't get me wrong, I want to be like and I want to succeed. That's the time to try something new and to talk to your pals and your friends and find out what that thing might be from the outside looking in, sometimes they have a better idea than you do.

Matt Cundill  56:11  
I think the first place you start is writing. Everyone is more than their resume, just like what you said. So communication specialist as it is, you can write. You certainly know how to do social media. You know how to do promo, but all that involves writing. So learn to write. Well,

Lisa Brandt  56:27  
absolutely. And the only way for me, anyway, was to practice. I wrote my first book in 22,004 I want to say, and going through the editing process, it was all red marks and deletions, and I made it just look like an abstract painting every page. But once I could remove myself from it and look at it from the outside looking in, it was such a learning experience, you know, and putting yourself in some of those places where you know you're not going to be the smartest guy in the room. Really good for you. Do you have five books? Yeah, five or six. I co wrote one. So five and a half.

Matt Cundill  57:11  
So I sometimes go around and say, Okay, well, that's a podcast. We can make that a podcast. And sometimes I look at a podcast and I say, oh, that can be a book, not necessarily when it comes to podcasts, but when do you see something and say, okay, that can be a book?

Lisa Brandt  57:29  
Well, it depends. So I wrote one about dealing with media that some PR courses were using and still do, and that grew out of a blog, a blog post that tons of people responded to and had stuff to add to, and it just seemed like there was more of a need for it at the time. The you know, the Naked Truth is about the summer I spent working at a nudist camp. How many people did that and how many people have written about it? Not that many. And people ask me about it all the time. If I sort of half mentioned it, they always want to know more. So I told the whole story. I guess it's just I don't know. I wrote one about where I nearly died from sepsis because I didn't think there was enough information out there. Again, they're not best sellers. You're not going to see me on the New York Times list if I had to live off them, well, I'd be in big trouble. But that's not the point. The point was the doing of it, the writing of it, the getting to a point where I was satisfied with it. And it's neat to hear from people that say they enjoyed it. So yeah,

Matt Cundill  58:35  
somebody mentioned me the other day, and they're in that sort of voiceover support circle. They didn't mention it to me directly, but it was something they said on another podcast about how blessed we are to be living this creative life. It's

Lisa Brandt  58:48  
absolutely true, and there's no limit to it. You can try what you want. I bought a cricket machine, and I'm making things that I'm having fun with that. I mean, I painted, I sold a few paintings, and then I stopped. Just try things. It's just really neat to see that you're you might be capable of something that you didn't know. And I'll tell you, my first few paintings were horrific, like just, they look like a drunk monkey was maybe given a paintbrush and told to go wild, and not a talented one. So it's not always immediately apparent. But you know, it's fun to try,

Matt Cundill  59:24  
Lisa, you have been more than generous with your time today and also with your voice, because you're probably going to need that voice for a podcast or voiceover work later today. So thank you.

Lisa Brandt  59:34  
Well, thank you for having me. It's been really fun talking to you. And I mean, you're a guy of gnomes has been around for quite a while and never got a chance to talk to before. So nice to know you're you're a human being.

Matt Cundill  59:45  
I really, really, really gotta leave Winnipeg more often.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  59:51  
The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Kendall, produced by Evan serminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media. By Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai