I joined this planet in 1982, from a tummy of a mummy!
Born in the posh Cotswolds town of Cheltenham Spa, Gloucestershire, in the British Isles, I grew up playing with my Playmobile ambulance. Loved that toy! 🚑
I’m trying to find one for my kids now, it really was that good!! I guess this is why I wanted to be a ambulance paramedic when I grew up (around 10 years old) but I discovered I hated blood but liked buses. Settled then, I’m going to be bus driver.
Then I discovered radio.
It was always on in the kitchen, 24/7.
Before long, I got a radio for my bedroom! Now I could pick the station. Me & my first radio had some sweet times, dancing like a chicken on prozac to those crazy dance tunes of the mid 90’s and those random but just great, BBC Radio 1 DJs. I knew I wanted to have a go at this…
I got to together with a best mate, and we made some very strange radio tapes over the years, and no, they are not uploaded on this site. #Never
Cotswold Hospital Radio was my first rather random radio experience back in 1998. I would go round all the wards of the hospital, with a pen and paper, explaining I was a guy from the hospital radio station and that I was taking requests for my radio show called ‘Patients Postbag’!
I’d ask people ill in bed…
“Excuse me… What’s your favorite song?”
They would fire off a load of questions or kindly ask me to “f*^k off “, as they were almost dead, but some would reply with “Betty Davis Eyes” or “Bat Out Of Hell” I’d then jot it down and respond with, “Great! Well tune in from 7 o’Clock my dear and you will hear your song” Old ladies always, and I mean always, responded with, “Well isn’t that lovely.” So cute it was.
While that amazingness was going on, I kept on knocking on my local station door at the time, CAT FM Cheltenham’s And Tewkesbury’s Favorite Music. They soon let me in on the CAT FM STREET TEAM! – my first break into commercial radio (and way out of hospital radio, look, don’t get me wrong, great experience, just too depressing man!)
I remember from CAT FM being with a gorgeous young girl ‘sticker-blitzing’, at this petrol/gas station in the pouring rain on a Saturday morning. We had a roof above our heads, but the rain just didn’t stop, the last thing people wanted was a bloody sticker for their car, ha, ha, the joys of radio!
After high school the bits of the massive jigsaw came together!
1) Gloucestershire College, BTEC in Radio, TV and Film.
In those two years I got work experience with the BBC and with two commercial radio stations, one of which, the former FM 107 The Falcon, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK.
They offered me several shows, covering Christmas/New Year 2000/1.
On New Years Day 2001, I was presenting the Afternoon Show. I had 3 songs in a row, loaded on the computer, so decided to go and have a cigarette outside. (I soon stopped the smoking after this experience!) There was nobody at the station, just me. As I was about to take the fag out the packet, the fire door slammed shut… “Oh Shit” went through my head. There was no way of getting back in!
I was new at the station, knew nobody’s telephone number, there was not a sole at the station and there was about to be ‘dead air’ once Phil Collins had stopped singing!! In the end, I ended up running across town to the police station, explaining to situation to the chap on the desk, who laughed a lot, then somehow got hold of the station manager via phone, who then turned up at the station almost a hour later to let me back in, he wasn’t very happy – funny that eh! I continued that show, but was never asked back!
This gave me a massive reason to go travel the world after college, so I did!
On my travels, I helped set-up and volunteer on a RSL radio station in Alderney, Channel Islands, UK – 87.7 Quay FM
2) Liverpool John Moores University, Foundation Degree in Radio Production.
In the two years of this course I gained further radio knowledge by joining three radio stations!
I presented on…
Solar 1287AM, a community based radio station in St Helens,
Shout FM Liverpool, a student based radio for Liverpool &
KCR 106.7, a new Hot AC station based in Liverpool.
Fear not! – I still did my studying as well as party in the true student style!!!
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that since May 2003, I’ve been working part time with TrafficLink Ltd UK, the traffic and travel broadcasters of the UK, which gave me much experience and on-air time with stations from BBC Radio Wales to Fire FM Bournemouth.
3) University of Glamorgan, BA (Hons) Degree in Radio Production.
You can listen to my University Show Reel by clicking on ‘AUDIO’ above!
Here I was involved with…
GTFM 106.9. Pontypridd, a community and university radio station.
While in South Wales I covered shows on Bridge FM (Bridgend), but there was one other station that I started working for in 2005 that I fell in love with, the Hot AC station, Valleys Radio – The Heart of South Wales (Ebbw Vale).
I started as a Tech-Op, and then covered shows. In Feb 2007 the 10-2 Saturday slot was offered, I was like “Yeah baby, yeah!”
4) The real world!!
15 months later, it was time for a change! Valleys just wasn’t giving the money I wanted. Turns out they didn’t have the money and the station shut shop in April ’09 after 13 years on-air! – Very sad day!
I was very lucky tho, I got out in time and landed a gig with Contiki Holidays as a bus driver!
I got to take 18-35’s across Europe, in a bus, 6 to 8 weeks at a time, mainly girls… great times!
In Summer 2008, I met the now gorgeous wife on my Contiki bus! Christine invited me for a couple of weeks in October 2008 to Saskatoon, Canada.
Since that Summer we’ve never looked back, we’re ‘Living the Dream’, & what’s even more amazinger, we have a very healthy ‘Baby Wood’ that was born on the 16th of April 2013.
Back to 2009, and I’ve sorted all my visa’s to work in Canada. I wanted back in on the radio game so bad, I somehow ended up with a sales gig at Rock 102 – Saskatoon’s Rock Station – I was open and honest and after some months knew that sales was not for me.
My honesty and keenness paid off as I scooped up a role with Wired 96.3 – Saskatoon’s All Hits! on the Wired ‘Entourage’.
Weeks later I found out the awesome Andy Ross really liked me, therefore I was on-air at weekends, three weeks later (since Feb 2010), I had the ‘Evening Show’ gig at Wired 96.3 – Saskatoon’s All Hits! – …and BBM’s went sky high baby! 🙂
Check out some of ‘Your Nightly Woody’ under ‘Woody – Kev Wood Demo
& Wired 96.3, Saskatoon (CHR)’ on the ‘Audio’ page!
Dec 2010 proved to be one interesting month! – C95 had been watching me for a bit, they gave me a evening gig offer at the drop of a hat! This resulted in ‘The Kev Wood Show’, as of Jan 2011! Going to C95 – Saskatoon’s Number 1 Hit Music Station was a hard thing to do, as it was the competing station, over the road, in a smallish city, but it’s business, and you gotta look after your family man!! Money is life’s biggest bitch! – Fact!
Only months later, I was to found out what the higher ups at Rawlco had planned for me all along, get me out of the Saskatoon market and ship the ‘Lady Wood’ (Wife) and I to Calgary! This is where you would have heard me, ringing some cool cow bell baby, on Calgary’s, Up! 97.7 – Calgary’s Feel Good Radio Station – weekdays from 2pm!
I’m a firm believer that ‘Everything happens for a reason’!! September 2011, and one is told, “We effed up up! 97.7, your not the right fit, bye-bye!!”
– every great person in radio has been there!
After spending the next few months sitting in the tub, and driving a school bus very badly, playing the ‘send a demo a day game’, which soooo paid off. Many contacts were made (hello to you, if we spoke!!) then ‘boom!’, Sara Parker is on the phone and wants me for HOT 107, Edmonton’s HOTTEST New Music.
I was uber pumped and stoked to be back with Harvard Broadcasting, since March 2012. I kicked some Edmonton radio butt!
After my 2 and half years with HOT 107, in a amazing, awesome challenging, never a dull moment, fun radio market, it was time for another chap to ride the awesome drive-time slot on HOT, and for me to end up working back with Chris Myers over at Edmonton’s 1049 Virgin Radio, doing Evenings, Weekend and Swing. After 4 months there, not much was biting full-time. My wife and I looked at each other, in the eyes and said “Saskatoon”.
What with 2 kids under 2 years old, we wanted to live again and we knew we would have all the family support in the world there. I was back in my Canadian hometown! My career in the bus industry has put us back on the edge of Edmonton, Alberta, in gorgeous St. Albert.
Now, let us be honest here, once radio gets in yourblood, it don’t leave, so if you are reading this in Kelowna, Kingston upon Hull or Katmandu and want me for your station, it might be worth getting in touch!
Who knows what happens next… #LifeIsOneFantasticJourney
Check out the Kev Wood Facebook Page !
