My Brief Career as a Radio Announcer

I’m a writer. I like to have time to think about what I am going to say. So when the Programming Director at The Little Queer Radio Station That Could asked me to go out on a chase interview with someone who can only be described as a legend in both the Canadian music industry and in the LGBTQ community, I was quite literally shaking in my boots. This is not what I do—I write commercials, I write events listings, media releases, lifestyle segments. I voice things, but aside from a once-a-week segment on the morning show about what dykey things are going on in the city, I don’t really do live announcer work.

That said, I’m an Accidental VIP. I am not about to turn down the chance to interview the one and only k.d. lang.

Oh. Mah. Gah. I remember when k.d. lang was that crazy country punk that simultaneously wooed the Alberta country lovers with her intense voice and repelled them with her insane fashion sense. When she showed up at the 1985 Junos in a wedding dress and cowboy boots, nobody knew quite what to make of the Most Promising Female Vocalist of the year.

But the voice won out, of course. There was no fighting it when she joined Roy Orbison in duet on “Cryin’.” There is no defense against that song. It just kills you.

So although people made a bit of fun, asked questions and made assumptions about her sexuality, they still bought her music. Even when the Alberta farming industry and the government decided to disavow her many awards and accolades because of their thinly veiled homophobia her participation in PETA’s “Meat Stinks” campaign, she rose to the top of her career. And when she showed up on the cover of Vanity Fair to usher in the era of Lesbian Chic, well… *swoon*.

So anyway, as you may be able to tell, I have followed her career for some time, having shared at least some of that prairie queergirl upbringing myself. I went to this interview pretty well prepared even before doing any research on her new album. And it’s been 20-plus years since I first became aware of the existence of k.d. lang, so when she walked into the room at her Secret Toronto Hideout—yes, she has one, and I got to visit her there—she looked so familiar to me that I fairly blurted, “Well, hello, k.d. lang!”

She kind of laughed and shook my hand. She was so personable I could have cried with pleasure. I had been nervously asking other media-field friends of mine for tips on how to handle this mind-blowing event, and had been warned by more than one of them that Ms. lang could be…prickly. Not mean, but not someone to put up with amateurs, either. They could not have been more wrong. She was a total pro all the way. Thank heavens! I didn’t want to have another Carole Pope experience.

She sat down with me and chatted a bit, and we headed into the interview. I had been listening to her new album, Sing it Loud, non-stop for about a week, so I was really interested in hearing what she had to say about working with a band for the first time in twenty years. And the Alberta girl in me wanted to hear what her thoughts were on the concept of home.

When she talks about her music, her eyes just light up. It’s disarmingly gorgeous. I have to say, I have always thought k.d. lang was beautiful, but I had no idea how much more so she would be face to face. I had to concentrate on not swooning or floating away to Cloud 9—I was clenching that microphone like it was my anchor to the earth. At one point I tried to rest my elbow on the table between us and found that my arm was then shaking so noticeably that I was better off just suspending it in midair.

I had come up with some scripted questions and a plan to go off-script if the conversation took us there. However, I found myself so nervous that when I tried to take a thread of conversation and just expand on it, I would up babbling a bit too much and decided to return to the prepared questions for fear of annoying her. She was eloquent and sure in her answers, and I had to restrain myself from fangirling her too much. I think I did kind of gush a little bit at one point, but hey, that’s what editing is for. So you won’t hear it on the podcast—but trust me, it happened. In the end, I felt like it was a fairly successful interview, for a first-timer.

You can listen to my interview with k.d. lang here.

On Friday afternoon, I ended up co-hosting with my best boyfriend Mike Chalut because his co-host and show producer Acey Rowe had gone out of town. It was another first for me, but as Mike and I have such a great rapport together and I had that interview to air, we figured it would work out. Earlier this year I had tried to learn some of the technical operations that Acey undertakes when co-hosting, and decided fairly quickly that I would never want to do her job—there’s just too much to think about with editing interviews on the fly, running the sound board, and being generally personable on air. However, Mike’s job is great! We had another operator on the board for the afternoon and Mike and I just got to be generally funny and friendly on air. It’s a party!

All of that said, I am content to welcome Ms. Rowe back to her job, and to return to my desk and my writing and the precious time I have to think about my words before speaking them. It’s a lot of pressure to be that famous all of the time. And I’m just a no-account girl.