“Turns out, there are major parallels between the professional paths of artists and the DJs who play their music on the radio ”
“Be consistent; just don’t give up.”
It’s good advice radio DJ Byron “The Curator” Gonzalez received from an industry veteran before he became a regular fixture on 88.5 FM The SoCal Sound, where he hosts Bilingual Sounds from 9 to 10 PM Monday through Friday. But just like the many artists he spins from around the world, it’s been a long road to find his unique position on the radio airwaves.
“I started back in community college with a friend of mine,” he says. “And then I started interning at KCRW at some point, and I was there for about three years. I did six months interning, and then the rest was volunteering.”
Gonzalez left KCRW to focus on paying jobs and then decided to go back to school at California State University Northridge (CSUN) in 2016, when he was delighted to find the campus housed one of Southern California’s largest public radio stations.
“So then I started volunteering and interning there,” he says. “Just started getting involved more, asking the right questions: How do I upload my own songs? How do I like create a playlist? How do I get more involved? And they finally told me that there's this other online station that you can go on the air and practice your on their personality stuff. I started creating my own playlist and I had a show every Monday.
“By the time I was about to graduate in 2019, I was telling them I have to leave because there's no opportunity right now. ‘I know you guys aren't hiring at the moment, so, when I'm graduating, that's it.’ Coincidentally enough, someone quit, and they needed someone really quick, and I was right there, in the right place, at the right time.”
Gonzalez is, in my opinion, one of the freshest voices on L.A. radio because he’s dedicated to introducing listeners to new music in foreign languages, with an emphasis on Latin alternative, while still incorporating English selections, too. It’s a unique and necessary niche for the City of Angels, where 48.6 percent of residents identify as Latino or Hispanic.
“Because I was doing so much work with the Latin Alternative HD3 station at that moment, they just knew that type of format was needed, so they gave me a show on the FM,” he says. “We’re in L.A., it makes sense. There's just so much Latinos and diversity in L.A. that a show like this is needed.”
In addition to spinning tunes for 88.5 FM SoCal Sound listeners on weeknights, he also serves as programing director for the public rock station’s Latin alternative HD3 sister station Bilingual Sounds and occasionally curates live events in the city as well. In fact, he even hosted WR:LA a few years back, bringing two incredible rounds of Latin alternative artists on our stage that I’ll never forget.
I wanted to catch up with Gonzalez for the Writers ‘Round Community because I was curious about the parallels between a career in curating music on the radio and creating it as an artist, as well as the state of radio’s influence, the importance of introducing English-speaking audiences to Spanish-language music, and, of course, getting some great advice for artists seeking radio play. Read our full chat below.
GREG: We talk about the artist’s struggle a lot and how difficult that is, but I imagine that it is almost — if not just as difficult — to ‘make it’ in radio and that aspect of the of the music industry.
BYRON: It's difficult nowadays. I think radio's heyday is long past, because now, with the digital world and Spotify taking over with all its marketing dollars, like radio stations, specifically, public radio stations, it's a struggle to keep relevant and keep in people's ears.
You have everything at your fingertips. ‘Oh, I want to listen to the Beatles right now. I want to listen to Juanes right now,’ versus letting somebody else take control of the playlist. And I feel a lot of people don't like to relinquish control too much. But, you know, I get surprised every week as to how many people actually listen to the radio, but it is not as much as before.
How did you get your start in radio?
I started back in community college with a friend of mine. We met during a radio broadcasting class. It was Radio Broadcasting 101 and we got the chance to do a little radio show for the cafeteria at Santa Monica College that semester.
And eventually that evolved into a podcast that we would do twice a month, and it was like a radio show podcast. There wasn't a lot of talking, but there was a lot of music and some talking. And then I started interning at KCRW at some point, and I was there for about three years. I did six months interning, and then the rest was volunteering.
I volunteered with Garth Trinidad every Friday, which was really cool. He's very stoic, so it was intimidating to go up to him and ask [for advice], but he was super friendly. And then when I finally did ask, he's just like, ‘Be consistent, just don't give up. Just keep going, because radio is kind of that way; you just don't know when the next opportunities are going to come up.’
You host a great show. Every time I listen, there’s never a bad song. How is the reaction from people, like me, discovering great, fantastic Latino and Hispanic artists?
I get a lot of good feedback. Not that many that would email me, but I do get some good emails here and there. But then I also get the opposite.
I’ve been telling [SoCal Sound Music Director] Mookie to incorporate more Spanish [music] into the main mix, and when certain listeners hear that, they email my boss saying, ‘What's going on? Why are you playing this type of music? We are an English audience. Why are you trying to alienate your audience?’ And I’m like, how weird is that to feel alienated when you're hearing one Spanish song out the whole day?
That's wild entitlement right there, to say that this exists only for us in a city like Los Angeles, where the highest population is Hispanic and Latino. But also what's cool about the station now is that it is global, because anyone can download the app listen online. You don't need to be in L.A. to listen.
Exactly. I have gotten comments from people in Brazil, people in the U.K., because my 10 PM show is like morning time for them. And I've gotten one coming from Croatia too, which was really cool.
You've managed to make that a sustainable career for yourself by 1) being in the right place at the right time 2) volunteering a lot and doing a lot of unpaid work to learn the game. And now you are a DJ at, in my opinion, the best station in the country. Didn’t it win a big award recently?
It was best non-commercial radio station of the year for 2022 and 2023… During those years, Mookie started adding more of my suggestions of Spanish music. So, I feel like that kind of had a little bit to do with it, maybe the tipping point to get that award.
What's your advice for independent artists to get radio play?
Find the emails. Make sure you are specifically targeting your music to the right DJ, because I get music that is like reggaeton and more urban, or, like, mainstream pop, and I'm just like, ‘Do you even listen to my show?’
Be personal. Just talk about them a little bit, and then go off into, ‘Hey, here's my song. I think it would be a great fit.’ Provide a Spotify link. Make sure you title your music right; have your artist name in the in the title of the song and make sure the title of the song is the final name.
The way I listen to submissions, I'll leave a bunch of tabs open and then get to them later once I open all the emails, because it's just too many emails. And then sometimes I'll listen to a song and I enjoy that song, but they didn't title it right. So when I'm looking back at my emails, I can't find it, and I have to discard it.
What do you mean by not titled right?
They send me an MP3 and it's not titled right. It's just the name of the song, version two, or whatever… I don't even upload it to my iTunes. I just use the web player or the Google Drive player, and sometimes it's just the MP3. There's no other information.
So in the file name, put the artist name and song?
Yes.
Sometimes I don't have time to or I forget to reply to the artist that I like the music of, but then I'll play it on the radio nonetheless. And then if I don't have it labeled right then I won't be able to play it on the radio. So, make it easier for the person listening to it. The less clicks, the better.
I hate when people send me an EPK or whatnot, and I have to look into the all this writing to get down to the last page to find the link. If you can provide me the link in the body of the message, that's fine, because the less reading I have to do, the less scrolling I have to do, the easier I can get to the song.
The EPKs are interesting. They're almost dated at this point. It's kind of like, what's the point?
That was useful when people would mail in their submissions.
Those are handy if you're a publication like a magazine or a media entity that does a lot of blogging. But if you're sending to a radio station and you see that they don't really do any write ups, just send the music, rather than a whole explanation.
The music should speak for itself. And in fact, when I was an editor at Los Angeles magazine, I got an email from this newbie band, and they're like, ‘Hey, we don't want to take up too much time. We're just going to let the music speak for itself. Here you go.’ I was like, alright, and I pressed play. I didn't think it was very good. But the fact that I pressed play means it was actually a pretty good pitch.
It's the substance over the fluff.
A lot of times the fluff is they're just trying to get you to take them seriously enough to press play. It's a tight rope. I think what you said is just be personal, be accurate in your targeting.
Say you heard my singer-songwriter Mondays show. You're like, ‘Hey, I'm a singer-songwriter, and I've heard my type of music on his show before. I'm gonna reach out to him.’
So make the case, in your mind, why radio still has a lot of influence for someone who thinks it doesn’t.
I feel like many people are busy and don't know where to look for music. I have a lot of friends that they say they listen to the same playlist over and over and over, and that's fine, but we also got to listen to what's new out there, because there's there's almost like a new artist almost every week, there's always a debut song coming out every week. And most of them are really good and some are not.
We as curators, as radio DJs, we sift through the bad stuff. So, you don't have to listen to all the bad stuff, because there's a lot of bad stuff out there.
It's also highly localized. If you want to hear what your city sounds like, we like supporting ground, grassroots stuff too.
I think a lot of people get tired of DJs talking too much, and they just want to hear the music. What's your philosophy on that as a DJ?
I try to keep my talk 45 seconds or less, unless I'm promoting a show, but I don't really talk too much about anything else. People want to get to the music faster, that's where you listen to the radio. Otherwise, you're going to go listen to a podcast, right?
Keep it short and sweet, let them know what song they're about to hear. If it's in Spanish, maybe translate it and say, like, hey, this song's about this and that, here you go.
So as a Latino dude, and you're curating and exposing people to new sounds from that culture, we're experiencing a huge backlash right now because of the Trump administration and anti-immigrant sentiment. Where do you see the role of music, specifically, in combating that?
I studied communications at CSUN, and there's this one class that talked about Cultivation Theory, and really it's specific to TV, but I think in any media it can be applied.
TV cultivates the world you see outside. So, if you see less diversity on TV, then when you go outside and you see something else, subconsciously, you're like, I’m unfamiliar with that type of person, right? So that's why diversity on TV and in media is important: you see more of that person, you see more brown people, you see more folks from India, wherever they're from, any culture, you become less scared of it.
So in radio, if you hear more Spanish, more Japanese, or whatever music I'm playing, you're like, ‘Okay, this fun to listen to; I actually like this type of music. I didn't know I liked music in Spanish.’ Then you become more familiar with it, and it becomes less scary.
100 percent. That is facts. And I think the reason people are afraid is because they're tunnel visioned into a certain point of view on their TV screen, or radio.
Exactly. It’s this, like, bubble of what they consume. So, if they don't consume enough diversity, then they're going to be scared to diversity out in the real world.
And so in addition to your Bilingual Sounds show on 88.5 FM The SoCal Sound from 9-10 PM, Monday through Friday, you also curate the entire Bilingual Sounds HD3 channel.
Yes. My mission with that station is trying to show that a bilingual type of radio station could work and could sound sonically awesome. It is still 80 percent Spanish, but I do put American rock gems in there as well. It’s kind of like the inverted version of The SoCal Sound.
I love that vision. How do you think that's going?
We've had a lot of attention when we rebranded. Everybody was like, this is great. I also have a show on that station from 9 AM to 1 PM Monday through Friday, and I think I got a pretty loyal listenership. I have this person from New York that listens in, which is really cool. He's one of the digital coordinators for Late Night with Stephen Colbert, which is also really cool, because I love that show.
Also, a station in Utah reached out to us wanting to syndicate that four-hour show.
That’s awesome. Was that a surprise for you to hear a station in Utah wants to pick up Bilingual Sounds?
Yeah, I was like, what? And the head person at that station was like, ‘I love your show.’ And she was nerding out when she met me on Zoom, and it was really cool.
What area of Utah do they serve?
Salt Lake City.
OK, so Salt Lake City is kind of hip then.
Yeah, they are. It's sad that they don't get a lot of bands coming into their town, but they get some.
You want to go to those areas where they're a bit starved, too. Whether you're a presenter on a radio station or an artist, those are the areas where you can really start to build a make a mark, because you're serving an underserved community.
Yeah, exactly. And then those fans are the most hardcore fans.
Actually, one of the program directors from that station just emailed me today, telling me that there was this news anchor that reached out to him, saying that this is the type of show that that person has been looking for a blend of Latin alternative and American music.
And last thing I want to end on, who are a few Latin alternative artists that you think more people should know about?
Off the top of my head, there's this artist Chini.png, like the file name, she's amazing. There's this guy named Benjamin Walker, who is really cool, also from Chile. Sofía Campos, Kathy Palma, and Migrant Motel are also really good.
Migrant Motel? Didn't you have the lead singer for that band come play Writers ‘Round a few years ago? He was great.
Yeah. He’s from L.A., but he’s Peruvian, too, and his drummer is from Mexico.
There’s so many great artists right now, I could give you a whole list, but just listen to the station.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Greg Gilman is the founder of the Writers ‘Round Community as well as the L.A.-based singer-songwriter behind Greg in Good Company (@GregInGoodCo), an indie band known for irresistible rock ‘n’ roll full of heart and soul. Outside of music, he’s covered film, television and music as a journalist with bylines at Los Angeles magazine (where he served as executive editor), Variety, MovieMaker magazine, TheWrap and many more publications. Most recently, he wrote the cover story for the summer issue of MovieMaker, and is plenty busy touring all over California this year while continuing to oversee the expansion of Writers ‘Round chapters around the country.