By Rick Kaempfer
BACK TOGETHER AGAIN
W
hen WDRV’s Sherman and
Tingle were first put together as
a team more than a decade ago,
it wasn’t exactly considered a long term
plan. “I came here from Phoenix to be a
part of a show called The Morning Fix
which is the show that replaced Mancow
on Q-101,” Steve Tingle explains. “After
about a year it failed miserably. The boss at
the time was Marv Nyren, and he said, you
know, you and Sherman would sound
good together.”
At the time, Brian Sherman was doing
evenings at the station. “I had only met
Steve once in the hallways,” Sherman
adds. “Marv said I should give him a call,
so I did, and we talked for three hours. We
spent that time getting
to know each other,
feeling each other out
about how a show
should go, what kind
of work ethic was
required, and we
found out we were
very similar.”
The next day they
were doing the after-
noon show together,
and against all the
odds, the arranged
marriage flourished.
After about a year in
the afternoon slot,
when the final rem-
nants of The Morning
Fix were let go (Alan
Cox and Jim Lyman),
Sherman and Tingle
took over the morning
slot. They became a fix-
ture there for the next three years. It didn’t
end until the format switched to all-news.
That also happened overnight.
It ended just as suddenly as it began,
and Sherman and Tingle went their sepa-
rate ways. “But here’s the funny thing,”
Tingle says “I went to Philadelphia, and
then I went to Georgia. Meanwhile, I was
still talking to Sherman on the phone. I
would say ‘man I miss working with you. I
wish we could get back together.’”
“I was working in the suburbs at the
time doing mornings,” Sherman adds,
“and I was also doing weekends at
[W]KQX. But I wasn’t obligated to be any-
where – I wasn’t under contract.” “And
then I was fired in Georgia,” Tingle says, a
twinkle in his eye. “Losing that job in
Georgia is the best thing that ever hap-
pened to me. We heard that they were
thinking of putting us together at **The
Drive again, and we thought, "Oh man.”
“There were so many other things that
had to fall into place,” Sherman says, still
marveling at the timing of it all. “The man-
agement at The Drive had to feel us out.
They wanted to make sure that we had
grown up too. Our show at Q-101 is differ-
ent than the one we do today. You have to
grow with the times. It’s a demographic
[thing]. We were getting a little too old for
101 anyway.”
And after a feeling out period with The
Drive audience, the old duo is humming
again. They admit it was a delicate balanc-
ing act at first. “We had to ease into it
because the listeners were used to music,”
Sherman explains. “You can’t just walk in
16 illinoisentertainer.com march 2019
the door and change it after twenty years of
mostly music morning shows.”
“I had a guy come up to me and say ‘I
hated you guys at first and now I can’t get
enough of you.’ Tingle adds. In the most
recent rating book, they were solidly in
fifth place in the morning slot, an incredi-
ble move up the rating ladder. They have
some theories for why the connection to
the audience has taken hold.
“I think the thing that makes us popu-
lar is that we are who we are,” Tingle says.
“My real name is Steve Tingle. His real
name is Brian Sherman. We don’t have fake
radio names. We don’t do fake radio bits.
We have people who come up to us and
meet us and realize we sound exactly the
Brian Sherman and Steve Tingle
same on and off the air.”
“I think the secret to our success is that
we’re real,” Sherman agrees. “We don’t
fake things. We were out at an appearance
recently, and my wife was out there, and a
listener was asking us about how we write
the segments when we talk to our wives,
and we were like, 'Write it? Are you kid-
ding? That’s all totally organic. That’s who
we really are.'”
It’s a very different audience than their
old Q-101 crowd, but then again, this audi-
ence may be a better match. “The Drive is
very blue collar. That’s who I am,”
Sherman says. “I was a garbage man. My
dad was an auto worker; my brother is an
electrician. On the job site, a lot of people
are listening to us, and we know what it’s
like for them. And I know and love this
music. I started in classic rock, so I knew
this format better than the 101 format.”
“Me too,” Tingle adds. “I grew up with it.
Plus, we didn’t want to be 40-year-old guys
working in an alternative format.”
If it sounds like Sherman and Tingle are
ecstatic to be in their current situation,
there’s a good reason for that. They are.
“I’d like to use (WDRV midday man)
Bob Stroud as an example,” Tingle says.
“I’d like to be here until my mid-60s.” “I’d
love to retire here,” Sherman adds. “They
just signed us to another four-year con-
tract, so we’re not going anywhere anytime
soon.”
Along with their hardworking produc-
er Jill Egan, Sherman and Tingle can be
heard every weekday morning on WDRV,
97.1 FM.