His successful radio run came to a screeching halt when Rob was fired when “a piece of shit sponsor” pulled a few weeks of advertising because he was insulted that Rob was the DJ the station sent to do a gig at his “shitty establishment.” The sponsor was upset that Rob wasn't one of the big name DJs at the station. The gig was set up by the programming director and head of the advertising department at WRAT. “Hopefully they die a slow and painful death” Rob often jokes while reminiscing on his stint at the radio station! After attempting to start a podcast for quite some time, his future podcast partner Slim, who is a South Jersey native, approached Rob about collaborating on a podcast that would become The Rob & Slim Show.
Brickhouse: The podcast industry has experienced a major boom over the past year or so. The public is beginning to understand what a podcast is and they are consuming shows at a very high rate. On the other side of the fence, the amount of podcasters producing shows is increasing steadily. How did you guys discover podcasting and when did you guys recognize that podcasting was a platform you would excel at?
Rob: I used to work in the radio industry in the early 2000's, was a huge fan of Howard in the 80's and 90's and Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez from the WNEW days through the end of XM era. I had a lot of interaction with all three shows as a caller and fan. I just took the talk radio format to the podcasting world not realizing that it's a rarity that would set us apart. Along with that, we do 6 half hour interviews with Podcasters, Comedians, Actors, Musicians, Authors, and many others setting us apart as well. Along with our regular listeners, our audience constantly grows from the people we interview and their fans. So it's constantly growing like a boner in sweat pants. It's a huge throbbing show.
Slim: When we started the show I didn't really know what podcasting was. I was really into morning radio at the time and had wanted to do morning radio without having any restrictions on what we could do. The fact that we have stuck to this for so long now and haven't skipped a scheduled day, regardless of what either one of us was dealing with outside of the show, is a testament to our excelling at this.
Brickhouse: Once you guys decided to become part of the podcasting community, what setbacks or hurdles did you experience?
Rob: The only setback I've noticed is the extremely hard struggle to gain paid sponsors. Most of those cunts won't consider a show unless it has 10,000 downloads per episode. Fuck them!
"I used to work in the radio industry in the early 2000's, was a huge fan of Howard in the 80's and 90's and Opie and Anthony and Ron and Fez from the WNEW days through the end of XM era."
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Rob grew up in New Milford, NJ. A small town about 15 minutes from NYC. He studied acting and imrprov in high school under a teacher who taught acting at NBC. After an unsuccessful stint in college, Rob was hired to work in radio at WRAT in Belmar, NJ. Using this opportunity to gain knowledge of the radio industry, Rob thrived in his DJ position at the radio station.
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The Rob & Slim Show