An Interview With Morning Host George Knight

Staff Writer Ahni Brown Harbin interviewed the incredible WERS morning host George Knight on his routine inside and outside the station!

Can you tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do at WERS?

Absolutely, I am the morning host. So I host a morning show along with students. We have a student news team who do the show with me. I also oversee production, which is all the recorded stuff that you hear over the air, and I also do that with the student team. I do air checks with students, meaning I go over, you know, the shows that they have, and try and tell them what they're doing great, and maybe give them some things to try. So I work with students on the on air stuff, and I work with students on production stuff, and also with my Student News team. I try and help them with news writing and performance, you know, doing their newscasts and such.

But yeah, so I do a few different things, and I've been here for a little over 10 years, 2013, I joined. I did end up being the first professional on-air person at ERS. I'm a Boston guy, so I grew up around Boston, and I listened to WERS all the time. In fact, I mentioned that, you know, I do like rhythm and blues and funk and all that stuff. A lot of that I learned by listening to WERS. When this job came up, it was a little extra cool knowing that it was this radio station that I love so much. 

How did you get into radio?

I've always been a music guy, and I think when I was a little kid, in a perfect world, I would become a rock star. You know, I'm an okay musician, but I'm not rock star material. I loved music. I loved it. I thought it'd be really cool to be a musician. I also loved performance stuff, you know, acting and stand up comedy and all that stuff. And so I think I landed on radio because it was a way to stay close to music, do a little bit of performing. And, you know, I think a lot of radio people know, you have to be a little bit of a ham, and that's kind of the way I am. I like the fact that I talk into the mic, and, you know, tens of thousands of people hear it. I get a kick out of that. Radio, especially in 2024 is all about kind of just hanging out with people and offering a little camaraderie. And so that's, that's kind of what I try to do, and I like doing it. So, you know, it makes me happy. It's very different from other careers, but, but I love it.

You know, you hear people talk about how cool it is when you could find a job where  you look forward to it every day, and that's the truth for me. Do I look forward to getting up that early? No, I do not, but I really do look forward to coming in, being on the radio, playing music, interacting with listeners. It's a cool thing.

Do you have any tips for getting up early?

Oh, geez. Well, I'm not very good at it, but my thing is, I have multiple alarms. So I have my alarms on my phone. I set two separate alarms on my phone 20 minutes apart, and then I have a physical alarm clock. It's an electric plugin alarm clock. It has a rooster sound, and that's my fail safe. I set it for a half hour after I really want to get up so that if I sleep through the other two alarms, that rooster wakes me up. It's been a long time since I've overslept. It almost happened a couple weeks ago, though, because I had forgotten to turn the rooster alarm on, and my phone ran out of juice in the middle of the night, my internal clock got me up for some reason. So I made it in. I don't think anybody gets used to getting up as early as a morning person has to get up, and there are some morning people who get up even earlier than I do, but it's still a little unnatural getting up that early.

You've been in the radio business for a long time. What are some of  your favorite things that you've gotten to do, or things that have happened on air?

Well, I always get a kick out of meeting musicians, because, you know, a lot of them are people I've admired for a long time. I got to meet Mark Knoeffler, who's in a band called Dire Straits. He was one of my idols, and I got to hang out with him. Graham Nash from Crosby Stills and Nash also is another guy who sort of sticks out. Seal, nicest guy we had. This was for another radio station I worked for, and we brought some listeners in, and he just like talked with all the listeners, and just so personable and just, I don't know, left an impression that not only is he this talented guy, but he's also a nice guy, you know.

So something that sticks out in my head, I got to do an interview with Weird Al Yankovic. It's awesome, except that I'm such a fan of his that I was kind of, you know, fanboying out and being a nerd, and he's a very smart guy, and I was asking really dumb questions, and he was having none of it, and it was probably one of the worst interviews I've ever done. But it's just because I was like, you know, this is Weird Al Yankovic, like, I love what the guy does. So that was tough but yeah, I love, you know, hanging out with people who I admire, musicians, and I love hanging out with listeners. It's really cool. I love when we have live events. You go out and, you know, listeners will come up and say, Oh, I listen in the morning, or I listen on my way to work or in my carpool. It's a really nice thing to sort of put a face with the people who are listening day to day.

And in your free time, what do you like to do?

I love playing music. I have bazillions of instruments around me all the time. I was just playing my bass, I have a Hammond organ at home that I love to play, I have synthesizers that I like. So I like making music, and I like doing art stuff. I'm a big graphic guy. I like doing little cartoons and little graphic stuff. So that's something else I do. I like cooking, although I'm not very good at it, but I like experimenting with stuff, and that's always fun, and I like sleeping in when I can. That's a good pastime. 

Thank you so much for your time!

Oh, happy to!