LUCID FORGE

Rich Terfry may be known better as musical alter-ego Buck 65, but as the host of CBC Radio 2’s Drive, he’s letting his radio geek out to play.

“I love radio,” he admits, sitting comfortably in a second-floor studio after a show taping, “I love it so much, I did a campus show for about eleven years. I wanted to get back into radio someday, so this worked out nicely. Of course, there’s a comfort in getting a regular paycheque too –you can’t really get as a full time touring musician.”

Prior to hosting Drive, Terfry had carved out a respectable niche for himself as one of Canada’s most unique voices in alternative hip-hop. Under the moniker of Buck 65, he’s released eleven albums with label Warner Music, four tour-only albums, and a host of independent projects. His 2003 single “Wicked and Weird,” with its catchy mix of beats and banjo, became a hip-hop staple, and the video, featuring Rich/Buck driving through the desert with a puppet as company, established his work, and famously gruff voice, in the public eye. Yet the Maritimer musician has veered more toward avant-garde work the last few years, recently releasing Dirtbike,1/3, the first in a three-album experimental series, that he calls “a massive project” recorded over three months, and completed, in fact, during his training for Drive. Terfry began his DJ duties September 2nd, when Radio Two re-launched. A trio of musicians was chosen to host the new programs on Radio Two; jazz singer Molly Johnson brings her feline pipes to the network’s weekend morning program, while upbeat opera singer Julie Nesrallah hosts Tempo, the classical music-focused midday show. Terfry reckons that “it’s probably not a coincidence” to have the three as the main faces of the recently-revamped station, though he admits there were upwards of seven-hundred people who were auditioned for his hosting gig on Drive. “They weren’t all musicians,” he says, “they had all kinds of people –people with more radio experience than me. But I think there’s something a musician can bring to a job like this.” The newly-revamped Radio Two seems to have become natural home for artists, and has proven, within a wider context, that radio might just be the musician’s ideal “other job,” whether they are already established professionally, or aspiring to hit the big time.

“(Musicians) come in with ideas,” he says, “they hear things in a way others don’t hear them. That could be, if anything, what I find I’m bringing to this. I’m really listening to the music I’m playing and picking up things, things the laymen might not know. And I know things, having worked in a studio, or having had rapport with people. I mean, Drive has seventy-five to eighty-percent Canadian content. Even the opportunities to travel as a musician the last bunch of years gives me knowledge of places referenced in songs or in different parts of the world. If someone sings about Saskatoon, I can paint a picture, ‘cause I’ve been there.”

Interviewing, however, is a challenge. When he went for training, prior to beginning his hosting duties, Terfry learned more about “being the interviewee than the interviewer.” He acknowledges he’s getting better with practise, and with two or three pre-taped interviews a week, he reckons his chances of improvement are great. But the musician side of him is always present, too. “I always need to be mindful of the audience,” he says, “and often that means I have to forget what I know, so if I’m interviewing a musician, and it gets into some reference point I understand, I could let that glide right by, and forget the average person at home is going, “What’s a 7th? I don’t know what you mean there!” So I think of my dad with whatever I say, and ask, “Am I alienating him?” It’s a weird skill to learn, forgetting what you know.”

There was a huge outcry this past spring when it was announced that the decades-old run of Disc Drive, Radio Two’s previous drive-home show, would be ending; changes to Radio Two sparked a wider national debate about the role of Canada’s public broadcaster. Disc Drive, and its avuncular host, Juergen Gothe, had a hugely devoted fanbase, and its cancellation, along with other long-running CBC shows that featured classical music as a mainstay, provoked a controversy that, in some pockets, is continuing. “They’re big shoes to fill,” he says, referring to Goethe and his decades-long popular program, “and of course I don’t want to lose anyone. It was the question on everyone’s mind: “Can we keep them?” It’s going take a year to get a real picture of things, but I know we have kept people. I get emails from diehard fans (of Goethe’s) and I know there’s people who hate (Drive), but I’ve also heard from people who have stuck around, and obviously that makes me feel good.”



When it comes to the role of public broadcasting, there are many strong opinions. One argument against the changes to Radio Two had to do with concern over making the CBC too commercial. “Every Canadian taxpayer pays for this service,” Terfry points out, “so we have to ask, “Should (radio programming) just be for a small group of people? Should this just be a service for those who like classical music?” There are a lot of people who might not be fans of classical music, but are desperate to hear other stuff that’s not on radio at all. Shouldn’t they be represented? People who argue this just do not have a comeback for that.”

Unlike its commercial counterparts, Radio Two’s main focus has been the promotion of Canadian artists, including notably, those who don’t get airtime on other networks, or more importantly, live time. “We have a philosophy here, and the focus word thrown around when we planned this show was, ‘The Song.’ When we have somebody in, we don’t want it to be a situation where a listener could say, “Oh, I’ll just listen to the CD,” we want (the live set) to be what (their music) sounds like when you strip away the production and everything in the studio.” Using recent Drive visits by Canadian singer-songwriters Roxanne Potvin and Martha Wainwright as examples, Terfry says “you’re going to hear a very different version from what’s on their records –the song will stand on its own, stripped of the studio tricks and bells and whistles.”

The juxtaposition of artists from different styles is another facet of Drive that makes it unique among its more commercial drive-home counterparts. Flipping through the playlist of that day’s particular show, Terfry says the musical variety “doesn’t happen in other places. I mean, holy mackerel, we’re playing Plants And Animals, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Jason Collett, Joe Cocker, Delhi to Dublin –this bananas fusion band from Vancouver –then Norah Jones, Melissa McLelland. The more juxtapositions, the more excited I get. Two people you would never have heard mentioned in same breath, well, we’re putting ‘em in a room together!”



So what’s Terfry’s biggest passion, then? Radio or music? “It’s pretty close to fifty-fifty,” he says earnestly. “Since working this job, I’ve been making tons of music at home and writing almost everyday. I’m feeling more inspired than ever. There’s a liberation of the pressure being off (financially), and now I feel like… when I’m thinking about art and music, I don’t also need to think about the money. That part is gone.” Still, what gives the new host the greatest joy is hearing from listeners. “When people write in, and let us know we’ve turned them on to something, more than anything else, it makes me feel like, mission accomplished. And that’s the biggest satisfaction I can get out of this.”