Absolutely. It is totally true and all part of the persona. What happened was that Phil Solomon ran Major Minor Records and he bought a percentage of Radio Caroline from Ronan O’Rahilly to promote his label. The trouble was he used to make some dreadful music. I never had a problem with payola if they were good records, but all the money on the planet was not going to get me to play a record I didn’t like. The music controller would come in when the trawler arrived with a stack eight inches high of new 45’s and we’d all grimace. The others would play them but as soon as my show came on I would take all the records, open the porthole and out they would go! I figured if they weren’t there nobody could plat them. After word got out that I was doing this, I was immediately fired by Phil Solomon. I came back at the end of my two weeks and went to Caroline House to say goodbye to everybody, and Ronan asked what was going on. I told him I’d been fired by Phil for not playing his records and Ronan told me I was hired again. That must have happened two or three times, and then they started locking up the records when I was on. Ironically enough, in the end I produced a few records for Phil on Major Minor. The best one was Barry St John – ‘Cry Like a Baby’ – that would stand the test of time today.
I’d been hired and fired several times, and then one day Ronan asked me if I wanted to go back to France. He’d been commissioned to take over the running of French Radio Luxemburg, which was down in the toilet ratings – wise. But I said “Why would I want to go back to France? Give me some reasons.” He offered me £250 a week plus expenses, and I thought that’s a good enough reason for me! So back I went and they gave me a show every afternoon. In fact we built the first ever self-op studio in France. Over there the DJs had a microphone and that was it, the union guys played the music and tapes. But I told them if they wanted me to do my thing, I had to do it the American was where the DJ sits there and plays the songs. The management agreed to it, but they hadn’t told the union about this little operation. So overlooking the street in one of the spare studios I put together a studio, requisitioning cart machines from here and there. In the meantime I got together with some French singers and another fella called Jean Claude Valdimo (who became my manager over there) and we all flew to Texas, where they make PAMs jingles, and we recorded a hundred jingles in French using the PAMs beds. We brought those back and they were an instant hit with everybody except management! We packaged all that together and decided to do 50% French and 50% American-style programming. We did an audition for the press and they went crazy, they loved it. But the next day the engineers announced there would be a national strike because this crazy American was playing his own records, and that caused a major problem because self-op signalled the end of the road for them. So in the end they negotiated to pay an engineer to sit there next to me. He’d sit there drinking his coffee and I’d do all the work! Anyway, Luxemburg jumped up in the ratings and I got crazier and crazier. I got a swollen head and everything else that goes with success when you’re in your early 20’s. Then the French decided to have their national strike in May 1968, there was rioting in the streets and Radio Luxemburg said I had to start playing classical music because it was such a serious situation. I told them I wouldn’t and promptly kicked off my show with ‘Dancing in the Street’ by Martha and the Vandellas. Well, the firing commenced and they were delighted to see me go. I left in the middle of the riot. Everything was shut down and shut up. You couldn’t get gas – of course I was driving an American Thunderbird which wasn’t the best car to be driving! I think my buddy had to steal the gas, but we filled up and left Paris.
HOW DID THE RADIO 1 JOB COME ABOUT?
When I was at Luxembourg a producer at Radio 1, Derek Chinnery [later Radio 1 controller] came over to find this crazy guy who’d been on Caroline and was now in France. So I left Luxembourg and joined Radio 1 to do ‘Midday Spin’ at the launch of the station. Of course, famously, on the first day, John Dunn who did the 12.30 news said after hearing me: “And now the news in English” and the press loved it!
I was the number one voiceover in the 1970s. In 1974 I can remember sitting in front of the TV and being embarrassed at how many commercials had my voice on them. But there were agents who were stealing, and I didn’t even know there was such a thing as residuals at one time, I mean that’s how stupid I was. I’d get my grand up front and they’d keep all the residuals. You just don’t care when you’re 25 years old, it’s like I’ll make some more tomorrow, there’ll always be another gig’. I carried that stupid thought with me right through to 1978 when I was the first DJ to voluntarily quit Radio 1.
YOU GREW UP IN HOLLYWOOD, WERE YOU NEVER TEMPTED BY THE MOVIES?
Dad was a Hollywood producer and he made about 120 movies. He did a couple of the Elvis movies – ‘Spinout’ and ‘Girl Happy’ and movies like ‘Anchors Aweigh’ with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. But I was never interested in films. I grew up in it and couldn’t have cared less about it. But I did act in a couple of movies, very badly I might add. ‘World War III’ was one with Rock Hudson and there was another, a remake of ‘The Jazz Singer’ with Neil Diamond.
WERE YOU INTERESTED IN RADIO AS A CHILD?
Radio was always my passion from the word go. I used to hear all these crazy DJs when I was old enough to walk and that was my thing.
HOW DID YOU COME TO BE A DJ ON AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER?
Back in the 1960s they had the draft and I thought I might as well get my four years out of the way when I was 17 so I could then get on with seeing the world. I was in the navy and the aircraft carrier I was on, USS Coral Sea, had it’s own radio station KCVA which was broadcast around the ship. Opportunity struck when the head of the radio station left the ship, so I presented myself and said “I’m a DJ. I’m the guy who should be running this whole thing”, even though I’d never done it before at radio station level. I was asked what I knew about running a radio station and luckily I was the teaboy and messenger boy for KYA in San Francisco, so whenever we were in port I was always working at the station as an errand boy for a couple of the top jocks. That meant I was able to observe everything, so I started telling them what I’d seen and from that day on a microphone was the way to go.
WHAT WAS THE DEAL WITH THOSE EARLY SHOWS IN FRANCE?
Eddie Barclay was paying to have his product played on radio stations back in those days. He would buy blocks of an hour and he had hours everywhere. At the time I was just starting my career as a music producer, but I wasn’t very good at that, so Eddie asked me to take care of the radio shows. He handed me a catalogue of vinyl and told me to produce a radio show. The deal was he would pay them to play Rosko playing Barclay records. He would never say I had to play anything in particular – he might hint – but basically he left me in charge. He had a great catalogue and I would play as much American rock ‘n’ roll as I could, with just a few French records. After a couple of months the stations were reporting such good figures on these paid broadcasts that Barclay negotiated very cleverly and said “If you want to keep having Rosko on I’m not paying you anymore. You have to give me the shows for free.” That was the next step up. He used that to get me onto a national station in France. But my French was always ‘Franglais’ – I made it up as I went!
HOW DID YOU END UP ON RADIO CAROLINE?
Whilst I was in France I met Henry Henroid, a friend of Radio Caroline’s Ronan O’Rahilly, and he suggested I move to the UK and do my thing there. I said: “On what?” – the BBC at that time was all violins and the foxtrot. But he told me about a new pirate radio station called Radio Caroline. I thought it sounded kinda fun, so I made a tape for Caroline and kissed France goodbye. I was employed on Radio Caroline South for the pricely sum of £70 a week – which was a lot of money – and I got a week off every two weeks.
My dad wasn’t well and my career was not something that excited me anymore. The music was changing and it was just time to make a move. I kept jumping ship and good things kept happening, so I thought what can be so bad about returning to Hollywood? My dad at least had some contacts and how could anybody say no to the Emperor? But I got back here and it was a whole different ball game.
WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING SINCE?
I spent the next ten or fifteen years running around the planet doing gigs here and there, and then the commercial boys were gaining ground in the UK so I’ve since been on a number of stations there. Now I do the Classic Gold network on Friday nights. And I came over to do a tour with Classic Gold in May. But basically I’m mainly working in France and Spain.
IS IT TRUE YOU DID A SHOW IN SPANISH FOR ARGENTINA?
I had a number seven show in Argentina! I don’t speak a word of Spanish, but made up about a hundred cue cards in phonetic Spanish – it’s basically the same thing I did in France because I don’t speak French. But the show in Argentina did real well. It was absolutely amazing until the Argentinan Peso took a dive, and of course the wages stopped, so that curtailed that activity.
DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROJECTS IN THE PIPELINE?
I was offered one in Denmark, but it wasn’t right at the time. To me radio’s a living and if I’m offered a contract, and it’s worth doing, I’ll do it. It does take quite awhile to prepare all the stuff though. It’s not so much the execution, it’s the preparation. But funnily enough you’re far more free because you don’t know what you’re saying half the time, so you can really be a crazy lunatic!
WHAT DRIVES YOU TO KEEP DOING RADIO?
Habit. And radio keeps me out of trouble. I like to keep my hand in, and the nice thing is to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I’m on a very loose leash at the moment
DO YOU EVER WISH YOU DIDN’T GET RECOGNISED?
It never bothers me. I don’t understand people who get into showbusiness and don’t want to be recognised – people that don’t want to be recognised shouldn’t be in showbusiness. It’s part of the package.
HAS SUCCESS CHANGED YOU?
We all change as we get older, I don’t know if success had anything to do with it. Success certainly made me a prize turkey at one time, but I think age changes you more than anything else. If it happened today I would have taken it with a great pinch of salt. When you actually believe it all, I don’t think it’s healthy. We see it all the time with these divas… they need to be treated respectfully but when you see some of these things you just scratch your head. But I still talk to 150 fans a day through emperrorrosko.com. They go there to say ‘Hi’ and they can’t believe it when they get an answer. It’s great fun. I wouldn’t be where I am if they hadn’t afforded me their pounds, shillings and pence at the right time – supporting gigs and buying albums and all that. So they’re part of my life.
I was so happy for Tony Blackburn when he pulled that TV stunt on ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here’. It just goes to show it can happen. It’s amazing because that rejuvenation on one silly television show has given his career a new lease of life. He lives, eats and drinks radio; it’s his thing. He’s even more fanatical than I am, and that’s hard. And I’ve always admired his tenacity for work. He’s one hard worker. I also liked Paul Burnett back in the 1970s. I haven’t heard him since, so I don’t know if he’s changed a lot. And Mike Aherne has always been one of my favourite DJs because he had this cheek, and I liked his accent and timing. Then we had our staples from the Radio 1 days – if you’re in the right mood, John Peel. Bless him. He swims upstream and against the tide because he shouldn’t be at Radio 1 in theory, but the fact that he is there is absolutely mind-boggling, amazing and wonderful. He’s in there with that nest of young people and there’s nothing more horrifying than to meet some FM Head of Music who’s 25 years old – you forget that at one time you were in the same position yourself!
IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT THE RADIO INDUSTRY WHAT WOULD IT BE?
The whole corporate situation sucks. The way stations programme and the way they’ve had to do what they do to make money has ruined radio as I like it. I listen to radio 50% for music and 50% for the DJ, and I’d like to think that I wasn’t abnormal. So the first thing I would do is get personalities back on radio and put them in charge of their three hours under loose supervision. It would be a sink or swim situation, they’d have six months to get an audience, and their wages would be dependent on paying attention to the business aims. And preferably we’d tape them in advance so we’d know they wouldn’t say anything they shouldn’t.
The two stations that have alluded me are Radio 2 and Capital. Funnily enough, I’m just about the only Radio 1 DJ that didn’t work for Richard Park. That was one of my regrets because London has not heard the Emperor apart from a brief stint on Virgin Radio. Londoners have been devoid of the Emperor unless they’re very alert, because you can get Classic Gold on Sky 859 and digital multiplexes. But London’s my town and I regret the fact I haven’t done something there.
