28 Music Week 28.06.13 PROFILE CHRISTIAN O’CONNELL
'I WAS ONE OF THOSE SAD KIDS WHO WANTED TO BE A RADIO DJ'
He's the most successful presenter in the history of the Sonys, but next week Christian O'Connell will front the 'commercial radio Oscars' at the Arqiva Awards in London
MEDIA BY PAUL WILLIAMS
C
ommercial radio bosses are getting out the bunting for their annual awards bash in London next week to celebrate their
sector’s 40th birthday. However, perhaps it is the event’s host Christian O’Connell who they should really be honouring. The Absolute Radio breakfast show DJ reached the big four-zero himself in April, just weeks before winning another two Golds to become the most- decorated presenter in the history of the Sony Radio Academy Awards. It took his tally up to a record 10 in just a decade. Next Wednesday (July 3) it will be at
commercial radio’s equivalent of the Sonys – the Arqiva Awards – where O’Connell will once again be master of ceremonies, but right now his mind seems more focused on hunting down his media- shy, musical hero Bruce Springsteen for an interview rather than on how he will entertain his commercial radio colleagues. The Boss has made London his residency for
the past few weeks during a UK tour, culminating in a headline appearance at Hard Rock Calling at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London this Sunday (June 29), and O’Connell has turned on air to his listeners to try to track Springsteen down and bag the DJ a prized interview. “Someone thinks they’ve seen him jogging this
morning,” he says, hopefully. “Apparently he does six miles every day. It’s whether or not he’s going to be appreciated being bothered by my listeners asking him to do an interview with me. I know what I’d say. Bruce Springsteen doesn’t do interviews, so I’m expecting nothing, but you never know.” O’Connell has been a fan of Springsteen since
being introduced to his music as a teenager by his mum after she saw him on the Born In The USA tour at the old Wembley. In fact, meeting the Born To Run man – as well as U2 and the Beastie Boys – found its way on to a list he drew up as a 13-year-old about things to achieve before he reached the age of 40. The list resurfaced recently and became an on-air challenge for O’Connell to try to tick off the uncompleted tasks before he reached the life milestone. Still, one aim on the list had already long been
fulfilled – “have own show” – revealing his broadcasting ambitions had been with him from a very early age. “I was one of those sad kids that wanted to be a DJ as a teenager,” he remembers. “It was Steve Wright In The Afternoon. My friends and I would all listen and if you weren’t listening to it you missed out on something to talk about the next day at school and it was such a funny show and Steve is still such a great presenter. He manages to do a
RIGHT
Absolute gold: Christian O’Connell has won a record 10 top prizes at the annual Sony Awards
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“I owe Chris Evans so much. Not only has he inspired me for years, he managed to get me a pay rise. When he got kicked out, it unlocked a lot of things” CHRISTIAN O’CONNELL
show that pleases most people and that’s really hard. He can be sarcastic, but he is incredibly warm and very enthusiastic. To me [I thought] wouldn’t it be amazing if you could do that as a job.” The young O’Connell shared these thoughts at school with his career teacher who helpfully advised him: “You’re going to need GCSE maths and I
don’t think you’re going to get a pass at the moment so you might need to rethink that.” “You need it for the backtiming,” O’Connell
wryly observes about maths’ role in DJing. “To be fair I was three and four minutes late for the news today. He was right and then he put all my details into this computer thing and it crunched out my interests and it said that I should be a quarry manager or funeral director.” Stubbornly, he ignored that advice and tried his hand at college radio and hospital radio before starting to send out demo tapes to radio stations when he was around 17. “I got interviewed at a local radio station and a
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