Ken Scott, Director of Audio Services. TourDesign, Indianapolis, Indiana
By Jerry Vigil
Ken Scott had quite a career in radio prior to his departure to work for TourDesign. As a teenager, he held down four different radio jobs at one time. He held simultaneous part-time positions at a Country FM and Gospel AM in Decatur, Alabama, sign-on duties at his local hometown AM station and drove 40 miles to another radio gig at a Contemporary Christian FM in Huntsville. At his first full-time gig at WDRM-FM in Huntsville, Ken became the first talent there to cross the ratings threshold of a 30 share in the coveted 25-54 demographic. Ken accepted his first management job in 1992 to become group PD for Prarieland Broadcasters in Decatur, IL. He was only 25. He was also a popular morning show host on WDZQ-FM in Decatur (and can still be heard there today as the stations image voice). He very nearly took a different path when approached by the local ABC TV affiliate to do on camera weather reports. Ken succeeded in his transition to an on-camera weather-caster, continuing this for just over a year. Then there was his first major market gig at WLS in Chicago before landing at TourDesign as the Director of Audio Services. Ken, a.k.a. "That Voice Guy", and wife Patti also operate their own creative services company, ScotSpots Creative Audio. In this month’s RAP Interview, Ken gives us an inside look at TourDesign in 2005, offers some tips to creating killer concert spots, shares some enlightening information about caring for your voice, and more. Be sure to check out Ken’s demo on this month’s RAP CD!
JV: How did you get into the business?
Ken: I got my start when I was 15 years old. Pretty much like any other kid, my voice had changed, and I suddenly sounded like a man. One night I was studying for a science exam in my room. I had A.D.D. back before they knew what to call it, so I was having a hard time focusing on my studies. Well, kind of impromptu, I tried reading my textbook out loud hoping that maybe it would help me absorb some of it. After a few minutes, my mom yelled at me down the hall to turn off the radio. Of course the radio wasn’t on. She said, “You’re supposed to be studying.” I told her it was me she was hearing, and she just smiled and let me get back to it.
I can’t remember if I passed that test, but the following weekend my mom was on the phone with the local deejay. She had developed a friendship with him and liked to request songs on his program. She remembered the whole textbook reading incident and asked him if he would talk to me — she thought her son would make a fabulous deejay. She put me on the phone and I talked to him for a short while. He complimented me on my voice and asked if I’d like to come down for an interview. Of course, I was tickled, and within a few days my mom drove me to the station — I was only 15 so I didn’t have a driver’s license yet. The PD there gave me some AP teletype copy and asked me to read it for him… on the air! I was as nervous as anyone would be in that situation. I barely got through it. It was my very first newscast; but the impromptu audition somehow paid off, and I got my first job in broadcasting. I wonder all the time what I’d be doing today if I had not decided to read my science book out loud that night.
It’s interesting to look back on the early days and the people I was working around. Way back when I got married in 1988, I got a job in Decatur, Alabama. I’ve worked in a lot of Decaturs. WDRN was the country powerhouse. During that time I met a lot of good talents, but there were three of them that really stood out. John Shults, who is now my boss, was a competing deejay on another country station. He also worked with me for a while at WDRN. I also worked with Mark Peeples, who was doing nights at WVNA in Mussel Shoals, a CHR station. I was doing mornings at the time. Mark is a major-league voiceover guy in the business now, doing tons of TV affiliate work and radio imaging and so forth. Then there was Sean Hannity. Sean was working his first radio gig at WVNN in Athens, Alabama – all the towns were close together. He was doing a local talk show following Rush Limbaugh — of course, Rush wasn’t local; he was via satellite. And I’ll be honest; I didn’t think Sean was going to have much of a career. He was a nice guy, but I thought he sounded way too much like Rush in his style and politics. I didn’t think he was carving a niche, and I even told him, “Sean, you’re going to have to find something else or another way to do this. You sound too much like Rush.” I guess you can’t always be right. Anyway, we became friends and we still stay in touch even to this day. It’s just kind of interesting that we were all starting the main part of our careers at the same time and in the same place, in unlikely North Alabama.
JV: What are some of the high points in your career prior to TourDesign?
Ken: Probably the biggest moment in my life was the Chicago gig, which was a real turning point. It was late 1995. My friend John Shults was a production guy in Decatur, Illinois at the time. He told me about a job opening at ABC Radio in Chicago. WLS-FM was looking for a Production Director for their brand new country format. Like a lot of guys in my position, I’d always dreamed of getting the call to the majors, but really thought it was going to be down the road when I’d paid more dues and actually deserved to be there. John convinced me to put the demo together and get it to Ted Stecker, the PD in Chicago. I called Ted to see if I was wasting my time by sending a package, and he was frank with me; he said that he had pretty much made up his mind, but if I wanted to overnight a package he would wait on it before making his final decision. I worked feverishly on that demo and somehow managed to lose track of time. I looked up and realized it was 15 minutes to the FedEx deadline, to closing time, and I had to drive there — they weren’t picking up. So I grabbed the cassette and resume and drove as fast as I could. Those days I lived paycheck-to-paycheck, so every dollar made a difference, and that ten bucks or whatever it was was significant to me. So halfway to FedEx I pulled the car over to the side of the road. I was conflicted. The negative side of me kept telling me that I was wasting time and money, and that I wasn’t ready yet and probably wouldn’t get the gig anyway. So why risk a speeding ticket and blow ten bucks? I very nearly turned the car around. I was about five minutes from FedEx. My gut told me to just go for it, so I did. And like in a movie, the FedEx lady was locking the door when I screeched in. I had to talk her into taking my package, which she eventually did. I called Ted the next day and he asked me to come up for an interview, so I drove the three hours to Chicago and put my best foot forward. Just getting the interview was a thrill; I never expected to get the gig. But when he called me to tell me that I got the job, man, that was surreal. I was 27 and I was going to the big leagues. That was quite a feeling. That was my only major market gig and my last radio gig. I was there for four years as the Creative Services Director.
JV: How did the gig at TourDesign come about?
Ken: Again, it was my good friend John Shults. He was at TourDesign by this time. He knew I was renegotiating my contract at ABC in Chicago, and as it sometimes will work out, the offer you get is not what you want it to be. John had been looking for a way to get me at TourDesign for a couple of years, and it just kind of worked out. He made me an offer, and ABC couldn’t match it. And in retrospect, this was the place to be anyway; this is a fantastic place to work.
JV: Tell us a little about TourDesign. It’s not just radio concert spots anymore, right?
Ken: Correct. It’s a full-service post-production and production house. We do audio, video, art, and multimedia for the live entertainment industry. Concerts spots is mainly what we do, but we’re diverse. We do anything from concert spots, radio and TV ads, websites, and even some long-form projects like documentaries, motor sports events, logo animation, and theatrical events. And our staff has grown also. We’ve got a great staff of writers, voice talents and editors — both video and audio – artists, animators, account reps, the most talented group of people I’ve ever worked with, and right now we’ve never been better.
JV: What are your responsibilities?
Ken: As Director of Audio Services for TourDesign, what I do basically is coordinate the efforts of our voice talents and editors here in Indianapolis, Vancouver, and Nashville. We’ve got a great crew in this department. Of course, John Shults is probably the signature voice of TourDesign. I’ve been here over 10 years. Jay Dowell, Todd Heathcote, Stacy Blotch, John Chapman, Matt Rawlings, Larry Semkew, David Kay, Jeff Collins – all these guys are main editors/voice talents, and they’re the absolute best in the business. I love and respect all these guys. They’re just awesome.
JV: Are all the voices you use on staff?
Ken: Most are actually staff announcers. One of them, David Kaye, is not on staff, but he might as well be, as much as we use him.
JV: What’s a typical day on the job like?
Ken: There’s plenty of stress, a lot of deadlines. Really, it’s not that much different from radio. I thought I’d get away from that, but not really. Promoters place their orders, usually at the last minute because they’re waiting for sponsors. So it’s pretty common to get 20 orders at 4:00 for shows that go on sale tomorrow.
We do primarily two things: we do demos on a pretty regular basis to try to win a tour, and then when we do win the tour, we spend a lot of time actually doing the markets, which is basically updating the demo for individual markets. On a good day we’ll do 30 or 40 markets each. There’s a lot of people out there touring. It keeps you busy.
JV: What’s your approach to creating great concert spots?
Ken: Well that’s our bread and butter. We do lots of other things, but that’s what we specialize in. There are a lot of ways you can approach producing a good concert spot, but my fundamental approach starts with the writing. The production elements are basically just music and your voice. So if you want to set your spot apart, the real key is the writing. An example of that is a spot I recently produced for the PBS special, Celtic Women. I begin by doing a little research on the artist if I’m not familiar with them; the Internet is good for that. It’s always good to know your product, and information you glean from a bio can be very valuable. You can find some good critic comments or other possible angles from what you read in the bio. The whole idea is simple: what you want to do is get the listener to be interested in going to the show. The hardcore fans, they’re going to go to the show even if your spot sounds bad. So your goal is to reach that undecided crowd. You’ve got to speak to that crowd and use as much of that spot as necessary to sell the event.
So for this show, I decided to present the individual talents. There are five women in this show singing, and one plays the violin. It’s a spectacular show. It feels like Riverdance a little bit. They perform individually throughout the show with beautiful haunting voices, as well as together on a few songs with a powerful chorus of their voices. So in the voiceover I basically say something like, “Each voice enchanting,” followed by some of their individual song hooks, and it builds to kind of an emotional climax saying, “Together angelic.” Then the powerful chorus of the women all together kicks in. It’s not my best spot and probably wouldn’t win an award by any stretch, but it’s a simple way to help people understand what the show is about, and it builds an excitement about it. It’s a good spot, and I’m proud of its effectiveness.
I also tell people to remember that the voice is just narration; it’s clearly in a support role to the artist in the show. So I try to make an attempt not to show them up and resist the urge to overdo the drama in the voiceover. I try to avoid cliché, which is not always easy. Many clients still demand a cliché: “Live in concert… The biggest show of the year… You don’t want to miss this show…” and so forth. It’s not terribly effective because they’re so overused; they tend to lose their meaning when every concert is the “show of the year.”
Then there are some basic fundamentals. Remember to keep the call-to-action information — such as the date, venue, and ticket information — at the end of the spot. You want to use the first 45 seconds to convince people to go, and then you finish by telling them the where, when and how. As far as editing music – and this is important – I always tell people to try to use the recognizable portions of the song, which is not always the actual title. It might be a guitar riff or part of a verse. The idea though is to make sure the audience connects with and identifies with the artist, so playing the parts that are recognizable is a good idea. Also avoid the temptation to play a long hook – I hear this a lot. It’s important to the success of most concert spots to keep the forward momentum going. Sometimes if you have a song with a 12-second hook, it can slow down the energy of the composition. It doesn’t have to be rapid-fire, but often times the more music you put into a spot can help remind the listener that the artist has more than one or two songs. And you’ve got to be careful about mixing ballads in with up-tempo songs. When possible, keep it up-tempo. If ballads are a huge hit and therefore necessary, what you want to do is try to put them toward the end before the date, venue, ticket read. It’s just a psychological roller coaster ride. You want to keep the listener breathless and captivated with a forward-moving composition. These are not hard rules, just guidelines. I tell people not to be afraid to break the rules if a creative idea requires it. Ultimately the client and hopefully the audience will judge if it works or not.
JV: Your bio on your website talks about a record 13 nominations you had one year in the Chicago AIR Awards. What’s the story there?
Ken: Well, as far as awards, you think they’re a big deal until you win one and you realize how much they do for you — it’s not necessarily that much. But it was cool to win the awards in Chicago. Actually, out of those 13 nominations, I only won one AIR award. I had nominations in three or four different categories. In each category they have five finalists. I submitted a lot of stuff. In the “Best Commercial” category, I ended up having all five finalist slots, so I was the only person at the awards ceremony that knew I was going to win an award. It was kind of funny because as they were getting ready to announce the winner, I was already walking to the podium. It was kind of fun. Awards are neat and they look nice on your wall, but at the end of the day it really is “what have you done for me lately?”
JV: Were you doing a lot of voice work back then as well?
Ken: Yeah. I was doing lots of freelance stuff. I still do. I do work for Cub Foods, the grocery store chain. They may be my biggest client, I suppose. I’ve done work for Visa, Disney of course – I worked there, so that was an easy in to get with Disney. I got to do a lot of their network stuff. I seem to have kind of a knack for the Disney style. As a matter of fact, I still do Disney stuff with TourDesign. We do a lot of their album spots now.
JV: It doesn’t sound like you have the typical concert spot voice.
Ken: No, that’s true. And what was the typical concert voice — which is more like the John Shults’s or Steve Kellys of the world — is not quite so much the case today. You are seeing concerts being a lot more diversified. Every voice on our staff sounds different. But in my case, I would have never thought that concert spots would be where I would end up. Like a lot of radio guys, out of necessity, I had to learn to do a lot of different styles. So I was doing the really hyped car ads, and then the really down and dramatic ads for the funeral homes. I can do it all, but my particular style is a little more laid back and relaxed and dramatic, so as a result I end up doing a lot of the classic rock tours, and even the adult contemporary and jazz tours. I don’t do that many pop or even hard rock tours. I can occasionally do it, but by and large I don’t touch those.
JV: It sounds like you do a lot of voice work every day. What do you do to keep your voice in shape and ready for the day?
Ken: Well actually, I’m suffering from some minor vocal chord stress due to the stress of the deadline-driven job we talked about and some poor voicing techniques in the past – I had tried to be the “monster truck” voice when I would read on some of the demos here, and that’s not a good idea. It caused me to suffer some mild vocal damage. The medical terms are laryngeal myasthenia, vocal fold edema and erythema. Basically my voice is fine in the morning, but by the mid-afternoon I get quite husky; the texture is gone. My vocal chords are stressing and basically not coming together to get a good vibration.
So I’m seeing a specialist in Dayton, Ohio. His name is Dr. Joseph Stimple at the Blaine Block Institute for voice analysis and rehabilitation. They looked at my vocal chords with a camera, they examined my history and my habits, and they interviewed me. The doctor determined that I needed some rehab, so I am currently doing a series of exercises, morning and night, that are strengthening my voice. They are basically stretching and contracting exercises by sustaining various musical notes with my voice. It sounds strange to do them — it bothers my kids at night when they’re trying to sleep — but I can already see the difference. He’s had me change my lifestyle to some degree. Part of my problem was dehydration; the voice needs to be hydrated to function well. And you can’t just drink water before you do a session. That won’t do it. Water doesn’t even touch your vocal chords; you’ve got to hydrate from within. So I gave up coffee and soda. The caffeine dehydrates you. I will have it on the weekends, but I’ve replaced it with water during the week. I learned that a lot of my allergy medications that I’ve taken in the past have not been helping me. Anything whose goal is to shrink tissue, like antihistamines or steroids, is necessary to alleviate nasal swelling; but they have the unfortunate side effect of also shrinking the vocal chords. So it causes them to not come together for a good vibration. Relaxation and de-stressing are also necessary for good vocal function. A simple act of stretching the neck and back muscles does wonders. I have to drive two hours to see this doctor. There’s not a voice specialist in every town. And if you don’t have one, there are some pretty good books out there that can teach you about vocal health. Anyway, my voice is getting better every day. As long as I continue my exercises, which I will do until the day I die, my voice is staying heartier into the late afternoon and evening. I’m very satisfied with it.
I mentioned my allergies, well about a year ago I was having difficulties with allergies as well as suffering from snoring and some mild sleep apnea. I had to sleep with a breathing machine called a CPAP. I decided to have surgery to help alleviate some of this because it was affecting my whole life, including my voice. I had a UPPP – short for something, don’t ask, it doesn’t matter. Basically it’s the removal of the uvula, the tonsils and part of my soft palate. At the same time I had septoplasty and turbinate surgery, which is essentially straightening out a crooked air passage in my nose and removing some nasal membranes and bone fragments that were causing some nasal blockage. It sounds like a big deal, and let me tell you, it was. I was warned that it was going to be painful, and he was not lying. It put me on my butt for over two weeks. The first seven days were excruciating pain. I was regretting every moment of having that surgery. Now, in retrospect of course, I’m glad I did it. I’m experiencing my first pollen season in my life with virtually no suffering. The apnea is gone and snoring is greatly reduced, which is good for my wife. It’s been extremely beneficial to my voice and mental state too, as you can imagine. I talk to a lot of people that have these symptoms, and they immediately want to go out and have the same thing done. I just tell them to check with their doctor and research it big-time. I did, and I came across a lot of people who’d had this done and didn’t get relief. So it’s not a sure thing. Just be smart. It’s major surgery. You have just got to be smart and do the research. In my case we had a happy ending.
JV: Sounds like you’ve become a bit of a student of the voice.
Ken: Yes, especially since I started seeing Dr. Stimple. I’ve got a long way to go and a lot to learn. It’s very fascinating to see how complex and nuanced vocal function really is. Again I highly recommend that any serious voice talent learn as much as they can about their vocal instrument. I’m currently reading a book called Make Your Voice Heard: An Actor’s Guide to Dramatic Range Through Vocal Training by Chuck Jones. You probably know this, but many people may not know that the personality of your voice has less to do with your vocal chords than you think. Vocal chords by themselves only create a buzzing sound, kind of like a kazoo. It’s the resonance of your body that creates the richness and the texture. Vocal chords, as my doctor told me, are like the strings on a violin, and your body is like the wooden frame of the violin. The best parts of the sound are created the way that the strings or the chords resonate throughout the resonating chamber. Of course the most used resonating chambers in our body are the stomach, the chest, the throat, and the nasal cavity. It’s truly fascinating when you start understanding why and how your voice works; it definitely affects your approach. I just recommend that people study as much as they possibly can.
JV: When did Clear Channel buy TourDesign, and what’s it like working for Clear Channel in this non-radio environment?
Ken: They bought it almost the day after I started working here. It was like the next week or so, and that’s going to be about six years ago. Both TourDesign and Clear Channel are great to work for, and I’m really not just saying that. It’s the best job I’ve ever had. My boss is John Shults, the COO, and Fergy, she’s the President. They are extraordinarily competent and extremely driven. The team we have is excellent; it’s truly a joy to work here. You read and hear a lot about Clear Channel. They pretty much leave us alone as long as we’re making money. We’re kind of independent, so it’s actually been quite a pleasure. I hope this is the last real job I ever have.
JV: Less is more — are you making lots of 30-second concert spots?
Ken: Yes, as a matter of fact, we have been doing that more and more lately. There’s been some resistance from some of the management teams. A lot of the artists, for one reason or another, don’t want to make available 30-second spots, but slowly but surely they’re all coming around. So, yes, typically when we do a demo, we’ll do a 60 and a 30 now.
JV: What are you learning about making 30-second concert spots?
Ken: On a large scale, we’ve done 30-second spots before in the past. When we build a TV concert spot, it’s 30 seconds. And many times, to be efficient -- it doesn’t always work -- but many times the audio for the 30-second radio spot is the same audio as the TV spot. Again we’re talking concert spots, so as long as you have time to get a good efficient creative message across up front, it’s basically music hooks and call-to-action information.
JV: What’s down the road for you in the next 5 to 10 years. Do you plan to go out on your own someday?
Ken: Sure. And I’m getting there slowly but surely. My goal is to have the power to live wherever I want to live at any moment. I want to have a studio on the beach in Grand Cayman. As far as what I’ll do, I’m not going to limit myself on the possibilities. I think that I will have a degree of success in radio imaging. I’ve done a good bit of that in the past, and I do a few stations now. I’m getting ready for a big push to get more stations. I love doing radio imaging, creating it and voicing it. It’s some of the most creative stuff I’ve ever done, and I think most production guys in radio these days, that’s what they like doing. I hope to do a lot of that. It’s also obviously a good way to be self-sufficient. Most of the radio stuff is monthly retainers. A lot of the complaints I hear from freelance guys is the lean times that they have to live through waiting for the next big gig. With radio imaging, you could build a pretty good monthly base. If you get ten or 100 stations, then you’ve got a steady monthly income.
So my goal is to build that up, the radio imaging side of things and hopefully continue to get some of the big commercial clients as well. I did a cool video game for Red Baron Pizza not too long ago. They actually ship it out inside the frozen pizza boxes – three million of them – which is kind of cool. I’ve been doing a few video games. I do narrations and lots of things, but I think probably where my bread and butter is going to be might just be radio imaging.
And as far as going out on my own, I won’t actually be on my own; I have a great business partner. My wife Patti has been the inspiration of my career and the joy of my life. Not only does she take care of all our bookkeeping and other aspects of our freelance business like creative concepts, she is also my biggest fan. I talk to so many radio guys with failed marriages because their wives felt like radio widows. Patti endured all the late nights and long weekends and Christmases when I had to work. She endured all the relocations even though we kept moving further and further away from her family and friends. She had a great spirit and attitude through it all. I am truly lucky. She understands what is needed for us to succeed. She had incredible patience while we climbed toward the top. After 17 years of marriage, I have stopped introducing her as my “first wife.” I’m pretty sure she will be my only wife — by far the biggest influence in my career and my life. By the way, we are also the very proud parents of two boys, John and Ben who are both in high school now — fortunately, both smarter than their dad. They are great kids.