I landed here by complete accident! I actually had no idea what I was getting myself in for and no clue about doing anything for the radio.
I had heard of Hard Rock Hell as I had been to one of their festivals before back in 2018, Sleaze II, purely because the ticket was only £25 and I thought why not. Fast forward to June 2019 and I received an email about what was happening with Highway to Hell (which my friend’s band was an entrant in) and the finalised line up for HRH Sleaze III which I was dead excited about. At the time I was going through a bit of a crap time personally and I was really down and out. Something personal had happened and I just didn’t really know what to do with myself, I felt like I had completely lost my way as I hadn’t been enjoying my work as much and I didn’t know what to do with my life. Within a few days of returning from Greece, an email came through from HRH asking for auditions to become a DJ. I have no clue about being a DJ at all but my friend Jack said “Why not? You can chat shite for ages and you know loads about music!”, so on the last day, I bit the bullet and create a 90 second piece recorded on my laptop just talking about Crashdiet being at HRH Sleaze and how amazing it was going to be. Opened up my email, attached it and clicked send. What the hell have I just done? I had no idea but it was gone now into cyber space and that was that.
I didn’t expect to hear anything back from them as it wasn’t a decent quality recording and I didn’t tell any of my other friends that I had done it. Just Jack. If I didn’t get it, no one would have to know that I failed at it. Then one Sunday afternoon while on shift at work, I got a message through Facebook asking for my telephone number as Hard Rock Hell wanted to speak to me, my heart was racing so nervously I messaged my telephone number and started to feel nervous. Then my phone buzzed with an unknown number, I answered to a very kind soft spoken voice which I will come to know that person as Geoff Leppard (Head of the Station and his DJ name AtomHeartMutha). He liked what I did and really wanted me to become a part of the team. I was ecstatic! I had got a job in something I knew a lot about but not a lot about! I was over the moon, I had a chance to follow a passion of mine, turn GlamRat in a different direction and to be a gobshite to more than just my friends!
Within a few weeks, a friend had helped me to buy my recording equipment, find a program that worked and helped me to create my first show. I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t great but I managed to clip it together in a few hours. My first show went out on Tuesday 13th August at 1pm on hardrockhellradio.com! It was a great first show and is still my highest listened to show to date. I have since gone strength to strength doing Specials including Sunset Strip, Ibiza, Halloween, At the Movies and my Twister Christmas Eve Take Over Show. I have gone on to be a part of HRH Magazine writing articles and reviews for them and starring in some of the HRH TV productions for Amazon Prime. I can’t wait to see what else HRH has to give me and where these adventures are going to take me and I hope that everyone is going to be along for the ride!
Charlie aka GlamRat
GlamRat 