Episode 1: Steve Anthony
In the very first episode of Reinvention of the VJ, Erica Ehm gets personal with Steve Anthony about how he was headed for a life in jail in his early years, his reputation as the Bad Boy of MuchMusic, and why he chose to leave his broadcasting career as a morning show host when he was at the top.
Erica Ehm sits down with long time friend Steve Anthony and the result is entertaining because they are polar opposites! Erica is more of the quiet type (trust us, she's an introvert), whereas Steve makes every room he walks in explode with energy!
Steve shares stories that trace his evolution from classroom prankster to radio announcer , eventually becoming 'your blonde VJ pal' on MuchMusic. The tree toss, the bands who loved and hated him, the demons he dealt with, Steven Anthony opens up about it all on the very first episode of Reinvention of the VJ.
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Show Transcript
Speaker 1:
Hey guys, some kids have arrived. They snuck in the back door.
Speaker 2:
You spend your whole life doing the first few albums, and then suddenly everybody needs your attention.
Speaker 3:
Erica Ehm's Reinvention of the VJ, a flashback on the career that made them who they are today. On this episode-
Erica Ehm:
When Steve Anthony showed up to work at Much, it was like this tornado of energy who exploded into the studio.
Speaker 5:
This is MuchMusic, the nation's music station.
Speaker 6:
This is the new blonde VJ person-
Erica Ehm:
What makes you so good?
Steve Anthony:
Oh, shut up.
Erica Ehm:
No, honestly.
Speaker 3:
This is Erica Ehm's Reinvention of the VJ. Now here's Erica Ehm.
Erica Ehm:
Hi everyone. I'm Erica Ehm. Welcome to the very first episode of Reinvention of the VJ. I have been grappling with starting a podcast for the last few years, but I've been told that I should start a podcast so many times, but I couldn't find a topic that I wanted to commit to for an extended period of time. Then in the meantime, I spent a fair amount of time trying to understand what is it that makes a good podcast. There was one piece of advice that really stuck with me, and this is it.
Erica Ehm:
If you're going to start a podcast, make it about something specific and unique to you, something only you have intimate knowledge about, a topic that you're passionate about, and mostly importantly, a show that no one else could easily replicate. So, what can I talk about that very few people can?
Steve Anthony:
Swans with lethal weapons.
Erica Ehm:
The experience of working at MuchMusic, obviously. I mean, the truth is, no matter how much I've achieved in the years since leaving Much, I will forever be remembered as Erica Ehm who introduced those videos and interviewed those bands in the 80s and 90s.
Erica Ehm:
So, then I started wondering, how are all the other VJs who spent time on air at Much over the years, how have they processed their time on air? Was their experience positive? Was their time at Much a springboard for future opportunities, or was it limiting? Did it hurt them to be pigeon-holed as that person who was on MuchMusic? Because we were super famous at that time.
Erica Ehm:
See, the reality is that we are all in a state of reinvention. When I say all, I don't mean all of the people who are on MuchMusic, I mean you who's listening. We are all works in progress. Okay, and that is when I had my ah-ha moment. This podcast is going to explore the challenges of reinvention through stories and experiences of some of the best loved hosts or VJs who worked at Much.
Erica Ehm:
So, here's what you can expect from my Reinvention of the VJ Podcast, weekly in-depth interviews from some of the ex hosts of MuchMusic who hopefully will agree to be on the show. Coming up in the next few weeks, Rick the Temp is going to be here, and the iconic Jeannie Becker will be joining me on Reinvention of the VJ. We're going to talk about life before Much. We'll trade tales from behind the scenes at Much, and we'll chat about what they're up to now and really how they got there. It's going to be a blast for me.
Erica Ehm:
There's going to be a bunch of people who have been on air who I've never met before. Then lots of people that I'll be reconnecting with who I haven't seen in years. Then there is my very first guest. I'm so excited.
Steve Anthony:
I'm trying to find a little-
Erica Ehm:
[crosstalk 00:03:37] Reinvention of the VJ Podcast.
Steve Anthony:
... a little sincerity in that. "I'm so excited. Oh, it's you again, Steve."
Erica Ehm:
I chose this guest for two reasons. Number one, because Steve is helping me behind the scenes to make this podcast come to life. The second reason is because this guy is the polar opposite of me in so many ways. When Steve Anthony showed up to work at Much, I remember this, it was like this tornado of energy who exploded into the studio, hyperactive.
Steve Anthony:
I feel like this is very flattering.
Erica Ehm:
Hyper funny.
Steve Anthony:
Thank you.
Erica Ehm:
Hyper funny. Serious gift of gab and a natural performer. So different from me, really, when you think about it because I'm kind of quiet. I mean, you know that, Steve, right? I am kind of quiet.
Steve Anthony:
You're being louder than I've ever heard you ever right now.
Erica Ehm:
I know.
Steve Anthony:
This is-
Erica Ehm:
My show, for once.
Steve Anthony:
... far too boisterous for you.
Erica Ehm:
I'm pretty reserved, and I'm super earnest. I don't even know if you can spell the word earnest. I mean, we're so different.
Steve Anthony:
Right off the bat, I just thought of this. This is one of the many things that I respect about you now but even then. You mentioned that we were ultra famous. That is true, not in a boastful way.
Erica Ehm:
No, no, no. It was like we were the only game in town.
Steve Anthony:
Right. In Toronto where we were headquartered, we'd do the bar scene or we would be anywhere, at a restaurant. Then people would come up and they'd address you, which is what one of the miracles of MuchMusic was that you were somewhere between a celebrity and petty theft. You know what I mean? You don't talk to the thief, but you'll ... We're just above that. We're certainly not a celebrity that you don't feel you have access to. You can walk up like, "Yeah, it's Erica."
Steve Anthony:
So, I always felt an obligation, because they watched, to be able to give them my attention and time even if they were dicks. I saw you once, somebody came up and they were like, "Oh, Erica," kind of like the huggy kind of thing. I remember you going, "I don't know you," something like this. It was like, "I don't know you, and you're being way too familiar with me." You basically told them to get the hell out of here.
Erica Ehm:
Well, that's the difference is that being a woman in the business-
Steve Anthony:
Oh, I think that's true too.
Erica Ehm:
... so different than the guy, because guys are usually more in control in the physical way.
Steve Anthony:
Yeah.
Erica Ehm:
I had to [crosstalk 00:06:08] ... I was working and living in a man's world. MuchMusic was a man's world. Music business is a man's world, especially back then. So, I had to really stand up for myself and really go, "Don't touch."
Steve Anthony:
Well, yeah. I know. I respected that because I didn't have the balls to do that, because I didn't want to ... I guess I was a little too vain about wanting to appear aloof, even though I'd have every right in the world to do it and I don't have to justify having done it. I thought if I wasn't super accessible, they would walk away and go, "What a dick that Steven Anthony is."
Erica Ehm:
Well, they would say that anyway.
Steve Anthony:
Right.
Erica Ehm:
I mean, not because you were, but just because people like saying those kinds of things.
Steve Anthony:
Right. What I respected about you was you, now I'm finding out you felt the need, but you put them in their place. You made sure there was an understanding that, "There's me over here, and there's you over there and the two will keep a distance from each other."
Erica Ehm:
I do think that there's a through line to all of our stories that who we were when we were very young and who we are today, very old, there's consistency. So, I want to know ... Okay, this is what's weird. You and I sat across from each other for like seven years at Much.
Steve Anthony:
Right.
Erica Ehm:
We worked face-to-face, our desks.
Steve Anthony:
Yep.
Erica Ehm:
But we never really hung out. We only really reconnected about 15 years after.
Steve Anthony:
That's true. That's true.
Erica Ehm:
You were married and you were a little more settled, and we started to hang out.
Steve Anthony:
Right.
Erica Ehm:
So, now I get to ask you the questions-
Steve Anthony:
Go.
Erica Ehm:
... and get to know you as a person. What were you like as a kid? Were you hyperactive, crazy kid? Were you quiet? Who were you when you were little?
Steve Anthony:
Okay. This is self-analysis. I discovered in a cliché way that you could get what you wanted if you could come out of a shell and make people laugh or do something that somebody else wouldn't do.
Erica Ehm:
How? Do you remember an instance where that worked for you?
Steve Anthony:
Here's an example of, say, for high school. I went to a private ... Well, hang on a sec. I went to ... Do you remember Pierrefonds Comprehensive High School in Montreal? It started out, this was the first year, this is how old I am, it was the first that grade seven became high school. So, Pierrefonds Comprehensive High School was built by a guy who built prisons, so the architecture was a lot of concrete and building bricks and indirect lighting and all that. It was empty most of the time, because it was so huge.
Steve Anthony:
So, I would get attention by hanging out with the guys who would put little pieces of aluminum foil in all of the sockets, all of the outlets. Then you'd run down the hallway with a stick and you would touch them so they would go zap, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap. Then you'd be able to brag about having got all the power out on that side of the building.
Erica Ehm:
So, you were that kid?
Steve Anthony:
Yeah. So, "Why is all the power out on this side of the building?" "Oh, well, me and my pals did that." So, I realized after two years of that that I was going to jail. I'm getting to the point here. So, I asked my dad if I could go to a private school, which he went to as well, Loyola, seven, eight. Grade nine I went to Loyola and then realized, because there was only like 500 students there, all seven grades, that if did stuff outrageous, you were noticed.
Steve Anthony:
I remember in our English class, we were reading Shakespeare. I think it was Macbeth. I would have a part to read in Macbeth, and I would hide myself in a cupboard in the back of the classroom. Then when it came to my time to do my part, I would read my part as Casey or Finnegan from the Mr. Dressup show inside of a closet.
Steve Anthony:
Now, I went, "Well, okay, I'm getting attention." So, to be honest, that was the kind of thing ... Those are the lengths I would go to to go, "Look at me. Look at me." Whether it was a crutch so I could get what I wanted or not ... You would understand this too in that, when you first end up being a broadcaster or whatever the case may be, you overcompensate, then you undercompensate, you overcompensate, and then you find the middle ground where it's you and performer and the other. So, I was finding my footing even back then.
Erica Ehm:
You never found a middle ground, Steve. That is not your strength.
Steve Anthony:
Right.
Erica Ehm:
I think what you were known for is that, which is not having a middle ground, for being really outrageous. I mean, were you told to do that? When you were working, John Martin, our boss at the time, Moses Znaimer, who started and invented MuchMusic, were you given a directive to be as crazy and as outrageous as you can or did you invent that?
Steve Anthony:
Truly, truly, no one ever told me what to do.
Erica Ehm:
That's true because no one told me what to do. So, I know that's true.
Steve Anthony:
I was more comfortable doing the outrageous stuff than I was doing the standard stuff. It's really hard to not get something right. To be constantly wrong, to get things wrong consistently and never get them right is harder than trying to get everything right and then occasionally getting it wrong. So, that was the easier path for me to go to, because it wasn't normal. It was getting something wrong. I would be able to self ... What's the word I'm looking for? Self-deprecating. So, to admit that you were not as good as other people was easier to do than try and excel at what you were doing. So, that was the easier way for me to go.
Erica Ehm:
You would never meet Christopher Ward-
Steve Anthony:
Never, I could never.
Erica Ehm:
You could never, because he was meticulous and well-
Steve Anthony:
It's not that I didn't care. It's not that I didn't care about those things, but it was much harder to do that and get it right than get it wrong all the time.
Erica Ehm:
Well, it wasn't you.
Steve Anthony:
Right. That wasn't me anyway.
Erica Ehm:
Isn't that the key and the magic of Much was that we were all just who we were?
Steve Anthony:
Here's a description of what I tell people. They'd say, "What did you do?" I said, "Well, I would go into work. They would say, 'Do some stuff for four hours, and then we'll bring you a wheelbarrow full of money.' That was it."
Erica Ehm:
I didn't get a goddamn wheelbarrow of money.
Steve Anthony:
Yeah, no you didn't.
Erica Ehm:
What the hell?
Steve Anthony:
I mean, but you were a woman in the broadcast industry. You never made as much money as the guys did.
Erica Ehm:
It's so true. It's so true. How did you prepare for your shifts? Did you?
Steve Anthony:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. God, oh yes. Oh my god, yes. One of the things I was proud of was ... You don't know if you're off script if you don't have a script. So, as much as it might look like I hadn't rehearsed, I was overly prepared. So, if I was overly prepared for something, I could go off script. I would know how far I was off the main track, how far I was on the beaten track if I knew what the main track was. So, my preparation for radio translated to my preparation for TV. In fact, because there was so much to do and I had other things on the go, I was doing radio and TV, I had to hire people to read countless magazines and stuff for me and call it.
Erica Ehm:
I would carry bags of magazines home to my research.
Steve Anthony:
Right. It's not that I didn't want to. I had to hire people to go through Rolling Stone Magazine, Vogue and all this stuff and know me well enough what would interest me that they could clip it out. We didn't have the internet. You had to actually read a magazine.
Erica Ehm:
Actually, I want to correct you, because I remember when the internet sort of started. You, Steve Anthony, people know you as being some crazy dude who throws Christmas trees off buildings, but really you are incredibly high-tech savvy and you were probably the most familiar with online stuff back then.
Steve Anthony:
My brother is ... he's legendary in computer programming. He was there are the very beginning of creating Unix and stuff like that. So, it kind of rolled off of me, that tech part of it. I certainly embraced ... it was like, "We finally have email." Can I-
Erica Ehm:
Can you go to the bathroom? What?
Steve Anthony:
No, can I tell you a story? I just thought of it.
Erica Ehm:
Okay.
Steve Anthony:
Email was, hard to believe, email was a new thing-
Erica Ehm:
It was, I remember.
Steve Anthony:
Okay. I don't know if there's a term for it now when you hack someone's email account and you pose as them. They didn't have security where if you walked away from your computer after five minutes, it would lock up. It just was left open. So, people would have on their desk, they would have their stuff open.
Erica Ehm:
We're talking in the Much environment now, right?
Steve Anthony:
Correct [crosstalk 00:15:15]. I never sent it. One person ... You know there were a number of people that I worked with not on air, we were the bad boys. Right? I mean, you knew who they were.
Erica Ehm:
Know them well, yes.
Steve Anthony:
Okay. So, one of them ... There was a year where in the washrooms, they put in the toilet paper dispensers instead of the rolly ones, the plastic ones that go on the wall where they have two rolls in them. So, it's flat surface on the top. I wrote on somebody's email one of my friends going, "So and so and so and so," named a whole bunch of people, "We would like to thank management," and there's like a million people, "So and so, so and so would like to thank management for installing the cocaine shelves in the washrooms."
Steve Anthony:
I never did send it because they never would've known that ... It was one of my most famous things I didn't do, because I thought, "Well, that would go out ... " It was like CH would go ... CH just said that he's happy that there's a cocaine shelf in the washroom.
Erica Ehm:
Steve. That makes me ... I'm aghast because I'm such a nerd, and you were so bad. Tell me about the bad, because I was never invited to the parties. I didn't live that life. You don't do it anymore.
Steve Anthony:
No.
Erica Ehm:
Back then, you lived the rock and roll life.
Steve Anthony:
Yep. We were as much rock and roll, we the-
Erica Ehm:
Bad boys.
Steve Anthony:
... bad boys, the collective, as any rockstar. For Canada, we were as much a rockstar as any rockstar was. I'm not saying that we were Bono, but we were ... whoever the lead singer of such and such. We were Mark Holmes. We were Platinum Blonde. We were famous. We were able to maintain ourselves in a world that other people, it would appear that they ... they were what it was they're being accused of.
Erica Ehm:
What?
Steve Anthony:
People would think that myself and my friends were doing drugs or being drunk, whatever the case may be. It still comes up. It doesn't haunt me. It's a reality. It was never as bad as anybody ever thought. We somehow built up this reputation of being such bad boys that even when we weren't bad boys, we were bad boys.
Erica Ehm:
Did you do that on purpose?
Steve Anthony:
No. It just fell into place like, "Oh my god, Steve Anthony. Like, god, fuck, he's such a coke head." No, I'm not on coke. You know what I mean?
Erica Ehm:
You're just crazy.
Steve Anthony:
Well, yeah. I'm not saying that there wasn't times where you'd be hung over like Jack the Bear, but the next day you wouldn't be hung over like Jack the Bear and it'd be the same thing and they would think you were. You know what I mean? It was plausible deniability, a lot of that reputation that we had. We, collectively me with a huge ego, we never did it deliberately to look like the bad boys, but it fell into place and you go with what you go. So, that's what we did.
Erica Ehm:
I think also a lot of bad boys are bad boys because they're bad boys.
Steve Anthony:
Yeah, that's true too. Yeah.
Erica Ehm:
You don't plan it. You just are attracted to a certain type of lifestyle and-
Steve Anthony:
The joke was we would say, amongst the bad boys we had, we'd say, "There we were drinking ... " "Heard this story already." Right? That typified us.
Erica Ehm:
Okay. What do you think that everybody talks about Much being a moment in time, magic, trailblazing, what was it, Steve? In a way, I take it for granted, because I lived through it and I couldn't see it from the outside. What do you think it was about Much that people still talk about and feel such a strong connection?
Steve Anthony:
We had a chance to cheat though. MuchMusic couldn't exist right now because people are just ... they're regurgitating old stuff. I hate to say there's nothing new under the sun, but that is probably true. There's some kind of corollary of what has happened before. The uniqueness and original doesn't exist anymore in a world where people don't even put out albums anymore. They record 60 songs and release them one at a time, because they are so disposable. If they release 12 tracks at a time, they all get burnt out and then you're done.
Steve Anthony:
So, people digest it and they spit it out and it's gone, and they poop it out. It hadn't been done before. Anything that we did ... If I went on TV and I burped, it had never happened before. I went on TV and put graffiti on the building next door, nobody had ever done that before. So, no matter what we did, it hadn't been done before. So, we were the originators of everything. Anything we did was original to the audience, and they hadn't had access to that before and they didn't know their artists and they didn't see music videos.
Erica Ehm:
Also, they'd never had people on TV looking them in the eye, looking right into the camera and talking to them. Usually it's a scripted piece of crap. This was real people talking about real things that mattered. You spoke about, or not what you cared about, but you spoke about Steve's world.
Steve Anthony:
Yeah.
Erica Ehm:
I spoke about Erica's world.
Steve Anthony:
Right.
Erica Ehm:
People got to know us as people.
Steve Anthony:
Right. Like I said, we weren't celebrities. We were just above petty thieves. So, you have no problem as a consumer, you had no problem with talking to that person just above petty thief, because it's fine. So, there was never that distance. We were very attached to them, or they were very attached to us.
Erica Ehm:
I want people who are listening to this right now to learn something that they can apply to their lives in some way so we don't just talk about ourselves for the whole time, which I really like doing. But let's learn something. From your experiences, what, in retrospect, was the biggest mistake you made when you were at Much that you have never done since because you learned from it?
Steve Anthony:
Wow. There is some confusion ... There was a lot of overlap, because the world is blended together. I did MuchMusic and I ended up doing two radio shows at separate times, and then I did two TV shows. I did Much and I did Breakfast Television at the time. So, all that stuff kind of blended together. I can't separately-
Erica Ehm:
No, but this is really as a broadcaster really, big mistake that you made that-
Steve Anthony:
See, this sounds pompous, thinking that one was indestructible, that one was made of Kevlar, that every mistake you made would be forgiven. That's a bit of a problem in that if people are ... What's the word I'm looking for? They're not encouraging you but they give you liberties to do stuff. They let you get away with stuff. If they do that too often and you don't have somebody to check on you and say, "Bad," then you continue to do that. Then it gets to the point where you're so far down that road of being bad that you don't realize that it really is bad.
Steve Anthony:
We say there's the ... bad boys. Yeah, we're bad. There's some point where it's too far. In retrospect, I look back at it saying, "Well, I wish somebody had pulled me back a little bit more." I guess there's somebody who I respected, but then you get to the point where you're getting away for so long, you don't have to listen to anybody. That was probably one of those problems.
Erica Ehm:
You have had such an incredible ... you are having. It's not have had. You are a viable work in progress. You are-
Steve Anthony:
I am a yoga class. What is that?
Erica Ehm:
I have no idea.
Steve Anthony:
With yoga, you never have a good class. It's a good practice.
Erica Ehm:
That's so true. Isn't that life?
Steve Anthony:
No, I always say that. You've never done a yoga class, you just practiced it.
Erica Ehm:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, you have been a broadcaster for almost 40 years.
Steve Anthony:
Over-
Erica Ehm:
Over 40 years. What makes you so good?
Steve Anthony:
Oh, shut up.
Erica Ehm:
No, honestly.
Steve Anthony:
I can't even address that.
Erica Ehm:
Steve, you were the host on Breakfast Television. You quite after having been chosen once again as the top morning host. So, this is not you being pompous. This is an actual fact where people voted for you as being the best as crazy as you are. What is your secret?
Steve Anthony:
It used to be ... There was a guy, his name was, if he's listening, I think Kim Zayac. He used to be a record rep years ago for Sony Records. He asked me the same thing, and I said to him, "The moment that I give a shit, it's over."
Erica Ehm:
Wow.
Steve Anthony:
The moment that I care too much about any particular nuance, or whatever the case may be, if I get caught in the minutia of whatever it is I'm doing, you overthink things and then you're done. You question what you're doing.
Erica Ehm:
So, you're saying you just trust your gut?
Steve Anthony:
Right. Yeah, basically. I guess that's what it is, to paraphrase it. Yeah, you've got to trust your gut. You could be absolutely wrong. I was fortunate enough to be right a lot of the time, or at least the outcome was not negative.
Erica Ehm:
Right, okay. Are you risk adverse or a thrill seeker?
Steve Anthony:
That's a good ... No, I'm not risk adverse. I'll tell you this, have we talked about me in the last couple seconds? Oh yes, we have, just seconds ago. Five years ago, I had my, "hold my beer," moment. I mean, I had a lot of them. Let me go backwards. Here's the perfect example. We were in Lake Louise. We're doing a Much Snow Job thing, and I'm climbing, because I didn't care, I'm climbing an ice waterfall. Back then, we really didn't take safety into consideration very much. I don't even know if I'm tethered off to up above, but I've got the picks on and I'm climbing.
Steve Anthony:
So, they're shooting from below and I'm mic'd, wireless microphone so you can hear me talking and I'm grunting. My phone, my cellphone rings. I literally stop. I'm halfway up. I'm 150 feet in the air, and I'm answering my phone and I'm going, "Yeah. No, listen, really bad timing. Yep, I'm just shooting something." If I fell, what I thought to myself was, this is true, "How do I fall and hurt myself least?" I didn't say, "Oh my god, I'm going to fall."
Erica Ehm:
I think that really sums up your life. Isn't it?
Steve Anthony:
It was. "I'm perfectly aware that I could kill myself. How do I kill myself least?"
Erica Ehm:
Did you know that you were going to kill yourself when you ran into the monster truck and smashed your hip?
Steve Anthony:
As I was saying, I was trying to get to that. So, yes, I did. That was my, "hold my beer," moment. Up until then, if I got hurt, it was always patch it up, "You've got some bruises," whatever, stitches. It's fine. But I really broke my hip. I mean, I broke the femur cap off from my femur.
Erica Ehm:
For those who haven't witnessed it, describe what you did.
Steve Anthony:
I was doing the latest television show that I did was a breakfast show. It was a news show in Toronto, but I was a non-news guys, CP24 Breakfast. I was the host in-studio, but occasionally when there was something to do out in the field that was really crazy and fun, they would ask me to go out and do it.
Erica Ehm:
"Steve will do that one."
Steve Anthony:
Right. So, it was the monster truck show. It was the morning of, and it was in a big arena in Toronto. I was interviewing, seven o'clock, 7:10, I was interviewing a guy with a Canadian monster truck, a champion called Northern Nightmare or something.
Erica Ehm:
You will never forget that name.
Steve Anthony:
No. So, the guy's talking. I'm interviewing him. He's talking and it's literally my truck, 900 horsepower, 300 feet in the air, blah, blah, blah. Literally, it was my, "hold my beer moment." I said, "Hold my microphone." I gave him my microphone and I ran at his truck, and I jumped and I drop-kicked the truck, the tire. From there, I fell. I thought, "Okay, it's dirt." Again, one of those, "Maybe I'll get hurt, but whatever," but it was concrete. Literally, they packed down the ground so that the monster trucks can get a grip.
Steve Anthony:
It was the perfect storm, perfect weight, went down and snapped it. So, my femur cap is broken off. My femur cap is broken off, so my femur ... they're not together and I turn white. I am absolutely white with pain, but I'm live on TV and they start-
Erica Ehm:
You're live on TV?
Steve Anthony:
Live on TV doing a break. My host back at the station is going, "You okay?" I'm going, "This is really bad, really bad." I actually got up and walked around. At that time, I didn't know. I thought I'd popped it out. I did the rest of the show. I did six more pops over two hours. They would carry me like Weekend at Bernie's, you know the dead body. I would put my arms around these two guys, and they'd take me and they'd stand me up against something because I couldn't put any weight on it, and I'd interview people. I did.
Steve Anthony:
Then afterward, they had to bring an EMS truck and they put me on the gurney, brought me in. The lady said, "You've broken your hip." Then five days later, they gave me a new hip. Six weeks later, I have a metal hip. So, since then, that was the first time that I went, "I'm not indestructible." That changed things a little bit. Now I'm a little more caution about ... Whereas before, I didn't give a shit. I didn't care. How much pain can you go through? Well, it was a lot of pain and a lot damage that'll last forever. So, now I'm a little more cautious. Again, I'm 60, so-
Erica Ehm:
I've asked people in the world of the internet to ask me or to tell me anything they want me to ask you. So, someone, in fact John, from Instagram said-
Steve Anthony:
Hey John.
Erica Ehm:
"Would better technique have avoided the drop-kick injury?
Steve Anthony:
That's funny. Like I said, it was the perfect storm. If I were to take you and drop you three feet, like I would pick up Erica Ehm and I would have you sideways and I would drop you on the ground, the hard ground, one would expect even if you landed on your hip, you would not break your hip. I didn't think I'd break my hip, but it was just the perfect storm. So, there was no way that I would've ... If I knew I was going to break my fucking leg, my femur, I wouldn't have done it. It was literally, "Hold my beer," and then off I went, because well, I'd probably be in some pain but it's worth it for TV, you know, going for the gag.
Erica Ehm:
Steve, how has being part of the Much experience over the decade that you were on air, how has that made you who you are today? Or has it not?
Steve Anthony:
Wow, that's a good ... I certainly am the person I am because of that.
Erica Ehm:
But why?
Steve Anthony:
Let's just say that I'm a broadcaster. It's not like you're asking a guy who builds cars at the GM plant, "What would it be like if you were a VJ?" I mean, I'm a broadcaster. So, I'm radio or TV. On the TV side of things, I got to do MuchMusic. My philosophy had always been push the envelope, push the envelope, push the envelope. These days, young people can't do that. They get fired. There's no risk taking. There's just too much at stake.
Erica Ehm:
Old people get fired too.
Steve Anthony:
Old people too.
Erica Ehm:
Everybody gets fired. There's zero risk taking now in the world of broadcast.
Steve Anthony:
Correct. Not by anyone who is a broadcaster/performer's fault. They do it and the people above them will say, "Uh-huh (negative)." So, I always able to find myself in an environment where I managed to be able to do what I wanted to do. What I did was successful enough that I didn't have restraints put on me. Then one begets the next, begets the next, begets the next. "Oh, that's Steve Anthony, he does all that crazy stuff," and I have a reputation for doing it and success doing it.
Steve Anthony:
So, when MuchMusic came along, which was the epitome of now I'm not just talking about doing it, then people can see me doing it. I would do it and get away with it. Not only that, I'd be encouraged to do it. So, I guess one begets the next, and they tell two friends and so on and so. That's it. I am the person I am right now being able to kind of risk doing and saying and not having a lot of barriers in my brain or my mouth.
Steve Anthony:
Except, I might say, this was true, when I started to do this TV show, the last one, it's a news show, a pretty serious news show. I'm the non-news guy. That's why they hired me. I promised them that I had a filter installed between my brain and my mouth.
Erica Ehm:
Is it true?
Steve Anthony:
A little. It wasn't set on high. So, yeah, there are some situations where you can't just do whatever you want, but most of my career I was able to do that because the people who were in charge saw some benefit to it.
Erica Ehm:
I like what you were saying about broadcasting and the fact that everybody now gets fired for trying something different.
Steve Anthony:
You like that?
Erica Ehm:
I like that you are bringing it up. I'm wondering, because you really are somewhat of a visionary, I really do believe that your people don't know a lot about what you do behind the scenes. Where do you think innovation is happening now in the world that is interesting?
Steve Anthony:
Like I said, there's nothing new under the sun, and I'm just trying to get these thoughts right, there are people that can deal with what is there with the minutia and they can do corollaries of what has been out there. Those are the people that I admire. They're doing what was done before, but there's this subtle that they've figured out. There's this-
Erica Ehm:
There's a word for that. It's called micro-innovation.
Steve Anthony:
Yeah, micro-innovation. Yeah, that is the only tangible thing I see. There's not going to be a world of new things to be able to do or say in the next while. If there is, someone seizes on it. I see it in America. If there's any way to make money doing something, America's going to figure out how to do it. Everybody's looking for that little thing to be able to grab, and only the first people are going to see that little thing. So, it's those micro-innovators.
Erica Ehm:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Before I let you go-
Steve Anthony:
You're not letting me go.
Erica Ehm:
... there is something that you are working on right now that I'm apart of.
Steve Anthony:
Yes.
Erica Ehm:
This is bringing a lot of our peers together in a really fun way.
Steve Anthony:
Yay.
Erica Ehm:
So, why don't you talk a little bit about that? That-
Steve Anthony:
Okay. A bunch of years ago, it was around the time when, I don't know why people were saying, "Gosh," everybody's still saying it, even more so now, "God, I miss MuchMusic. God, there's nothing like MuchMusic," stuff we talked about right now. There's isn't. You can get videos on-demand from YouTube.
Erica Ehm:
But no curation, no personality, nothing.
Steve Anthony:
Nothing. Nothing. I said, "We can't do it on TV again, because people could just look up on YouTube if they want to see a video." So, what made MuchMusic different was us. Let's see what we can do about putting us on a radio show. So, that started a long time ago. With everything, there's obstacles and syndicators and licensing fees-
Erica Ehm:
It's like bullshit.
Steve Anthony:
I saw this bullshit.
Erica Ehm:
It's so much bullshit.
Steve Anthony:
Anyway, we're inches away from finally getting our show on the air.
Erica Ehm:
Which is called.
Steve Anthony:
Well, see, this is-
Erica Ehm:
We don't know yet.
Steve Anthony:
See, this is where we're still-
Erica Ehm:
Oh, okay.
Steve Anthony:
What it will contain are these words, original VJs. What do we attach anything else to it? So, definitely it will Original VJ's Show. If there's anything else around that, we'll see because my idea was that there are only five or six original VJs. Your show is about all of them, but there are only five or six originals. We have all of them, save one, on the show.
Erica Ehm:
We have great stories, really great stories.
Steve Anthony:
Insane. Insane.
Erica Ehm:
Before I let you go, the last question I have, which is so interesting to me, is about reinvention. You are right now, I think, in a place of big reinvention. You quit your job as one of the top broadcasters in the country-
Steve Anthony:
[inaudible 00:36:47]
Erica Ehm:
... to buy a bed and breakfast with your awesome wife, Tanya.
Steve Anthony:
She's not so awesome.
Erica Ehm:
What is that-
Steve Anthony:
Honey, if you're listening, you really aren't. You really aren't that awesome.
Erica Ehm:
How do you make that internal change? How do you reinvent? How do you-
Steve Anthony:
That is funny that you would say that. My next door neighbor, or a couple rows down, he is the counselor for my district where I live. He's also a former broadcaster, not on air but behind the scenes and all that. So, he's been in politics. He's been in broadcasting. He was kind of famous in circles because he was on boards and et cetera, et cetera.
Steve Anthony:
Then he kind of retired, got into a little bit of politics, still doing that stuff. He said the same thing to me, he said, "How does it feel? Because about six months after I stop doing this, people stop noticing me." He was concerned that somehow because I was out of the spotlight that that would affect me. I can't tell you why, it doesn't bother me in the least. I had my fill. I ate the cupboard full of goodness and spotlights. It does not bother me.
Steve Anthony:
The other thing probably is that it still happens. If I'm in Toronto, I get stopped all the time by people. It's one of those things where even though MuchMusic was so long ago, we still have retention with people.
Erica Ehm:
People have long memories.
Steve Anthony:
They do.
Erica Ehm:
We represent a certain era in people's lives.
Steve Anthony:
Right, yeah.
Erica Ehm:
For sure. Steve.
Steve Anthony:
Yes.
Erica Ehm:
Wow. I'm actually getting a little choked up here. It was so nice to talk to you like this.
Steve Anthony:
Well, thank you.
Erica Ehm:
Yeah.
Steve Anthony:
Don't kick monster trucks.
Erica Ehm:
Okay. That's good.
Steve Anthony:
Anybody listening, look both ways before you cross the street.
Erica Ehm:
Steve Anthony.
Steve Anthony:
Yes.
Erica Ehm:
You have aged very gracefully, I'd have to say.
Steve Anthony:
Thank you.
Erica Ehm:
I'm so proud that you are the very first guest on my very first podcast.
Steve Anthony:
Yay, yay, yay, yay.
Erica Ehm:
Next week on Reinvention of the VJs, this guy won a contest and now will be forever known as Rick the Temp. For those of you who are still listening at the end of this, I want to tell you something, it's really important that you're part of the show. First of all, I need to hear your feedback. Are we on the right path? Did you enjoy this conversation-
Steve Anthony:
I did.
Erica Ehm:
... as much as I did with Steve? You can find me all over the internets. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Twitter. I have a Erica Ehm page.
Steve Anthony:
Her address is-
Erica Ehm:
Okay, and you can stop right there. I would love for you to give me feedback on what's going on here. Also, are there any other on-air people that you think definitely need to be part of this show? What would you like to ask them? Because I will ask the questions. Well, I guess that's it. I want to thank you all so much for ... I wrote here on my little script, "Watching." Isn't that funny?
Steve Anthony:
Yeah. Yeah. Right?
Erica Ehm:
That's so weird. Listening. Here's to life filled with music, meaning and lots of reinvention.
Steve Anthony:
See ya.
Speaker 3:
Thanks for listening. Follow Erica Ehm's Reinvention of the VJ Podcast. Subscribe and follow more episodes. Click to ReinventionoftheVJ.com