EPISODE 14: Denise Donlon
On this episode of Reinvention of the VJ Erica Ehm gets personal with Denise Donlon about the profound effect she had on MuchMusic, how her father influenced her in unexpected ways, and what made her hire George Strombo.
Denise talks about her early days on the road with Whitesnake, what is was like to run Sony Music Canda as the music business was falling apart, and what happened when she went into labor in the middle of a live interview with the Cowboy Junkies, and so much more.
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Show Transcript
Erica Ehm:
Hi there, I'm Erica Ehm and thank you so much for tuning in to what I'm guessing is going to be a pretty important episode of my Reinvention of the VJ podcast. You want to talk reinvention? My guest today went from touring with rock bands to running the entire MuchMusic operation. She went from deciding which videos would get airplay on Much to becoming president of Sony Music Canada. And she went from running a national video network to leading CBC Canada's national radio network. My guest today is the undeniably fabulous, Denise Donlan, who is one of Canada's most respected women in broadcasting and the music industry. Oh yeah, wait, I forgot about social justice. She's pretty impressive in that world as well. So yeah, I'm looking forward to my conversation with Denise Donlan today. But before we jump into our interview, if this is your first time tuning into my podcast, I just want to give you a little bit of background.
Reinvention of the VJ is my unscripted, up-close and personal conversations with the eclectic and much-loved hosts you may have grown up watching on MuchMusic. While our personalities and approaches were different, to say the least, there is one thing that we do all have in common. Each of us played a small part, actually in Denise's case, a pretty large part, in Canada's most influential pop culture platform. And then we left at different times for different reasons. Each of us set off on our next adventures. And it's that story of what happens after Much, the reinvention, the resilience, the luck, the struggle, and the perspective. That's the stuff that really intrigues me.
I think that this conversation will probably be a bit of a trip down memory lane for you, nothing wrong with nostalgia, but I'm also hoping that you find some interesting tidbits or insights into what it takes to get what you want in life, to reinvent. Maybe you're dealing with tough times, maybe this show will help, maybe it will help you redefine what success is. And hopefully it's going to give you some ideas to inspire you to look at your life a little differently.
As for me, this is definitely a passion project for me. For the last 14 years I've been running one of Canada's, I would call, most influential mom communities as well as an agency that connects moms with brands. I love what I do, but hello, it's 14 years. It's been a long time. So I'm also hoping that this show will give me some inspiration and ideas for when I decide it's time for my next chapter in life. And now let's start this chapter with my wonderful guest, the one and only, Denise Donlan. Hello, Denise.
Denise Donlan:
Hi Erica, so great to see you. It's so interesting that you're thinking about reinvention because I've just been marveling at what you've done after MuchMusic with the whole Yummy Mummy Club. And every time I turn around, you're talking to interesting people, you're hosting interesting events, can I just applaud you from here? Let's do that.
Erica Ehm:
Thanks Denise.
Denise Donlan:
Well done.
Erica Ehm:
Thanks. And it's the mutual admiration society here because this show would not, or this episode, or the series would not be complete if you were not one of the earliest guests anyway, because you really have been such a huge part of the evolution of MuchMusic and the music business in Canada. And I want to start the show off by... Could embarrass you, but I think it's important to tout all of your successes, so just bear with me as I read some of these things off.
Denise Donlan:
Okay.
Erica Ehm:
Denise Donlan was inducted in the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame. She was named one of Canada's top 100 most powerful women. She was given the Rosalie Trailblazer Award at the Canadian music week celebrations. Named Canadian Music Week's Broadcast Executive of the Year, three times. Received Peter Gzowski's Literacy Award of [Barrett 00:04:39]. Named Woman of the Year from Canadian Women in Communications. Won two Gemini Awards. Received the very prestigious Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, and you are a member of the Order of Canada.
Denise Donlan:
Thank you, Erica. Yeah, as you were listing them off, I was remembering, "Oh, that was a fun night. Ooh, that was a scary speech." Amazing what floods back.
Erica Ehm:
But Denise, which one of those amazing awards is the most meaningful for you and why?
Denise Donlan:
Well, it has to be the Order of Canada. How old was I? It was 2004. It was meaningful for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which was that Sony Music Canada was about to merge with BMG and they did not choose me as the president for reasons we may go into, but in many ways it was a... because I really couldn't take care of my artists anymore, because this merger was really coming down the track. Anyway, so I got home and I was feeling pretty bummed, even though I knew it was an opportunity for great reinvention and on the other hand, very grateful as well. And I went to Ottawa and I was leading the charge for some copyright revision and came back from that, with all the politicians having met, wanting the photo op, but really, "Of course we'll help you." Not really, [inaudible 00:06:19] was happening. And I was really bummed out.
So I came home and there was this letter and I opened it up and they said that I was going to receive the Order of Canada. And I just burst into tears because at that moment in my life, that little snowflake meant everything. It meant that I should keep pushing rocks up hills, that your contributions are sometimes acknowledged. And if you're ever at an Order of Canada ceremony and you see people being awarded and then we all sing O Canada at the end of it, you will never bust your chest with pride more than when you hear O Canada and you sing O Canada in that moment, it really is quite a magnificent.
Erica Ehm:
And well-deserved. Denise, I feel like you and I have some things in common. One of them is I have a feeling that you were, like me, really driven from a very young age. When I was 16 or 17, I decided I was going to be in the music business. And I would work at record stores and radio stations and I DJed in clubs and I managed bands, and I was on a path and I think that that was the same scenario for you. Tell me about Denise, who was in her teens and early twenties?
Denise Donlan:
Well, I was doing similar things to that. I was head of the dance committee in high school and I went to the University of Waterloo in environmental studies and chemistry, which of course leads you directly into the music business, but I started booking bands there for the federation of students and that was after doing my terrible John Prine, Joni Mitchell impersonations on my guitar in the grad club. And I learned pretty quick that I should be behind the scenes, not on the stage myself. And yeah, it was an interesting time because I think I was driven really to learn, I had a pretty harsh upbringing, my dad who is dearly departed with three brothers, he was harsh. He was a detective sergeant and my mum was really encouraging, but I think I had something to prove.
It was just like, "You know what, I'm not going to be all those things you said about me." And the more I learn and the more I can do, maybe I'll... I'm pathetic. I'm just a girl looking for her dad's approval at the end of the day, right? And so ending up in rock and roll, I mean, it was an interesting course because I moved to Vancouver and tried to learn everything I could about the music business. And before you knew it, I was on the road with Whitesnake on the Slide It In tour '84, and often being in a situation where you're the only woman in the room. And that takes some cahones I think, to kind of go, "You know what, tough, I'm just going to power my way through and see what I can learn and see what I can do and not take gender as a barrier."
Erica Ehm:
Yeah, it's interesting. I was thinking about how, and if, you experienced sort of being the girl in the room, because when I was working in the music business, for the most part, I remember not experiencing discrimination and that's probably because I was blind to it. I just got to do the jobs that I wanted to do, and I wasn't seeing anything other than that, I just got to be the DJ in the bar, I got to work at the radio station. So tell me about what it was like for you being on the road with these sexist pigs and how you dealt with it?
Denise Donlan:
Well, I think it's so true that you are blind to it, right? I mean, I can remember incident after incident now when I'm thinking, because of the gender bias specificity, and I'm like, "Yeah, I can remember I was the tour manager and they were like, 'Get me a coffee, honey.'" And I mean, it wasn't the first time I'd been asked to get a coffee when you're trying to convince them that you're actually in charge of the whole show. But yeah, I was blind to it, I didn't think about it as a gender thing. I just thought about it as they're assholes and bullies and I'm going to succeed despite it. I mean, at that time in the music business, and this was the late '70s and the early '80s, the managers, and they were mostly male managers were, were blustering, angry, bully, they got their way by yelling and swearing and that everybody just... It was just the way the business was.
And on one hand I was sort of thanking my dad because he was able to sort of get into those rolling rages, which would leave me cold, I would just stand my ground and push back. After you're yelled at nose to nose with popping veins and spill coming at you, you kind of learn to stand your ground at the end of the day. So on one hand it was a pretty tough upbringing, but on the other hand, he really did give me some survival tools that came in quite handy [inaudible 00:12:32].
Erica Ehm:
What did he think of you being in the music business? I would think being a policeman, he may not have been too thrilled with it.
Denise Donlan:
Well, there is [inaudible 00:12:42], I mean, even at university I'd come home and I'd be talking about, "We should be legalizing marijuana." So you have to imagine that there were very few conversations that we could have aside from the weather that wouldn't lead into pretty fierce argument. But you know what, I know he was really proud of me and he was kind of one of those people with a very top crunchy exterior, but a warm, gooey inside. And it was partly the nature of his work that made him like that, but I know he loved me and I think he was just happy that I was out there earning a living really.
Erica Ehm:
Did he live to see you receive the Order of Canada?
Denise Donlan:
No. He died, he had a brain aneurysm when he was in his late 50s. So a number of the accolades that I received, he did not.
Erica Ehm:
Wow.
Denise Donlan:
Which is sad.
Erica Ehm:
So legend has it that you were road managing Headpins and then you ended up on MuchMusic, but there's a big chunk of story that's left out of that. You don't go just from being a road manager to having an on-camera job at the nation's music station. So this is so exciting for me because I've known you for so long, but I don't know these stories, how did you actually get into MuchMusic and on camera? Did someone meet you backstage? Did you bump into John Martin at a bar? What happened?
Denise Donlan:
Yeah, I did all of that. So MuchMusic was the nation's music station, but it was really coming out of downtown Toronto on Queen Street East at that time. And so it was important for the station to make sure that they were reflecting the country that they served in a sense. So John used to send cameras, maybe just camera, one at a time, across, that Mike and Mike went on the road, we cameras going out to cover important things or important bands. And so whenever he came to Vancouver, I wanted to make sure, because I was working for bands out there, Doug and the Slugs and Trooper and Headpins etc. I wanted my acts on MuchMusic's air.
So I made it my business that when MuchMusic was in town, that I was in touch and sort of promoting my acts. And so John and I developed a bit of a friendship. And when Jeanne Becker, who was doing Rock Flash at the time, and The NewMusic went on to fashion television, he needs somebody to do Rock Flash. I was thinking about moving back to Toronto for a couple of reasons, my parents were actually getting a divorce and I wanted to be close to them, I could not find a boyfriend in Vancouver, it wasn't happening, it was-
Erica Ehm:
No action there.
Denise Donlan:
I was lonely. No, the guys I knew actually were the Chilliwack and Headpins and Lover Boy, and they were all guys who were far more proficient with a blow dryer than I was ever going to be. So [crosstalk 00:16:09]
Erica Ehm:
Oh, I thought you were going to use some other word than blow. I was like, "Don't say it, Denise."
Denise Donlan:
Don't say it. No, and it wasn't really my scene. In a lot of ways I came back to save my liver, as I mentioned, I'd just been on the road with Whitesnake and Quiet Riot and Kiss and those were hard drinking, druggie days. And so when John offered me the job at MuchMusic, I thought, "You know what..." I really didn't think I could be an on-air personality, it was the time Don Henley's song Dirty Laundry was on the air and they were talking about the bubble headed bleach blonde talking about the news. And I was 6'1" with a lisp and felt very ungainly and totally unattractive. But the next thing you knew, I was on MuchMusic saying, "Coming up, we've got..." And they throw you on air, you remember?
Erica Ehm:
Oh yeah.
Denise Donlan:
It's not like anyone's showing you how to do it or what to do or anything, you're just suddenly going... John's saying, "You'll figure it out, go." The next thing you know there's a camera there and the nation's watching you. And I mean, "God, you look back at those early days and it's shocking how bad I was."
Erica Ehm:
I remember, and I don't know if you remember this, but I used to come up to you and say, "Denise, you're pulling your ear all the time." That was your nervous habit when you first started, but there was no one to coach you. Really, they just let you do your thing. And I thought, girl power, you need to... It's like the woman whose clothing tag is sticking out, and in order to be a good girlfriend, you need to say, "Your clothing tag is sticking out." I did that for you because I thought, "Why is no one helping Denise?" Now I'd only been on the air for like six months or so at that point. So it's not like I was miss on-air personality, but there-
Denise Donlan:
No, you knew what you were doing, and I remember how kind you were. I remember that you would... You never competed with me for air, like other VJ's might have, right? Walk over, sit on the desk, so what's going on? And sometimes it didn't matter what I said, they always had another story, right, to do, but you never did that. You were very welcoming and yeah, as you said, there was a [inaudible 00:18:46] some nervous ticks, that's for sure.
Erica Ehm:
Oh, we all had them and then you, you learn, you get better, you stuck with it and you improved. I was curious about the art of interviewing. I know that you interviewed now probably around a thousand different sort of well-known people. As you improved, how did your style of interviewing change?
Denise Donlan:
Well, I started to understand that it was a craft and I really started to understand that... And that was one of the things that I loved about MuchMusic is it was, yeah, we had stars on the air, but we were also really interested in being the vehicle to help the visitor who's coming in, help them shine as well. It wasn't gotcha journalism where we were trying to catch people in terrible modes. We felt like we were partners with these stars in the room and on the scene and that we were kind of all in this together. After I went from Rock Flush, I went to The NewMusic and The NewMusic, it wasn't live and we had an opportunity to really research. So I would go home with the files that were... It was before the interweb, it was the file, you'd open it up, and there's little tiny bits of things would fall out like newspaper clippings and [crosstalk 00:20:25]
Erica Ehm:
And you'd go across to the bookstore and buy the latest magazines that Much didn't have and schlepped those home with you. Yep.
Denise Donlan:
Yep. And and try and figure it out. And I used to listen to the record till I knew it backwards and forwards. I studied lyrics, I studied liner notes. And then I would pace the interview in my head and I would really focus on what's your opening question because it establishes your rapport or not, right away. If you wanted to get into some sticky territory, you can't just go right out, "Well, why did you murder your wife on that April day?" You have to actually be a little bit psychologically beguiling to be able to get where you want to know. So it was do your homework, think about it as an art form, as a craft, pace it properly and be willing to forget your questions and have a conversation. So I'd write all my little questions down on a three by five note card. And then when I actually sat down, I'd stick the cards under my leg and then have a conversation. And so the most important thing I learned was how to listen, and if you listened you could likely take them on an interesting journey into maybe unique places.
Erica Ehm:
Can you be over researched?
Denise Donlan:
I don't think so. I think you can be overly nervous, right? Where you're daunted by the person who's in front of you, because you think they're smarter or more accomplished or standoffish, or they just had a bad day when they got up this morning. Because you have to remember, as you know so well, an interview is an artificial construct, right? They're there because they're selling a record or promoting a book or whatever they're doing, you're trying to literally sell ads off their back, right? If you have a big star. And you're hoping that they will tell you things that they perhaps never even told their most intimate confidant because you can get into some pretty intimate territory. So there's a lot of acceptance of rules by the time you're actually sitting across from somebody on two chairs with a camera rolling. So trying to sort of claw back that artifice in the constructs so that you can be two people having a human conversation is really the goal.
Erica Ehm:
And would you say that a good interview always equals good television?
Denise Donlan:
No, I wouldn't. Especially back in those days because you could get fired over a jump cut, right? It was like, "Nobody jump cut." You'd sit there after the interview and you practice and do your re-asks and do your noddies, so that you could edit the conversation into a way that was either in and around music or a video or where we'd make it more palatable for the audience, because there are some interviews, some stars, who can't say hello in under 20 minutes, they're really long-winded, Don Henley, they [inaudible 00:23:56]. Mark Knopfler was always a particularly challenging interview, they don't want to play the game.
Erica Ehm:
What do you mean they don't want to play the game?
Denise Donlan:
Well, they don't want to... They don't even want to be there, the record company or their management has said, "We need you to go out and do five days of international press," and people from around the world will fly in and sit in front of you and talk to you. And it's pretty boring at the end of the day when you're being asked the same questions all the time. So part of the interviewer's job is knowing the situation. If you're going into one of those situations where they're sitting there for days on end is, "How am I going to engage them in a new way, in an honest way?"
So yeah, in the old days we would let a conversation... Then we had that latitude on The NewMusic, anyway, play out as a long form and we would never cut an interview up the way they do now... Kids these days. They take the most salacious part and they take it out of context and they try... It's more gotcha journalism, which is not what we were doing. We were actually really trying to understand, why did Sting think that way? Or why did Prince... What made them tick? That sort of thing. We were genuinely interested in them as artists.
Erica Ehm:
Have you ever been star struck?
Denise Donlan:
I've been really nervous. I was nervous interviewing Joni Mitchell because I had just such a tremendous admiration and respect and love for her. She's also somebody who takes a long time to answer a question if she's into it. Tom waits was one of those where interviewing him was like watching a butterfly fly, he's be talking and then he'd be talking and then he's stop, and then he'd start talking again. And finally the butterfly would land and he'd be like, "Okay, where was I? All right." So not star struck, as long as I did my homework, I wasn't starstruck, but you do get nervous. And it's really interesting, sometimes you've come up from an interview thinking, "I liked that person a lot better by just knowing their music than I do now." And sometimes the opposite will happen, you didn't love their music, but you met the person and now it's like, "Yeah, I'm going to give that record a number more spins."
Erica Ehm:
I'm glad that you brought that up. I was thinking about interviews where you go in with... Actually kind of pissed that you got to interview them because you really don't like their music. And then you sit across from them and they are entirely different than who you thought. In my case, Blackie Lawless, I did not want to interview this guy with the long black hair who I don't even know... I don't even remember what the names of his songs are like, F**k Like a Beast, or those kinds of [crosstalk 00:27:11] horrific-
Denise Donlan:
[crosstalk 00:27:12]
Erica Ehm:
Yeah. I did not want to. But I was hosting on the day that he was coming in and I got stuck with interviewing him. It turns out he was one of my favorite interviews of all time. He was not like I expected him to be, he was highly educated, he was into sports, he was a gentleman. It was so weird. So has that happened to you where you thought someone would just be the worst or the best... I'd like to stick actually with the best you weren't into their music and then you talk to them and you go, "You're an amazing person."
Denise Donlan:
See I think that would have happened less to me than to you because on The NewMusic, if I didn't want to interview Blackie Lawless, I wouldn't interview Blackie Lawless. I didn't have to. And because between Lori and I, Lori had different taste than me. So artists I weren't particularly interested in, she would take those and then I would take other ones. So I didn't, unlike MuchMusic, and by the time I got there, I was the director of programming and then the vice president general manager. So I didn't have to get into that situation like you did. Also though, we did try to make sure that we were matching people who might get along, but I know what you mean when suddenly... It usually worked the other way around for me, like Mick Hucknall from Simply Red, I was in love with that record, the picture book record. And then when I met him, he was such a, excuse me, dick that I've never been able to listen to that record again. And [crosstalk 00:29:04]
Erica Ehm:
Totally, that definitely happens. It's like they say, "Never meet your heroes." That's kind of what we're alluding to. Okay. So you, unlike me, you sort of rose up into more of a managerial position at Much, being the director of music programming. So I never was invited into the music meeting, Denise. The music meeting being where key people, producers, at Much, and a few on-air people met every week and all the new videos were played. And you guys would, I think, vote on if these videos should go into rotation and what level of rotation they should go into. And basically you were making or breaking bands careers in that little private room. Okay, what happened in the room? Tell me Denise, what was going on there?
Denise Donlan:
Well, the room was often very feisty because it got to the point at MuchMusic where we were so big and impactful and everybody was making music videos, especially in the late '80s, early '90s that we would be getting over 100 videos every week. And we could put maybe two or three into meaningful rotations. So light, medium, heavy rotation. Other videos would be delegated to specialty shows like The Wedge or Rap City or-
Erica Ehm:
Outlaws and Heroes.
Denise Donlan:
Outlaws and Heroes. And we would see, so the video either had to be brilliant right from the top, or there had to be a thirst that we knew from the audience to want to see the latest video from the Red Hot Chili Peppers or whoever it was. But yeah, those meetings could get very fraught, and sometimes we'd change our minds and sometimes we just plucked a video from... Like Moist, for example, their first video, black and white video, with David Usher singing with a light bulb hanging down to that video Push. We put it into meaningful rotation right out of the box, that Canadian artist, just because we saw it. It's like, "This is undeniable."
So sometimes we sort of followed a little bit because MTV often would get the videos a week before us, which made us insane, and then sometimes we would just out of the sheer patriotism, help as many Canadian bands, give them a leg up as we could. That was the fun part. Because they were friends, right? Even some of the international acts, I mean, you interviewed Crowded House, I think, a number of times. We used to say-
Erica Ehm:
Loved them.
Denise Donlan:
... "Oh, it's Wednesday, where's Crowded House? Why aren't they here today?"
Erica Ehm:
I love those guys. Loved them. The opposite of Simply Red, for example.
Denise Donlan:
Exactly right. The most beautiful [crosstalk 00:32:04]
Erica Ehm:
And they understood the game. Obviously, their music was fantastic. We would have probably played it any way, but they made us fall in love with them. So they were always in high.. We would do anything for them.
Denise Donlan:
That's right.
Erica Ehm:
Very smart.
Denise Donlan:
I think partly it was too, they understood because they were new Zealanders, but lived in Australia at that point. And Canada, like Australia, small geography, big population, spent a lot of time in the van going from gig to gig and really honing your craft, and really... So by the time you actually got to the point where you got a deal or a video, you knew what you were doing. So when you got put up to bat, to play live, you could actually nail that. So there was a big affinity with Australian and Canadian bands.
Erica Ehm:
Yeah, in excess as well.
Denise Donlan:
For sure.
Erica Ehm:
Lots of connection. So you continue to rise up the ranks and you ended up becoming the head of MuchMusic, general manager of MuchMusic. Were you my boss or had I left already? Do you remember? I was trying to remember.
Denise Donlan:
You were still there, but we didn't overlap for very long. I remember your Red Hot Chili Peppers interview.
Erica Ehm:
Oh, God, Denise, did I ever hate them.
Denise Donlan:
With the microphone from the nipples. God. Yeah, you were on your way and we were on our way to launching new stations because MuchMusic was full, we were full, and there's 100 videos a week coming in and they needed a place to go, so launching MuchMoreMusic. And what we'd done at that point is... Part of the reason why they offered me the job as director of music programming at MuchMusic was because we were doing a lot of very issue-oriented social justice material at The NewMusic. So what really got me excited was not interviewing the stars, and yeah, that got me excited, but was making a contribution because videos were dangerous, sometimes violent, certainly often misogynist, and often art, right? It was amazing what kind of stories and messages and visuals could be told. On one hand we were showing Canada Boy George for the first time and kids in Medicine Hat and [inaudible 00:34:44] were understanding that there were people like them who could be successful in the world and be proud of who they were.
So at The NewMusic, we were very interested in exploring those themes, taking artists to task if we didn't like misogynist lyrics or thought they were violent or whatever. So those one hour specials were really what was making me happy and so I was able, at the helm of MuchMusic, to bring in a a lot of conscious, media literacy, social justice programming, and that's what made me happy, that's what made me really feel like I was part of this culture that was so important in terms of young minds and aesthetics and a feeling of empowerment for the audience.
Erica Ehm:
I was curious, I know that you brought all that media literacy and social justice to MuchMusic in a more profound way than the previous bosses did. For you personally, was the social justice component something where you had an aha moment or has that been a part of your life, like a gradual awakening?
Denise Donlan:
Well, that's interesting. I think it was a gradual awakening. I think learning some journalistic chops at The NewMusic... Because I was not trained as a journalist by any stretch, and to be really kind of aware of what was going around in the world, and at that time in the '80s and '90s, pop culture was having a very big impact on who we were as a society, right? We were urging young people to vote, we were trying to explain what the issues were, we were talking about gender imbalance and racial injustice.
And the videos were speaking to those issues because the artists were engaged in those issues. There were big events happening around the world, like at the Amnesty International A Conspiracy of Hope tour, there was Live Aid because of starvation in Africa, there was free Nelson Mandela events, there were all of those things that were going on and it was exciting for MuchMusic to be part of those. It is exciting for me as a nascent journalist to be talking to artists about something other than, "Who are you wearing?" And, "How's the tour going?" Right? It was just like, "Yeah, let's use our powers for good here. If we have a platform, let's explore with the audience what these things mean."
Erica Ehm:
Yeah. And I think that you leveled MuchMusic up. It became more than what it was. I kind of call it Much 2.0, at that point I already had been gone and you were curating a new group of hosts to tell maybe different stories or approach MuchMusic differently. And I was wondering, you were talking about how you interview and curate interviews and you put a lot of thought into them. How do you interview a potential employee or in this case, host for MuchMusic, in a way that is different than how you would interview an artist?
Denise Donlan:
Well, it was a big deal be an on-air personality at MuchMusic, as you know very well. So you have to be pretty deft in your choices, because first of all, it's not an easy gig. It looks kind of glamorous, but remember at MuchMusic we didn't own a teleprompter, you were just thrown on the air everybody else. And zany things happened and things malfunctioned, so you had to be somebody who was capable. And I always thought that it was a privileged position to have, so people who wanted to be VJs, we had the VJ be-a temp-for-a-day competition, and then that was one way of exploring what the talent was out there.
We wanted to cast it like the human rainbows so that it reflected the community to which we broadcast. So we had to make sure that we were multiracial and multicultural, and I did not have an LGBTQ on-air person that I knew of, at the time, because people had to be self identifying. So when I would sit with a potential VJ, I would literally say, "Why do you want to be a VJ?" And if they would say, "Because I want to be famous," I would say, "Not good enough, there's the door."
Erica Ehm:
Well, obviously, that is in fact probably the worst answer you could give because at MuchMusic-
Denise Donlan:
And I got it all the time.
Erica Ehm:
You did. Wow.
Denise Donlan:
Got it all the time. Because it was [crosstalk 00:40:18]
Erica Ehm:
All right. So if anybody's listening right now and you want to be a VJ, do not do it because you want to be famous.
Denise Donlan:
No, it's kind of ridiculous. There are on-air personalities that stand in front of a teleprompter and spend hours in hair and makeup and they're a presenting person, but it's pretty hollow. And fame is very fleeting, I would add. So we needed people who were curious, you cannot teach curiosity. You have to be curious. You have to be, I think, willing to put... It's the slings and arrows, right? It doesn't matter what you say or do, someone's going to hate you, be mad at you and they're going to let you know, so you have to have... I think it's kind of like an artist, you have to have a very porous skin to be able to feel the music and be empathetic in the first place, but you also have to have reptilian skin to be able to handle what Joni would call the star making machinery, right? Because it's awful out there.
So for me, it was about casting the station to reflect the community that we broadcast to. And also to ensure that the people who were on air, had integrity, would be able to think on their feet, were curious and certainly had some ego, but didn't lead with their ego, because I did believe that it was a place where we could help the stars that visited us to shine and take them on if they deserved it. So yeah, there was a lot of quality components.
Erica Ehm:
So if you were to sort of look backwards, and because we can, we can have perspective on this. There have been a lot of on-air people, at least... I'm talking really the people until you left, from the day that we started until you left. What do you think most of the on-air people at Much had in common? If anything.
Denise Donlan:
Yeah, I think it's curiosity, I think there's a definite zest for life, right? You had to really want to... You're going to be skiing while you interview this artist backwards through a field of trees. We put people in very insane situations sometimes. But I think that they were real people who are comfortable in their own skin, ultimately, it's a very tough gig. But I think they were multi-dimensional. So when you interview somebody like Master T who was so talented on so many levels and very thoughtful, he really opened my eyes in terms of systematic unconscious bias, for example. George Stroumboulopoulos, when he first came in he had covered in piercings and he was wearing a crazy leather jacket and we talked mostly about his snake for the... But he was one of those people that the more I talked to him, he was like peeling an onion, there was just more and more and more to him.
And when I asked him, "So why do you want to be a VJ?" He said, "Well, I'm not sure I do." I was like, "Now I really want to." And I remember sending his tape up to Moses because Moses had to approve all my on-air hires. And Moses was furious, he wrote, he sent me a note back down and said, "Why do you always hire the ugly people with piercings?" Which was too bad because I had already hired George. Anyway, George, he's a journalist in disguise, he was one of those people you could send to political conventions as easily as to backstage at Woodstock. He was just a well-rounded, curious, thoughtful young man.
Erica Ehm:
You mentioned Moses, we haven't spoken about him. And he really is the reason why you and I are talking today. In your book, and in some interviews, you talk about Moses and his ability to provoke, and to ask you or tell you certain things that are sure to upset you in order to see what you're made of and if you're worth him spending time or wasting time on you. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience for you?
Denise Donlan:
Yeah, I mean, the first time I met him, John and Nancy had brought me to Toronto, they wanted to put me on air. As I mentioned, I was not the most television-friendly person you've ever seen. And Moses did that, he was like, "Why..." He said, "What will you do when in three months this doesn't work out?" And so that was an example of the button pushing, he was convinced I was going to fail at it, and what would I do then? I'd given up my job in Vancouver and I'd moved across the country. And I just said, "I don't think that's going to happen." And I had no confidence at all, it was all bluster, of course. But it did take me back, it was just... But John had warned me that he would try to push my buttons, but whatever, you just have to do your best, the best of your own ability, given the circumstances you're in, whatever it is and don't let [inaudible 00:46:19] see you sweat.
Erica Ehm:
True. Well, I don't think you know this story, but when I first met Moses, I think I was probably 19 or 20. This is right before I was hired. And I had a lunch with him in Ottawa. He was going to a CRTC hearing and I wanted a job at Citytv because I wanted to answer the phones for The NewMusic.
Denise Donlan:
There were no separate phones for The NewMusic. That's great.
Erica Ehm:
No, no, there was no MuchMusic at the time. There was just The NewMusic. And I was a rabid fan of The NewMusic show because it was so cutting edge, and I was into music at the time. So I wanted to work there and he said, "Well, what do you want to do now?" Now remember, I was still in university, I was 19, maybe 20. And I said, "I just want to do something creative." And he looked at me with such disdain and he said, "Every job at Citytv is creative." I'm like, "Okay." He goes, "You know what, you're just a little spoiled brat." And I looked at him and I stood up, not proud of this, and I told him to F off.
Denise Donlan:
Good for you.
Erica Ehm:
And I marched out of that restaurant, Denise.
Denise Donlan:
I would be proud of that.
Erica Ehm:
And I marched halfway home. And then I said to myself, "What gives him the right to speak to me like that?" Denise, I marched back into the restaurant, he was half finished his lunch, and I looked at him and I said, "If we're going to talk like professionals, then treat me like a professional." And you know what he said? "You're hired."
Denise Donlan:
Right. Good. Well, well done.
Erica Ehm:
It's part of the backbone though that I think a lot of people had, who worked at MuchMusic. And I think it's also something that, not just at MuchMusic, that's something that all of us, no matter what career we're in, have to face sort of the bullies or the bosses. When you were hired at Sony, how did that... First of all, why did you leave Much? Why did you leave Much, Denise?
Denise Donlan:
Well, I'd been there for about 16 years in different roles all the way through it, we had just won the MuchMoreMusic license, we'd just spent a year putting it together with... and it was very under resourced, right? As you know, we were like steal cameras from here and people from there and plug in over there while nobody was using that outlet. We really were putting it together with a ball of twine and some chewing gum.
Erica Ehm:
Which is how MuchMusic itself started.
Denise Donlan:
Exactly right.
Erica Ehm:
It did, back in the day.
Denise Donlan:
Oh, no, for sure. I remember in The NewMusic going in and saying, "I need an interview because... Or some tape." And they'd say, "Well..." And we're out of tape, and our tape budget was gone, they'd say, "Well, [inaudible 00:49:25] tape and over it." And I'm looking at a David Bowie interview and going, "I can't take over a David Bowie interview." But yeah, it was resource poor. And so when you're resource poor, yeah, you become very creative, that's for sure. And we used to make... The fact that we had no money, a virtue, as best we could, but we just launched MuchMoreMusic with the ball of twine and the chewing gum. And we'd just been to the CRTC and had been awarded like seven new music stations.
And I had worked so hard with all of the folks launching MuchMoreMusic, it was a a multi-year battle to get to win the license and then to get it up. And I thought [inaudible 00:50:12] is growing at too big a pace and hasn't built some foundational infrastructure. We had 700 employees in that building at the time, expanding internationally, expanding across the country, Citytv, MuchMusic, etc., all these digital channels. We had one HR person for 700 employees. I could fire somebody at MuchMusic and they'd show up working for Space the next day.
So I really didn't imagine how I could launch a bouquet of new music stations with no money in that rarefied air. And then the offer came from Sony and it was a big offer and big money, and I was really interested in starting to work with artists from the ground up because signing new artists, taking Canadian artists, being a part of taking their careers internationally, because when videos arrived at MuchMusic, the artist was in many cases, almost fully formed, right? If they were big enough, they'd already been signed, they had a video, they were kind of... they were sort of in their mid creative life. I wanted to start with artists at the very beginning and they paid me a lot of money.
Erica Ehm:
Okay. Sounds good to me.
Denise Donlan:
Exactly.
Erica Ehm:
It's interesting, when you ended up at Sony, it was right at the time of a big transition in the music industry. And I've recently read a book by the founder of Pixar, it's called Creativity, Inc.
Denise Donlan:
Oh, yeah, [crosstalk 00:51:53]
Erica Ehm:
And he was talking about how businesses who are at the top of their game can never rest on their laurels because there are always upstarts, new industries, that are going to start eating away at their audience share or their finances or their growth in some case. And then one day you'll wake up and your business will be gone. And to me, that's what innovation is for, and it's what record companies were not doing back in the day, when Napster had started and streaming had started and the record executives for some... I don't even know why, but maybe because they were men, they just said, "We own the power. We own the music business, and nothing can topple it." And then you walked in just as the music industry was completely crumbling. What'd you do?
Denise Donlan:
It was terrible timing. I walked in right at the beginning of Napster, I was literally at the new building for... Well, I started December 3rd. So one of the first emails I ever got from corporate in New York was, "There will be no artist Christmas presents this year," because the business had started to crumble. So I walked in right at the beginning of a global collapse of the music industry, and I was a newbie, I didn't know how the record companies worked. Also the culture of Sony was like culture of fear at the time, so I needed to heal the culture. And I also needed to motivate the staff to be able to sort of greet this new insanity that was Napster, not just Napster and Morpheus, there was tons of the illegal [crosstalk 00:54:06] services, and he was a disruptive little dickens, Napster. And he liked to share free movies with his... or music with his friends and also Canada.
So I reported nationally. I was the only female president running a country in the Sony empire. So I would go to my meetings surrounded by 24 other countries, Latin America, Germany, Australia, France, everybody, the only woman and a rookie and the business is collapsing. So it was a very difficult, trying time, but I had to find my... I mean, there were times I would drive to the office, just thinking like, "Oh, my God, what have I done? What if I'm too new to help them? What's the information that I'm missing to be able to reinvent this business?" But by the time I parked my car and had a little talking to myself, I had to be ready to stride through the front doors, statesmen like, and full of optimism.
And so I engaged my people, we had breakfast meetings constantly where I would show them the numbers. And it wasn't just the people who you would normally associate with a record company and the manufacturing, distribution, marketing teams, we had a CD line and a DVD line, we had a shipping department in the back, we had a printing warehouse. So we were very blue collar, I guess you'd call it, as well as the front of the office. So I put together these groups called the Sony Big Thinkers, anybody could be in it, you got a special hat, to be in these meetings where we would try and reinvent the business. So it was, as you say, too, the music business can be accused of dinosaur's head in the sand trying to legally sue their way out of it.
They were playing whack-a-mole with Napster and Morpheus and all of the illegal file sharing things that were happening. They weren't embracing the innovation with the vigor that they really needed. So my boss, because I reported internationally, he said, "You know what, Denise, you're kind of under the radar in Canada, you R&D your head off." And so that's what we did with these Big Thinker meetings, because a good idea can come from anywhere. I got lots of good ideas from people that weren't the vice-presidents of the company by any stretch. And we started to reinvent, and ringtones and web... I mean, Celine, let us put together her website for her. She was in Vegas at the time. So we were suddenly shipping all her merchandise.
I mean, Celine, she can put a name on anything. They're Mantle clocks going to Uganda and shower curtains, and... You're just trying to do some value-add stuff and figure it out. So the way I kept my, because I wasn't confident, but the way I kept my motivation as a leader who needed to show some leadership to the troops was understanding that I didn't know everything, ask for help, ask the questions that might be seen to be stupid and not give a shit if people thought you were stupid.
Erica Ehm:
The very sort of female qualities, I can't imagine hearing a man saying that, and that is not an insult to me, that is the power of female leadership, we lead differently.
Denise Donlan:
Oh, yeah. I think that if you look at... If you made a word cloud of leadership attributes today versus what those same words would have been 20 years ago, I mean, now it's words like transparency and accountability and honesty and trust and empathy. And they're the important words because that's how you get people motivated to do their best for the company where they are. And if you've got the best people working for you and you don't give them that kind of respect and transparency, then they're going to march out the door and go somewhere else. So it's good leadership and I also felt that what I didn't know, perhaps might be compensated by the idea that I was new. So I had this 6,000 ft look at how the business ran, why it ran the way it did, the things that could perhaps be improved. So I tried to compensate my lack of experience with my ability to be open to transformation. And that's exactly what the industry needed at the time. It took 20 years for that business to recover, 20 years.
Erica Ehm:
You left way before that though. So what got you out of Sony?
Denise Donlan:
Well, there was a merger, so I was spending a lot of time with heritage figuring out... BMG and Sony were merging as a company because the industry was going down the toilet everywhere. People were trying to figure out how do we shore it up, are there mergers or acquisitions or things that we can do to help the bottom line of the company? So the BMG, Sony merger was going on. We thought Sony was in the driver's seat, but the more we looked at it, the more it looked like BMG was in the driver's seat for a while. They wanted me to sell the building, I did not want to sell the building, but they'd already taken the hit to the bottom line, I knew that the costs would... We did everything in that building, we made videos, we did performances, we manufactured and distributed, so they wanted us to sell it and leave and there was no upside for the Canadian company in that plan.
And so I fought against it for all the right reasons in terms of the bottom line for the company. And at the end of the day, I think I ruffled some feathers and the new head of international... So my boss got fired, his boss, his boss, his boss, it was just... the clock was ticking. And I remember one of the new bosses came in and one of the first thing he said to me was, "I hear you have a problem with authority." Because I was pushing back on the sale of the building. And I said, "Well, I have no problem with authority as long as I respect it." And the good news was-
Erica Ehm:
Boom.
Denise Donlan:
I know. The good news was... Oh, he didn't take that very well. Was that they just re-upped my contract two months ago. So I got a big check and I knew that, and they had to pay my contract out. So as I looked around and I saw what was going on in the business, I knew that I couldn't protect my artists or the staff more than I'd already done and that made me sad. And so I thought, "You need someone who is not me because I will fight some of these decisions and it will end in tears for everyone."
Erica Ehm:
Yeah, you also had other important things to do, like get the Order of Canada. So you had to leave, obviously. And then-
Denise Donlan:
I was very [crosstalk 01:02:15] awards.
Erica Ehm:
Very busy with all these awards. And then the next thing I hear is you're at CBC running radio, but I just want to go, again, in between those two sort of high points in your life, is the shit in between. It's hard when the things that you work on... When I say fail, I don't mean you failed, Denise. I mean that the effort failed because Sony didn't succeed in the end, okay? Not due to your lack of leadership, obviously. But it's public, everybody knows that you were let go. Actually, I didn't know, but now I know. So I'm assuming everybody knew that you were let go. How do you keep that... How do you keep going? How do you talk to yourself? How do you deal with that, the pressure, the humiliation, the shame, not that you experienced those-
Denise Donlan:
I did.
Erica Ehm:
... but those are the potential emotions?
Denise Donlan:
Yeah, of course, you do. And one thing I fought against and why I feel like people say, "Oh, you're very ambitious, you're very driven." No, I was just fighting my imposter syndrome demon the whole time, because it doesn't matter, the Order of Canada or other awards that you've listed, which are lovely, lovely, but this imposter syndrome, I call him [inaudible 01:03:50] demon, he lives in my fanny pack and it doesn't matter what sort of heights or accolades you're receiving, he's always waiting behind the podium to sort of come out and trip you. That little voice that says, "They're all going to find out you've been faking it all along. You're going to fail. They're going to know that you really didn't know what you were doing." So that voice is very, very difficult to find a place to put it so it shuts up.
My MO for that was always to be over-researched, to be very busy, to be very... I would prepare so hard for any eventuality so that even if I did fail at it or if it actually happened, then I would've already sort of been through it in my head, figured out what I was going to do about it, so I was ready. So yeah, when you are suddenly titleless, is really the thing, right? Because it wasn't a money issue. And people knew what was going on in the business, people [inaudible 01:05:06] crying. It was an amazing outpouring of emotion and fidelity. Sony New York said, "We want to throw you a freedom party." And I'm like, "No, no, you've done enough. I got the check." So I was fine. But I had a party anyway.
But yeah, it is hard because suddenly people don't answer your phone calls immediately. Sometimes it takes a day to get an email... or a week, an email returned, the things that you were used to doing suddenly aren't there. And if you're a successful business woman and you are known by your title and your position, that is a really difficult thing to try and figure out who you are without it. So yeah, you go to ground a bit and you make a lot... I made a lot of lists, all of the things that I never had time to do before now I've got time to do, I'm going to read, I'm going to learn to cook, I'm going to clean out the basement, I'm going to sweep the forest. But sooner or later, you have to figure out what makes you happy and then try and ensure that the next opportunity that you create for yourself or that comes looking for you will meet those boxes that you've laid out for yourself that are the way to find joy. So [inaudible 01:06:30] you need some introspection.
Erica Ehm:
There's two things that I want to talk to you about. You ended up doing a show with Conrad Black, Denise.
Denise Donlan:
Yeah. I know.
Erica Ehm:
What the actual hell? I didn't even know that you had done this and I'm just shocked.
Denise Donlan:
I know.
Erica Ehm:
So tell me, you did that with Moses, right? Because it was with the Zoomer network.
Denise Donlan:
I did. [crosstalk 01:06:57] the Zoomer. It was the flagship Zoomer show. I had just actually accepted another job, which I was... I should have taken, but I didn't because Moses appealed to my ego, which wasn't on the list of things that make you happy but I always liked being... I hated being on air. I hated having the camera and me... I never watched myself, I hated that, but I really [crosstalk 01:07:24]
Erica Ehm:
And so you decided to do a show.
Denise Donlan:
Yes. But also because it was going to be a show with a lot of smart people and on topics and ideas that I thought were really important for Canada. I did not know Conrad was going to be the host, Moses sent me a little paragraph about what his idea for the show was. And I sat down at my kitchen table and I thought, "Okay, I'm going to do what we call the perfect show." Based on these parameters, who would be the guests, what would be the length of segment, what would be the variety in the show, bumpers, ads, whatever? I built a show right down to the second. And then I thought, "Wow, that was fun." So then I built four shows right down to the second and plotted out if it was a daily show, what it would look like. And I thought, "This is great. I would love a show like this." And then I took it into Moses, Moses cartwheeled down the hall, he said, "I'm going to cost it out. We'll get back to you." We had talked about co-hosts, we'd talked about Jann Arden and Mary Walsh.
Erica Ehm:
Wow.
Denise Donlan:
I know.
Erica Ehm:
That would have been amazing.
Denise Donlan:
Fun. Well, unbeknownst to both of those wonderful women. And then I heard nothing for a long time and I went about my life and suddenly Moses called and he said, "We're going to do the show. It's not going to be daily. It's going to be weekly. And I want you to come in and meet your co-host." And I said, "Well, who's that?" And he said, "Well, I want to show you when you get here." And so I was like, "Okay, it's a surprise." So I walked in and Connor Black is standing there. And I was like, "Whoa. Okay." And I really had to think about it because he was all over the news and he'd been in jail. He had returned back to Canada. He comported himself very well in jail, as we understand, helped fellow inmates. And I really did believe that Canada is a world of... or should be a place of second chances, right? Where if you've done your time for whatever you were found guilty of and you want to reinvent yourself in another way, that you should be given the option to do that.
I went out and grabbed a copy of one of his books. There were crazy words in it, like a [inaudible 01:09:41] on the second page. And I had a chat with Murray about, my husband. And basically I thought, "Well, I'm never going to match him in terms of his IQ, because he's off the charts smart, but maybe I can balance him with some EQ and maybe we can have some interesting conversations." As Barack Obama always said or came to say later, "Just because we disagree, doesn't mean we have to be disagreeable."
So off we went and we did a whole season and I left, not because of Conrad, but because Moses would not give me final edit on the shows. And Moses was a very different person from whom I'd known back in the day and we did not agree often, editorially. I mean, I wrote it in the book, so it's no big deal, which has been lawyered, which said, "I don't make a fetish out of journalistic balance," he said, and I was like, "Well, I do. And my face is on the show." So I handed in the last show with a resignation letter, and that was that.
Erica Ehm:
Wow.
Denise Donlan:
I was just too old not to be... I'm too old not to be true to what my own beliefs are. And they weren't the same as Moses', and it was his station. So off you go, float your boat. But I can't be standing in front of his show when there are editorial choices I would not have made.
Erica Ehm:
Denise. I cannot let you go without bringing up the Cowboy Junkies.
Denise Donlan:
Oh, yeah.
Erica Ehm:
Because if the listeners do not love you enough at this point of our conversation, I'd love for you to tell everybody what happened on that famous evening when you interviewed the Cowboy Junkies?
Denise Donlan:
Thank you. And thank you for your kind words, Erica. Really, you're making my heart sing. Thank you. So we'll leave you with this story. I was very pregnant. I was due a week from the Cowboy Junkies show, it was a live intermittent track on MuchMusic I arrived at the station at quarter to nine, the show was live coast to coast at nine o'clock, it was a 90 minute show. So as I walked across the... through the front doors at the Citytv building, my water broke and I walked up to see Nancy Oliver because I was like, we're 10 minutes away from show time, and I said, "I think, and I'm not sure." And she says, "Yeah, it sounds like your water broke." And she said, "But can you still do the show because I don't have anybody else to do the show?" And I was like, "Well, I just spent $40 having my face made up." Because I was so big and heavy, I was dressed in this massive black shroud to try to cover up my very pregnant body.
And my doctor had said, "Well, it's your first baby. So once your contractions start, you should just stay busy. Because it could take 24 hours or more." So I thought, "Yeah, okay, I'll do the show." So I went over, they put me behind the grand piano to hide me, because I was a pretty bad example of what happens to the young people when you don't practice safe sex, very scary. And then the Cowboy Junkies started to play, and I was in contractions within about 15 minutes and it couldn't have been Metallica, I couldn't have been a really loud band, it had to be (singing), right? And I was like... And the show went on and the show went on, and the makeup woman, she'd come over and she'd go, "God, you're sweating." And I'd go, "I'm in labor." And she'd go, "Yeah, right." Walk away.
And it was at the point where [inaudible 01:13:50]... My hands, my wrists were so big that I didn't have a watch on any more because it wouldn't fit around my wrist. So I was literally timing my contractions by the rundown. So it would, "Cowboy Junkie song, Black Eyed Man, 3m36, one minute promo, two minute commercial break, one minute... So I was like, "Well, I'm about eight, nine minutes apart at this point." Anyway, long story short, finished the show, went immediately to the hospital, had a baby, and I always remember because I still had full TV makeup on and false eyelashes looking down at Duncan and he must've looked up at me because I had some mascara for days, right, thinking, "My mother is Tammy Faye Bakker. Look at her, she's a disaster." Anyway, the next day I got a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the Cowboy Junkies and a note that said, "Thanks for waiting." And that was the story. So yeah.
Erica Ehm:
Amazing. Amazing story.
Denise Donlan:
[crosstalk 01:14:52] headline next day. It was crazy.
Erica Ehm:
You are quite an amazing woman, Denise, and I would like to talk to you for another hour, but I think you have other things to do. Can you tell me, sorry, what are you working on now?
Denise Donlan:
Well, I'm on five nonprofit boards, so right now with COVID and the pandemic, we're helping everybody try and stay afloat. So there's a lot of fiscal responsibility dealing going on. And I had a big project in America that got canceled which I'm not able to talk about because hopefully we will re-ignite it, but it requires a mass gathering of people. So it is on pause for the moment, but it's because oriented and it's something... I mean, I choose to do things that make a contribution, now it's really important to me, more than ever. And yeah, just trying to find the joy.
Erica Ehm:
Well, it was a joy talking to you. Thank you so much. And for those of you who are listening right now, I would love for you to be a part of the show as well. I've set up a phone line for anyone who's listening for you to call in, and basically you'll call me and you can record a message that will be played on the show, the phone number is 833-972-7272. And you could leave a comment about this particular show, you can let me know what you think about the premise of the show or a particular moment in MuchMusic history that has meant so much to you. Perhaps there's someone that I have not yet interviewed that you would like to have on the show. Or you can ask a question, a burning question, that you've always wanted to ask anyone from MuchMusic, certainly you can leave that on the voice message, 833-972-7272.
Or if you're not a phone person, don't want to leave a voice message, you can find me on social media and I am everywhere, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter, there's an Erika Ehm Facebook page, just reach out to me and you can leave your question or comment there.
Most importantly though, I would love if you enjoyed today's show to click subscribe, so you never miss an episode. Again, thank you so much to Denise Donlan for giving me so much of your time and your heart. I will see all of you next week with another episode of Reinvention of the VJ. Here's to living a life filled with music, meaning and many reinventions.