By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
November 6, 1994
Doug Banks is a big man in radio. Literally. At 6-foot-3, the disc jockey on WGCI-FM (107.5) is Chicago’s No. 1 afternoon radio personality. You know who we’re talking about – the friendly, funny guy with the rat-a-rat-tat machine-gun laugh who keeps you company from 2 to 6 p.m. on weekdays.
On a recent afternoon, Banks is ensconced in WGCI’s sixth-floor studio on South Michigan Avenue. Wearing a pair of well-worn jeans, a jersey provided by a record company, gym shoes and a Rolex watch, Banks easily flashes a gap-toothed smile as he chats with listeners on air. During a four-minute interval when a song is playing, Banks simultaneously conducts an interview with a visiting reporter, records a spot that will air later in the show and discusses upcoming guests with his assistant Shelly D. and engineer Jerry “Curlman” Kuc.
He makes no mistakes.
“It gets a little hectic sometimes, but I love it,” said Banks, 36. “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s what I’ve worked at since I was a kid.”
Born in Philadelphia and raised in Detroit, Banks said, he was always outgoing and the class clown. As a child, he would put on little radio shows for himself in his bedroom. Never mind that he didn’t have a mike. He had imagination.
In high school, a teacher helped him hone his skills. Banks learned so quickly that he got his first professional on-air job at 16. By the time he was a freshman at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, he was offered work at a Los Angeles station.
“They offered me 50 grand a year to do something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said. “I didn’t even bother hanging up the phone. I was gone. I drove home and told my mother, and at first she just laughed and said, `So anyway, why are you home?’ She had a fit when she realized I wasn’t joking. She was not happy at all about my decision to quit school and move to L.A. She wanted me to be a lawyer, not some weirdo on the radio. But I went anyway.”
Los Angeles got him some much needed exposure. He moved from L.A. to Chicago to work briefly at the now defunct WBMX. Banks also landed jobs in Las Vegas and San Francisco before heading back to Chicago in January, 1986, to start at WGCI on the morning drive shift.
“I never made career choices based on money,” said Banks. “When I worked in Las Vegas, I made $900 a month, but I loved it because I was learning how to do the morning drive. That was worth more than any amount of money you could have thrown at me.”
Banks is modest about his success (“People just seem to like me”) and wealth. Though he jokes that he now makes a princely $2.50 per hour, he is one of the city’s best paid personalities, reportedly making about $800,000 a year.
“Doug is a big man on radio, and that often comes with a big head and big ego, but not him,” said friend and colleague Robin Robinson, a weekend jock at WGCI and news anchor at WFLD-Channel 32. “He reminds me of Bill Kurtis, who is big enough to graciously accept newcomers and competitors and be supportive.
“Doug’s also an idiot, and that’s perfect for the radio. There’s not a shred of embarrassment or self-consciousness in his body. He’s him. And whatever he says or does is him. Doug has the energy of my 3-year-old and the back talk of my 5-year-old. That works incredibly well on radio.”
“The great thing about Doug is he doesn’t seem to realize how popular he is,” said Elroy Smith, WGCI’s program director. “Any program director would die to have him on his team. I’ve heard horror stories about people who have no respect for their supervisors and wouldn’t work as team members. Not Doug. This guy is the epitome of a great talent to work with.”
Asked to drum up a memory of anything close to a Banks tantrum, Smith offered this tale: “When I first started here, he was already a big star,” Smith said. “He had done this new bit where he was talking to himself, and I said, `Uh, Doug. That bit that you did. . .’ And he said, `You didn’t like it?!’ and got angry. He got really uptight and walked out of my office and went home. I thought I was in trouble here. But the next day, he came back into my office and said, `You were right.’
“We still have disagreements, but the great thing about him is he listens to suggestions and also has a lot of really creative suggestions. He’s a good team captain.”
WLUP-FM (97.9) personality Jonathon Brandmeier – Banks’ most popular competitor – concurs. According to the latest Arbitron ratings, Johnny B. is No. 2 – only behind Banks.
“In this business, nice guys are hard to find,” Brandmeier said. “He is truly a good guy.” Taking a jab at the well-known couch potato, he added: “And he was a great baseball player.”
Brandmeier and Banks share more than mutual admiration for each other’s work. Both own homes not far from each other in the same western suburb. Two years ago on April Fool’s Day, the two pulled off a ratings coup when they switched radio slots, with Brandmeier broadcasting his show on WGCI and Banks airing from WLUP.
Throughout their Chicago broadcast career, the two radio B’s have competed for top-gun status.
“It’s really funny, because we are in dead competition all the time, it seems,” Banks said. “He and I both did our morning shows at the same time. He moved to afternoons first. Then I moved to afternoons, which he said was his worst nightmare. I think he’s great at what he does. And I guess whether we want to be in one or not, we have a very healthy competition going on. Luckily, we like and admire each other.”
Since moving from morning drive to afternoons last January, Banks has not relinquished his No. 1 status. But more importantly, Banks values being able to sleep in and be on the same time schedule as his wife, Wendy, an executive secretary at Heitman Financial Services who’s as laid-back and calm as he is hyper.
“During the last few months of doing the morning show, I could feel my conversations on-air starting to get forced,” Banks said. “It was a great gig, but I was just burned out on doing it. I was ready to do something else. Everyone kept telling me I wouldn’t be able to do the same thing that I do in the morning in the afternoon – that it just wouldn’t work. Well guess what? I can. Ten months down the line, we’re still No. 1, and it’s working like a charm. I feel rejuvenated.”
He’s rejuvenated enough, in fact, to host a new local entertainment series at 7 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 6 p.m. Sundays on WJYS-Channel 62. “The Doug Banks Show” features interviews and music videos. Banks said he enjoys doing the program, but TV is something he can take or leave.
“TV’s OK when it comes along, but (radio) is what I do,” he said. “If the TV show got canceled, I’d be disappointed, but that’s about it. If I lost my radio job, that’d be another story. Where else could I find someone to pay me for making bad jokes and just being myself?”
Added engineer Jerry Kuc, “The thing that people have to realize about Doug, too, is that he is never on. The person you hear on the radio is exactly who he is in real life. He’s a genuinely sweet guy, and I think that’s why people like him so much.”
Banks also is a nice guy who isn’t above poking fun at himself or his colleagues. It was Banks who gave Kuc his on-air moniker, Curlman.
“He said, `Now that you’re going to be down with the homeys, I’m going to give you a new haircut, maybe a Jheri-Kurl,” Kuc said. “I said fine, and then everyone started calling me Jerry Curl. Then it just became Curlman and stuck. But that’s the kind of guy Doug is. He’s never malicious. He just likes to have a lot of fun.”
And if he ever decides to crank up the obnoxious-o-meter, Banks can turn into “805 Guy,” a smarmy ladies’ man with a forced velvety voice that’s both hilarious and nauseating when he barks out, “Yeah, baby” or “805 guy loves ya.”
“I used to do this character at 8:05 every morning – hence the name – that was the morphing of every radio station guy I’ve ever met,” Banks said, laughing. “It was just fun for me to turn into this lounge lizard guy because there are a lot of them out there who think that being overbearing makes up for the fact that you don’t really have a lot to say. It’s kind of funny.”
The one thing he always takes seriously is his relationship with Wendy, 32. He can’t remember what he had for dinner the night before, but he recalls what she wore on their first date (black skirt and a salmon jacket) and what he thought the first time he met her (“Please don’t be married or have a boyfriend.”)
“Wendy is the best thing that ever happened in my life,” said Banks, who was married once before. “She knew what a nut I was and agreed to marry me anyway. Now that’s something to write about.”
After I open up your Feed it appears to be to be a lot of garbage, is the problem on my part?