On this interview you will be able to discover her memories, her experiences and her amazing work besides knowing how radio works, how their playlists are chosen, her relationship with a very special band.
Discover everything on this relaxed and interesting interview.
FYMS: Hi! How did your career in radio started?
Ana Isabel Arroja: I usually say that I fell of a parachute. My father is an aviator, from Air Forces back then, so I grew up in the middle of planes, and always had that dream of being a pilot like him.
But in school I always followed things related with Languages – always talked a lot, always have been very communicative and radio ended up being a destiny’s opportunity.
Pinhal Novo’s radio station, which is my homeland, went to my school and spoke with my teacher because they wanted students to be part of this segment of a weekly program. My teacher spoke with my class, and there were some interested. I found it very curious because I grew up with radio and music, my parents always listened and bought music – we are really big music consumers. So I tried and never left radio. I’ve been invited to other projects, have learned, discovering new ways of making radio and seventeen years later I’m still here. It wasn’t expecting but it was a fun discovery.
FYMS: Which is the most remarkable moment, so far, on radio?
AIArroja: That’s very hard to answer. Probably meeting and speaking with my favorite bands and understand they are regular people despite their star and unattainable status, which is always something huge. Interviewing Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, 30 Seconds To Mars, Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morissette – all together are small achievements and big pleasures of my career.
There’s a particular moment that I highlight. When I had my daughter, I was working for Best Rock FM and my team-mate Miguel Peixoto, during the afternoon that I was on the delivery preparation room, on the maternity, he was making the transmission for us.
It was very funny because when I arrived to the maternity, people knew who I was and put me on a room with radio, so I was listening to the broadcast and he was constantly saying that I was almost having Leonor – it was very nice, I felt really accompanied.
FYMS: If you didn’t work on radio, what would you do?
AIArroja: I would work with horses. One of my other passions, since I was little I really like horses, I know how to ride a horse… I would also like to have been an athlete of horse jumping and every time I can I “run” to a horsemanship and ride.
FYMS: Horses have that inexplicable connection that no one understands.
AIArroja: They do and I can’t also understand it but there’s a really strong connection.
FYMS: Now a more personal opinion… What do you think about music made in Portugal?
AIArroja: We are increasingly having more and really good artists, we have many talents and bands (like The Gift – passing as ambient music). Good music is made in Portugal and the fact is that we have big artists internationally recognized and they are Portuguese like Moonspell, before they were known here they were already known in Germany, we have Mariza, Amália Rodrigues… The Gift are very internationally rewarded, Buraka Som Sistema are a huge phenomenon and here people still have a bit of prejudice against their music but there are pioneers in that genre and they are great.
I think we, as Portuguese, still have a prejudice against Portuguese music that we shouldn’t have. We reward and acclaim what’s international instead of paying attention of what’s ours – that is having more and more quality. Why can’t we promote what’s really ours?
FYMS: What’s your opinion about people’s relation with radio? Now, it seems there’s more importance given to radio.AIArroja: Yes, there are more radio listeners. I believe it’s about the company – who goes and comes from work every day, the only company it’s radio not TV. And we have listeners that tell us when they arrive home they turn on the radio and not the TV, because radio has music and stays like an ambient-music and TV distracts more because people have the need to watch it to understand what’s happening and on the radio has that magic of expressing what’s going on – people don’t have to see it and end up creating their own image. I think that’s what brings more people to radio.
FYMS: We had that idea. But now people talk more about radio, because previously radio was almost a tabu. AIArroja: It’s something that has been growing, there are some phenomenon that help that. For example, radio’s dynamic, promoting the brand – and social networks help a lot. We have outdoors campaigns and TV publicity that we didn’t have a few years ago. Here on Rádio Comercial we also have our own phenomenon like Vasco Palmeirim’s songs, Nuno Markl’s Caderneta de Cromos or Ricardo Araújo Pereira’s Mixórdia de Temáticas, the Christmas songs we usually that also have videos – all that ends up drawing attention to what’s happening on the radio station. People get curious and turn on the radio in the morning, radio’s prime-time, and how they liked what they heard, they stay with us the rest of the day.
FYMS: Which is your first radio memory?AIArroja: At the beginning, when I started doing radio, I turned off an entire radio unintentionally. I worked on Pinhal Novo’s radio, I was sixteen years old and I started on a beautiful day, February 14th, Valentine’s Day, so I have a very romantic connection with radio. I wasn’t working for long on radio, I was broadcasting and my colleague was annoying me, so I started to run after him around the table at some point, on an attack of stupidity, I got a chair to threaten him. But when I lifted the chair I didn’t noticed the computer’s wire, that was connected to power, was around it so when I lifted it “pufffff!” With the chair on my hands, I started to look to my colleague thinking “Wait… It was supposed to be playing music…” We noticed we turned off the entire radio, the director came over asking what happened and I was apologizing and explained I didn’t mean to. So I started very well, so I thought “This can’t go any worst so it can only be good. Ok, I’m on!”.
FYMS: Besides hearing you on Rádio Comercial, where can we have the chance to listen/see you a bit more?AIArroja: I record documentaries, I also record publicity, every week I’m the voice of Dance TV from Sic Radical. In a more specific place, you can see me on DJ sets that I do on Hard Rock Café – Lisboa, where I’m a resident DJ every weekend, or Friday or Saturday. And anything related with voice, including institutional and business telephone systems.
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| Ana Isabel Arroja on Hard Rock Café - Lisboa |
FYMS: Is there any difference between Ana Isabel Arroja as a person and as a professional? AIArroja: No, nothing. People ask me that, constantly. People, always, have the idea that a radio presenter comes, puts a posture and a radio voice… Maybe some do, but I don’t. What people listen on the air, without any fake modesty, it’s really what I am – when I’m a bit low, logically I try to hide it, but the people who knows me better know I’m not on my good days, there are harder days than others. But when I laugh, I laugh spontaneously; when I make a mistake, I really do and my voice is the same. What you hear is really Arroja.
FYMS: Is there any remarkable music, it may not be your favorite, but one that have really marked you?AIArroja: I have songs for everything. I have the song of my life – Ana’s Song by Silverchair, a band that I really love and never got the chance to see, because they never came to Portugal and aren’t together anymore; 30 Seconds To Mars which is my favorite band, Nirvana my all-time band – that I never saw live - , but there’s a song that’s really remarkable for me because it’s the song that I was listening on the delivery room when I was having my daughter and it has everything to do with the moment. The song is Easy from Faith No More, I had an epidural because she born by C-section and I saw everything, I was conscious but a bit changed from the medication and I remember thinking “This is not hurting, this is amazing!”. On top I was listening to that song and I thought “This is really easy, I can have another one now because it comes easily. It’s a small bite, we get numb, someone takes the child and it’s done, amazing!”
Every time I listen to that song, it makes me cry for the moment itself, for seeing my daughter for the first time and it will remain forever in my life – this is our song and will be forever. It’s an unforgettable moment.
FYMS: Before coming here, we searched on Facebook. And like it was said here, we notice you have a big passion for 30 Seconds To Mars. Can you explain that?AIArroja: It’s something a bit hard to explain because when I discovered the band, no one here, in Portugal, knew them. At the beginning I helped a lot for their first show, at the Lisbon’s Coliseum, in 2007.
I know the singer – Jared Leto – a while ago from TV series and cinema, and one day I was at home watching Conan O’Brien, I really love North-American talk-shows, and they went to the program to perform. I was amazed to know he had a band and it was actually pretty good. They performed Attack! the single from their second record, they had a previous one that I didn’t know. Then, I searched everything about them – I loved the music, I loved the look and from that moment I became a complete fan because I connected with the lyrics, with the songs, their posture about the Planet and social causes. I really like Jared Leto’s posture has a person, in my opinion he is a total genius as a director, as an actor, I love his voice and they became my favorite band.
Their life motto is very interesting “Provehito in Altum”, which they say a lot being a very typical 30 Seconds To Mars expression and it means to follow your dreams no matter what. The arrow (from their logo) is related with that… No matter what, follow your dreams to the end, believe in you and in your potential always.
All of this happened on a phase of my life where I felt really low and there’s also a lot of coincidences – Jared Leto’s birthday is three days after mine, in December, we are both Capricorn, the first song from their first record is Capricorn which is my favorite song… So a passion was developed, a crazy love and I was also able to meet and be with them several times. I’ve made some tattoos – that most 30 Seconds To Mars’ fans have – there are many symbols from the band that are very important like the Triad, that I have tattooed on my arm, I have Jared’s autograph, the band’s glyphs, I have Jared’s guitar. When a person is so involved it’s hard to explain.
FYMS: How do you choose the songs that are going to pass on the radio?
AIArroja: We, radio broadcasters, don’t have anything to do with that, we can suggest something we’ve find out and it’s really cool, so we go to our director and we say “You have to listen this… It’s amazing!” but it’s all about a playlist strategy, a scheduling strategy.
We make some musical tests, and like everyone knows, when someone releases a new album, they release an official single and all the radios have and should focus on that single which is the artist’s sample. If any radio from each part of the world plays a different song it’s a bit weird and there would be no hits. For example, why did Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana became such a bit hit? Back then, it was their presentation single and radios focused on that song, obviously the entire album is great and the bands end up releasing mre singles but when the artists and their label promote that song has the official single, we have to follow it and promote it to create those hits.
Here, on Rádio Comercial, but also on other national radios, the playlists are made following that idea. We receive international data, the songs that are the official singles, we make those musical auditorium tests – composed by a sample of people that are the radio’s target, with the people we want to achieve -, and according to the result, the musical programmer and the station’s director organize the playlist. There are different lists for the most listened songs – but they would explained that better.
FYMS: We get the idea of artists having a hit. But in our opinion, the best songs, or the ones with more “quality” aren’t chosen…
AIArroja: So for example, why does Pink chooses a determinate song to be the single?
FYMS: Probably the artists don’t choose, it’s more the lable. Probably they choose what sells the most.
AIArroja: And what sells the most has more audience, which gives more audience to the radio – and that’s the basis for everything. You have to think on a general way, you want something to be commercial, to be profitable so the artist can sell more, so the label can sell more, so the radio has more success and audience. If you play something more alternative or if you run away from the label and artist’s strategy then you are running away from the main strategy. If everyone focus on the same strategy it will be a lot easier.
FYMS: Maybe it depends a bit with the person – “Ok, I listen to this song that I liked. I’m going to search the album”.
AIArroja: It also has to do with that, with creating more selling and creating an interest for the artist like you were saying “Ok, that’s the single but I liked the other song”, so buy the record.
FYMS: That happened with Wraygunn – a Portuguese band. We knew them before the single Don’t You Wanna Dance? started to play on radio stations, we already had heard the album. And it was curious to see that song becoming the first single, there are songs that we like more but listening to the record it makes sense that song being the first single.
AIArroja: There are some people that defend the thesis – a good single should have, from the beginning, a good chorus, it has to get stuck in your head, the song can’t be hard with many variations and if the chorus doesn’t started until 50 seconds after the song beginning than it isn’t a good single because you can’t wait for a minute and a half for the chorus. It also should repeat very often, that’s why it’s named chorus otherwise we would only listen once.
FYMS: How does radio work at night? Some years ago there were people that would switch from time to time, but there was always someone on the radio. Does that still happen?
AIArroja: In some radios that still happen but nowadays it doesn’t make any since because the people’s sample that listen radio during the night it’s far less. So it doesn’t make much sense to have a broadcaster on a live program from midnight to six am, unless it’s one of those specific programs with phone calls.
On Rádio Comercial we have live broadcasts from 7am to midnight or one am, on the rest of the time we have a computer working with a programmed playlist and always have a technician on service during the night as a preventive manner.
I admit that I would love to make a late-night program, talking with people because people that work at night also deserve attention, to talk with someone, to have some company. They have company but it’s not so personalized and in a few years, I would love to have one of those programs because it’s really nice but not very viable on radios.
FYMS: Which is the artist – alive or not – that you never got the chance to see live?AIArroja: Kurt Cobain. He is my weakest link. At that time I wasn’t able to go to their show, in Cascais, I was thirteen or fourteen years old and my mother didn’t let me go and I didn’t know why. Recently I found out my mother didn’t have enough money to buy the tickets, she had to come with me so I didn’t have to go alone, but back then we lived the essential, we didn’t have much money to spent and it didn’t happen. My mother told me “Don’t worry because they will return again.”And less than a month after the show, Kurt Cobain committed suicide. Nowadays and knowing all the story I would loved to have meet and talked with him, to have interviewed him. It’s one of my biggest hurts for not being able to do it or even go to the show.
Like Michael Jackson – I would loved to have meet him, to see one of his show but from a different line of Kurt Cobain because he is my mentor, Nirvana is my life-time band and I’m really sorry he isn’t alive anymore.
I still have the hope to interview Axl Rose – Guns N’Roses and Nirvana were the bands of my youth. Outside of music, I would love to interview Oprah Winfrey, I would love to meet her and be with her.
FYMS: Can you name some songs ore new artists that you would recommend to people?
AIArroja: There’s a phenomenon that I’m completely in love with, which is Gotye. He exists for a while now but almost no one knew him. Gotye is a bit alternative, he is Belgian-Australian which doesn’t help because people only listen what comes from USA or Canada, which sells the most and he came to prove the opposite. He has been in the music business for a some years and now, thanks to that song with Kimbra, Somebody That I Used To Know, it’s been completely crazy. With over 130 million views on Youtube, he is an incredible phenomenon and I believe we will hear a lot more of Gotye. I really like him, I hear his record ‘Waking Mirrors’ and I strongly recommend it, it’s a great record. I’m more rock but I like music in general and Gotye doesn’t have anything to do with me, at first sight, but the record is amazing and it’s really worth it. Pay attention to him.
Janelle Monaé, went to the Portuguese festival Sudoeste TMN and we broadcast the show. She is incredible, she has a charismatic posture – that hair, she always performs with a smoking. Recently she worked with Fun. and the song is something really good.
About national artists it’s a bit more complicated because I only know what arrives to the radio and it’s a bit mainstream. But we have Wraygunn… Also Shivers – my brother’s band – and it’s punk-rock, and like they say “rock popular caramelo” (caramel popular rock), having a record with that name. Shivers are from Pinhal Novo and are completely outside from the usual but they are amazing. On a show one of them made a stage-diving, the crowd deviated and the singer fell on the floor, dislocating a shoulder. Coincidently, they had made a commercial for Cabo Visão – a band that was practicing on stage, then he stage-dived and fell on the floor.
They recorded that commercial and a few years after that happened on stage. After the show they went straight to the hospital and the singer ended up having a cast on his arm.
They also had a man barbequing on stage during the show. Shivers always worth it to listen to.
The band that won the Hard Rock – Rising contest, Rádio Comercial has a partnership with Hard Rock Café and every year they launch a national band’s competition, including all Hard Rock Cafés and it gives a new band the opportunity of being able to play on Hard Rock Calling – one of the best music festivals there is, happens in London. This year, won a band named Brass Wires Orchestra, an amazing percussion band, they are really amazing, completely ‘out’ on a very good way because it’s unusual to see on Portuguese music… They are eight people on stage and present themselves on a very unique way, really charismatic. Miguel da Bernarda – the singer – has a very heavenly voice, similar to Damien Rice.
Besides their music really sounds British – actually when he heard them we couldn’t believe they were Portuguese, they are great. And when they went to the first phase of the competition it was only their second show together as a band, they all came from different bands, and they were awesome!
(we shared some names of Portuguese bands and artists)
I remember a rock band named Red Lizart, which I love and made the first part of Bon Jovi – they won the Hard Rock contest, from which I was a jury. At the end of that contest, they were performing against The Eleanors.
The Eleanors are great and we became friends after the competition. They went to London to record, with Coldplay’s producer, their single Are You?. They are amazing on the way they present themselves on stage because they all come with smoking and really sound like British music, probably why Ken Nelson wanted to work with them. They sent their demo, he loved it and told them to record with him. They went for a week, in January and I did the report for Radio Comercial because I’ve been following their work from the beginning. Ken Nelson loved them and spoke about a collaboration for a record, which is something that he doesn’t do – he is very rewarded and almost unachievable, usually he only produces music but for a Portuguese band that no one knows about it’s amazing because The Eleanors were invited!
They only have an EP with some songs named Back To Lies And TV Shows, they have a very complete website in English. In my opinion, one of the most promising bands in Portugal nowadays.
They have an amazing sound and they really surprise you on stage. They made the first part of Hurts’ show on Hard Club in Porto, even before their participation of Bon Jovi’s contest.
FYMS: It really surprised us because we read that news about them going to work with Coldplay’s producer on a Saturday TV newscast and it’s was weird because they don’t usually talk about new Portuguese bands. [Check Ana's post about them here]
AIArroja: But it’s Coldplay’s producer, right? Who has that chance? Even they were surprised because they sent the demo without big expectations and I think they only sent to him. They love Coldplay and they love to do the first part of a Coldplay’s show in Portugal, we tried but it’s a bit hard. But their idea was only to work with Ken Nelson and when he said “Come! I want you here!” they couldn’t believe it."
FYMS: Now to end, our usual questions… A bit more introspective.
a) One day…
AIArroja: ... I will write a book
b) The best thing people can say about me is…
AIArroja: ... I’m honest
c) And the worst…
AIArroja: ... That I’m bad moody
d) In ten years…
AIArroja: … I will continue to do radio
FYMS: What would you tell to FYMS readers?
AIArroja: I strongly recommend you to read this site that is always updated, with the best information about music, radio and artists. Sometimes I go there to read and I really hope you do more interviews like this one because it’s really funny and helps people from the outside to learn how music and radio works and I wish you the best luck of the world.
We had a program about blogs named “O meu blog dava um programa de rádio” and it was very cool, I’m very sorry that it’s no longer on air – you can even make a petition on your site asking for bring it back, I think it would be very interesting.
Listen to Rádio Comercial and support Portuguese music!
"Provehito In Altum"
[Special thanks to Ana Isabel Arroja and her kindness.]
