When Southern California’s KNAC was new, the Album Rock format was in a particularly adult place, a response to the rise of Classic Rock and never having quite recovered from the resurgence of Top 40 in the mid-’80s. In November 1987, this was the AOR top 5:
- John Mellencamp, “Cherry Bomb” (1)
- George Harrison, “Got My Mind Set on You” (2)
- Bruce Springsteen, “Tunnel of Love” (3)
- Robbie Robertson, “Showdown at Big Sky” (4)
- Pink Floyd, “One Slip” (5).
Below those hits were a mix of heritage acts (Joe Cocker, Rush, Dave Mason, Dylan, Mick Jagger), the most accessible guitar side of Alternative (Alarm, Bodeans, Icehouse, and INXS’ “Need You Tonight,” the biggest jolt), and rootsy (Radiators) or singer/songwriter acts (Bourgeois Tagg) that would be Triple-A now. Things were actually a little more rockin’ than a year or so earlier, when I remember heritage AOR KLOS playing Prefab Sprout and the Dream Academy.
So KNAC’s hard-rock format, then a year old, particularly stood out. I remember the station particularly because I had finally gotten a car after somehow surviving several years in L.A. without one. It was one of only a dozen or so stations nationally playing Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction, and I would constantly punch over to see if it was playing “Paradise City” — two years ahead of being a single and then like nothing else on the radio.
The KNAC brand returned on Halloween on Heftel’s former “Highway Rock” stations in Barstow and Baker, Calif., as well as KHYZ-HD-3 Las Vegas. That it’s not currently on FM radio in Los Angeles in the streaming age is a mere technicality. Licensed to Long Beach in 1987, it wasn’t really on a full-market L.A. signal then either. KNAC’s “President of Rock” is “Gonzo Greg” Spillane, who was the afternoon host when I was listening at the time.
Here’s a brief stretch of Gonzo Greg on KNAC in November 1987 under PD Tommy Marshall:
- Cinderella, “Somebody Saves Me”
- Black Sabbath, “Born to Lose” — from their then-current album
- Van Halen, “You Really Got Me”
- Kiss, “Crazy Crazy Nights”
- Manowar, “Carry On”
- Sammy Hagar, “I Can’t Drive 55.”
The return of KNAC comes in a year with some heavily publicized Active Rock success stories like Sleep Token or Bad Omens. “There is a real excitement within the format right now about how rock music and rock radio is having a moment,” says Shelter Music’s Tyson Haller.
“I can’t tell you how cool it is to get on the radio again and say, ‘This is Pure Rock, the new KNAC,” said Gonzo Greg when I heard him on Nov. 17. He was going into audio from former PD Gregg Steele, one of several station veterans who made appearances that afternoon, talking about the station’s reluctant foray into grunge when it overtook glam and hair metal in the early ’90s.
Later, there was audio of another rock-radio veteran, Bryan Schock, talking about how GM Gary Price noticed that Iron Maiden was selling out multiple nights in Southern California without airplay. Greg joked that the former “underserved” audience was now “overserved” (in the non-radio sense of the term).
On KNAC’s relaunch day, the new KNAC was mostly playing the old KNAC’s greatest hits:
- Cult, “Love Removal Machine”
- Def Leppard, “High ’n’ Dry (Saturday Night)”
- Dio, “Rainbow in the Dark”
- Slaughter, “Mad About You”
- Led Zeppelin, “Trampled Underfoot”
- Winger, “Seventeen”
- Motley Crue, “Looks That Kill”
- Van Halen, “I’ll Wait”
- Megadeth, “99 Ways to Die”
- Bonham, “Wait for You”
When I listened again on November 17, there was more of a 60/40 mix of Classic Rock-that-Really-Rocks and new Active and harder rock titles. Here’s the station at 3:45 p.m.:
- Damn Yankees, “Coming of Age”
- Megadeth, “Tipping Point”
- Jeckyl, “Dirty Little Mind”
- Evanescence, “Afterlife”
- Aerosmith, “Love in an Elevator”
- Tool, “Stinkfist”
- Pretty Reckless, “For I Am Death” — like most current/recent titles, had a new music stager
- Van Halen, “Best of Both Worlds”
- Babylon AD, “When the World Stops” — new music with a retro feel
- Jim Gaffigan, an excerpt of the routine “Gifts” as part of the “Drive Thru Comedy” feature
- Shinedown, “Killing Fields”
- AC/DC, “Hell’s Bells”
- Mammoth, “The Spell” — with a station drop from Wolfgang Van Halen
- Ozzy Osbourne, “No More Tears”
- Junkyard, “All the Time in the World”
- Alice Cooper, “Poison”
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