The United States is often called the country on wheels.
It is because most people in the country have a car, and after radio became a prominent part of American culture, it also gave a widespread audience to music artists, both famous and regional ones.
People were able to discover songs they never knew existed due to radio, and it helped artists get widespread acclaim. The radio even had an impact on music charts as songs that would be played on radio stations would easily become popular due to radio.
After the internet and social media boom, the impact lessened as songs started going viral due to social media. Nowadays, one could just play their Melody playlist in the car.
Radio had clearly taken a hit, but it didn't mean it had died down.
It was still a major part of the country, helping artists find more success. Even now, record labels would try to get their artists' songs on the radio.
Aiden's last few songs had also been on some radio stations as Wade had contacted some of them. Also, as his songs had gone viral, a lot of people had requested them to be on the radio.
'Revolution' has even been on most of the radio stations in America, thanks to Animeroll promoting it a lot.
[Good morning, America. Today seems like a nice, sunny day to get up from bed. Are you listening to us going to work or dropping your kid at school? We sure hope you are going to have a good day. Now, let's start the program 'Weekly entertainment'. In this show, we are going to talk about the major things that happened last week primarily. From another superhero movie failing at the box office due to people just being tired from seeing too many people get superpowers to a senator being found asleep during one of his speeches, causing a debate on a lot of news channels. You will get everything today in the next hour.]
Aiden and Wade listened to the radio while sitting in the car. Normally, the radio would be off in the car, but today, they were listening to it because Aiden had an interview on the radio station called 'Red Ant FM' in the next hour.
Wade had gotten this opportunity for Aiden after having some meetings with a radio producer who worked in Red Ant FM.
"What do you exactly know about Hector Burn? Like his personality? I can't guess a lot from his wiki articles I found." Aiden asked as he turned his head to look at Wade in the driver's seat.
Hector Burn was the RJ (Radio Jockey) that hosted a show called 'What's new in Music?' It was a very popular show from the last five years where Hector would bring in artists that had gone viral or were relevant to do an interview and then play some games.
The format of the show was very simple, but it was popular as Hector had maintained a pretty good reputation for himself, and the guests he invited always had their own group of fans who would actively listen to the show.
All in all, it was a pretty good opportunity to get on the show.
"Well, I never heard any rumors about him. At least not too bad. There was one about him nearly cheating on his wife, but it was never confirmed, and he's pretty steady in his life currently. I heard he just enjoys himself now as he earns pretty well and focuses more on the family."
"So, we won't have any problems with him."
"I don't think we will have but be careful of the guest that would be with you. It's good if you can cooperate with each other instead of trying to bring each other down to look better."
Wade said, reminding Aiden to be on guard. The show would sometimes call two artists at the same time to create a bit of diversity. Today was one such occurrence.
"I will be in the show with Andrea Hales, right? I have only heard good things about her on the internet. Though, her music is average and she does a lot of collaboration."
"Yeah, her reputation is too good. You need to dig a bit to even see people criticizing her. Her PR team blocks everything negative about her, so even I don't have any inside info on her."
Hearing that, Aiden searched her up on the internet.
Andrea Hales was a teenage pop sensation that had popped up in the era when Skygram had come up, and MeTube views were just increasing as more and more joined it.
She was just 16 at that time and had become a teenage idol. Aiden thought that it must have been hard for her to handle fame at such a young age, but when he looked at her wiki page, it was mentioned that her family was pretty big in the entertainment business.
It seemed like her father had shares in a record label too. He searched articles on her and found out that everything was squeaky clean.
'Andrea Hales - The next big thing in music.'
'A famous music producer said that Andrea Hales might be the youngest person to win a Grammy.'
'Andrea's debut single crosses 100 million views. She's in the line to win the best artist awards this year.'
'I want to create music that connects with people and could give them a smile, irrespective of their age - Andrea on the Jimmy Colbert show.'
Aiden read out the headline of every article he could find on her, but most of them were just praising her. Even the comments on forums were pretty good, but they definitely gave an eerie feeling to him.
It was because all the answers seemed too perfect. Coupled with knowing that she had a pretty aggressive PR team naturally made Aiden expect the worst.
'It's only for a radio interview. I don't think it would go badly. We would probably see each other only for two or three hours.'
He thought but during the last year, he had learned one thing- One should always prepare in case things actually go wrong.
That's why, for the next one hour in the car, he searched up every information he could find on Andrea. Even if one had an aggressive PR, this was still the age of the internet where everything could be found on the internet.
If one was not genuinely nice, there was bound to be something against them.
***
The room was filled with all sorts of people as they tried to check that everything was on line. The Music director was lining up the tracks that were going to play for the next twenty minutes.
The director was handling the ads, and the Station manager was drinking coffee while talking with an intern. There was a camera crew on the other side, setting things up.
It was the normal atmosphere the program team would have every morning before the program started.
It was then that the door opened, and a tall, scrawny-looking man with a shaggy beard entered.
He was the Production Director.
"Where's Hector? And the guests still haven't appeared yet. You know where they are? They should not be stuck in traffic in the morning." He asked, looking around.
The Station manager replied, "He's out getting some coffee. As for the guests, Aiden Silvereye's agent said they are coming up after parking. Andrea… Well, her agents and stylist are not picking up their phones. Let's hope she's here soon."
The Production director's face scrunched up hearing that. Frowning, he sat down on a chair, thinking how some celebs were just too irresponsible.
Looking up, he looked at the music director.
"What about Justin Frank? He needs to be here by 10, so we could do a bit of practice. The segment at 10 is something we have already promoted a lot, so I don't want anything to mess up."
"Don't worry. I talked to his manager before you came. They will be on time. It's very important for them too."
The Production director nodded, satisfied.
Justin Frank was one of the most famous artists in America and all over the world. For some months now, he's been preparing for his next album, and today, he was going to reveal one of the songs from the album on their radio station.
It was a deal signed by the record label and the radio station. Apparently, Justin's record label wanted to promote him as a traditional artist, and for that, they had decided to directly reveal one of the songs in his new album on the radio station.
It wasn't even going to have a music video as they wanted people to just close their eyes and listen to the song. It was surely a great way for the record label to establish him as a great musician.
Because of that, it was going to be a very busy day for them.
Suddenly, the door again opened, and this time, a brown-haired man with glasses entered with a young man with a guitar. There was also a scary-looking man following them.
The Production director recognized the guy with the guitar as Aiden Silvereye, one of their guests.
"Ah, I met him on the elevator." The brown-haired man said. He was Hector Burn, the host of the program Aiden was going to be in.
"It's nice to meet you all. Thanks for having me here."
Aiden said, looking around, trying to seem polite and humble.
"It's good to see you too. I really like your songs." The Production Director said, shaking Aiden's hands. "Let's hope we have a good program today."
At these words, Hector couldn't help but comment.
"I feel like today will be one of our best episodes. I have been feeling good since this morning."
...
