Dude, you know you love them
story by Sarah Steimer :: photos by Laura Torchia
Maxwell
Stansbury
Chunk
It’s a lonely drive home from work and school during rush hour. You sit alone in your car, trying desperately to figure out what the vanity license plate in front of you is supposed to spell out. But after flipping the car stereo on — you’ve got company. Here are your best friends from 3 to 7 p.m. on 100.7 WMMS. Here’s Maxwell, Stansbury and Chunk: the Maxwell Show. They’re that sometimes crass, sometimes emotional but constantly entertaining radio show that won’t stop — won’t stop talking, that is.
On how they took the big step to an all-talk program
Stansbury (Dan Stansbury): That Opie and Anthony (a competing radio show) thing happened. They put them on across the street from us again.
Maxwell (Benjamin Bornstein): They came back.
Stansbury: And (Maxwell) came in the studio one day and said, “Look, we’re either going to be fired now or we’re going to be fired later. So I’m going to put both of our jobs at risk right now and take all the records off.” And I was scared to death, but what am I gonna do? Maybe if we get fired, he’ll take me with him somewhere else and we’ll try to work somewhere else. It ended up being right. It was the right time.
Maxwell: We were in a position where you’re kind of doing a talk show, but you’re still playing some music. This other talk show comes on across the street that people like that (it) has history — they’ve been on here before. And I’m like people, dude, they get their music anywhere now. They’re not sitting around waiting to hear shit, their music on the radio. I told Dan, we either pull all the music off right now and get fired doing what I think is the right thing, or we do what they want us to do and get our asses kicked by a talk show because that’s what people want and get fired in six months. I was like, either way, we’re gonna be out of a job. I would rather lose my job doing what I think is right and yank the Band-Aid off now than play this long, drawn-out game.
On how they come up with material every day
Chunk (Tiffany Peck): Most of our topics are personal. A lot of the time, we don’t even use the audio that we prep for.
Maxwell: For days, we’ll talk about (Stansbury) thinking his relationship is over, and you struggle because you sit there and you go, “This is kind of egocentric to think that people care about what’s happening to him or to me or to her.” But they do. It’s kind of an awkward feeling. You feel like a dick because you’re grandstanding, talking about your life. Why would people care that I went to the pumpkin patch with my wife and my kid and the gay time we had? And then you find out that people do.
Chunk: We talk about a lot of things that people don’t talk about. I had a yeast infection I could talk about all day on the air but did not want to tell my boyfriend.
Maxwell: I had moles lasered off of my penis, and we talked about it for like a day and a half, and people loved it. They’re so scared to talk about that stuff themselves that they’re just like, dude, this guy’s got things growing on his penis, and he’s talking about it?
Stansbury: I wouldn’t tell one person at work, and he told the whole city.
On How talking about Maxwell’s and Dan’s past with using drugs and being sexually abused helps them and others
Stansbury: A lot of men have that macho, crushing-beer-cans-on-their-forehead thing. “I’m tough. I control my own destiny.” And Maxwell and I are just — we’re not those kind of guys. I remember we went to Starbucks, and we had been working together for like two years, and he was like, “Dude, just tell me what the fuck happened.” Not a girl I dated, not my family, nobody knew (about the sexual abuse). Then the next day we walk into the studio, and he’s like, “Let’s do this.” And I remember my heart was pounding out of my body. I was sweating like crazy. But as soon as we let it out, I did feel better. It sounds so cliché, but that really — even though I was in my 30s — that felt like the last day that I lived as a victim. I felt like a survivor of that.
Maxwell: With the drug problem, too, I had e-mails from people about going to treatment. And that’s a dangerous thing to talk about because if you know anything about it, at any minute I could start using again. And everyone was like, “Don’t talk about it. Don’t discuss it.” I was like, I’m going to rehab, and I’m gonna come back and deal with life. And there’s people who have gone to treatment because I have. I guess there’s still a stigma about it because there’s people in the media in this town in recovery, and they don’t talk about it. There’s still a stigma about it. It just shocks me. It’s 2009. We understand.
On the craziest thing that’s ever happened on the show
Maxwell: Metallica was here for the Rock Hall. We decided to say that, at 6 o’clock, Metallica was going to play live in the parking lot, a free concert. We did that for an hour and didn’t really think it through because there’s a lot of implications there. People believed it, and, an hour into it, all the managers came in and said, “You can’t do this.”
Stansbury: I remember this guy called in, and he was laughing about it, and that’s when I realized people have a decent sense of humor. He goes, “I own a construction company, and I let all three of my crews leave early because I was trying to be a cool boss.” I was like, “Dude, go see Metallica.”
Chunk: One guy actually went home to put on his Metallica T-shirt and was driving to the station.
I am so happy that the Maxwell show was canceled. They got paid for
talking “Trash” and I was sick of it. I only listened a couple of times because
a friend of mine listened to it. Good Riddance!
Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year to all!
Maxwell please stay here in cleveland. You have been my 3-7 since 2004. Tomorrow is Christmas and I can’t take another week without you guys. The last time i listened to mms was November 23 at 3:15. We want the best show on radio back!