Gary James' Interview With
J.J. Jackson



Since MTV (Music Television) was launched in the Summer of '81, it's popularity has grown steadily. Along with the rise in popularity of videos, has come a new star - The Video Jock. In town for a promotional stop, we had the opportunity to speak with MTV Video Jock, J.J. Jackson.

Q - Why did it take so long for someone to come up with the idea of MTV?

A - I don't know if the idea itself is so exclusive. I didn't find the idea in itself such a unique thing truthfully. I just think to come up with the 20 million dollars it takes to launch it, is something.

Q - How many new videos are screened every week?

A - It varies with the amount coming in. At least ten are coming in every week but sometimes as many as thirty. Not all of them are going to get on of course.

Q - How do you decide which ones get on?

A - It's quality, the quality of the video, the subject matter, and the technical quality as well, not just the aesthetic quality. There are anywhere from eight to twelve people depending on that particular meeting who are gonna decide, kind of a consensus as to what should make it and what shouldn't.

Q - I've read that MTV won't allow videos on by Barbra Streisand or The Bee Gees. Why is that?

A - We're a Rock 'n' Roll channel and that's why we don't want to go too far a field from that, because where do you close the gates? If you're going to let Barbra Streisand on, then who can't you let on? In other words, are you gonna play Barry Manilow? And then if Barry Manilow, then Lionel Richie, then Kenny Rogers. Then all of a sudden you don't have a Rock 'n' Roll channel anymore. I believe we take a great deal of flack about it because we're the first. I think in the future you'll see MOR (Middle Of The Road) channels, Country channels, Classical channels, Rhythm And Blues channels, and all of those particular channels. However, at this point we decided to be a Rock 'n' Roll channel simply because of all the records sold recently. In the United States, last year, forty three percent were still Rock 'n' Roll. When you think of all the styles of music that is out there, to be able to say forty three percent was Rock 'n' Roll, just from a business standpoint that seems to be the clever way to go.

Q - We hear all the time, "MTV sells records." How important of a role do you think the video jock plays in selling records?

A - I think to a certain degree. I wouldn't know just how important, but I think to a certain degree. I believe if say a viewer likes me and likes what I have to say and feels I have some sort of credibility and if I say something about a record, they might listen up for it. I believe it's still gonna be basically what they see and hear, as far as what MTV is showing and what they hear on the radio as well. If I can state that Men At Work's album is good beyond the three videos you see on MTV, and it is, I think that, that might have some impact. Exactly how much, I don't know.

Q - What's been the impact of MTV on FM radio?

A - FM radio was not playing a lot of the new music that was happening. Now you're starting to hear A Flock Of Seagulls, Duran, Duran, and people like that on the radio. You don't believe that's simply because KM radio decided to wake up do you? That's because of MTV's push.

Q - Have you found the sixth video jock yet?

A - No. I think they did auditions with just about a thousand people and at the present, the last word I heard, they had broken it down to thirty people they were interested in. Believe me, all of the rest of us VJs would really like that to happen because we get tired! Alan Hunter was on vacation last week, so we all had to fill in on his shift, besides doing our own shift and then going on like I am now on a promotion trip, it's exhausting. It's not that any of the VJs would consider that to be competition. We would welcome their pick with open arms, just as soon as they decide who it's gonna be. We don't have that decision. It's gonna be the executives who decide.

Q - How do you work your taping schedule?

A - I do Monday evenings show on Monday morning, and to cover the weekend there's a couple of days you have to shoot two days of course.

Q - You spent twelve years as a disc jockey.

A - Yes, I started in '68 at WBCN in Boston, which was a Free Form Rock station. I was a hippie disc jockey back in the late sixties. In 1971 I went to KLOS in Los Angeles. In 1980, I went to KWEST in Los Angeles which was a Rock station which has since changed it's format. In the summer of '81 I got the opportunity to audition for MTV and moved to New York to do that.

Q - Before you were a disc jockey, what were you doing?

A - I worked with computers.

Q - How'd you go from computers to d.j. work?

A - Like so many people in the United States I was doing something that paid well but I didn't particularly enjoy. I would imagine that nine out of ten people in America are doing something that they really would rather not be doing. Computers obviously pay well and they offer a brilliant future. It just happened to be something that I wasn't particularly interested in staying in. I had always loved music, and like I said I was a hippie disc jockey so I started in this small radio station. I was playing to that particular subculture. People take the kind of Rock 'n' Roll they hear on most KM stations today as just always having been there. And that's not really true. They only started to proliferate in the late sixties. I doubt very seriously if Syracuse had radio stations in numbers that play the kind of music you're hearing, that play the Led Zeppelin, the people we take as standard, mainstream artists. You would not hear say Led Zeppelin on AM Radio.

Q - Having done as many interviews as you have, is there one group or artist that really sticks out as a good interview?

A - Oh, God. I could talk for days, there's so many. As far as being a good interview, I would think it would have to be just the opposite that stuck out as being a bad interview. I think a more interesting question would be is basically has there been any performer that has stuck out as being really unique. And I would have to say that's Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie. When you talk with those people you realize that they are unique human beings, and they would be unique whatever they did.

Q - What did Jimi Hendrix have to say that was so unique?

A - I can't remember verbatim what he told me, but just the man's presence tells you you're not dealing with just an average person. I think that one of the things that might surprise an awful lot of people is that many celebrities are just people. They have to be artists and go stage or whatever they might be doing. In fact, one of the most unique things about most of the really extroverted artists on stage is that usually they're introverts offstage. Very quiet people offstage. Someone like Adam Ant is a very sweet, gentle, and shy man offstage, whereas on stage and in his videos he's incredibly extroverted. Michael Jackson is in the same category, seemingly a very shy young man. A lot of people like that are very withdrawn, quiet people, yet on stage, it all comes out.

Q - How about the future of J.J. Jackson? Will there come a day when you'11 be tired of MTV?

A - I don't know if I'll be tired of MTV. There will come a day when I'll be tired of being a VJ. Like anyone else, I think you should always have your own personal goals that you would like to accomplish, and never settle in one particular thing. I would like to have my own show and if that happens to be on MTV, that would be lovely. If not, if it's on something else, then that's fine too. This is just the beginning. You're talking about why is MTV getting so much attention, 'cause its the first. It's the first of something that I think will, as FM Radio did, proliferate.

Q - What would you do on your own show, same thing as MTV?

A - No. With interviews, I think a little more depth in the interviews. I would also like to do a show that, I believe the film industry is supported by the same demographics that support MTV. And I can't see why one can't have a show where'd you he interviewing Richard Gere on the same show that maybe your interviewing Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music.

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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