Name: Zac Schnick
Year in School: Senior
Major: Creative Writing
Minor: Biology possibly Film Studies
Name: Spencer Anhalt
Year in School: Senior
Major: English Education
Minor: Teaching English as a Second Language
Being a full time student, as most of us know, is extremely time consuming. Many students lose sight of their passions because they are busy with classes, work, and actually maintaining relationships with people. This week’s “Campus Celebrity” features two students who have made it a point to make time for their passion: music. When they aren’t attending class, writing papers, working, or teaching high schoolers, Seniors Spencer Anhalt and Zac Schnick produce an independent radio show called Hella Clutch Happy Hour. Keeping the student body in mind, Spencer and Zac focus on playing off-the-beaten-path music and highlighting talented artists that may not get the attention they deserve in the mainstream media. If you are looking for some new music and a good laugh, tune in on Thursdays from 6-7pm at RAQ radio and get a taste of the one and only: Spencer “Primary Strike” Anhalt and Zac “Inherent Vice” Schnick (in case you didn’t catch the drift: that’s their self given DJ names, keep up with me here people).
What got you interested in radio production?
Zac: I got started with it because of my good friend Maggie. She was a communications major and actually started the show. She wanted to gain experience in broadcasting and she needed someone to banter around with.
Spencer: I got involved because she died. No, that’s bad. She’s actually alive and well and doing her own thing in Zambia now… which is a country. Zac wanted to continue the show after she left and he asked me to take her place.
What is your favorite thing about hosting Hella Clutch Happy Hour?
Spencer: Broadcasting nonsense into the universe, haha. No, but really, for me its about the betterment of music taste in the general population. Our show takes a step away from the typical radio pop music that everyone is trying to throw out there all the time.
Zach: Yeah, we want people to hear bands that they wouldn’t normally get a chance to hear and this show gives us a platform to do that.
What genre of music do you play most often?
S: Dude, anything. We try to stick to indie music but that doesn’t really happen.
Z: Yeah, we try to stick indie and punk, but I guess we more stick to the general genre of “things Zac and Spencer like,” emphasis on the quotes.
How do you choose the playlist for each week?
S: We have a bank of music. Whenever one of us hears a song that we think would fit the show we just throw it in a Spotify playlist. When we put together a show we go through the playlist and think about what we really want people to hear.
Z: Sporadically, we try to come up with themes just to make our show more of an event for the week. It turns into a lot of discovery for us. I’ve found so many interesting bands because I make time to check out music for the show.
One of your recent shows was titled “Femme Fatale,” in which you played strictly female led bands. What was your inspiration for highlighting female artists?
When it comes down to it, there is a lack of representation of female led bands on the radio. We’re both big fans of strong female vocalists who kick ass. We try to highlight female artists that are not pop artists, but more multi-dimensional artists. You really don’t see a lot of that in the media. It’s hard enough for female artists to make it in the industry if they’re not a pop artists, and it’s even harder if they’re not going to do the whole eye candy, play up the sexuality thing. There’s this great band called the The Kills and they’re a sexy band, but that’s not why they’re great. They just kill it, ironically. “Femme Fatale” allowed us to showcase some extremely talented female bands that we thought deserved some attention.
Who are your favorite female artists?
We really like Tegan and Sara; St. Vincent; Girl Party; The Kills; The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs; Metric; Pretty Reckless; Lady Hawk; and Yolandi from Die Antwoord. If anyone reading this has some leisure time, you should check some of ‘em out.
What is the hardest part about producing Hella Clutch Happy Hour?
S: The hardest part for me is producing a balanced show. Trying to keep some sort of coherence within a variety of music. Coherence plus variety equals success. We try to keep away from having all of our songs sound the same for the week. It would be easy to play stuff we like the whole time, but that can get kind of homogenous.
Z: I think the hardest part is making sure all the music we want to play gets in the show. Sometimes its tough to find radio friendly music that we both like and want to promote. Keeping it clean, I guess that’s something I struggle with a bit.
It sounds like you both have a passion for music, do you play any instruments?
S: Haha, I played the trumpet in high school and dabbled in bass for a minute. As an English major, I have just resigned myself to sticking to writing.
Z: The first thing I want to do when I finish college is learn how to play the piano. I don’t really have a good answer as to why, I guess its just something I’ve always wanted to try. I’ve attempted to put together EDM and synthetic beats before, but it hasn’t really worked out. Its hard, its really hard.
If you could describe your show in one sentence, what would it be?
Spencer is interesting and Zac doesn’t make any sense, haha. That’s the general repertoire on our show and somehow it all balances out. Tune in this Thursday from 6-7pm. This week’s theme is “Zac’s Choice.” It should be interesting!
Zac and Spencer are two very unique characters who know how to put together a killer a playlist. If you are sick of hearing the same kind of music over and over, check out Hell Clutch Happy Hour! You are guaranteed to laugh a bit, to dance a bit, you might even shed a tear, but most importantly, you will expand your musical horizons!