Benny Smith, the general manager at 90.3 The Rock, clears off a seat for me. He sets some CDs and t-shirts aside as my eyes dart around the room. His office walls are covered with framed pictures of famous musicians, each with an autograph and a personalized "thank you." He has trouble remaining seated as his students struggle to pull off a radio show in the next room, but he trusts them enough to shut the door for a few minutes so we can chat.

Smith has quite a history with UT's college radio station from his tour of duty in the late '80s and early '90s as a student, and his recent return as the station's general manager in 2004. He has put a lot of himself into this station, so it's time to find out who the man behind The Rock really is.

The 25th anniversay of 90.3 is this year. What will you do to celebrate?

I've tried to celebrate this year, but I don't really have a lot of time. We're looking, frankly, to do a bit more next year to celebrate 25 full years on the air, including a compilation CD and a series of fundraising concerts. Probably late winter or early spring for the CD release, and then we'll do a series of shows over an entire year at different venues in town.

The station was recently nominated for six College Music Journal Awards. What are your expectations for the awards? I especially liked the nomination for "Best Use of Limited Resources."

Yeah, that's probably the one we're most proud of. I mean, I also like the fact that we got "Most Honest Feedback" from a music director. We tell people if we play their music or not, and we're very truthful about that, because the people who were here before us were notorious for lying just to get people off the phone, and that does nobody any good.

I guess the thing I'm most proud about is the fact that in basically two years we went from nowhere to most improved from 2004-2006, and even then it was really from 2005-2006, because I came here in October 2004. And then in another short year we're considered for five other awards and sharing the company with some amazing stations that are some of this country's most popular and best run. I mean, KEXP in Seattle is huge and WRAS in Atlanta is 100,000 watt. Georgia State's radio station and West Virginia's as well, and they all have funding.

It's very gratifying to be in that same company, and I think it validates our hard work and what we've been trying to get done here. But it's also frustrating too because you would think, at what is arguably the most successful time for this radio station, that we'd get some funding somewhere from this university, but it doesn't trickle down from the tuition or anything. I guess I could fold up my tent and go home, but this station does too many good things for the community -- helping students realize that they'd like to go into radio. That's what it's here for, and it's those success stories that keep me going -- and my love and passion for music, and for my Alma mater for goodness' sake. I love to see this place do great things for these students.

So, yeah, it's frustrating a lot, but it's very cool to get this national recognition along with the local recognition we got from Metro Pulse for two years in a row. To be in the same company as some of those other stations and to be nominated by your peers in the industry -- radio, record companies, concert promotion, and other college stations -- is pretty cool, too. It's pretty gratifying, it really is.

Who has been your favorite artist that has played here in the station or that you've had a chance to interview?

Golly, wow. We had a great time with Bela [Fleck], and with Steve Earle, and really had a good time with the Dexateens when they came in. And the guys in the Hackensaw boys -- wow, such great guys -- they tore it up in there. We had a blast with Ozomatli from the L.A. area; those guys are amazing. And it was so cool because they played Sundown in the City and they told AC Entertainment, "Look, we don't want this other station emceeing. They don't play our music - they're an ‘80s station. They don't even know how to say Ozomatli, much less play our music. We want the college station to get up here and introduce us." So our promotions director, who had never even seen their show before got up in front of 10,000 people, and it was just so cool. Those guys were really, really cool.

I got Peter Case coming in Friday; I'm really looking forward to that. I've always been a big fan of his. And Scott Miller always puts on a great show when he comes in because he always plays a song that he's never done out live or never recorded. That's just an aspect of radio that we did here years ago and hardly anybody ever does. WDVX and WUTK are about the only ones that do it in town pretty much, what a lost art, unreal.

The late ‘80s and early ‘90s are sometimes called the "hay day" for 90.3. What was your favorite "hay day" moment?

Wow, wow. Chad Smith from the [Red Hot] Chili Peppers coming in -- interviewing him was great. Interviewing Joey Ramone and interviewing Chuck D; they both played the Bijou, and I got to interview both of them -- that was great. Having the Spin Doctors come and play live every time they came to town before they just blew up -- that was really cool.

I remember getting the first Nirvana single in from Sub Pop, and "Sliver" didn't have a songwriting credit under the name of the song. And they weren't promoting that much, so I wasn't sure if the band's name was Sliver or Nirvana, because in the song they don't say "sliver" at all. And back then, we put every song onto cards, and I just took a chance and put "Sliver" by Nirvana and the rest is rock ‘n' roll history.

It was cool to see all that stuff come and go, but my favorite thing was how we were hand-in-hand with the local music scene and really helped the local music scene grow - helping get the Judy Bats signed, and seeing some amazing things happen with our local music scene with this place being communication central back then. That's the thing that frustrates me the most right now with the students is their lack of care and concern for our local music scene, and unfortunately a lot of that is because this station hadn't cared about it for so long. We used to do battle of the bands and get anywhere from 25 to 35 tapes from bands on campus. We had five last year. That's just sad for a university this size. So it would be cool to get back to those days, I guess you could say.

Is a new "hay day" approaching?

I think so. When I turn on the TV, and I see Arcade Fire playing on Saturday Night Live, and I look down and the Bijou and Andrew Bird is selling 700 tickets on a Monday night in Knoxville. I think people really are sick and tired of what commercial radio has been cramming down their throats for a long time. I see some of these bands ready to explode. Again, where'd it start? Good old college radio -- they've been playing these bands forever. There's this "brand new" band, Death Cab for Cutie everybody's talking about a year or so ago. What? Brand new? Where the hell have you been? I do see that cycle coming full circle. And with hip-hop too, with Mos Def and Common and stuff that really got its start more with college radio.

Commercial radio is so different than it was in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s because it's all corporate-owned and controlled now. There aren't really any formats out there that play new music in commercial radio. Again, you have to go to the left-end of the dial to get that anymore. Whether it's Americana or what we do. On one hand it's a shame, on the other hand it's great because it opens up a big opportunity for us.

How was your return in 2004 initiated? Did the university come to you first?

The guy who was my advisor and professor when I was here, and we actually go to church together, Dr. Sam Swan, said, "This place [90.3] is going nowhere fast. I'm gonna see if I can restore the general manager position to see if we can get this turned around." He had faith that I could turn it around. He also, more importantly, knew that we could make it an effective laboratory for students again. I knew with hard work we could turn it around. What I didn't know was how bad it had gotten. I didn't know how bad of a hole it had fallen into programming-wise, and students knew nothing about it.

So, it's totally changed, but we've made it work. I put in 74 hours last week, so it's not been easy. But it's really cool to go out to a show we've sponsored and see it packed, or to go on campus and see people wearing our t-shirts, and to see our bumper stickers around town. So, it's happening with the awards and recognition. I guess the coolest thing that I'm really starting to see is the students take pride in being a part of this place again. That's really what I'm here to see. 

Did you play any instruments growing up, or did you ever want to be a rock star?

Not really. I mean, I dabbled a little on the bass, and I had a garage band with some friends of mine back home that never played out live or anything. We were called 'Andrew Johnson and the Impeached' because we were from Greenville where Andrew Johnson was from. But we told people that because of community pressure, we had to change the name to 'The Nearly Impeached' because people in Greenville never say he was impeached, they say he was nearly impeached. That shows you we were just having fun with it. So I never really did. My family and my mom and dad were in a gospel group growing up, so I'm from a musical family, but I guess somebody's got to play the music that the others play, and that's where I came in.

Who influenced you in that direction then? Who influenced you toward radio?

There were some people back home; Bill Mitton was a deejay growing up on our local AM station. I remember him crying when Otis Redding died, crying on air. I was only five or six years old, but I remember that. It had an impact on me.

But the stations, more than deejays, probably influenced me more. It was wild back then because you could hear a John Denver song next to an Ohio Players song. Variety ruled AM radio, and I think that had a lot to do with me getting into the variety of things. My family had a huge impact on me, my older brothers especially. I remember hearing Cream and Steppenwolf and the [Rolling] Stones and James Brown when I could barely talk. But professionally, it was listening to a lot of different radio stations and loving music and saying, "man, I'd love to do that."

Who is the next band that every other radio station will wish they had played first?

Arcade Fire is one that is on the verge, if not already. Golly, I still scratch my head and wonder why Ben Harper isn't bigger than he is. Yeah, I think Arcade Fire is ready to blow up and catch fire.

Well, it's been another long day here at the station. What will you do when you get home to relax?

Woo! Hug my little girl!