Like energetic banter and cool songs? If you live around Boston, you probably already love Adam 12, WBCN’s newest, youngest full-time DJ.

Adam 12—AKA Adam Chapman, AS’99—loves his job. And why not? Broadcasting weekdays on 104.1 FM from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., he gets to spin cutting-edge rock and roll, and talk a lot. “I’m pretty chatty,” Chapman admits, laughing.

Though he joined ’BCN fifteen months ago, the twenty-seven-year-old Wakefield, Massachusetts, native sometimes can’t believe he’s working at the venerable station that, he says, “not only I grew up listening to, but my folks grew up listening to. I still have to pinch myself every day. It’s a very big deal.”

As a student, Chapman, a communication studies major and self-confessed music geek, went to WRBB one day on a whim to see if they had any slots open. “I ended up doing the Wednesday night show the rest of my time at Northeastern, and it was great,” he says. “At the time, you didn’t have to know much. You just had to have passion.”

An internship at WFNX gave him wider exposure, his radio nickname (coined by a DJ he worked for), and valuable experience. “I had the blessing of an early start with Northeastern,” Chapman says. “I was on the air in Boston when I was twenty years old.”

Chapman’s demo tapes landed him a three-year stint at KTEG in Albuquerque, which included assignments as music director and host of a morning show and an afternoon drive-time show. The Clear Channel station also had him record shows for sister stations in Denver and Salt Lake City. “It got me some great exposure,” says Chapman. “It was hard work, but it was definitely worth it.”

He sent a tape to WBCN in fall 2002 when he heard it was holding an open audition. Station bigwigs called him east for an audition. “I honestly did not think for a second they’d offer me the job,” Chapman says.

But ’BCN chose him from nearly sixty applicants. “It’s abnormal in radio to make a jump from Albuquerque to Boston,” Chapman admits. And what does that tell him? He grins. “That I, uh, . . . tricked them. Ha! No, I had a good audition. And they knew I was a local boy, so they knew I’d know how to pronounce ‘Gloucester’ and ‘Worcester.’”

Chapman says he’s obsessive when preparing for shows. “I’m on the Net, reading the newspapers, catching up on what your favorite bands are doing, trying to put together a decent show,” he says. “But the best shows I do are the ones where all that gets thrown out the window—when I talk to someone on the phone who triggers something, or I get a pair of concert tickets dropped in my lap to give away, and the show goes in that direction. That’s what’s so exciting about doing it live—it’s a living, breathing thing.”

With its faint air of grunge, the WBCN headquarters—housed in a low-slung building on Boylston Street, in the shadow of Fenway Park—reminds Chapman of WRBB. The dimly lit studio is plastered with bumper stickers; the co-workers are fun.

“Honest to goodness,” he gushes, “this is the first place I’ve worked where everybody is great. I’m excited to come in and do my radio show every day, and to work with the people I work with, and to connect with the people who listen.”

He loves the music, too. “I’m lucky enough to work at a radio station that still plays new rock,” he says. His top picks? He smiles. “Oh, wow, man. There’s so much good rock-and-roll music out there now.” He finally settles on Spoon, Unearth, and, his “favorite band of all time,” Guided by Voices.

“They’ve been around for twenty-five years, just plugging away,” Chapman explains, using a phrase that describes his own work ethic pretty well. “They don’t have the kind of commercial appeal that the bands you hear on radio or on MTV have. They come out on stage, and there’s no posturing, no posing.

“Just gritty rock and roll.”

Ministry of Sound

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